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Posts published in June 2026

A nonpartisan vote counter

A nonpartisan vote counter

June 11, 2026

In purest theory, you could reasonably say that legislative candidate Steve Herndon has a point. One, anyway.

Herndon, the Republican Senate nominee in District 1, and a former legislator whose ideas periodically have been too much for even the Idaho Legislature to stomach, has filed a complaint against the campaign of Phil McGrane, Idaho’s elected secretary of state. It is under review by the attorney general’s office.

The specific complaint is relatively minor and technical, having to do with whether McGrane properly reported in the right time period certain campaign costs related to a mailer intended to benefit various other Republican candidates, one of them being Herndon’s recent primary election opponent. (For what it’s worth, McGrane’s explanation of the situation sounds reasonable, but we’ll see what the AG’s office does.)

A recent Idaho Capital Sun article on this also brought up a larger point worth some more general consideration. Herndon argued that a person in charge of conducting an election (as the secretary of state generally is and as county clerks are) should “be completely impartial on the elections, regardless of the outcome. It clouds his impartiality.”

You can understand the point. Election officials who take sides in a political contest can be seen as having a stake in the outcome. Judges in our judicial system, to take a related example, are supposed to be rigorously neutral to ensure the cases they consider are decided fairly (and, as it happens, are elected on non-partisan ballot lines); or at least that’s the general idea.

This does run up against the reality of the picture, over at least most of the last century, in Idaho election administration.  Under Idaho law, both the office of secretary of state and those of the county clerks are partisan offices; the people elected to them are (with the rarest of exceptions) Republicans (mostly) or Democrats. It’s been that way since statehood.

The Sun quoted McGrane: “I think at times people forget I’m also on the ballot and a participant in the space, right? …I’m a partisan elected official. I’m a proud Republican. … I think the biggest thing that’s most important is we try to be hyper transparent… and that includes the fact that I have opinions. I’m a voter, just like everybody else, that I want people to know where I stand.”

His predecessors have from time to time made similar comments.

But this is where we get past the theory and move into practice.

In actual practice, the partisan election administration system Idaho has (which is similar to those of most other states), works pretty well.

For generations, Idaho has had secretaries of state whose fairness in handling elections hasn’t been seriously questioned, from Pete Cenarrusa (who held the job 35 years), Ben Ysursa, Lawrence Denney and now McGrane. That’s a long time to keep a track record essentially spotless.

The many county clerks Idaho has elected in those years have had similarly solid records in election management. In recent election cycles (including this one) election results and counts have been audited, and the clerks have emerged with close to perfect records.

And many if not most of these officials have been solidly partisan people as political figures. Cenarrusa had been a speaker of the Idaho House, a job that doesn’t usually go to someone who won’t support their party. They show up at party events and call for electing their side and defeating the opposition. That hasn’t however kept them from doing a fair job of election administration.

All of that said, if a ballot initiative were to appear declaring that all election administration offices in the state would henceforth be nonpartisan, I’d likely support it. In principle, I think Herndon has a point here. It’s just that in practice, it hasn’t been a problem.

Two other points should be made as well.

Idaho has done a decent job of filling those election posts with people willing to put their political preferences to the side when time comes to accurately count the votes.

And, Herndon might reflect on how this push for non-partisan fairness lines up with his party’s recent national push for advantage at all costs.

 

The path for Iran

June 8, 2026

President George W. Bush famously branded Iraq, Iran and North Korea as the “Axis of Evil” during his 2002 inaugural address. He claimed the three rogue nations were developing weapons of mass destruction (WMD) that would be used to carry out terrorist attacks against the United States and its allies. Bush vowed to use our military to stop that from happening.

When Bush followed through with his ill-advised war against Iraq, which did not actually have any WMD, it sent a resounding shockwave through the other two regimes. Both obviously concluded that a working atomic weapon was essential to their survival. As one North Korean official put it: “We are a part of the axis of evil….If we disarm ourselves because of U.S. pressure, then we will…be beaten to death.”

The North Koreans, already developing a nuclear deterrent with the help of Russian scientists, moved aggressively ahead with their program after the fall of Iraq’s dictator. They soon had a variety of nuclear warheads and the means to deliver them. Donald Trump told the United Nations in November 2017 that he would “totally destroy” North Korea if it did not halt its nuclear program. Yet, he failed to carry through with that and other threats. Instead, he began a love affair with its vicious dictator, Kim Jong Un.

The Iranian regime was watching and learning. It had entered into a comprehensive nuclear agreement with the Obama Administration in July 2015 that effectively blocked its path to a nuclear weapon. However, Trump abrogated the agreement in his first term, even though the Iranians were certified by inspectors to be in compliance with its requirements. The Iranians obviously concluded that the only way to preserve their cruel regime was to resume their quest for a nuclear weapon.

That brings us to the present day. Trump began his war against Iran on February 28, claiming it was in the final stages of developing a nuclear device. He said that the device could be used against Israel or other US allies. Let’s just stop right there. US intelligence did not and does not support those claims. Even if Iran could have enriched sufficient fissile material to weapons grade, it would have taken many months to actually weaponize it. Even then, Iran’s desire to obtain such a weapon was totally for defensive purposes–to ward off an attack by the United States.

It would be insane for Iran to attack another country with a nuclear weapon, if it actually possessed one. It would be one and done. The regime would be incinerated in response and that would be that. The whole point of seeking to have a bomb is to ensure the preservation of the country’s rulers. It might be different for a stateless terrorist organization, but a country with an established government is not likely to choose suicide.

The war has opened the eyes of Iran’s rulers to a weapon of self preservation more powerful than a nuclear device. It has always been a theoretical possibility that being able to choke off about 20% of the world’s petroleum supply would cause world wide agony. Trump has managed to demonstrate to Iran’s leaders the tremendous pain they can inflict on the US and other nations by simply closing off the Strait of Hormuz. There is practically nothing Trump can do, short of sending in legions of ground troops to secure a wide swath along Iran’s shoreline, to open the way for passage of oil tankers.

Iran is a ruthless regime that cares little about the welfare of its citizens. It can hold out much longer than the Trump regime. It is obvious that Trump is caught in a dilemma of his own rash making. If he does not come out with some sort of deal better than before his shots were fired, he will suffer a great loss of face. The Iranians know they have him over the barrel. The same realization has dawned upon Trump’s supporters.

With every passing day, the high cost of petroleum products creates economic havoc around the world, as well as political pain for Trump’s compliant GOP Congress. Iran now has a sixty-day ceasefire that will not likely end with a deal Trump can live with politically. The Iranians can merely feint constructive negotiations and extend the talks further down the road. Trump dares not resume his bombing campaign because its results will not be any more positive than before and the economic pain suffered in the US, along with rising inflation, will only get worse. The Iranians are fully aware that they are in control. The Iranian regime no longer needs a nuclear deterrent. Trump has shown it a much more effective means of ensuring its survival.

 

A split in the gorge

A split in the gorge

June 7, 2026

Visit Hood River, as so many people do, and you’ll see on the front windows of many downtown businesses a sign saying: “We are immigrants,” and sometimes next to them signs saying, “No trespassing — no federal agents — agents lacking judicial warrants will be turned away.”

Many took care to advertise an April 23 community town hall about the “impacts of ICE actions in our communities.”

Politically and socially, Hood River closely resembles pieces of central Portland or Corvallis.

Travel about 20 miles down the highway to the other major Columbia Gorge community, The Dalles, and you’d have to search hard to find any such signs about immigration or other public policy. I couldn’t find one.

These two communities theoretically ought to be twins.  The Dalles has a formal population about twice as large as Hood River, but the cities’ urbanized areas feel comparable in size. Both rely on their Columbia River location for strong tourism sectors, while each still depends considerably on agriculture. Both cities exude some prosperity (a little more obviously, maybe, in the case of Hood River). Even the cities’ road plans, and mix of commercial, industrial and residential areas are laid out similarly.

And yet to walk around these two cities is to get an entirely different feel. Hood River is packed solid on weekends — parking is hard to find — its popularity as a tourist destination spot (sporting activities, notably windsurfing, are a major draw). The Dalles draws tourists but seems more reliant on traditional resource businesses and its massive new data centers, a subject of some local controversy.

But the politics of the area is clear and reflects the overall feel of the communities. Hood River city, and the county around it, is strongly Democratic, while The Dalles area leans very slightly Republican and Wasco County around it mostly is strongly so.

The reasons for this, and the impact of recent economic developments, suggest a small but clear current movement toward Democrats, which may have an effect on one of the handful of closely contested Oregon legislative seats.

The Gorge, or at least the Oregon side of it, has been politically fluid over the decades. In the half-century up to 1988, you could argue that Wasco was more Democratic than Hood River; certainly it voted more often for Democrats for president. Since then — around the time Oregon became a consistent Democratic vote on the presidential level — Hood River has become clearly bluer, and Wasco more purplish.

Hood River County overall in 2024 voted 65.8% Democratic for president (well short of Multnomah but close to the margins in Washington and Benton), most strongly in Hood River city (four of those precincts went Democratic by more than 70%), but generally county-wide as well.

Wasco County barely voted Republican for president, 51.1%, and that close split reflected a wide range of views around the county’s 12 precincts. Four precincts in and just to the west of The Dalles voted Democratic, two more nearby were closely split, and the remaining rural precincts, with smaller populations, were strong Donald Trump bases.

The one rural precinct which went for Kamala Harris, Rowena-Mosier, lies on the old Highway 30 directly between The Dalles and Hood River. Many of the residences there are relatively new, suggesting that some of the same population moves and cultures that have influenced Hood River and to a lesser degree The Dalles had an effect in between them as well.

These geographic and voting pattern details matter when it comes to one of the region’s most closely-fought legislative seats.

In the decade before the 2022 election, all of Hood River County (along with mostly Republican slices of Multnomah and Clackamas) was located in the 52nd House District, and all of Wasco County (along with several other north-central Oregon counties, generally strongly Republican) in the 57th District.

The 2021 redistricting nudged the 57th District toward the southeast, expelling the precincts around The Dalles. Those are in the redistricted 52nd District, which was already closely split between the parties and lost some marginally Democratic territory in the Portland metro area.

This put the balance in this swing district in the new territory of The Dalles. In the 2022 election Republican Jeff Helfrich won three of the four counties in the 52nd District but lost Hood River overwhelmingly, for a narrow district-wide win of 52.5%. In 2024, he won again but by even less, 51.8%; the Wasco County precincts edged a little more Democratic that year.

This year, Helfrich is running instead for the Senate in the 26th District, where Republican margins are a little stronger. The two major candidates to replace him in the House are Republican Scott Hege and Democrat Hank Sanders, both winners of contested primaries.

Not much of a demographic change would be needed in this district to create an almost perfectly even playing field. This could turn out to be one of the last legislative seats in Oregon decided after election day in November.

 

The disaster then

The disaster then

June 5, 2026

Almost anyone who lived in eastern Idaho half a century ago probably could tell you where they were midday on June 5, 1976. It was a local equivalent to 9/11 or November 22, 1963.

It was the day the Teton Dam broke. The day a wall of water smashed through the region, killing 11 people and leaving more than $2 billion - in 1976 dollars - in its wake.

The dam was located along the Teton River, a tributary of the Snake River, northeast of Idaho Falls and a few miles from Newdale, where the country turned mountainous. It was one of the last dams built during the Bureau of Reclamation’s era of ferociously go-go western dam construction. By then a long string of dams already had been built throughout the Snake River system, from American Falls and Palisades to Milner and the Hells Canyon dams. Teton completed the list.

Farmers in the upper Snake River valley, around Rexburg and St. Anthony especially, felt the massive reclamation system developed through the first half of the 20th century missed their area and didn’t give them enough water storage for irrigation. Early federal studies of the idea of damming the Teton date from about a century ago, and the Fremont Madison Irrigation District began lobbying for more water storage - in practical terms, a dam - in 1948. Over the next few years, a complex system of agreements about how to move and use the water, and who would get to do so and when, was worked out. There’s been a good deal of argument in the years since about just how much this water actually was needed; the case against was laid out skillfully by Marc Reisner in his classic book Cadillac Desert about the Bureau of Reclamation projects.

Congress, with active involvement of Idaho’s congressional delegation, pushed through the construction and budgeting authorization in 1964. Years of both planning and legal challenges, on environmental and other grounds, followed until major construction work started in 1972 and was essentially finished by the end of 1975.

The dam didn’t last long. Starting on June 3, 1976, dam workers, federal and contractors, started noting water spouting out from areas around the dam, and just before noon on June 6 the dam burst open. Eight billion gallons of water shot downstream, along the Teton River, then twisting with the Snake River southwest to the American Falls area. Some cities, like Rexburg and Idaho Falls, saw flooding. Others closer to the dam, such as Sugar City, were all but wiped out.

I was living in Caldwell then, but a year after the flood I traveled to the dam site and the hard hit communities. My strongest impressions were both of how sweeping the flood had been - you could see all soil scraped by the water in some places - but also the speed of reconstruction. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints in particular poured enormous resources into helping the area recover, and it worked. Today, little evidence of the flood remains.

For all that success, the wreckage of those days shouldn’t be minimized. In his book, Idaho for the Curious, Cort Conley quoted some doggerel from a man who lived in the area then: “If I sound a little bitter, it’s for certain that I am; Because right now the Upper Valley isn't worth a Teton Dam.”

And why should this echo from 50 years ago be a story to ponder today?

This year, all of Idaho either is in or soon faces severe drought; the national water maps developed for the state look drier overall than I can recall seeing them in decades.

When that hits, people in need of water will go looking for answers. And sometimes the obvious answer isn’t the best one.

There aren’t any very easy answers. History tells us as much.

 

Listening

June 4, 2026

The Idaho Department of Health and Welfare is spending our taxpayer dollars to go around the state and “listen” to our concerns. Idaho is about to grant a multibillion-dollar contract, the biggest ever in state history. Is this a wise investment, this listening thing? Its peanuts compared to the contract.

Lord knows, the legislature, who decided these billions of our tax dollars should go this way don’t listen. They ignore testimony. My elected State Senator has rarely appeared in public forums in my district for his last six years. The last time he did, it made national news. So he has learned. Don’t listen.

But the IDHW is listening. Maybe.

I am wondering if this representative government can survive. It’s up to you.

In the meantime, our taxpayer funded IDHW has gone around the state asking folks what are their concerns as Idaho Medicaid moves to managed care.

Our legislature has required this change to managed care. It’s all the rage. Maybe you have experienced it. You must go to an “in network” provider or the insurance company repossess your car. It’s that kind of health care we love, don’t we? Now we can stick it to those lazy Medicaid patients.

The DHW is asking, what do you think we should do? Will they listen?

There was a “listening session” this last week in Lewiston. I am not currently a provider who gets Medicaid dollars, or an enrollee. I was conflicted about making the $20 drive.

But the sessions have been very well attended. The department has posted the anonymized comments online.

As I read through them, I see a recurrent issue from providers. Keep in mind, managed care is nothing new. Big insurance companies have used this technique for years to control their costs and thus maximize their profits. Providers know the routine.

The insurance companies restrict their “panels” to low-cost providers. You liked you doctor? Sorry, not in panel.

They deny coverage for a recommended treatment. You can appeal; the doctor can appeal. Do you have a few months? Years?

I was a low-cost provider. I didn’t order a lot of tests or recommend many stupid surgeries. Lots of patients went elsewhere. They chose. So did I. They could find a doctor that would do what they wanted. I kept doing what I thought was a good job for my patients.

In the end, we’re all paying. It’s insurance.

This scenario is playing out big time here in Idaho. Hospitals and doctors across the state are fighting for more money. Insurance companies fight back. Such is the nature of a normal healthy marketplace.

When will you folks realize healthcare is not a marketplace?

Except maybe plastic surgery. Is that what you need?

I guess the Idaho legislature believes private equity funded big insurance companies are better suited to protect the taxpayer dollar than our own government.

Will they listen?

One of the recurrent questions from providers was, what would be the appeal process? Who can we gripe to when the insurer denies what we say is appropriate care?

I assume the IDHW will include that in their contract they put out.

Or will they? So now, our representatives want to contract out listening?

Idaho receives about $3B from the federal deficit government to pay for our Medicaid health care. Don’t get me started on the amount of tax dollars we are spending on debt service. We are talking about health care spending here.

But the two biggest drivers of fixed federal spending, after Social Security, are Medicare and Medicaid.

So you see this as a solution?

I have told you before, it hasn’t worked. President Bush gave us privatized Medicare. It has been proven to be a big waste.

Maybe Idaho is just behind the curve.

We should be listening.

 

Hope for better days

June 1, 2026

Reading the tea leaves of GOP primary elections in Idaho and across the country should give far-right MAGA warriors the heebie-jeebies. It is a near certainty that Donald Trump’s MAGA puppets will lose the US House and quite likely the Senate. While Idaho’s primary results were slightly in favor of the State’s traditional, problem-solving Republicans, the outcome will be decidedly in their favor by November. The 2027 Legislature will have a more moderate mix of Republicans and Democrats than in 2026. There will likely be surprises in some statewide races–Governor, US Senate and Attorney General.

North Idaho was a problem for reasonable Republicans. Two excellent legislators in District 1, Sen. Jim Woodward and Rep. Mark Sauter, lost to MAGA warriors who waged extremely nasty campaigns. Rep. Elaine Price, an extremist legislator in District 4, turned away a spirited challenge by Christa Hazel, who was viciously attacked by the forces of Kootenai County GOP’s Brent Regan. Regan is Chair of the County GOP and also serves as Chair of the ill-named Idaho Freedom Foundation, which is about as enlightened as Genghis Khan’s war council. Hazel is a remarkable person who got 40.5% of the vote with a campaign based on real issues.

The good news is that Regan lost his race for precinct committeeman and there is a possibility that the traditional, reasonable North Idaho Republicans will take over the official GOP central committee. This could be a turnabout from the notoriously extreme GOP machine in the County. Regan’s allies lost the Bonneville County GOP committee in the 2024 primary. The MAGA crowd will lose their grip on other counties in 2028.

There was not much change in the election results between GOP extremists and traditional Republicans in the western side of the state from Moscow to the Treasure Valley. However, the extremists lost big in the Magic Valley. Senators Glenneda Zuiderveld and Josh Kohl, two of the most extreme legislators, lost by large margins. The reasonable Republicans on the Eastern side of the state easily shrugged off challenges from culture warriors.

The atmosphere for Idaho’s GOP extremists will become more troubled with each passing week as voters become increasingly aware of the consequences of the mindless budget cutting that extremists committed against important state programs. The fallout from national MAGA policies, including tariffs, the Iran War, inflation, and the pervasive grift, will erode away the support for extremists everywhere. The farm community will be ready for a change because of rising prices for fertilizer, diesel, machinery and about everything else necessary for making a living on the farm–all a result of blundering MAGA policies.

Governor Little is headed into troubled waters in November. His full-throated embrace of the MAGA program has turned off reasonable voters and failed to gain support from the extremists. He only received 59% of the vote in the primary. He has two viable challengers in the general election–John Stegner, who is running as an Independent, and Terri Pickens on the Democratic ticket. If both are on the ticket in November, Little will get a third term. If the one with the least support withdraws in a timely fashion, Idaho can have a more reasonable Governor.

Todd Achilles is likely to win his Independent campaign against our octogenarian Senator Jim Risch. The Senator is too self-entitled to hold public town halls with the common people. He has meekly surrendered the Constitutional power of Congress to set budgets and wage war. He claims credit for things he has opposed. Risch was front and center to bask in the glory of Micron’s $15 billion groundbreaking even though he voted against the CHIPS bill that made it possible. On the other hand, Achilles is a regular guy, a military veteran and a successful businessman. As an Independent, he’ll be able to work with both sides of the aisle to get things done for Idaho.

Lori Hickman is an accomplished lawyer, who will stand up for the rule of law as Idaho’s Attorney General. The current Attorney General gives priority to his extreme politics.

Raul Labrador endorsed a number of his culture war soulmates in the primary, including five losers–Senators Zuiderveld and Kohl, Rep. David Leavitt, and challengers running against Senators Jim Guthrie and Ben Fuhriman. His political instincts are as faulty as his lawyering. Hickman has pledged to keep politics out of the office and treat it like a real law office–giving honest, straight-forward legal advice and assistance that complies with the Constitution and laws of Idaho.

An issue that favors both Achilles and Hickman is the sale of federal lands to private interests. Both Risch and Labrador are vulnerable on the issue. Risch voted against a 2025 Senate budget amendment that would have explicitly prohibited the sale or transfer of public lands to offset the federal deficit. When it appeared this year that sale of those lands was a hot button issue in Idaho, he tried desperately to backtrack. Yet, he voted to confirm a land sale proponent as director of the Bureau of Land Management. Achilles has strongly opposed any form of disposition of public lands. Likewise, Hickman advocates keeping “public lands in public hands.” That sharply contrasts with Labrador’s efforts to force the transfer of Idaho’s federal lands to the state for disposal. He even joined a Utah suit in the US Supreme Court to accomplish that goal. The suit was dismissed but it may come back to haunt him.

I suspect the GOP MAGA warriors will become increasingly alarmed by the electoral landscape as November approaches. By then, it will be too late to backtrack on their extremist agendas. They won’t be missed.