RANDY STAPILUS   Idaho

One way to get some perspective on Idaho government today is to look back to how it once was. Let’s go back a century and see what happened then.

The governor then was John Haines, a Republican real estate developer who was elected on a small-government platform; he was serving just one two-year term (and would lose a bid for re-election in 1914). The Legislature was even more Republican then than it is now, 21-3 in the Senate 56-4 in the House.

So what did they do in the 1913-14 term? What follows is a short description, extracted from the book Idaho 100 (by your scribe and Martin Peterson, published in fall 2012); Haines ranked number 54 on that list. Your assignment, should you choose to accept it: Compare and contrast to their present-day counterparts …

An Iowa native, Haines spent his early adulthood dealing real estate in Kansas, only to be wiped out by a severe drought in the late 1890s. Along with many others, he headed west, to Idaho. On the way, he encountered several other would-be realtors, and when they got to Boise they formed the W.E. Pierce and Company real estate firm. It rapidly became the leading realty firm in Idaho, and played an important role in the development of southwest Idaho—Boise in particular. That development became all the more important because the senior partner, W.E. Pierce, was elected Boise mayor in 1903, and Haines succeeded him in 1907. The office of mayor gave Haines the platform to run for governor in 1912, in a race he only barely won over Democrat James Hawley, after running hard on a campaign of fiscal austerity.

He turned out, once elected, to have a head for reform, in all sorts of areas. He pushed for non-partisan election of judges (who then ran on party tickets; his suggestion would be taken after a few years). He pressed for the full range of progressive political issues, including the recall and referendum.

Governing during a session when legislators were preoccupied with choosing a new U.S. senator, he argued for passage of the 17th amendment to turn that over to the voters. And, amid the political confusion, he became central in the 1913 session in setting an agenda for passing what he considered very important items. He got them.

One was creation of a state Board of Education. Idaho already had a board of regents for the University of Idaho, but the new board would be united with it and oversee education statewide. That same system survives a century later. Continue Reading »

RANDY STAPILUS   Idaho

In 1874 George Reynolds, a secretary to Mormon President Brigham Young and husband to two wives, was charged with the crime of bigamy. The case didn’t come out of the blue: The LDS church (with Reynolds as volunteer) had sought it as a test.

Reynolds argued his marriages were constitutionally protected as his practice of his religion, since the LDS church then supported polygamy on religious grounds. The case went to the U.S. Supreme Court.
The 1879 decision in Reynolds v. United States didn’t deliver as hoped. The court drew on the writings of Thomas Jefferson, who argued that “religion is a matter which lies solely between man and his God … the legislative powers of the government reach actions only, and not opinions.”

The court closely followed his reasoning: “Laws are made for the government of actions, and while they cannot interfere with mere religious belief and opinions, they may with practices. Suppose one believed that human sacrifices were a necessary part of religious worship; would it be seriously contended that the civil government under which he lived could not interfere to prevent a sacrifice? Or if a wife religiously believed it was her duty to burn herself upon the funeral pile of her dead husband; would it be beyond the power of the civil government to prevent her carrying her belief into practice?”

So: How would the Idaho Legislature today answer those questions?

Freedom of religion has been at least the rhetorical premise for several pieces of legislation this year.
The best known, effectively killed for now on February 19 after initially working up steam toward passage, was House Bill 427, which would have barred government in Idaho from pulling or restricting a professional or occupational license for “Declining to provide or participate in providing any service that violates the person’s sincerely held religious beliefs or exercise of religion except where performing emergency response duties for public safety. ” Though the potential scope was broad, it was widely described as allowing professionals not to do business with gay people.

A bill cutting the other way didn’t even get a hearing.

Idaho law currently says “The practice of a parent or guardian who chooses for his child treatment by prayer or spiritual means alone shall not for that reason alone be construed to have violated the duty of care to such child.” Representative John Gannon proposed House Bill 458 to add: “However, this exemption shall not apply whenever a child’s medical condition has caused death or permanent disability.”

Gannon’s prompt was not hypothetical. The Oregon-based Followers of Christ church was a locus of infant and child mortality, including a number of cases deemed to be easily treatable by conventional medicine, and it eventually drew state legislative response. Church members were prosecuted in Oregon for failing to obtain medical treatment for their children. Since then, Oregon journalists found a remote Idaho graveyard where many of the children of the sect, denied medical treatment, are buried. Continue Reading »

RANDY STAPILUS   Idaho

Backers of the CAFO anti-videoing legislation – “ag-gag” – have already lost the war, even if the legislation passes.

Especially if it passes.

Senate Bill 1337, which has passed the Senate, bars a person who “without the facility owner’s express consent or pursuant to judicial process or statutory authorization, makes audio or video recordings of the conduct of an agricultural production facility’s operations.” More specifically, it’s intended to ban (though various existing laws already theoretically do) the videotaping of what happens to livestock in concentrated animal feeding operations. This is significant in Idaho, home to some very large CAFO operations in the Magic Valley and southwest. The new bill would punish violators with up to a year in jail or a $5,000 fine; critics note that’s the same as the state penalty for animal abuse.

Similar legislation has been proposed, most often failing to pass, in more than a dozen states; a Utah law is being challenged in the courts.

The Idaho bill was specifically prompted by a video shot in 2012 at Bettencourt Dairy at Hansen, showing workers beating on livestock. Last week another video shot at an Idaho CAFO, which added animal sexual abuse to the mix, was released. Both have had many, many views, and they’ve gone viral on social media.

We can’t know if the videos alone would have generated massive international attention. We do know the videos, combined with legislation to ban shooting more of them, has sent interest in the subject sky high, in news reports nationally and overseas. The story is irresistible: An attempt to keep the lid on what people have already seen. But memories aren’t so easily erased. Nor is the technology, which keeps moving in the direction of disclosure, as privacy advocates regularly remind us.

Among other responses to the bill are petitions, some inside Idaho, some by national animal advocacy groups. Petitions usually do little by themselves, but they can assist organization efforts, and they keep the subject visible. Not only smaller and relatively hard-core groups like Mercy for Animals, which released the Bettencourt videos, are involved in this, but also larger and better-funded groups like the Humane Society of the United States. The subject of CAFO livestock has gone mainstream.

If you doubt that, watch the latest series offering from Netflix: The satirical but pointed “Farmed and Dangerous.” (The initial plot hook involves an exploding cow.) Once issues like this get into cultural discussion, national regulation and legislation may, in time, follow. It’s in the spotlight now.

The Magic Valley has benefited recently from arrival of a number of food processors who came there largely because of the easy supply of dairy products. Don’t be surprised if boycotts of some of them start – and lead to business responses. To see this playing out, Google the Wiese Brothers Farms in Wisconsin, and read about the videos and other reports that led a frozen pizza company to cut all ties with them.

Nor is that all. If SB 1337 is signed into law (as seems likely), watch for this: An activist who deliberately violates it, shooting more video intending to get caught – and insisting on a very public trial that could draw more national and international attention, kicking in the cycle all over again.

The problem for livestock operations is not insoluble. The simplest out is to improve and closely monitor operations, then throw open the doors for public viewing. Some CAFO advocates have argued that much of what’s been shown on the videos has been unusual aberrations, that most livestock is treated better before slaughter than the videos suggest; an open door policy would be the one practical way to prove it. Some of what inevitably happens in the best of meat processing businesses is of course difficult for many people to stomach, but the operators could fairly argue that if you want your meat at the supermarket, this is how it has to get there. Since most people do want their steaks and burgers, the argument might settle down, on at least higher ground than it occupies now.

Legislation has its uses. But CAFOs here have among other things a PR problem, and these kinds of laws seldom are much help with that.

RANDY STAPILUS   Idaho

After the governor and the four members of the congressional delegation, the Idaho politician with the closest to a household-familiar name probably is Tom Luna, the two-term superintendent of public instruction. A year from now, since Luna isn’t running again, the next superintendent will be someone most Idahoans haven’t known very well.

The time has come for those candidates to get about the business of defining themselves, or getting defined by someone else. Since the results are likely to be mined for what they say about Idaho, let’s have a look at how the field is shaping up so far.

At present, four people have announced for the office. There may be more. Just one of the four has been a statewide figure before: Jana Jones, the one Democrat in the race, who ran for this job in 2006, losing to Luna in the election that made him superintendent. The result was a close Luna win. Jones, who then was chief deputy to Luna’s Democratic predecessor as superintendent (Marilyn Howard), hasn’t been very visible since. But she surely retains some contacts and the outlines of a campaign organization, and some experience as a candidate, which would help her get started this time. They also may be enough to clear the Democratic side of the field before the primary. As a Democrat she has automatic disadvantages running statewide in Idaho, but then the contest on the Republican side is for now hard to fathom.

Three Republicans have announced: Randy Jensen, principal of the William Thomas Middle School at American Falls, John Eynon, a music and drama instructor at Cottonwood, and (as of last week) Sherri Ybarra of Mountain Home, whose announcement identifies her as having worked as a principal and teacher.

The Idaho superintendent’s office traditionally has been filled by professional educators; Luna’s election in 2006 was a major break in that informal rule. But so far, everyone now running appears to hit that bar.

So how do Idahoans differentiate? Or, more immediately, how will Republican primary voters do so?

Eynon seems easiest to define. His web site says specifically, and right up top, he running “because he is opposed to our children being taught to the unproven standards envisioned by Common Core.” His issues page also includes a long quote, and it’s the only quote by anyone, from former Representative Ron Paul. On the campaign trail (such as at Kellogg last weekend) he seemed to include support for state Senator Russ Fulcher, who’s challenging incumbent Republican C.L. “Butch” Otter for governor. Eynon appears to be working the Tea Party side of the street.

Jensen, who has been stumping around the state with Secretary of State candidate Evan Frasure, seems to be closer to the mainstream conservative side of things, but there’s some guesswork in that suggestion, and not a lot for evidence. He plays up the professional side of his background (notably, a 2005 award as national principal of the year); his website has plenty about professional background and little about “issues”; news articles about him look much the same. So why exactly is he running? He’ll need to get more specific about that. And maybe he will.

One reason he’ll have to is because Ybarra is positioned very much the same, also highlighting her professional credentials but not yet positioning her on the hot issues of education in the state.

And those issues are plenty hot. What do the three candidates think of the “Luna laws” passed in 2011 and rejected by the voters the next year? What about the governor’s schools commission report? Eynon has made clear his view on common core (which Luna has supported); what do the other two think?

RANDY STAPILUS   Idaho

There’s the short-term and immediate, and the long-term and the eventual.

The political side of discussion within Idaho about the arrest last week of more than 40 protesters for gay rights at the Idaho Statehouse – wearing “Add the 4 Words” shirts and hands over their mouths – tended to focus on the first. That’s understandable, because it’s what’s most immediately right in front of us.

The protesters did not settle for rallying on the sidewalk outside, or even in the Rotunda, where such events sometimes also happen. They stood in front of the main doors (there are others as well) to the Senate, shortly before the floor session started for the day, blocking the doorway from being closed. Since that ran afoul of Senate rules of procedure (as they surely knew, especially since their ranks included a former senator, Nicole LeFavour), they were removed by law enforcement, and (as they also expected) arrested. The Senate even passed a suspension of one of its rules to allow for arrest of LeFavour, who as a former senator was (by rules) allowed on the floor during sessions. Be it noted that the Senate Democrats voted for that rule suspension alongside the Republicans.

The incident ticked off quite a few legislators, including a few who might sympathize with the protesters’ cause. Whatever miniscule chance they had of progressing their cause in this session, to add “sexual orientation” and “gender identity” to anti-discrimination law in the state, was squashed.

That’s the short term. But it’s not the whole story, as some legislators realized. Senate Majority Bart Davis, for one, was quoted as saying, “Today, it hurt their cause. But as time goes by, I don’t think it does. She’s [LeFavour] not the only voice on the issue.”

To see what he meant, try Googling “Idaho gay arrest” – look for news stories – and see what comes up. KBOI-TV’s website headlined, “Arrest of gay rights activists in Idaho gets national spotlight,” and they weren’t kidding. On a quick try I pulled up 177 news article on the incident, many well illustrated (there were good photo ops), which guaranteed visible play. Large national blogs carried pieces. The news organizations ranged from the Guardian in England to the Province in Vancouver, British Columbia, from the Beaumont (Texas) Enterprise to the Tribune in Seymour, Indiana. In USA Today: “Dozens of gay rights activist arrested in Idaho.” There was a lot of TV coverage as well.

The story had staying power because it reinforced something else: The controversy associated with progress through the legislature of Representative Lynn Luke’s “religious freedom” bills. That has drawn no lack of attention either, from the Everett (Washington) Herald to the Danbury (Connecticut) News Times to the Houston (Texas) Chronicle. The Greenfield (Indiana) Reporter headlined, “House panel votes to keep religious freedom bill alive, dozens say it enshrines discrimination.”

Guess what Idaho is getting renowned for these days?

That reputational damage will have its effects. Idahoans do pay some attention to what people think about them, much as many would like to think otherwise, and the national attention will not go unnoticed, or un-responded to. The 44 protesters last week may have irritated and turned off legislators in the short run, but they got attention. If their intent is to play a longer game, they may have taken a step forward.

RANDY STAPILUS   Idaho

Before the conventional-wisdom version of the departure and replacement of Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Luna sinks in further, it’s time to poke a few holes.

The scenario was laid out in the January 28 Idaho Statesman: “Tom Luna takes one for the team.” His announcement of not seeking re-election this year, in that telling, had partly to do with clearing politics out of this legislative session’s consideration of the schools reform package, and partly to allow the Republican Party to move on from the “Students Come First” package Luna once championed, and which was trounced by the voters. And – snap of fingers, in a puff of smoke, in the public’s view – the name of Melinda Smyser emerged as the all but unstoppable replacement come this November.

We’ll not descend here into trying to read Luna’s mind, or anyone else’s. But before anyone thinks they’ve been given the final word on the matter …

Luna announced his non-run on January 27. About a month earlier, on December 20, he was quoted as saying he fully intended to run. The logical question is: What changed? Certainly not this year’s schools package at the legislature; it and its proponents and opponents were well known before then. If that were the consideration, a better time to announce would have been before this year’s legislative session started. Luna’s big annual appearance before the legislature, at the budget committee, already happened before his announcement; if damage to the school package was being done (which is doubtful anyway), it was done already.

The other part of the purported equation involved Luna harming Republicans by running. Again, that calculation, however valid or not, could have been made as easily a month ago, although it’s possible that polling or other maybe informal research might have been underway in that period. If so, we haven’t heard.
So you have to wonder: Did something else change as regards Luna, and his plans public or private?

The quick rise of Melinda Smyser, who as it turned out didn’t want to run, as the sudden frontrunning Republican nominee seemed a little odd too, though her name apparently has been spitballed as a possibility in Boise conversations for a while. It’s not that Smyser was an unrealistic candidate for the office; she has been a teacher and counselor and had been a member of the Parma School Board, and she was a state senator, not a bad resume combination. But no one seems to have asked her if she was even interested; as it turned out, within hours, she wasn’t. Usually when a name surfaces quickly that way it’s because that person had been quietly promoting it, but evidently that wasn’t the case here.

No other names seemed to rise so quickly to the surface, not those of the little-known educators in American Falls and Grangeville who have said they plan to run for the Republican nomination for the office, nor Steve Smylie, a former Republican legislator and educator who did run for superintendent in 2006, who was exploring the idea. Nor, at first, state Senator Steven Thayn, who evidently is very interested.

Was there interest in some quarters in foreclosing some of those options? The possibility of an incendiary Republican primary, based on the names of people already certainly interested, is quite real as matters sit.

These are all points that probably ought to be factored in considering the succession, and are likely to be shown up as relevant when more of the story is told.

RANDY STAPILUS   Idaho

When I started covering the Idaho Legislature in the mid-70s, there was literally no substitute for heading down to the Boise statehouse, picking up on the paperwork and watching the session unfold, not if you wanted to follow developments there at all closely.

No longer. You can track this 2014 session almost as well from your home as you could on the scene. (Well, not quite – there’s still something to be said for personal contact and interaction. But close.) Credit the legislature, over the years, with making it easy.

Back then, printed lists of committee agendas, bill status and bill copies didn’t emerge widely from the Statehouse. Now, that same material, and more, is on the legislature’s own website, at http://www.legislature.idaho.gov/. Go to that page and in the center, at the top of the list of links, is “Bill Center.” There you can find any piece of legislation by number (divided by House and Senate), if you happen to know it, or you can search by subject.

Click on the bill, and you get not only the bill text but the legislative history – where it is in the process, and how it got there – and the statement of purpose, which is a relatively plain-language brief description of what the bill is designed to do. Mostly, the SOPs are straightforward, though some are written as much to obscure as illuminate: So read them carefully. And there’s a fiscal note, if the legislation is expected to cost the state anything; sometimes the fiscal notes can become the subject of heated debate. Everyone with an interest in the legislature ought to prowl through the bill lists. And do read the bills of interest to you; they’re written in plain English (more or less), as either amendments or additions to the current law, or sometimes as repealers. Anything deleted has a strike-through on it, anything added is underlined. Sometimes the real intent is a little obscure, but that’s something legislators, lobbyists and reporters periodically struggle with too.

That alone is not a bad collection. The main thing missing, which some legislatures provide, is an alert letting you know when the next action on the measure is expected, if something has been scheduled. (Sometimes bills are sent to a committee and are, well, never heard from again.)

If you really want to bear down, you can look at the same thing legislators have been spending much of their time on these first few weeks of the session: Administrative rules. Legislators review them, and can kill them, during sessions, and there’s even a proposal to lock that role into the state constitution. (I think the state did just fine in the years before 1995 when legislators reviewed the rules simply when someone had an objection to one, but we’d be talking about the legislative giving up authority now.) Those rule books are all on line.

Reporters and everyone else used to rely on printed agendas for floor and committee action. They’re all posted online, and in the main reliably. And you can read the “progress report,” the number of bills and other measures introduced and passed this session compared to this point in the last five sessions. (This year, so far, they’re introducing more than last year but fewer than the years before.)

And then there’s watching the action. You can go to to the Idaho Public Television page www.idahoptv.org/insession/leg.cfm to watch the Senate or House floor action. Not all of the committee meetings are video streamed but many of them are, in the Lincoln Auditorium, the budget committee room and a House hearing room.

Read the legislative reports from journalists; you can get more and faster that way than by peering through the official reports. But those official reports can broaden and deepen your grasp of what’s going on.

RANDY STAPILUS   Idaho

An array of familiar Democratic faces turned up Tuesday at the Boise press conference where attorney Nels Mitchell announced his run for the Senate against Republican Jim Risch, but one in particular may have resonated for people familiar with recent Idaho politics.

He was Mike Burkett, a former state senator and like Mitchell an attorney. Also like him, he has run as a Democrat against Risch. What’s remarkable about Burkett is that he is one of the few people ever to beat Risch in a political contest.

That was in 1988, long before Risch was a U.S. senator, but at another time when he was powerfully positioned in the state, as Senate president pro tem. Risch then had been winning elections for 18 years (for county prosecutor, then senator) and had never lost one. He was very smart, disciplined, an excellent speaker and debater and (with his wife Vicki) a fine political strategist, and centrally positioned among Idaho Republicans in his points of view.

There was also a rap on him: That he was arrogant, loved to wield power, stepped on people. Respect was there; likability slipped over time. By 1986 Risch’s winning margin was 54 percent, not a marker of strength. In 1988 he made the mistake of backing a primary challenge to a sometimes obstreperous member of his caucus, Rachel Gilbert. Gilbert, as was her wont, shot back, describing Risch as a Statehouse power out to crush independent-minded people like her. She won her primary.

When Burkett ran against Risch that year, he played a role Gilbert could have scripted: As an outsider and an unknown with a small-town demeanor, which didn’t stop him from blasting Risch strongly, feeding the narrative of Risch as a powerful insider. Risch lost.

That of course was a quarter-century ago, and Idaho was a different place then, less Republican than now. Risch since has gone on to win more elections. (Disclaimer here: I was campaign manager for one of his opponents, in 2002.) The power-seeker rap wouldn’t work nearly as well now in the context of a U.S. Senate seat, where he’s one vote out of 100, and in the minority (at present), and working mostly outside the state. Continue Reading »

RANDY STAPILUS   Idaho

Governor C.L. “Butch” Otter’s state of the state speech last week was mostly a recitation of the familiar – education? Check; wolves? Check – but his reference to $15 million he’d like to spend on water projects seemed a little out of the blue.

“Water sustainability initiative projects”? Doesn’t sound very Otter-like.

And 2014 would seem to be a year when water matters settle down: This is likely to be the year a “final decree” is issued in the Snake River Basin Adjudication, which at last nails who has rights to what in Idaho water.

Throw in a few factors from here and there, though, and it does begin to fit.

There is, of course, the growing likelihood that this will be a parched water year.

Another was the reference to water not long after he spoke about economic growth in the Magic Valley. Many businesses setting up in that region either rely on a strong water supply, or rely on other businesses that do.

Idaho and its history are richly woven with water projects, the bulk of them more than 50 years old. The collapse of the last major project, the Teton Dam, seemed to slam the lid on big dams in Idaho.

Bear in mind that, although his proposal for $15 million was singled out in the speech and got a fair amount of media attention, the amount of money is, in context, small. To build a single large dam would cost hundreds of millions or even billions of dollars, one of the reasons so few have been built in recent decades. What Otter is proposing are much smaller-scale.

Those include (his budget book says) “acquiring water rights to provide a reliable water supply to Mountain Home Air Force Base ($4 million); conducting studies of the Rathdrum Prairie Aquifer to support the establishment of [city] water rights for long-term needs ($500,000); initiating environmental compliance and land exchange analysis for the Galloway Project ($2 million); completing Arrowrock enlargement and flood control feasibility study ($1.5 million); beginning Island Park Reservoir Enlargement Project ($2.5 million); developing computer infrastructure necessary for the operation of the Water Supply Bank ($500,000); and developing additional managed recharge capacity ($4 million).” Continue Reading »

RANDY STAPILUS   Idaho

Reviewing the top Idaho news stories of 2013, the Associated Press settled on the big fires of the fall, the monsters that burned and smoked so much of southern and central Idaho, as the biggest. It’s a reasonable choice.

The AP may do a repeat at the end of this year. One of the most important factors driving fire ferocity is how much water is on the ground, which depends heavily on how much snowpack developed the previous winter. As 2012 ended (three month’s into the standard “water year”), Idaho seemed not to be in bad shape. All but one of its 22 main river basins were running above, mostly well above, the normal precipitation for that time of year – the Salmon River at 126%, for example, the Little Wood at 147%, Henry’s Fork at 111%.

At the end of this year, every Idaho basin was running below average, below 100%. The Salmon was at 65%, the Little Wood at 47%, Henry’s Fork at 84%. Those are spooky numbers.

The precipitation could still turn around – and Idahoans had better hope it does. If not, Idaho could face not only more really bad fires, maybe a round of fires worse than last year’s, but significant drought as well come this summer.

As with water, so with much else: Many of the big stories of last year will have counterparts in 2014. Even the Boise State University football coach transition; from the fans’ perspective, definite eras ended last year and will commence next season. And the closing out of the Corrections Corporation of America management of a prison at Boise, which took a turn last year (as the state seemed to move away from private management of the prison it has operated) and is likely to reach its destination this next.

The area of Obamacare and health insurance exchanges will see a real mirror image, since up to this new year, everything was in the realm of preparation and transition, and that was a big story in the last few months. Now the practical effects of the new system come home, and that will have its own distinctive effects, on people’s lives and on politics.

And then there’s politics, where 2013 was in large part a prep for 2014.

More major candidates than usual announced full-throated campaigns well before 2013 was done, to the point that the shape of many of the major races next year in the state already are startlingly clear. The Tea Party and allied activists used 2013 as a major development period, and the battle for the Idaho Republican Party, between that group and what might be considered mainstream conservatives, is well set in place. At year’s end we’re set for significant Republican primary contests for a whole range of offices, from at least one congressional seat to governor, secretary of state and likely a good many more. Idaho Democrats too have a number of major candidates lined up.

We can’t yet know for sure how this will play out. In recent weeks I’ve repeatedly asked the question of which side likely will prevail on primary election day May 20 (and we certainly will get an answer then if not before). The overwhelming response I heard was that the Tea forces would fall well short of the mainstreeters, and some pointed to the November election results in Coeur d’Alene and Post Falls as evidence.

They may be right, but there’s often a disconnect between downtown Boise and activists outside. We still have months to go between here and there.

Let the tale of 2014 start to spin.

RANDY STAPILUS   Idaho

One of the biggest events any Idaho political campaign is likely to schedule for 2014 already is on the calendar. It was announced early in December to be held March 29 at the Idaho Center at Nampa, by the campaign of Lawerence Denney, Republican candidate for secretary of state, and it is called, “Happy, Happy, Happy: An Evening with A&E’s Duck Dynasty.”

At that announcement, the Dynasty – the Robertson clan, of Louisiana – were a popular attraction on A&E, especially though not exclusively in conservative circles. “They’re good family values people and we’re happy to have them coming,” Denney was quoted then.

Since, of course, the Dynasty has gotten new attention, and Phil Robertson specifically has become a cultural flashpoint. Many conservatives have rallied behind him; others have blasted him. His comments on gay people and on race, in GQ magazine and expanding elsewhere, are well enough known not to need a repeat here.

So far as I can tell (and please let me know if you find any other instances), Denney’s is the only political event in the country the Robertsons have scheduled for 2014. In a really unusual way, Denney and the Dynasty are wrapped tightly together. (First question: How is it that Denney, alone or nearly so among American politicians, got the Robertson’s singular attention? There’s a story, of some kind, in that.)

Whether Denney knew about or anticipated all this is unclear. The announcement of the Idaho event came in early December, so the the agreement to do it probably happened not far in advance of the recent blowup. And remember that GQ, like other magazines, works with its material for months in advance: The Robertson story was in development long before it went public earlier this month.

And then this about the Robertsons, their producers and other associates: Whatever else they are, they’ve proven themselves masters of self-promotion. There’s speculation that Phil Robertson’s quotables were carefully planned to blow up the Dynasty into a new level of cultural prominence. That’s not to say Robertson didn’t believe what he was saying, only that he may have been using it strategically – as smart media figures often do.

When you set off an explosion, however, the results can be unpredictable. Three months from now, the Dynasty may be bigger than ever. Or cut off at the knees, discredited in many quarters. Or there could be some other result. It’s hard to say. Continue Reading »

RANDY STAPILUS   Idaho

CLARIFICATION: The current megaload shipment across Oregon and Idaho originated in Portland, not in Asia. Other megaload shipments sent across Idaho earlier this year did originate in Asia.

Now that Idaho’s Highway 12 seems to have been closed off to megaload traffic, shipments have begun moving in other directions. And that changes the nature of the megaload debate.

Highway 12 was an unusual case. For a U.S. highway, that mountainous riverside stretch is challenging for even drivers of standard passenger cars, and highly challenging for drivers of semis and the like. The idea of an enormous 900,000­pound megaload, carrying huge pieces of equipment shipped from Asia and destined for the tar fields of Alberta traveling that road seemed, simply, like madness. As the joke would have it: What could go wrong? Well, plenty.

But now we have new routes for the megaloads, and they bring different kinds of questions.

Permits under review at the Idaho Transportation Department would allow for megaloads to run from Lewiston up Highway 95 to its intersection with I­90, on which it would run deep into Montana. Assuming the bridge issue can be finessed (the loads are so large they cannot fit underneath bridges), that might be a better alternative, since that stretch of U.S. 95 is now a better road than it once was for larger vehicles, and interstates are built with the idea of handling large loads.

Somewhere in between that and U.S. 12 is the peculiar shipment now underway, slowly, slowly, from the Port of Unatilla in eastern Oregon, to the Idaho border near Homedale, around Mountain Home, over to Arco, north to Salmon, and over the Lost Trail Pass on U.S. 93 into Montana.

Those of us who have driven these roads know them mostly – the bulk of their miles – as long, flat and straight. The desert countryside on much of the way can be spectacular, but most of the route is easy driving and relatively low risk. In most places drivers may be able to make their way around the megaload, something impractical almost anywhere along Highway 12. There are some exceptions, such as the road leading up to Lost Trail Pass and the stretch north of Mountain Home leading up into the Camas Prairie. These still are easier drives than Highway 12. Continue Reading »

RANDY STAPILUS   Idaho

There now being a partisan 2014 campaign for governor – at least one substantially-organized member of each major party – maybe the first thing to do is to fresh our memories of 2010.

The Democratic nominee that year was Keith Allred, a specialist in conflict resolution, a former faculty member at Harvard, a businessman, an Idaho native – he grew up around Twin Falls – and a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. He had never been a candidate for office before, but he had been involved in Idaho politics as a leader of the non-partisan group Common Interest, which had some successes at the Idaho Legislature. This fresh face was polished, articulate and seldom gaffed; he was obviously a very bright man, but carried that without projecting a sense of superiority.

He campaigned with some rigor, and pulled in support from across the aisle. The Republicans for Allred group may have had the most impressive roster of identifiably Republican members ever to cross parties in such a high-profile race, a string of well-respected former state senators and county officials among them.

Why was this long-avowed independent running as a Democrat? From his web site: “Like many Idahoans, my independent streak runs deep—I like good ideas and good leaders wherever they come from.  When the Democratic Party asked me to become their gubernatorial candidate, they told me that they were offering to enthusiastically support the sort of leadership I’ve provided at The Common Interest.” More there, in other words, about Democrats agreeing to support him, than about him supporting them and their agenda.

On election day, Allred pulled 32.8% of the vote, to Republican incumbent C.L. “Butch” Otter’s 59.1%. Holding Otter below a 60% true landslide was about as far as he could push it.
The other Democrats running for statewide office ranged from 24.9% to 39.5%, so Allred actually did a little better than average. But despite the many real pluses he brought, Allred in the end attracted few votes outside the Democratic base, though bipartisan support was supposed to be his big wild card.

This year’s new Democratic candidate for governor is A.J. Balukoff, a successful Boise businessman and a veteran member of the Boise School Board (meaning he has run for office, albeit nonpartisan). Apart from a biographical details, he has a lot in common with Allred – smart, presentable, a (to most of the state) fresh face. Bi-partisan (he was listed as a Republican supporter of Democrat Walt Minnick in 2008). Very strongly interested and active in education. Mormon. Articulate. Energetic. Continue Reading »

RANDY STAPILUS   Idaho

Next year, after you cast your vote for the high-profiled offices like governor and United States senator, your ballot will include choices of a non-partisan variety: For judges and (Supreme Court) justices.

Critics have been skeptical for a long time of putting the offices up to a popular vote, partly because of the difficulty in campaigning for them (talking about specific cases or legal issues is considered an ethical violation), and partly because of campaign finance issues (Who gives to judges who subsequently hear contributors’ cases?). But there’s also this: Many voters know little about the actual work that judges do, and in most cases have little useful basis for deciding whether for vote for them.

That last point, at least, comes with some solutions at hand. One of my regular weekly news stops is the web page at http://www.isc.idaho.gov/appeals-court/opinions. Let me suggest you bookmark it too.

What you’ll find there are the opinions – well, they’re more than just “opinions” since they’re binding rulings – by the Idaho Supreme Court and the Court of Appeals. Few people other than lawyers make them regular reading, which probably conveys the sense that they’re unreadable, or at least too legally wonkish to be accessible to the lay reader.
They’re not. And while some of them are of interest to not many more people than those directly involved (the Supreme Court hears a lot of worker compensation, property ownership and insurance liability cases), you get, after reading them for a time, an exposure to the real law and how it actually works. People who read the decisions probably will be a lot less likely to resort to bumper-sticker ideas about how the legal system works, and how appellate decisions are developed.

Most of the opinions aren’t very many pages long, and I’m not suggesting reading all the pages anyway. Most of them are structured so that you can get the gist in the first paragraph of the decision, where the decision writer describes what the case is about, what the legal issues are, and usually (although sometimes they save this for the end), how the court ruled.

Here’s an example, from November 27, in a criminal case: “Appellant Zane J. Fields was sentenced to death for first degree murder on March 7, 1991. On July 28, 2011, Fields filed his sixth successive petition for post-conviction relief in the Ada County district court. He raised claims of actual innocence, prosecutorial misconduct, and violations of the right to counsel, due process, and the right to a fair trial. The district court granted the State’s motion to dismiss Fields’s petition because his claims were barred by I.C. § 19-2719(5), the statute governing post-conviction procedure in capital cases. Fields now appeals the district court’s dismissal of his petition. We affirm.” If that catches your interest, if it raises questions you’d like answered, read on (in this case, for seven more pages where the details are fleshed out).

The decisions also note which justice or judge is the main author, though as they would quickly point out the text has to be written as a compromise – something that will get support from most of the court. But then, you also see which justices signed on, and which if any didn’t.

Here’s why doing this is helpful to voters: You can start to understand the reasoning the justices and judges bring. In ways you can’t as effectively do with most other office holders, you can trace their chain of logic, and you can decide whether it makes sense to you.

You’d also get an insight into a lot of parts of society – not just crime and law enforcement but business, families, charities and the way people interact with each other generally – that depending on your background may really open your eyes.

For what it’s worth, I’ve generally agreed with the justices’ logic, from time to time concluding they blew it. Would those be your opinions? Read them and see.

This exercise is good for the Idaho Supreme Court and Court of Appeals, but less so for district judges and magistrate courts, where web posting of decisions generally is far less frequent. A suggestion: Encourage judges there to do as the appellates do. The voters will then at least have the opportunity to make more informed choices than they realistically can now.

RANDY STAPILUS   Idaho

Thanksgivings abound on the part of those who write about Idaho politics – directed at the political figure of the moment, Russ Fulcher. With his decision to run for governor against incumbent C.L “Butch” Otter, politics in Idaho took on some new coloration.

Maybe the challenges of the activist outsiders like Fulcher and (for the second district congressional seat) Bryan Smith will collapse by primary day. But as of late 2013, the raw materials are there for a really competitive showdown that could send Idaho politics, post-2014, sailing off in some new directions.

Caveats must be noted. Otter, who has won every primary and general election contest he has entered with one exception (for governor, in 1978) over four decades, is a strong campaigner. Fulcher is not nearly so experienced and may not be as strong on the stump (though we’ll find out more about that). Otter will have a well-organized and well-funded campaign, likely better than Fulcher’s on both counts. In 2012 organized cadres of activist candidates ran against incumbents for a number of legislative seats, and in Idaho’s second U.S. House district, and they most failed, often without coming close to a win. There’s a fair argument that 2014 could do the same.

And you can make the point that there’s not much real policy difference between the two sides here. Fulcher is campaigning as a libertarian, small-budget critic of the federal government and President Obama; that is different from Otter, who has campaigned in the same essential ways (allowing for changes in the presidency) for 40 years, exactly how? Continue Reading »