Posts published in “Idaho column”

I shouldn’t let the year end without following up on a column from one year ago last week, intended then as a bit of advice and also as a cautionary note.

My column probably had nothing to do with it, but the two newly-elected Idaho officials I wrote about – Secretary of State Lawrence Denney and Superintendent of Public Instruction Sherri Ybarra – have turned out better than a lot of people, including me, were expecting.

Both had given good reasons for low expectations.

Denney was a former speaker of the House whose track record was so widely criticized that House Republicans did what no majority caucus had done to a speaker in generations: Booted him from the office. A lot of Republicans in official positions, including the last SecState, Ben Ysursa, signed up with one of the other primary contestants. Concerns were that, in this office where careful record-keeping and down-the-middle fairness were essential (and had been observed for a very long time), Denney would staff up with political hacks and turn the office sharply partisan.

None of that has happened.

Denney has not been a notably controversial figure in 2015, and his office appears to be running on track. He took some flack for his handling of a bill that passed in the legislature, was rejected by Governor C.L. “Butch” Otter but appeared to have missed the veto deadline. Denney sided with Otter; the Supreme Court ruled the other way, but the case was intricate, and Denney adhered to the court’s decision. His handling of this may not have been perfect, but was reasonable. His bigger test will come in the upcoming election season, but year one set a positive tone.

Ybarra was an unusual case of an out-of-nowhere candidate, with little visible organized support, winning first the primary and then the general, surprising a lot of people both times. While she had sound professional background as an educator, she had little to none in the world of education administration, state finance and politics, and ran a campaign that seemed out of touch with almost everyone. The job of a state superintendent is not teaching in a classroom; it has to do with managing budgets, mucking around in the arcane world of education policy, crafting and shepherding legislation and effectively working with a range of interest groups. The Idaho school superintendent doesn’t have a lot of power. Mostly, that person has clout to the extent it can be projected with persuasion, alliances and analysis. Ybarra showed little of that capability in the campaign.

Once in office, though, she began to do that. In the last year, a superintendent’s office formerly highly ideological has moved into working smoothly and professionally with educators and others around the state, taking a lead in solving a string of inherited problems (school broadband, a really tough nut, maybe most notable) and finding more broadly acceptable policy choices.

Why did they do so much better than expected?

A year ago, I made five suggestions. First, keep most of the existing staff in place so the office keeps running. Second, spend plenty of time in the office to get a feel for how it operates. Third, collect a group of people with expertise in the area from outside and set them up as an informal sounding board. The last two applied most strongly to Ybarra: reach out to the constituencies concerned with your office, and reach out to the public on any policy directions you’re planning.

But both of them seem to have done these things, to one degree or another. Both seem to have taken the work of their offices seriously and not used them as personal or ideological soapboxes.

Sometimes, now and again, what you elect turns out better than you expect.

When the Idaho Legislature convenes next month, it will have to place its bets on the sales tax, just as the League of Women Voters already has.

The reason is a proposed initiative just released by the Idaho League of Women Voters “reducing the sales tax rate and broadening the sales tax base.” It does that most basically, by reducing the overall rate from six percent to five, and by extending the coverage of the tax to include not just many goods but also many services, which generally have been exempt.

The whole matter of sales tax exemptions has been a heavily chewed-over bone throughout the tax’s half-century in Idaho. When passed amid high controversy in 1965, the sales tax started (originally at three percent) with few exemptions, though it didn’t reach to include services. Over the 50 or so legislative sessions since, few have adjourned without some adjustment to the tax, generally by way of exempting someone or something. Lobbyists have kept busy in Boise on that front for decades.

And just as busy blocking the periodic attempts (they seem to average about one a decade) to scale back some of the exemptions, which from time to time have been the subject of study committees, sometimes legislative. Many legislators over the years have argued that the exemptions are just too many, that almost everyone who comes before the legislature asking to be exempted gets their way. Not everyone has, but the list of happy exemptees is long.

There are good reasons for some exemptions, especially in cases where the same product, because it’s passed along through a supply and delivery chain, might be taxed multiple times. (That is why retailers do not pay a sales tax when they buy from suppliers, though they collect it upon sale to consumers.) There are other rational arguments as well, though you can move quickly into the murky waters of rationalization.

In addition to the risk of advantaging the exempted over the payers in places where they may be in competition, there’s the simple money equation: Exempt a transaction from sales tax and you’re bringing in less money. The League’s proposal, driven by decades of legislative refusal to meaningfully revisit the exemption roster, makes the point. It is able to reduce the tax by one cent on the dollar and still raise an estimated $424 million more than at present, by removing a number of exemptions and covering many services.

That is not all the 20-page initiative does; it is a highly complex piece of tax legislating, and would be one of the more complex initiatives put on the Idaho ballot in many years. If it goes to ballot, a careful parsing will be called for.

If the signatures for it can be obtained – and the guess here is that a competent effort will get them – will it be passed by voters? It can after all be presented as a tax reduction measure (even if it does wind up generating more tax revenue). It might even be presented as property tax relief, if some of the money were used to replace local property tax levies for schools. It would be bitterly opposed, but the chances of passage are not bad.

So, we get to betting time, as the legislature convenes while the initiative petition signature effort begins. The best way the legislature could cut the initiative off at the pass would be to approve substantial sales tax exemption revisions this session. The point of an initiative is to do what a legislature would not; if the legislature shows it can act, the initiative may become moot. If they essentially ignore the initiative, legislators may give it an extra boost.

The League is betting too, on passage: If signatures cannot be gotten, or if the initiative fails at the polls, exemption changes may be dead for another decade, or two.

Some high stakes are emerging here.

What's indisputable about the shooting incident north of Council is the assessment by Lieutenant Governor Brad Little, that, “It’s an absolute tragedy.”

Try to get a lot more specific than that, and you rapidly find questions outnumbering answers - and that is a problem. We only know part of what happened that night.

Little told the Idaho Statesman, “The issue is the attorneys for the Yantis family are going out and painting a picture, and the sheriff’s deputies, the sheriff, the Attorney General’s Office, the State Police have got protocols that they’ve got to follow. And nature abhors a vacuum.”

The clear part of the case is that in the evening of November 1 a motorist collided on Highway 95 north of Council with a large bull. Neither emerged well; the humans were taken to a hospital, and the bull’s leg was shattered. Two Adams County Sheriff’s deputies arrived at the scene, and the bull’s owner, Jack Yantis, was asked to come by to put the bull down. Not long after he and family members arrived, he was shot to death. His wife had a heart attack and also was hospitalized.

The Yantis family, through an attorney, has as Little noted provided a description of the missing pieces of the story.

On Tuesday night Adams County Sheriff Ryan Zollman spoke to a crowd of about 300 (that’s more than a third of Council’s population), but said he himself lacked answers to many of the questions, since the investigation is being run mainly through the Idaho State Police.

He didn’t name the two deputies involved (figuring out who they are probably wouldn’t be hard in such a small county anyway) but did say both were experienced, one with five years in law enforcement, the other with 15. So much for the “couple of wet-behind-the-ears rookies” theory.

Body cameras have been issued to officers in the county, which raises the hope that the incident may have been fully captured - exactly the kind of incident where cameras could help establish just what did happen. But Zollman said he didn’t know if the officers were wearing them.

They keynote comment, though, the one explaining why 300 people in such a small town showed up and felt the way they did, may have come from the member of the audience who said this:

“If you’re so committed to the safety of the community, then why am I so scared?”

The tragic nature of what happened is obvious, and there are good reasons for questioning what the deputies did and why they did it. That’s one argument for the Idaho State Police and others investigating to share with the public as much information as they can, as soon as they can.

Because there’s also this: The news media has been full of reports in recent months about law enforcement shootings and violence around the country, and Council is one of those places where the message goes forth on a very regular basis, from media, organizations and politicians, that government isn’t to be trusted.

The Council shooting probably is more an aberration of some kind than part of a pattern. If that’s the case, and state officials want to make that point, they should waste no time releasing the results of their investigation.

In 1985 one of Boise’s most significant mayors, Richard Eardley, was wrapping up a record 12 years in office, his third term, and mulling whether to run for a fourth. He didn’t.

Those were the days of the downtown mall wars, and Eardley had been through the wringer. He was no doubt getting tired of the conflict and the stress, and his long-held vision for developing Boise was being overturned. But there was also this: He probably wouldn’t have won, and he likely knew that. In that year’s mayoral election, a city councilman allied with Eardley lost decisively to a first-time candidate named Dirk Kempthorne, who was aligned with an opposition group.

Last week, Boise did what it never has done before in electing a mayor to a fourth four-year term. (Long-ago Mayor James A. Pinney won five terms, but those lasted just two years each.) David Bieter, first elected in 2003, not only won for a fourth time (breaking Eardley’s record for tenure) but won big, with more than two-thirds of the vote, against an experienced opponent who herself had won local elective office several times.

What accounts for Bieter’s track record?

It isn’t that all of his proposals or policies have been popular, though some have. Mention “downtown streetcar” and even many of Bieter’s friends will back away. But many of his efforts have been popular enough. The Boise foothills levy, also on the ballot Tuesday, won almost three-fourths of the vote.

Bieter seldom has gotten very far away from what most of the voters in Boise find acceptable. He has been a likable and presentable face for the city. And while he has accumulated some complainers over time, they have never amounted to numbers large enough to take him out. He may make proposals, but he doesn’t go on crusades; he has been active in office, but nothing seems to have worn him down, or out. And while he has never been a great orator, Bieter does have solid political and campaigning skills.

Next door to Boise, in Meridian - Idaho’s third-largest city - Mayor Tammy de Weerd was re-elected, by a margin even greater than Bieter’s (though her opposition was slighter). She too was first elected in 2003, and last week won a fourth term. She too has been an active mayor - could hardly be otherwise in a city growing as fast as Meridian has - but rarely has been very controversial.

Is a fourth term the limit? Is a still longer run realistic?

In many smaller cities, where the bench of prospective candidates may be smaller, mayors sometimes serve for several decades. In larger cities, shorter runs are the norm, if only because many more people may be interested in the job.

Still, cast your eyes a few miles over, to Caldwell, where Garret Nancolas is now in the middle of his fifth term as mayor, having won that term two years ago with 65 percent of the vote.

A dozen years would seem to be plenty to hold such an office, much less 16. But in the end, it’s up to the voters, and to candidates who continue to find ways of appealing to them.

The campaign finance reports that tend to get most attention are those for the big offices, for governor or for Congress (not to mention president). That’s understandable.

But you can find the reports for many Idaho cities too, and sometimes they show you information useful in deciding where your vote should go.

Cities weren’t included when the state’s voters passed the Sunshine Initiative in 1974, but in 1982 the legislature added elective offices - mayor and council - for cities over 16,000 in population to the requirements. In 2004, more cities were added: Those with a population over 5,000.

That means it covers 32 Idaho cities, the smallest of those being Preston; Weiser and Rupert are the next largest to be included. Fruitland, Shelley and American Falls just missed the cutoff.

The details of reporting have been changed, by the legislature, over the years. This year, for example, House Bill 112 changed the rule covering late contributions. It (according to a Secretary of State’s report) “requires all political committees to report within 48 hours all contributions of $1,000 or more received after the 16 th day before, but more than 48 hours before Election Day (as is currently required for candidates). The bill takes effect July 1, 2015.”

Many of the cities post the campaign contribution reports online, which means easy access for voters.

Boise’s Mayor David Bieter, who’s running for a fourth term, has his most current one (the seven-day pre-general report) at http://cityclerk.cityofboise.org/media/310646/bieter7daypregeneral.pdf. It shows substantial contributions indeed, more than $180,000. You could find a lot to look at there. His main opponent, Judy Peavey-Derr, showed contributions of a little more than $15,000. Among other things, this may give you some idea how the race is likely to shape up on election night.

Fine. But does all this tell you anything useful, assuming you’re one of the minority of eligible voters planning to cast a ballot?

It can. On Friday, for example, the Idaho Press-Tribune at Nampa reported that, “The largest contributions to this year’s city council elections in Nampa and Caldwell have come from real estate, construction and development groups.” It proceeded to tell who received how much from who.

That’s of interest and meaningful, especially in growing communities like Nampa and Caldwell. Who are these contributors, what sort of work would they like to do in these cities, and what kind of relationships might they be trying to build? What might that mean for the kind of cities Nampa and Caldwell may become a few years from now?

You don’t have to assume corruption or foul play in asking these questions: The answers could be good ones, depending on your point of view. But they are likely to matter, and could influence your voting choices - in fact, the reporting laws were designed with that in mind. Substantial contributions to city candidates from businesses or other organizations with concerns before a city government tend not to materialize simply because a candidate seems to be a nice guy.

There are implications here, maybe good, maybe bad, which voters taking their job responsibly ought to try to understand.

Is testing becoming less central to Idaho education policy?

Not so long ago, at least in Idaho political circles and very often at the legislature, all the discussion about schools seemed to center around making them “accountable.” In a general sense, of course, they have been accountable for many decades, with records of many kinds kept: Graduation rates, SAT scores, attendance records, grades and much, much more. You won’t easily come up with a major institution in our society much more accountable than schools traditionally have been. But what was really meant, in this discussion from, say, a decade ago, was aggressively scheduled and high-stakes testing.

The exact structure of testing on the table has changed some over the years, from “no child left behind” (ironically named, since the way it was structured it did leave behind whole schools that didn’t score well enough) to Common Core. Budgets and salaries were on the line when students put pencils to paper.

The idea that parents and taxpayers, not to mention citizens in our society who need an educated public as a broader matter of social good, should have an idea of how well schools are doing their job seemed reasonable. It still does, but those of us outside schools and setting policy (as voters or in some more direct capacity) never figured out the metrics - another way of way of saying we haven’t been clear about what we want schools to accomplish. I’ve long thought, for example, that serious civics education should be a core part of the public school experience. But we generally have never had discussions about things like that, political discussions since this is a logical subject for our politics. We’ve wound up with basic-level testing on math and English, teaching to the test, and a compression of what students learn (goodbye arts, for example) and what we emphasize in class.

Over-emphasis on this kind of accountability can and does short-change students.

Gradually, some shaking up seems to be underway.

Last week, the Idaho Board of Education said it would waive two key requirements for a big Common Core test that was tried this spring but whose results have proven hard to compile, even five months later. The test has been administered in many states, but criticism of it has grown, and some Idahoans even have filed a federal lawsuit to quash it. The lawsuit has an iffy states-rights basis, but it may cause a number of Idaho political people to take second and third looks at the testing regime.

And nationally, the number of states running the tests has dropped from 18 to 15, according to Idaho Ed News.

And IEN points out that the Boise School District board last month “unanimously approved a resolution calling for working alongside the Idaho School Boards Association, the Idaho Legislature and the State Department of Education to “consider adopting other testing measures in lieu of the SBAC that will have the primary goal of improving instruction without overburdening Idaho classrooms.” If Boise’s proposal gains momentum, it could serve as the catalyst to a major policy and testing debate during the 2016 legislative session.”

The dialogue is changing. Testing won’t go away, nor should it, but its role at the center of education policy may get some adjustment in years to come.