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Posts published in “Idaho”

Blunt force

Ringo speaks
Representative Shirley Ringo speaks on the school bill/vidcap, IdahoPTV.org

Both the Idaho House vote and the debate on Senate Bill 1108, a key bill on the school proposal by Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Luna, were lopsided. The vote was 48-22 in favor, and the debate, like most of the preceding public comment, was mostly in opposition - and the debate in favor was mainly defensive, only sporadically addressing the virtues of the bill.

Chief sponsor Representative Bob Nonini, R-Coeur d'Alene, said in his closing remarks (as several other supporters did) that this bill was not intended as a teacher-bashing or Idaho Education Association-basing measure, and that he could look across the aisle at the Democrats - who were all opposed - and see that they simply didn't believe that. (And attempts to rebut the idea that the bill was anti-teacher were the core of the pro-bill arguments.)

Nonini was doubtless right about that, and there are reasons for the skepticism.

The bill was pitched this way: "This legislation returns decision-making powers to locally elected school boards and creates a more professional and accountable work force." That was the core of the argument Nonini did present.

The problem is that by dictating a new set of process and procedure, it effectively eliminates quite a bit of local decision-making.

It was also delivered by Luna with the argument that the state cannot afford public schools under the existing system. But Representative Grant Burgoyne, D-Boise, rebutted that while state government is doing less and less of the job of funding public schools - the one job specifically assigned to it by the Idaho Constitution - local property taxpayers each year pick up the slack by approving increasingly onerous property tax override levies.

As to the teachers, the bill opponents delivered an extensive bill of goods, so much so that quite a few points went unaddressed by bill supporters.

The bill eliminates teacher collective bargaining on any topic be compensation. But Representative Shirley Ringo, D-Moscow, pointed out that it even does away with that, as a matter of practice. The bill provides that if negotiations don't yield an agreement by mid-June each year, the board can unilaterally impose its own decision on that subject. Since it has the easy hammer of running out the clock, negotiations would be a farce at most.

The case that it was aimed squarely at shattering the Idaho Education Association (traditionally a major backer of Democratic candidates), was - as Nonini's protest absent countering specifics underlined - quite strong. And the critics, mostly though not exclusively Democrats, made the point.

Representative Brian Cronin: "I've come to the inevitable and irrefutable conclusion that this bill has nothing to do with student achievement ... This bill intends to dismantle the Idaho Education Association and put teachers in their place, and make sure that teachers are silenced ... Its purpose couldn't be clearer to the naked eye."

"Managing by fear and intimidation is ultimately a failing strategy," Burgoyne said, and the bill will turn teachers into adversaries instead of partners in education.

Representative Elaine Smith, D-Pocatello, also pointed out that this bill emerges at the same time as a national effort to go after public employee collective bargaining (a point a couple of pro-bill Republicans actually alluded to as well): "I believe 1108 is Idaho's reaction to this national movement."

The strongest Republican argument, and it was quite clear, came from Representative Leon Smith, R-Twin Falls: "This is very mean-spirited bill ... It turns teachers into powerless pawns in this political system."

The bill has now cleared the legislature, and awaits only Governor C.L. "Butch" Otter's near-certain (he being one of the original backers of the proposal) signature.

UPDATE A comment from the ordinarily conservative Dave Oliveria at the Spokesman-Review's Huckleberries blog: "If Idahoans let the GOP get away with its trashing of public education, then all those polls that show that this state cherishes education are nonsense." Two thoughts: 1. The new vote does not mark a change in direction for the Republicans in Idaho, just an extension of it. 2. There's often a distinction between what one thinks, and what one is willing to go to bat for.

Taking away the people’s rights … really

Last fall during the campaign, one of the odder policy ideas associated with a lot of Tea Party candidates (including new Idaho Representative Raul Labrador) was the repeal of the 17th amendment. That was the change that allowed the voters, as opposed to state legislators, to choose the United States senators from the states. You might think that a movement purportedly concerned with individual liberty would have a problem with that, but evidently not.

When the subject came up during congressional debates, Labrador's basic response was to brush it aside as something that would obviously never happen - it was no more than a hypothetical.

So. On Tuesday just such a proposal - nonbinding, but calling on Congress for action - was proposed to the Idaho House State Affairs Committee by Representative Pete Nielsen, R-Mountain Home. And it was not a wishy-washy statement; it said that “The electoral process for choosing a United States Senator has devolved into a chaos of pettifoggery, populism, bribery, cronyism, demagoguery, outside influences and outside money that unfairly favors the rich or connected.” It said that “A Senator no longer is responsible to his State, nor to the populace that elected him.”

But would be, presumably, if the legislators and not the voters had sole control. What actually happened, of course, when the system was set up that way, was massive corruption in legislatures from coast to coast, and in the Senate as well. But there are moneyed interests who'd prefer it that way.

The State Affairs Committee declined to introduce it. But six Republican legislators voted in favor. (The minutes, for determination of who they were, unfortunately isn't yet available.)

Keep this in mind the next time you hear talk about "freedom and liberty" from these people.

Idaho Republicans get closure

This will be of high interest. The long-awaited opinion from Federal District Judge Lynn Winmill out today says that the Idaho Republican Party can insist that only declared members can participate in their primaries.

This case presents the question whether the State of Idaho’s use of an open primary system to determine nominees for the general election violates the Idaho Republican Party’s First Amendment rights. Because the open primary permits substantial numbers of independent voters, as well as voters associated with other political parties, to “cross over” and participate in the Republican Party’s selection of its nominees, the Court concludes that, by mandating such a nomination process, the State violates the Party’s constitutionally guaranteed right to freedom of association.

The Idaho Republican Party and its Chairman, Norm Semanko, brought this action against Idaho Secretary of State Ben Ysursa, to challenge the State of Idaho’s use of an open primary to select candidates for the general election. Several interested groups have been permitted to intervene, including: (1) a group of Idaho registered voters who do not align themselves with any political party, and who consider themselves independents; (2) the American Independent Movement of Idaho, LLC (“AIM”); and (3) the Committee for a Unified Independent Party, Inc. (“CUIP”). Motion to Intervene, Dkt. 3. Neither the Democratic Party nor the Libertarian Party, both of which have had nominees selected using Idaho’s open primary over the last 5 election cycles, have sought leave to intervene in this suit.

This isn't a surprise; we've remarked in this space about the realistic possibility the case might go this way. It may come as a shock to quite a few Idahoans accustomed to voting in whichever primary they like. And it is likely to worry a lot of Republican elected officials, who have not been among those pushing for this - conservative activists in the Republican Party have been.

While the point of a members-only approach can be dealt with on a freedom of association level, which is what Winmill seemed mainly to do, some other arguments didn't hit a high enough threshold. There's been the argument, for example, that allowing in non-Republicans may have altered the outcome of a number of Republican primaries. The evidence is limited, but he did accept the simple, on-its-face evidence (from the defendants) that crossover voting does occur, in volume, as a matter of common sense in a state so heavily dominated by one party.

He also pulled up a fun chart showing the number of contested Republican as opposed to Democratic primaries, election by election. In 2010, there were 31 contested Republican primaries, and two Democratic; in 2008, 28 Republican and no Democratic; in 2006, 27 Republican and one Democratic, and so on for the last two decades.

And, "Thus, even if we use the most conservative estimate of 10% crossover voting, with only a small number of partisan raiders, the effects can be devastating to a party."

The ruling appears to apply only to a political party that declares that it wants to limit participation in its primaries to declared members. Idaho Democrats and Libertarians evidently are not so bound.

The GOP activists who sought a closed primary got their wish. Interesting now, come the next election cycle (and there is of course plenty of time to implement this by 2012), how the results shake out. How many Idahoans register as Republicans? And what of those who, despite casting routine Republican votes up to now, choose not to?

James McClure

McClure
James McClure

In 1978 the Idaho State Journal newspaper was running profiles of candidates for office, and to illustrate them, in addition to pictures, we had caricatures of the candidates drawn by the staff cartoonist (which the paper actually had back then). How to caricature the Republican Senate incumbent, James McClure, then seeking his second term in the Senate? He didn't lend to easy caricature; what we came up with, which still seems about right, was an image of a small-town lawyer.

McClure, who died in Boise Saturday, seemed to fit that. He was not hard to picture on the streets of Payette, where he was raised and practiced law for some years; there was a low-key manner about him that fit the smaller picture more than the larger. Serious, but not over-intense; he could talk and work cordially, it seemed, with almost anyone (a bigger compliment in these days than it would have been thought back then). Not exactly a wonk, though he was plenty well-informed, but concerned with details - you could equally see him parsing a contract or a piece of legislation. A conservative whose standing as such was never questioned, but most especially grounded - more and more, it seemed, as the years went by - in the practical effects of what he was doing. One flexible enough to develop a wilderness proposal for Idaho with Democratic Governor Cecil Andrus. A small-town lawyer as naturally-skilled legislator.

It was one of the differences in politics in those days that a person of such calm demeanor, not flamboyant and not a bomb thrower of any kind, could do so well in politics. He was as successful in Idaho politics as anyone, ever - never lost an election from campaigns for county prosecutor in the 50s through his last Senate run in 1984, and served 24 years in Congress - and for quite while was a major figure in the Senate as well. He was a pivotal figure in Idaho, as well, uniting various conservative strands that had been in conflict with each other, and starting the move in Northern Idaho from its historic Democratic base toward Republican allegiance.

In 2007 an authorized biography, McClure of Idaho, came out and outlines the details of what McClure did. When reviewed here, one passage about McClure the person stood out:

“You need to know that Jim McClure fancies himself as the consummate do-it-yourselfer. He did all the wiring and plumbing and heating installations in his Payette house during the years when it was undergoing remodeling, and he did the same thing in his cabin on Payette Lake outside of McCall. There isn’t anything around a house that he thinks he can’t install or repair.”

A lot of today's legislators could do worse than to be so described.

A locus of cowardice, and courage

The Associated Press reports that after the Senate State Affairs Committee voted down the nullification (which is what it was) bill on Friday, pro-nullification activist Lori Shewmaker, of the group Idahoans for Liberty, took verbal shots at the senators on their way out. One by one, she called out to them, "Coward."

Which was ironic in the deepest sense: It was a demonstration of what some of those senators' votes were much closer to true profiles in courage.

The point here isn't so much about the virtues in the measure, which are altogether lacking - even if you want to see the 2010 federal health care law overturned (as we, here, do not), the effective way to attack it, as Idaho already is, is through the courts. The Supreme Court will have its say on that eventually. The idea that states can independently decide which federal laws they will obey and which not is so old and so regularly discredited over so many years that, like clothes fashions, it's new again. At least in Idaho. But put aside whether the bill was a good one.

The most active core of the right in Idaho is plenty enthusiastic about it. Idahoans for Liberty, which began as a Ron Paul support group, slogans "U.S. Constitution (every issue, every time)" - except, apparently, when it comes to providing health care. On their 2010 endorsement page, atop the list of endorsed candidates, you'll find this note: "I personally agree with the idea that some of the candidates running under the Independent or Constitution parties would, in some cases, be better choices, but they have little chance of winning. That, in turn, would take votes away from the Republican candidates. The better option is to change the Republican party from within."

Brought around to 2012, that will mean running candidates against any Republicans who go crosswise with them, and based on the 2010 Tea Party track record, there seems little doubt such primaries will be ferociously prosecuted.

So while the State Affairs Democrats' (Edgar Malepeai, Michelle Stennett) no votes on the bill made sense, they were not career-threateners - no one would have expected the Democrats to vote otherwise. The vote by the Republicans - Brent Hill, Bart Davis, Curt McKenzie, John McGee and Patti Anne Lodge (who was surrounded by the outraged as the meeting adjourned), was another matter. (Two others, Russ Fulcher, a bill sponsor, and Chuck Winder, voted for the bill.) They looked directly into the fury- not too strong a word, the audience overall was very much angrily in favor of the bill - and voted to its contrary. And even though probably none were in favor of the health care bill.

One man told Hill, just before angrily walking off, “You know we're left with no alternative but to defend ourselves.” Now that has an ominous sound to it.

Which may be just politically ominous, and certainly does suggest the shape of Republican primaries in Idaho this next cycle. So: Which Republicans on State Affairs showed some guts, those who ran with the angry crowd or those who stood up to it?

Elements of an interstate agenda

What's under discussion here, just to get it out of the way, isn't a conspiracy. Activity that's coordinated or in alignment isn't necessarily conspiratorial. Coordination and alignment, though, do seem to be in play.

The thought coalesced around a blog post by Mike Konczal, a fellow with the Roosevelt Institute, about what he saw as "a Three-Part Roadmap for Conservative State Governance." The main pieces are "Cutting Government Services," "Defund and Delegitimize Public Workers" (mainly through cutbacks on collective bargaining and benefits) and "Privatizing [State Government] Assets" (including much more contracting-out). Konxzal suggests, "Notice that each of these objectives overlap with each other. Privatizing services cuts public workers out while crony deals, skimming and poor services creates distrust in the government, leading to a negative feedback loop."

Some of these moves inevitably would be on the table in a tight budget season (some service cutbacks are on the table in Democratic-dominated Washington and Oregon), but to what extent have they been front and center in states where Republicans have gained political control in last year's elections?

It closely describes Wisconsin, certainly. It describes initial moves by the new Republican leaders in places like Ohio, Michigan, Indiana, Florida and some other states. Last week's prank phone call to the unwary Governor Walker clearly established both that national corporate funding was heavily involved in the policy-making, and that a string of other states were also involved (Walker mentioned conversations on the policy attack with a number of other Republican governors, including some who have backed off, a bit).

The prank call was set up as a call from one of the billionaire Koch brothers, a key funder of Walker and quite a few other conservatives - and a call which, even in sensitive moments, Walker apparently was quick to take.

Has this some relevance to the Northwest? One Republican Facebook friend ironically commented, "Oh for goodness sake ... don't give away our grand conspiracy, we've just begun!"

But you don't have to get into tin foil hat territory to find some connections.

Check back on those three core actions tenets, and consider what's been front and center at the Idaho Legislature this year. Not just the service and pay cuts, which to some extent at least are understandable as responsive to revenue shortfalls; but also actions such as slicing away at the main remaining union in the state, the Idaho Education Association, in an education overhaul proposal.

Governor C.L. "Butch" Otter (one of the forces behind the education program) has posted a full-throated defense of Walker on a national Republican governors website: "For too long, elected leaders like Governor Walker, who are responsible and accountable to our citizens, have been virtually held hostage by the outdated and costly demands of public employees’ unions. We live in a republic, and there is room for all voices to be heard — within the context of an open public process, not in the context of entitlement-driven protests, work stoppages and disruption of the people’s business.” (h/t here to Kevin Richert.) Idaho certainly seems of a piece with Wisconsin.

Concerning Washington, on the Slog, David Goldstein notes:

As was reported last fall on HA (and very little anywhere else), the Koch brothers, through their Tea Party associated front group, Americans for Prosperity, spent hundreds of thousands of dollars helping Republican Jaime Herrera win election in Washington's 3rd Congressional District this past November... even after shutting down a mill and outsourcing over 300 jobs in her home town of Camas!

And my friend Kirby Wilbur—the newly elected chair of the Washington State Republican Party—he ran the Washington chapter of Americans for Prosperity this past election year, overseeing questionable (and quite possibly illegal) campaign finance and reporting activities on behalf of the Kochs.

So if you think what's going on in Wisconsin under Koch-toady Gov. Scott Walker, couldn't happen here under say, Governor Rob McKenna... well... you might want to look for my feature in next week's edition of The Stranger.

Less in Oregon, where the Wisconsin agenda hasn't really surfaced in any major way (as it hasn't, in major or practical ways, in Washington).

However. Last week at a political blogger gathering in Portland the question arose: Suppose Republican Chris Dudley had narrowly won instead of lost the governor's race, and Republicans had won the three more legislative seats needed to win both Senate and House. (Not very many votes would have been needed for such a shifts.) Supposing that: Would the Wisconsin agenda be on the table in Oregon? The prevailing view seemed to be that it probably would be; and the same emerged when we posted the question on Facebook.

It's not Wisconsin by itself. This is a national thing.

The web, the connections

Since our post some days back about some of the financial contributions and corporate ties between those involved with public school administration and strategy in Idaho - the links between Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Luna, the education business K12, the Albertson Foundation and others - we've fielded a clutch of additional emails on the subject. The list of particulars has grown to an impressive length.

We may revisit it, putting some of those pieces in place. If we do, one of the main initial outlines will be an Associated Press story out of Boise by John Miller, probably the best single explanatory news article from Idaho so far this year, pulling together in clear terms how many of these pieces fit together. It's a little longish, but click the link and take the time to read it, now. Among other things, your sense of what the high-profile, much-admired and highly-influential J.A. and Kathryn Albertson Foundation has become and is about, may change forever.

It is compelling, essential reading - especially if you're from Idaho. Useful even if not, because this kind of thing is going on in many more places as well.

Sources of emotion

Imagine that you have, scattered around your state, sworn police officers who have reason to arrest someone violating a state law, but are barred from taking them to court - to pursuing action against them. There you have the situation of the tribal police in Idaho. And there, after a vote in the Idaho House today which could have changed matters, the situation remains.

The statement of purpose of House Bill 111 says that it "authorizes law enforcement officers employed by a federally recognized Indian tribe in Idaho to exercise powers given to peace officers pursuant to, and in accordance with, the laws of the state of Idaho, within the
boundaries of the reservation of the tribe employing the law enforcement officer" - allows a tribal officer to enforce state law inside the reservation (doesn't cover enforcement outside of it). And, "There is no negative fiscal impact to state or local government. The Indian tribe bears the expense of POST training under current law, which will continue. Positive fiscal impacts may result from the addition of qualified law enforcement officers employed by a federally recognized Indian tribe within the state of Idaho in the Indian reservation rural areas, without county or city expense."

If you're interested in stronger law enforcement, without even raising taxes, this should seem to be up your alley. It was backed by a conservative Republican, Representative Rich Wills of Glenns Ferry, a retired state trooper who chairs the House Judiciary Committee. Sounds like a slam dunk.

But no; the House rejected it today, 34-35.

Betsy Russell of the Spokesman Review reported that Wills "said he’s received hundreds of calls and e-mails threatening him and questioning his integrity for backing the bill. “I’ve had threats I’d better never go into the county again,” he said. “I’ve been called all kinds of sundry names.” Opponents raised fears, ranging from the tribe taking away the guns of non-Indians who have concealed weapons permits and pass through the reservation to provisions of tribal code being used to impose civil penalties on non-Indians - something that already can occur today on the reservation. “This doesn’t change anything about that,” Wills said. Instead, it addressed criminal violations - saying tribal police officers could enforce state law against non-tribal members, but they’d have to be cited under state law and into state court."

There was also this, from Representative Mack Shirley, R-Rexburg, who was in favor of the bill, and who said during debate that he was "stunned to hear that the first question a dispatcher asks in Benewah County is whether the person calling in with an emergency is an Indian or non-Indian. That’s just not right, he said."

Some of the bill's opponents argued that the opposition really didn't have racial undertones. Put that pitch in the category of a tough sell.

Uneasy nullification debating

This would not seem to be, and rationally shouldn't be, a part of current Northwest political debate. But mull over this quote: "Our states have neither more nor less power than that reserved to them in the Union by the Constitition - no one of them ever having been a state out of the Union. The original ones passed into the Union even before they cast off their British colonial dependence; and the new ones each came into the Union directly from a condition of dependence ..."

You'll note that analysis: The states did not exist before the union did; before the union, they were colonies. This is what a plain reading of history tells us. (There is an excellent point-by-point description of this in Garry Wills' fine book A Necessary Evil, among many other places.) And the quote? That came from Abraham Lincoln, a Republican the last we checked. And whose actions pretty much put paid to the whole nullification concept almost 150 years ago.

Except in Idaho (a territory Lincoln helped bring into being), which is what this has to do with politics today in the Northwest. Plain facts misunderstood, to a truly eye-rolling degree, led today in the Idaho House to some of the most peculiar and poorly thought-out legislative debate we've ever heard on the floor of a legislative chamber in the region.

The measure in question is House Bill 117, which in essence says that Idaho won't obey the 2010 federal health care law. Its statement of purpose said "The purpose of this legislation is to declare the two federal laws: Public Law 111-148 and Public Law 111-152, void and of no ef fect in the state of Idaho." The bill passed the House 49-20 - overwhelmingly.

Veteran Representative JoAn Wood remarked that "we have the right to dissent," as of course we all do. Her remark, in this context, suggests that we also all have the right to pick and chose which laws we want to obey.

Representative Tom Trail asked whether the state could simply decide unilaterally to not obey any number of other federal laws (notably unfunded mandates). Sponsor Representative Vito Barbieri didn't seem to answer directly, but by implication his answer was yes: "I do not believe that states are creatures of the federal government ... the states voluntarily joined the compact with respect to the other states." (Which as noted above, wasn't the case.)

Trail wryly responded, "United we stand, divided we fall."

The ethics-troubled Representative Phil Hart extensively quoted the Declaration of Independence as the founding document for the nation. It wasn't; the constitution was. Barbieri said in his closing argument that "This issue was resolved in the Nuremberg trials" - comparing intended nullification of a federal law aimed at extending health care to resistance to Nazi holocaust orders.

The vote, as noted, wasn't close. The bill goes for action next to the Idaho Senate.

ALSO A suggested trailer bill for this one: A secession bill.

ALSO A Facebook comment from Coeur d'Alene City Council member Mike Kennedy (also cross-posted on the Huckleberries blog): "I think I'll make a motion at our next City Council meeting to nullify Idaho's sales tax formula and keep our revenue here locally."