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Posts published in June 2025

Political follies

June 30, 2025

Idaho’s governing leadership certainly keeps things lively in these troubled times. In the last couple of months, we have witnessed JFAC, the legislative budget committee, setting spending levels before knowing how much revenue might come in, Rep. Mike Moyle forcing yet another imprudent tax cut favoring the wealthy and Governor Little criticizing the mess as unbalanced but then meekly signing it into law.

Low and behold, the Governor’s skimpier revenue projection seems to be coming true, so the state is now facing the real possibility of spending cuts. We have just learned that on May 29 Little sent agency heads a directive to identify spending cuts of up to 6%. That would mean upwards of $180 million for public education. The $50 million education tax credit bonanza that Little and the Legislature gifted to families that are sending their kids to private and religious schools will add to the revenue shortfall. Those families’ $5,000 per child tax benefit will not be subject to the spending cut.

Just as we heard of the dire budgetary situation facing state agencies, we learned that Governor Little will be paying $300,000 for Idaho State Police officers to transport undocumented workers to ICE detention facilities. Quite frankly, I think our marvelous ISP officers have much better things to do than acting as a taxi service for ICE. The fact is that Idaho’s law enforcement officers have the capacity to deal with all serious criminals in the state. That means ICE has to fill its deportation quotas with the long-time residents who help grow our crops, operate our dairies and provide the muscle for Idaho’s construction boom. Another interesting fact is that undocumented immigrants have a lower crime rate than U.S. citizens.

Another source of political drama raised its head on June 17, when the Idaho Land Board voted to dispense with the legal advice and services of Attorney General Raul Labrador. That slap in the face was delivered by the Governor, the Secretary of State, the Superintendent of Public Instruction and the State Controller. Labrador was the only one who opposed the move. It is the first time in state history that the Land Board decided to go elsewhere for legal counsel. Labrador claimed that the affront was a result of his telling the Land Board “no,” but he provided no examples. Indications are it was a lack of trust, which is essential to an attorney-client relationship.

Labrador claimed that the Idaho Constitution requires all state entities to use the Attorney General as their lawyer. I agree with his contention. Indeed, just about everyone in the state believed that to be the case until Frank Benson was elected as Attorney General in 1958. Benson was undoubtedly the worst AG in Idaho history. He was rather unschooled in the law and obsessed with the idea that then-Governor Bob Smylie was bugging his office, which resulted in him punching holes in the wall to look for bugs. Some state agencies began hiring their own legal counsel, which Benson tried to stop with a case that went to the Idaho Supreme Court. The Court, apparently unwilling to force state agencies to use Benson’s services, ruled against him. That situation existed until former Attorney General Al Lance was able to get legislation passed in 1995 that partially restored the AG’s exclusive authority to represent state entities. If Labrador were to take the Land Board to court, seeking to force it to take his legal advice, he might get the same result.

One thing that is critical for a lawyer, whether in private or public practice, is to establish credibility with the judiciary. If a lawyer who appears before the court is not totally honest or plays fast and loose with the facts or the law, he or she will lose credibility. It may not make a difference in those cases where the result is clear cut. Many cases, however, can go either way. The lawyer who has established strong credibility can tip the outcome in his or her favor when opposing counsel is less than trustworthy.

That is why it is distressing to have the state’s lawyer, the Attorney General, frequently being caught short on credibility in performing the responsibilities of his position. Labrador was found to have provided biased ballot titles for the open primaries initiative and then, again, for the abortion initiative. Labrador repeatedly contended before the federal court in Idaho, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals and the U.S. Supreme Court, that Idaho’s total abortion statute was the same as a federal emergency-care law when it came to treating a woman with life-threatening pregnancy complications. It was obvious to each court that he was wrong, which hurt his credibility in that case and will color it in any future case that he may bring before those tribunals. Being less than candid can be fatal to a lawyer’s case.

 

The perilous supermajority

The perilous supermajority

June 29, 2025

More than a few Democrats might be regretting their success last year in winning Oregon legislative supermajorities.

Such dominant control can be hard to manage well, much harder than working in the minority and more than working with a modest majority. Why? The lack of a brake often results in an almost irresistible attraction to doing too much and going too far.

As this year’s regular legislative session reaches its end, consider two of the key bills for which this session will be most identified. They concern the unlikely topics of unemployment insurance and transportation funding, neither of which likely would have been front of mind in a more closely-divided legislature.

They may become a problem for Oregon Democrats in the coming election cycle, which because of the Senate seats up for grabs already, is likely to help Republicans. Democrats this session have been handing them juicy campaign material.

The measure on unemployment and worker strikes, Senate Bill 916, did not need a supermajority to pass, but the large Democratic edge probably gave additional impetus to it. The bill, which Gov. Tina Kotek signed Tuesday, is expected to make Oregon the first state in the nation to allow striking workers to apply for unemployment insurance while on strike.

Of the more than 1,000 pieces of testimony that poured in, many came from labor unions or supporters, but the wide-ranging opposition pointed out serious issues.

The Oregon State Chamber of Commerce, for example, pointed out that, “the Unemployment Trust Fund has always been intended to support workers who lose their job through no fault of their own,” and that the bill “does not meet this simple litmus test.”

Stress on the fund is one issue, but one not immediately obvious to most of the public. More visible is what may happen when a strike by, for example, teachers takes place and strikers are in effect paid for an extended period. Public employees, including teachers, may find themselves rapidly losing public support.

The Oregon School Boards Association argued that if this bill had been in place during a recent month-long teacher strike at Portland Public Schools, the district (which this year is dealing with a large budget deficit) would have been on the hook for $8.7 million.

Now that it’s been signed, you can expect a referendum effort which could easily damage a number of Democratic legislative candidates next year.

The second supermajority-fueled bill is even higher profile: House Bill 2025, the transportation funding bill to raise billions in taxes and fees. It does need a supermajority to pass, and as this is written its future is unclear.

On Wednesday, House Speaker Julie Fahey, D-Eugene, introduced a 155-page amendment that reduces the amount expected to be raised from $14.6 billion to $11.7 billion over the next 10 years.

The problem of funding for transportation systems, especially roads and bridges, is serious and getting more so as traditional sources of revenue (notably the gas tax) have softened because of electric vehicle use and other factors, and as construction costs have risen. That much isn’t in serious dispute.

Finding new money for the work is difficult, however, and its path through the legislature all year, leading up to the current bill, has been public but rocky and unpredictable.

Legislative Republicans have locked in against it and some Democrats have been critical. The difficulty has been so rough that on June 20 Senate President Rob Wagner bounced a Democrat (Sen. Mark Meek of Gladstone) from his seat on the Joint Committee on Transportation Reinvestment. Meek had expressed issues with the bill, so Wagner personally took his place to ensure the bill would be advanced.

That’s the kind of highly unusual move that should send up a red flag: If a measure has little enough support that it cannot advance under usual conditions, second thoughts are in order. Certainly, this bill has generated massive opposition, both in formal testimony and elsewhere. A website called notaxor.com outlines the contours of it on its home page: “Stop the Largest Tax Increase in Oregon History. HB2025 — the so-called Transportation Reinvestment Package — will cost taxpayers $2 BILLION in NEW TAXES. Working families will be hit the hardest.”

Polling has shown limited public concern for increasing transportation funding and strong opposition to a number of its funding elements. Organization of a ballot issue to reverse it already is underway, and it could succeed. (Will Oregon get a special legislative session this year on the subject? Maybe.)

Beyond that, the Republican legislative campaign ads for next year, alongside those for striker unemployment pay, almost write themselves.

Because you can doesn’t mean you should. Sometimes the large legislative majority either party might win — the kind of majorities each party has in most states these days — can be more a curse than a blessing.

This column originally appeared in the Oregon Capital Chronicle.

 

The gray line

The gray line

June 27, 2025

Idaho’s two Republican senators, Mike Crapo and Jim Risch, are positioned on the ragged edge of one of the top issues in Washington right now: The potential sale of millions of acres of federal lands, nationally and in Idaho specifically.

This proposal, which seems to be at least congruent with decisions and ideas emerging from the Trump White House, is a serious effort. And it has special import in Idaho.

Back in April, John Robison of the Idaho Conservation League put it this way: “Public lands are not just lines on a map—they are the heart and soul of Idaho. They provide world-class recreation, vital wildlife habitat, and a way of life that defines who we are.” A lot of Idaho is federal land, well over half of it, and much of it is heavily used for logging, mining and much more as well as for recreation and for wilderness preservation.

Few people who have spent time traveling Idaho or experiencing its great outdoors could fail to get the point. But some people do.

In April a budget amendment intended to bar sale of federal lands as a means of budget balancing, reached the Senate floor. It failed on a 48-51 vote. Montana’s two Republican senators voted in favor. Idaho’s two senators, Crapo and Risch, voted against. The ICL said in response, “Our Senators’ failure to support this amendment essentially puts our public lands on the chopping block. By not standing up to protect our Public Lands, Risch and Crapo are opening the door for these lands to be sold to the highest bidder and for ‘No Trespassing’ signs to go up across Idaho.”

Since then, Utah Senator Mike Lee took the Senate up on its implicit message to propose requiring sales of at least two million acres of Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management lands in western states - and that would be a floor, not a ceiling. Reports have been circulating about prospective big money buyers from around the world interested in scooping up vast public acreage on the cheap, and shutting them off from Americans long accustomed to using them.

That proposal didn’t formally reach the budgeting process because it didn’t comply with Senate procedural rules. Lee has said he plans to offer an alternative proposal that would involve far less land sales, mainly limited to some BLM lands. But the issue remains: If a proposal comes down to sell off vast numbers of public acres to private buyers, who could shut off access to them or transform them, what will the Senate do? (Or the House either, though clear tests on the question have been fewer in that chamber.)

Crapo and Risch are key figures in this, since the Montana Republican seem to have staked out clear ground on mass lands sales, and the Idahoans’ votes then would be enough to stop it. On June 20, the Idaho senators did speak out on the subject, tersely.

Risch offered a statement saying, “After reviewing the Senate Energy and Natural Resources reconciliation language, I do not support the proposed provision to sell public lands.”

Crapo’s office said, “After a careful and thorough review of the legislative text in the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee reconciliation title, Senator Crapo does not support the proposed language to sell public lands.”

That appears to suggest that the senators have driven a stake through the heart of the land sale proposal.

Or does it? The statements were specific to one particular proposal before a committee at a particular time. Without contradicting themselves, Crapo and Risch could vote in favor of another land sale proposal. They have not to this point ruled in or out doing so. The pressure in both directions is doubtless considerable.

Idahoans right now really don’t know what they might do: What they would or would not accept. And their votes are pivotal on this subject that could transform the west.

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CATCH

CATCH

June 25, 2025

Stephanie Day, the executive director of CATCH, has worked the better part of two decades trying to solve the problem with homelessness in Southwest Idaho.

The Idaho Legislature has its own solution. On July 1, it will become a crime to sleep (in cars or otherwise) on public sidewalks, parks or public property regardless of the availability of emergency shelter beds. Cities that fail to enforce the law are subject to fines. The bill was labeled an “anti-camping” bill. It applies only to the larger cities in the Treasure Valley – Boise, Meridian, Nampa and Caldwell.

In Day’s view, the bill (SB 1141) has nothing to do with camping and everything to do with making life tougher for the homeless.

“Camping is supposed to be fun, but we’re talking about people who are living unsheltered,” Day told me. “It’s not fun and they are not making smores.”

Cassidy Landry of Eagle, who experienced homelessness first-hand in 2019, expressed her thoughts recently in a letter to the bill’s sponsor has other choice words for the legislation. She expressed her thoughts recently in a letter to the bill’s sponsors – Sen. Codi Galloway of Boise and Rep. Bruce Skaug of Nampa.

“It isn’t anti-camping, it’s anti-survival. During the months I spent sleeping in my car, I wasn’t embracing an outdoor lifestyle … I was simply trying to survive,” Landry said in her letter. “Today, I am successfully housed and stable because I had the opportunity to survive during these critical months. Passing SB1141 takes away that chance of survival and eventual success.”

The effective date for the new law couldn’t come at a worse time, according to Day.

“The summer months are when the most folks are unsheltered. It’s the busiest time of the year for our team,” Day says. “During the cold of winter, friends and family often let those without homes stay with them, but that changes as it warms up.”

Landry has personal experience with summer homelessness – a time when being handed a bottle of water becomes an act of kindness. Last year she wrote a commentary for Idaho Education News, discussing her experience.

“My car, which I once considered a safe haven, transformed into an unbearable oven under the relentless sun,” she wrote. “Sleep was elusive, and each morning I woke up exhausted, drenched in sweat and dreading the day ahead.”

Those hardships, according to Day, don’t always register on society – or the Statehouse politicians.

“A small percentage of the community will ever experience homelessness,” Day says. “On some level, when we drive by people who are living outdoors and are OK with their situation, we are not seeing them as fully human. There’s a feeling that those who are homeless should go to shelters, but there’s not enough space. There are more than 2,600 individuals experiencing homelessness in Ada County, and only 568 shelter beds.”

And, as Cassidy found out, the shelters are not necessarily the most inviting places – which is why she chose to live in her car.

In Day’s world, the law is one more challenge for CATCH to find housing for the homeless. Getting “affordable” housing, with sky-high rentals, is another issue. But CATCH managed to help 114 families last year and has served as a morale lifeline for many others.

Cassidy was one of the success stories. She found her way to Boise after a messy divorce in Houston, Tx., battled through unemployment, drug addiction and spent much of 2019 living in her car. Today, she’s living in an apartment in Eagle with her 11-year-old son and 4-year-old daughter and says that life is good. She has a bachelor’s degree in social science, with an eye toward getting a master’s degree. She is starting a nonprofit that is aimed at providing one-stop shopping for social resources.

“I’m working on building that up, going to school and raising my babies,” she said. She’s also working at “paying it forward” with CATCH, telling her story to anyone willing to listen.

Homelessness is a complicated matter, but Day says the solution is quite simple, although horribly difficult to pull off.

“We know what to do with the various levels of programming,” she said. “The problem is getting enough people moving in the same direction. It comes down to will and coordination.”

 

Seaside secrets revealed

Seaside secrets revealed

June 24, 2025

People come to soggy, seaside cities for many reasons.  A splash in the surf.  Filling up on seafood which may have been swimming or crawling a few hours earlier.  To soak up the sun on those rare, bright, ultraviolet days.  To sit on the beach - and look longingly at what appears sometimes to be the still, blue ocean - depending on the angle of the sun which can temporarily hide the pollution.  Even a hike or two.

Yep.  To most folks, escaping to the shore of the Pacific is just about the same as a sojourn to Disneyland.  Escape from the usual.  Relaxation.  Good food.  Peace.  Just a very pleasant, different place.  And pace.

Sorry to upset your dreams, dry-landers.  But they're just another troubled place on the continent if you take off the shades and get into the local "culture."

The basic problems are twofold.   For the most part, coastal communities are small.  Many under 10-thousand locals.  And, two, they're all very, very independent.  Each doing many things - often the same things - differently.  The proffered excuse for that is "uniqueness."  So, there's a lot of duplication and not much cooperation on a lot of things.

Lincoln City was an example.  For many, many years, six very small, contiguous towns fiercely competed against one another for tourists and their dollars.  None had a significant business base other than tourism.  The local barometer for success or failure could be read in the "vacancy" signs.  Everything economic rested on the tourista rock.

But, in the 1960's, some smarter heads got together and the six became one - Lincoln City.  Still, even now, some 50 years later, each burg has signs along the highway using the former names in a bid to hang onto some individuality.  It may be one city - Lincoln City - for business and survival purposes.  But, to a lot of locals, it's still Taft, Nelscott, Ocean Lake, Neotsu, et al.  And some want to go back.  Still deep divisions.

There are many local, coastal issues but several communities are now involved in a mess that won't go away - VRDs - vacation rental dwellings.  Lincoln City fathers and mothers have been trying to solve that one for decades.  No success and lots of hard feelings.  Recall elections, demonstrations, public accusations, character assassinations.

In a nutshell, here's the issue.  VRD owners know ocean views and ocean smells lure tourists with bucks to spend.  So, they want seaside property.  Or as close as possible.  On the other side of the fray, people who've come to this small town with bucks - big bucks - wanting their million dollar+ homes on the same land.  Ocean front.

So, you put a million into a big home.  And some guy comes along and builds a five bedroom, five bath, single garage dormitory masquerading as a "house" next door.  A VRD.  You're seeking solitude, peace and quiet.  But, eight months out of the year, multiple families with six kids each are partying next door with cars blocking your driveway and music machines on balconies splitting the night air.

VRD owners want their income properties where they want them - prime spots that will bring in the business.  Full time residents, investing their retirement dollars and long-held dreams, say "not in my back yard" - or next door.  They want that serenity and peace they've dreamed about for decades enforced with tight zoning controls.  But, the VRDers say tight restrictions, limited placement locations and more controls are bad for business.

Lest you think this is no big deal, Lincoln City's population is about 10,000.  And there are dozens of VRD's.  It's a BIG problem.

There are also the major law enforcement problems because of both the attraction of the ocean and the transient nature of some folks who think they can get away with things there they wouldn't do at home, then leave town.  Law enforcement is kept busy.  The relatively moderate climate also brings a lot of homeless people.  Often homeless families.  What few services there are in these small towns are stretched and, sometimes, they go broke themselves.

Some communities - Astoria and Newport, for example - have larger economic foundations with lumber, commercial fishing, government investment like NOAA and international shipping.  But most, like Lincoln City, Florence, Harbor, Pacific City, Reedsport, Cannon Beach and more than two dozen others rely almost entirely on tourist spending.  They do what they can in the good years and hang on tight during the bad.

Next time you come over for a few days of R&R, take some time to get past all those "antique" stores, candy shops, golf courses, seafood grills and other coastal delights.  Dig around a bit.  Talk to some locals.  Get a better "feel" for your vacation haunt.  Might give you a new perspective on things coastal if you know more about the neighborhood.

You should know a bit more about what really goes on in your dream vacation destinations.  Like Disneyland, a lot of time, effort and money go into making it all seem "different," peaceful and a bit escapist.  Nothing wrong with that.

Just keep in mind, not everything there is as real as, say, Space Mountain.

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About Tony Park

June 23, 2025

About four years ago, I made a decision that enriched the lives of four elderly Idaho lawyers. I invited Tony Park to join a weekly lunch trio at Eddie’s Restaurant on Overland Rd. with Wayne Kidwell, Duff McKee and me. He agreed, making it a lunch foursome. Tony was elected as Idaho Attorney General in 1970, Wayne took that office from him in the 1974 election and Duff, a long-time friend of Wayne’s, had served for years as a district judge. Tony was a Democrat and the rest of us were traditional Idaho Republicans, the kind that don’t thrive on divisive culture war issues.

We saw eye-to-eye on practically every important state and national issue. We discussed and “settled” most controversial matters. The best part is that we genuinely enjoyed each other’s company. We shared a reverence for the rule of law that is the foundation of the great American experiment. We had all served in the military, believing it was our obligation to the country. We all had learned that government can only work when elected officials work together to solve problems confronting the people.

It was interesting to hear Tony and Wayne talk about their hotly contested race in 1974–all water under the political bridge these many years later. Tony left a valuable legacy for Wayne and the other Attorneys General who followed in his footsteps. He established the Consumer Protection Division, placed a high priority on environmental protection and took pains to hire the best lawyers to represent the state’s interests. He did not hire or fire based on political affiliation and made it clear to the staff that he would not allow political considerations to influence the state’s legal work.

Tony chronicled his political life in “An Idaho Democrat: A Political Memoir of a Political Life,” published in 2021 by Ridenbaugh Press. It contains interesting accounts of his military service as a non-lawyer in a lawyer position; his career as a lawyer and politician; and his close relationship with Cecil Andrus, Frank Church and other Democratic heavy-weights during his lifetime. Tony told his publisher, Randy Stapilus, that he wrote the memoir to show “how the Idaho political landscape—particularly regarding Democrats—has changed in the latter half of the twentieth century and early twenty-first century, despite the fact that many issues so important to Democrats, such as taking care of working people, the environment, the problems with one-party rule, etc., are as urgent now as they were when I got my start.”

Tony’s admiration of courageous elected officials was not confined to members of his own party. His book speaks highly of former AG Lawrence Wasden, calling him a “straight shooter and principled attorney who relies on the law.” That description aptly applies to Tony, both in his service as AG and in his private legal practice.

Tony was picked by President Jimmy Carter in 1977 to serve on the board of directors of Radio Free Europe/ Radio Liberty (RFE/RL). He was able to play a part in protecting America’s national security by countering Russian propaganda. He was well positioned to understand the damage that would result from Donald Trump’s March 15 executive order defunding RFE/RL. It would give Russia a free field to feed misinformation about its genocidal war against Ukraine and other malign Russian activities. Tony did not live to see it, but he would have been relieved that a federal judge ordered Trump to provide some interim funding and that the European Union regarded the work of FRE/RL to be so critical that it has offered to provide millions in stop-gap funding.

Tony passed away on May 23 at the age of 90 years. He leaves behind his soul-mate of 43 years, Gail Chaloupka, as well as daughter Susan Park and son Adam Park. His daughter, Pattie Park Woytko, predeceased him. The remaining members of the Eddie’s lunch foursome were privileged to have gotten acquainted with Tony’s family.

Former Attorney General David Leroy told the press that Tony “was of an era when politicians, win or lose, were very genteel individuals. He was a gentle, caring man, who worked hard at everything he did.” Former Boise Mayor David Bieter observed: “The chasm between the way Tony carried himself and that of today’s lawyers and politicians unfortunately grows larger every day. He will be sorely missed.”

I can summarize the feelings of the three of the Eddie’s foursome that Tony left behind. He was just a good, genuine person. The kind of person you’d call the salt of the Earth–compassionate, willing to listen and willing to help whenever somebody needed it, even if it wasn’t within his official duties. We are all better for his example.

 

Half bet at the Keno Dam

Half bet at the Keno Dam

June 22, 2025

Last August, Northwest salmon caught a break when four dams on the Klamath River, which flows from mountain country in southwest Oregon through northern California to the Pacific Ocean, were demolished. But it was a limited break.

The goal of that $500 million project, possibly the largest of its kind in American history, remains unreached, and serious effort still is needed to fulfill it. A fully free-flowing Klamath River may be beyond us for a while, but certain half-measures could help.

Hanging over it is the shadow of the decision this month by the Trump administration to abandon a regional agreement involving breach of the four lower Snake River dams in Washington state, also partly for fish run purposes.

In centuries past, salmon spawned in the upper reaches of the Klamath headwaters, then swam to the Pacific and back to reproduce. Starting at the dawn of the 20th century, people built dams along the river, blocking them.

A massive 2002 fish die-off on the Klamath helped spur an “Un-dam the Klamath” movement of environmental groups, tribes and others, and it succeeded in this decade. Most of the dams had been used for hydropower by Pacificorp and its predecessors but were deemed no longer economical. The two remaining Klamath dams have been signed over to the Bureau of Reclamation.

The removal of the lower four dams — Copco 1 and Copco 2, Iron Gate and John C. Boyle — gave the fish many more miles to easily swim upstream toward their old spawning grounds. While some researchers had been unsure how quickly the fish would return to those waters, in fact many did, quickly.

But some news stories at the time proclaiming the return of a free run of the Klamath River spoke too optimistically. In Oregon, much of the upper river is blocked by the last two dams, the Keno, west of Klamath Falls and near the same-named unincorporated community, and the Link River, which impounds and partly creates Upper Klamath Lake.

There’s serious interest in blasting through a direct river route for the salmon back through these structures into the Klamath’s headwaters. But breaching of the upper two may be a long time coming.

The four Lower Snake dams were built to provide hydropower, as were the lower Klamath dams, but unlike the Klamath dams they have remained steadily in use for that purpose.

While PacifiCorp (or its corporate forebears) also built and long owned the Keno and Link River dams, neither has been a major hydropower producer (though Link River retains some low-level capacity).

They are used instead mainly for water control and irrigation. The Link River controls inflow to the massive Upper Klamath Lake, and the Keno, which replaced an old wooden dam in 1967, is required by contract to manage gravity diversions — mainly for irrigation — and flood control. If either dam simply disappeared, flooding would be a live possibility in many areas, and irrigation in the region might become chaotic at best. The current Keno Dam was built in response to large flooding in 1964 and 1965 which the earlier wooden dam didn’t correct.

Both dams now are under control of the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation; the Keno was transferred in 2022. The agency since then has been faced with deciding how to handle fish runs and water control.

Dam breaches would both be costly and make water control difficult. Approval by the Trump Administration, which just rejected breaching the Lower Snake dams, seems unlikely.

Another option may still be available for the nearer term: Fish ladders.

The ladders can work. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, for example, says, “The most common way for adult fish to get past a dam is to use a fish ladder, a water-filled structure that allows fish to pass up and over in a series of steps. Migrating salmon are attracted to the current at the base of an extended concrete stairway. The fish swim or jump from step to step.”

The Keno Dam has fish ladders now, but they have been widely found to be inadequate because of design and location, and the fish aren’t using them.

Building a better fish ladder could be far less costly than breaching the dam. The Seaside Institute estimated “a pool and weir fish ladder would cost about $6.3 million to construct and about $26,000 a year ($. 6 million over 60 years) to operate and maintain.”

Another option used in some federal dams is called “trap and haul,” described as “Migrating salmon are attracted to flow at the base of a fish ladder. They climb the ladder to a loading system where they wait in pools or tanks before transfer into specialized tankers or barges. These vehicles release the salmon into the river on the other side of the dam.”

One of these might pass muster with the Trump Administration. It has rejected breaching the four lower Snake River dams in Washington state, but building a relatively inexpensive fish ladder, if presented as an alternative, might be saleable.

The goal of a free-run Klamath remains hard, but the home search of the salmon could be in reach.

This column originally appeared in the Oregon Capital Chronicle.

Image courtesy U.S. Geological Service.

Avatar for the insanity

June 21, 2025

Given the state of our politics some days - most days - it’s difficult to figure out where to start.

So, I’ll begin with the famous question posed by lawyer Jospeh Welch to Wisconsin’s demagogic Senator Joseph McCarthy in 1954 during the hearings that helped bring about McCarthy’s downfall: “Have you no decency, sir?”

Since Monday I have been going back and forth on whether to write something about Mike Lee, the senior senator from Utah, a Temple going Mormon Republican who seems to think his main job as a United States senator is to post rafts of batshit crazy stuff on Elon Musk’s social media platform.

[In fairness to Lee he also is the chief Senate proponent of selling off public land in the American West, an idea as stupid and ill-considered as the senator’s social media profile.]

I hesitated to write about Mike Lee’s gutter garbage because it was so obviously gutter garbage that I (naively) thought Lee might try to make it right if people just gave him a few hours … or days.

Silly me. So, here’s one more recounting of this sordid, awful moment in our Trump Era, an era of blatant, uncompromising lying and character-free crap spreading that pretends to be politics in a democracy.

If you haven’t discovered it earlier Lee’s recent behavior should confirm that much of social media is a stewing cesspool of toxic human-generated waste largely because of guys like Mike Lee.

Joe Perticone at The Bulwark conducted a deep dive into Senator Lee’s social media habits. It ain’t pretty.

The Bulwark conducted a review of Mike Lee’s Twitter feed, @BasedMikeLee, over the past month. During that time period (30 days), the senator posted nearly 1,400 times, or about 46 posts a day. Of those posts, about half (697) were original tweets. The rest where retweets of other accounts or his own posts. The posts came mostly during normal business hours. But not exclusively. Of the nearly 700 posts Lee authored on Twitter, 47 of them came between the hours of 3 a.m. and 6 a.m. eastern daylight time. ¹

Perticone concludes, and its hard not to agree, that Lee needs an intervention - fast. Another appropriate step would be to show him an exit to his political career.

It was heartening - briefly, at least - to see Lee’s colleague from Minnesota, Tina Smith, confront him over his disgustingly shameful mocking of the state legislator in Minnesota, Melissa Hortman, who was assassinated last weekend.

“I wanted him to know how much pain that caused me and the other people in my state, and I think around the country, who think that this was a brutal attack,” Smith told reporters. “I don’t know whether Senator Lee thought fully through what it was — you have to ask him — but I needed him to hear from me directly what impact I think his cruel statement had on me, his colleague.”

I’ll assume you’ve read about Lee’s comments and Smith’s response to them, but you may not have read about the strong Republican pushback against Mike Lee’s lunacy.

You haven’t read about pushback because it hasn’t happened.

As far as I can tell only one Senate Republican, Kevin Cramer of North Dakota, said much of anything about Mike Lee’s disgraceful social media quips. “Seems insensitive, to say the least, inappropriate, for sure” and “not even true,” Cramer said.

And not even true.

Lee took the slimiest of his social media posts down, but did nothing more because being a shitposting conservative now means never having to say you’re sorry or wrong - about anything.

The Deseret News, the Salt Lake City newspaper owned by the LDS Church, editorialized about the senior senator from Utah, quaintly suggesting he might do something to make all this nonsense a little less nonsensical.

The tweets were unacceptable for anyone, let alone from a member of the Senate. It revealed a lack of compassion for both victims and their loved ones and cast a poor light on Utah, the state Sen. Lee represents. Removing the tweets was a start. An apology and recognition of the mistake should follow.

Lee didn’t just cast a poor light on Utah, but the human race. ²

So, instead of party pushback on the troll from Utah you might have seen the troll who is president of the United States trash talking the governor of Minnesota. Tim Walz broke the news to the world that his friend, the former speaker of the Minnesota House, and her husband had been killed in their own home apparently by a crazed, anti-abortion Trump supporter.

The president attacked Walz.

Well, of course, he did.

Leave it to Jon Stewart to pick through this pile of crap.

On his Monday show Stewart called Lee “the avatar for the insanity of this moment.”

After excoriating Lee for his callous, depraved treatment of victims of assassination, Stewart recounted a meeting he had with Lee back when Stewart was trying to get Congress to act on assistance for first responders injured in the terror attack on the World Trade Center in 2001.

As the Salt Lake Tribune reported:

Stewart said he and a group of first responders met with Lee, who responded to one police officer recounting how he survived being in one of the towers when they collapsed. “Sen. Lee smiled and said, ‘I bet you’ve got a lot of stories,’” Stewart recalled.

“We met a lot of people in Washington,” Stewart said. “That was the only meeting where we all walked out and looked at each other and went, ‘What the f--- is wrong with that guy?’”

What, indeed.

And what is wrong with 600,000 people who follow his social media nonsense or the 571,974 Utah voters who supported him in his last re-election or the millions of Americans willing to shrug off such a repulsive lack of character? ³

At long last, have you left no sense of decency?

Answer: No. But we certainly have a lot of stories, don’t we?

This column first appeared on the Marc C. Johnson Substack.

No Kings by the numbers

No Kings by the numbers

June 20, 2025

Two days after the June 14 No King protests in a couple of thousand communities around the county, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy tweeted that his department “will NOT fund rogue state actors who refuse to cooperate with federal immigration enforcement. And to cities that stand by while rioters destroy transportation infrastructure — don’t expect a red cent from DOT, either.”

Considering that any anti-Trump protest is ordinarily conflated by Trump acolytes with violent or “rogue” activity, you can see where the target is pointed: Widely. It’s not just at New York or Los Angeles or Chicago, because a lot of other communities were protesting last weekend, too. You might be surprised where.

Here were estimates of Idaho turnout for the No Kings event on June 14, which added together seem to approach 25,000 - a lot of anti-Trump protesters for this state. The numbers are only estimates - there are no “official” stats - but what we have says a lot.

Boise - 13,000. That sounds high - the real-time estimates were smaller - but look at photos of the Statehouse event and you’re seeing a heck of a lot of people, one of the largest Idaho crowds I’ve ever seen outside a major sporting event, uncommonly large by Boise standards. It seems to make sense only in the context of Boise city’s blue political coloration. However …

Coeur d’Alene - 2,000. Kootenai County has a lot of people, approaching 200,000, but this is still an enormous turnout for a county so blood red in its leanings: These days it does not elect Democrats to anything, period.

Hailey - 1,500. Okay, this is the Wood River Valley protest, conducted in an actual Democratic stronghold. But considering the population of the area, the number still is enormous, somewhere around one protester for every 10 residents, a stunning ratio likely outdoing Boise’s.

Idaho Falls - 1,400. Consider this a close match to the Coeur d’Alene story: Idaho Falls is a solidly Republican city. But evidently not everyone is on board.

Pocatello - 1,000. The university community provides something of a base in Pocatello, but this is one of the largest political crowds the Gate City has seen.

Sandpoint - 1,000. Bonner County is hard-core Trump territory. Who are these 1,000 people?

Twin Falls - 800. Another massive turnout considering the political leaning of the area.

Clarkston, Washington (with Lewiston) - 700. This is half-accounted for by Clarkston, where the event was held, but don’t be fooled: This valley is solidly Republican territory. Once Democratic, this area hasn’t evinced open support for the blue side in many years.

McCall - 500. The McCall area still has a small population with a very long-standing Republican voting pattern, albeit shifting a little in recent years; the appearance of so many anti-Trump protesters in this Republican place far from a larger city is remarkable.

Driggs - 500. Teton County is politically marginal, but its small and remote population makes the idea of getting this many people out for any political event is a shocker.

Moscow - 400. No great surprise here, given the University of Idaho community, but still a lot of people.

Nampa - 300. The politics of Canyon County would make you think everyone falls in line. The event there suggests that isn’t so.

Then there are the five smaller events: Salmon - 115 people; Silver Valley - 65; Bonners Ferry - 60; Rexburg - 50; Challis - 30. It’s not the numbers in these places, it’s the fact that protests were held in them at all. An anti-Republican protest in Challis? Really? That’s a true jaw dropper; a single person out there waving a sign would have been a surprise, much less 30.

To put this in perspective: These protesters are still a tiny fraction of the population of Idaho (which has about two million people), but the central point is that only a sliver of the people who think in a given way will be active enough to visibly stand on a sidewalk for several hours and protest. Each of these protesters is indicative of many others who didn’t show up. Not to mention that in many parts of Idaho, there’s an intimidation factor: Many people would feel unsafe putting their faces out there.

About 25,000 did it anyway. There’s serious dissatisfaction out there. Even in the scattered small towns of Idaho.