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Posts published in July 2025

Military family deportations

July 21, 2025

Sgt. Cuauhtemoc “Temo” Juarez served on three continents as a member of the U.S. Marine Corps from 1995 to 1999. After that, he joined the Florida National Guard and served a deployment in Iraq. Nevertheless, his wife of 18 years, Alejandra, was deported to Mexico because she had crossed unlawfully into the U.S. in the late 1990s. Alejandra and Temo had two daughters, both of whom are American citizens. Alejandra took the younger daughter with her. She left the older one with Temo, fearing for her safety in Mexico.

Temo and Alejandro tried every avenue of relief to stop the deportation, but to no avail. Temo’s service to this country didn’t count for anything. The past governmental policy of promoting military service as protection for families lacking legal status was cast aside.  The fact that Alejandro was a valued and contributing member of her community and church in Florida was disregarded. Appeals by Congressmen and veteran organizations fell upon the deaf ears of the Trump administration.

The title of this opinion piece invoked Yogi Berra’s famous quote about a situation being "déjà vu all over again" because Alejandro’s deportation took place during Donald Trump’s first term. On August 3, 2018, USA Today published my opinion column, calling out Trump for mistreating the Juarez and other military families. It was titled, “It’s time for America to stop thanking our veterans for serving, then deporting their wives.” Trump’s disregard of the families of servicemen and veterans has gotten much worse during this term.

It is high time to recognize what is as true today as it was seven years ago. As any active-duty service member or veteran who has been deployed overseas can attest, you cannot give 100 percent in service to your country without the steadfast support of your family back home. Upon return, families are key to helping service members reintegrate into the civilian world, especially when many of them suffer from combat stress, PTSD or other physical or mental health issues.

Since the beginning of Trump’s second term, we have seen an escalation of utter disregard for the plight of military and veteran families. Trump was elected largely because he promised to remove dangerous criminals from the county. The great majority of those presently being rounded up and deported by ICE are not violent criminals–just undocumented workers doing work that few citizens are willing to do–working farms, milking cows, caring for kids and the elderly, cleaning hotel rooms and doing yard work. It matters little whether they might be military family members.

Just this last May, ICE detained Paola Clouatre, whose husband Adrian is a Marine Corps veteran. Paola was still breastfeeding the couple’s 3-month-old daughter Lyn. She was in the process of getting a green card to work when she discovered that her asylum-seeking mother, who brought her to the country as a minor, had failed to show up for an immigration hearing years ago. The mother’s failure, which was unknown to Paola, was nevertheless held against her. Due to a policy change implemented on February 28, families of veterans and military personnel are no longer exempt from deportation.

Army Sgt. Ayssac Correa, stationed near Houston, learned on March 13 that his wife Shirly had been swept up by ICE agents at her job. They were in the process of trying to get Shirly on the path to citizenship and assumed that his active-duty status would protect her. Just like an active-duty Coast Guardsman learned in April, when his Argentine wife was arrested by ICE, service wives are fair game. The Australian wife of an Army lieutenant was sent back to Australia when they tried to get together in Hawaii in May.

Love knows no boundaries. Service personnel frequently marry citizens of countries where they are stationed and they have not had to worry about their spouses being subject to deportation until these Trump years. I was stationed in Okinawa for three months before going to Vietnam. My immediate commanding officer, Captain Dietmar W.L. Zurell, was a German national, married to an Okinawan woman. He was working toward U.S. citizenship and never expressed any worry about the couple being able to move to the United States. And so it was for many years since then.

It has been estimated that there are up to 80,000 undocumented spouses or parents of military members living in the U.S. These service personnel should not have to spend every waking minute fretting over the immigration status of their loved ones. Stories like the undocumented father of three U.S. Marines being “taken down, pinned and repeatedly punched by masked ICE agents” in California are a disgrace to the America that I love. Enough!

Ending on a happier note. Justice finally prevailed for Temo and Alejandra Juarez. About four months after Joe Biden was sworn in as President, their family was reunited in the U.S. Hopefully, they will stay that way.

 

Another pre-ordained race?

Another pre-ordained race?

July 20, 2025

Next year, the top of Oregon’s general election ballot will be anchored by the contest for U.S. Senate. If history holds, it may not be much of a contest.

That doesn’t mean it isn’t important. Oregon is moving into (and it’s partly there now) the high-rank status for senior members of Congress, meaning they have enough seniority that if they angle their assignments right, they can be among the top committee chairs in the chamber, leading power players. A generation-plus ago, Oregon Republicans Mark Hatfield and Robert Packwood were in that position. Today, Democrats Ron Wyden (top Democrat on Senate Finance) and Jeff Merkley (top Democrat on Budget) have worked their way there.

On July 10, Merkley said he will run for a fourth term next year. He also said that until some months ago his decision was in some doubt, but he already had since late 2020 a formal filing with the Federal Election Commission setting up for a technical candidacy. Most Oregonians who follow politics probably would have been more surprised had he chosen to retire.

You could make an argument, of sorts, that Merkley may be vulnerable.

It’s an anti-incumbent time. Congress is not popular, and Merkley has been there since 2009. He’s never won a Senate election by a huge margin. He’s identified with one wing of the Democratic party (a rare congressional Bernie Sanders presidential backer in 2016). And after all, a year and half is a long time and many things affecting the election can and may happen by then.

One Republican, Timothy Skelton from Sandy, has filed an FEC form indicating he will run for the Senate next year. His website declared that “as Scoutmaster for Troop 668, former volunteer police officer with Sandy PD, and security worker, I’m running for U.S. Senate to show working-class folks — not just millionaires — can lead with impact.” He appears not to have raised or spent any campaigning funds yet, however, and he may not be alone in the Republican primary.

Practical reality and recent history argue, though, that Merkley is in strong shape. A reasonable guess: Merkley wins re-election next year with around 56% to 59% of the vote.

Democrats running for statewide office in Oregon seem to have a modest ceiling and sturdy floor, not high enough for real comfort but normally enough to give them a presumption of winning, barring unusual conditions.

As a candidate for the Senate, Merkley has had just one close contest in a primary and one in the general, both in his first run for the office in 2008. The general election battle was against the Republican incumbent, Gordon Smith. Merkley beat Smith by just 3.4% of the vote, but on the ballot when Democrat Barack Obama was leading in the state’s presidential contest, by 16.3%.

This might have suggested some future problems for Merkley. In November 2013 the National Journal called him “vulnerable” because of Oregon’s trouble-plagued Affordable Care Act rollout; he was also becoming closely aligned with the more progressive side of the Democratic Party.

None of that hurt him. In 2014, nationally a very strong Republican year, he won with 55.7% against Republican Monica Wehby, a physician who developed a public profile running in large part on health issues (though after a campaign political analyst Jim Moore called “one disaster after another”). By 2020 the party’s efforts had weakened with the nomination of Q-Anon advocate Jo Rae Perkins; against her lightly-funded campaign Merkley won with 56.9%.

The nearly identical size of Merkley’s wins mirrors nearly all recent elections for Oregon senators. His seatmate, Wyden, pulled 57% of the vote both in 2010 and in 2016, and — against recent Merkley opponent Perkins — 56% in 2022.

In 2026, Merkley seems likely to be running with the national political tide, not against it. So far, there’s not much reason to think he won’t match his earlier vote marks, and he could slightly exceed them.

His campaign already has pulled in a healthy $3.7 million, probably vastly more than any opponent will raise.

In a mid-term election year that in Oregon overall, looks to be less exciting than the last few, election watchers may need to look beyond the top of the ballot to find some serious competition.

This column originally appeared in the Oregon Capital Chronicle.

 

Geography of tough times

Geography of tough times

July 18, 2025

Here’s a significant Idaho number: 41%. That’s the portion of Idahoans who cannot easily live - where they are - on the income and resources they have.

This is stress and worse on a mass scale, and it involves a lot of people. And beyond that, it varies a lot by county in Idaho. All of this is worth keeping in the back of your mind in the months and years ahead - and whenever you hear about Idaho's economic miracle.

The numbers come by way of two national groups called Independent Sector and United for ALICE, which have pulled together numbers of people and households based on economic hardship, focusing not so much on people below the poverty level as those just above that, who all or nearly all work at jobs, but still struggle economically.

The groups describe it this way: “In 2023, according to the Federal Poverty Level (FPL), 10% of Idaho households were financially insecure. Yet this measure failed to account for an additional 31% of households that were also experiencing financial hardship. These households are ALICE: Asset Limited, Income Constrained, Employed — with income above the FPL, but not enough to afford basic expenses in the county where they live. Between ALICE households and those living in poverty, an estimated 41% of households in Idaho were below the ALICE Threshold in 2023. Households below the Threshold are forced to make impossible choices — like deciding whether to pay for utilities or a car repair, whether to buy food or fill a prescription.”

Whether a household fits into the category will vary by county because not only income is considered: Cost of living, which varies dramatically from place to place, is a factor too.

In Idaho, 10% of people are considered to be living with the poverty level, slightly lower than the national estimate of 13%. But what we might call the “working but struggling” come to 31% in Idaho, more than the national level (29%).

The report said, “In Idaho, average basic costs in the ALICE Household Survival Budget were $28,836 for a single adult and $80,124 for a family of four with two adults and two children in child care — much higher than the FPL [Federal Poverty Level] ($14,580 for an individual and $30,000 for a family of four). Basic costs varied substantially by county.”

So where are they and aren’t they?

The people who have a hard time economically seem mainly to be located about where you might expect.

The smallest percentages of the financially stressed  (still at a significant 34%) are in Ada and Teton counties; the rest of the top 10 (or bottom 10) are Jefferson, Fremont, Oneida, Boise, Bingham, Latah, Blaine and Valley. Most are either counties with considerable per-capita wealth, like Blaine and Teton, or have strongly-growing upper-income suburb development, like Jefferson and Boise.

The county with the highest percentage of struggling households is a surprise: Madison County (61% below the “ALICE threshold"). It’s hard not to attribute that, though it seems odd, to the large number of students at Brigham Young University-Idaho, though why that group should be struggling much more than, say, University of Idaho students - Latah County ranked toward the other end of the list - is unclear.

The next nine counties fall into a clearer pattern: Butte, Washington, Camas, Clark, Lewis, Lemhi, Owyhee, Clearwater and Power. All (Power debatably excepted) are some distance from large population centers and aren’t seeing the kind of residential growth places like Valley or Jefferson have been.  (The next five counties on the high-struggling roster - Custer, Idaho, Shoshone, Adams and Benewah - also fit the pattern.)

The most striking part of this is that most of those counties are among the least expensive - at least in terms of housing and some other basic needs - of any in the state. Housing and rent prices are lower there than in the fast-growth metros, and yet financial stress seems to be higher there, presumably because income is so far below what’s needed to comfortably live.

Idaho has low unemployment and a high growth rate. But those aren’t the only factors Idahoans should be thinking about as they consider the state of their economy, where it came from and where it’s going.

 

The Wildland Firefighter Foundation

The Wildland Firefighter Foundation

July 16, 2025

Burk Minor, the executive director and co-founder of the Boise-based Wildland Firefighter Foundation, isn’t much to talking about himself.

He’ll make public appearances on occasion, but the accolades – and there are plenty of those -- come from others who have worked with him. Eric Brocksome, who heads the foundation’s wellness program, offers insights about Minor.

“He is the heartbeat of the wildland community,” Brocksome says. “None of this would happen without his vision, kindness and awareness of the community. He has been the primary fundraiser and a quiet presence for the entirety of the foundation's existence. No one can duplicate his energy, love and understanding of what the needs are in the wildland community. He is often the first call from the federal government and contractors when there is an incident. They all have his cell phone number.”

There’s nothing lightweight about what the foundation does. It is, as Minor describes on the foundation’s website, a resource for comfort and stability for firefighters injured or killed in the line of duty.

“For nearly 30 years, we’ve had the honor of standing with wildland firefighters and their families through some of the hardest days of their lives,” Minor says. “We’ve sat in living rooms after a loss, visited hospital rooms after injuries, and spoken with individuals and families carrying the invisible weight of this work. These moments have shaped not just the mission of the Wildland Fighter Foundation – they’ve shaped me.”

According to Brocksome, Minor reacts “quickly and humbly” when there are injuries or death. Help includes buying groceries, taking care of daily needs, or making housing payments if necessary.

“Our job is to support the families and fill the gaps that agencies are not able to fill,” Brocksome said.

The wildland firefighting community is reeling after a tragic ambush in Coeur d’Alene on June 29, where two firefighters were killed in the line of duty and a third was gravely injured. The attack, which occurred during a routine response, has sent shockwaves through fire crews across the region and beyond. The Wildland Firefighter Foundation stepped in to offer support. Minor personally contacted the appropriate agencies as soon as news broke and has remained in communication with those on the ground.

The Wildland Firefighter Foundation will honor the two firefighters at its Boise headquarters when the time is appropriate. This recognition is a solemn tradition for the foundation, which has long served as a source of comfort and solidarity for the wildland fire service.

The wildland foundation goes beyond Idaho’s borders. The foundation’s reach has gone to places such as Canada and Australia – wherever a tragedy occurs.

“When a wildland firefighter is lost, and the foundation is contacted for assistance, the weight of that support, is carried almost exclusively by our executive director,” Brocksome says. “He’s attended more funerals than anyone would ever want in a lifetime.”

Two years ago, the foundation added a wellness program to the mix. Brocksome, who has 15 years of experience in mental health and personal development, was hired for the position. Wildland fighters are a unique breed. Brocksome says there are roughly 30,000 men and women wildland fighters of the nation’s 1.3 million firefighters.

“It’s an interesting personality type that is willing to work six to eight months straight, on 14-day rolls, and only two or three days for a break,” Brocksome says. “They eat together and sleep in the dirt, basically next to each other. There’s chronic stress and the nutrition is suspect – sometimes when they are on the road, it amounts to a hotdog at a gas station. The jokes get old, and the nerves get frayed. They are sacrificing barbecues, holidays, kids’ birthdays and all the stuff we take for granted, as part of our existence.”

Firefighters thrive on the adrenalin rush that comes with battling blazes, but there is a downside away from the action. Suicide and divorce rates are high. Alcohol and substance abuse are common problems in the wildland community.

“Mental health is a big concern for the firefighters,” Brocksome says.

And where would we be without them? These are men and women who put their lives on the line to fight the most vicious of natural disasters. These warriors are true American heroes.

More recently under Burk Minor’s direction and for almost 30 years, the Wildland Firefighter Foundation has been on the front lines to ensure that these heroes are well served.

Chuck Malloy, a long-time Idaho journalist and columnist, is a writer with the Idaho Nonprofit Center/Idaho Community Foundation. He may be reached at ctmalloy@outlook.com

 

Home sweet home

July 15, 2025

Like many teens raised in small towns - in my case, Bend, Oregon, in the early '50's - I couldn't wait to kick off the dust of "Hickville" and get on to discovering the outside world.  The "real" world.  No small town hayseeds for me.  I wanted to "get on with life."

That from a guy who - four score years later - lived in an Oregon burg of less than 1,400.  Five bars, two gas stations, no drug store and the only grocery store is a mile out of town.  But, in the intervening 63 years, I've seen a lot of the world and had many life-changing experiences.  And I never moved back in with my folks.

These days, that's not the case for a lot of young people.  The U.S. Census Bureau has come up with numbers describing some interesting changes in what happens to the 20-somethings who grew up with the same anxious exodus feeling I did but who didn't get far from the nest.

We're talking comparisons over more than a 40 year stretch from the '70's to 2015.  And the big one is this: more young people live with their parents now than in any other living arrangement the Bureau tracks.  Which is all of them.  About one-in-three, or some 24-million 18-34-year-olds, either moved back in with parents or never left.

Marriage for the young folks isn't nearly as important as it used to be.  Most will still marry.  But in the '70's, eight in 10 got hitched by the age of 30.  Nearly 50 years later, that same ratio doesn't happen until age 45.

A dozen years ago, a majority of young adults lived independently.  That was the case in 35 states.  Now, it's just six states.  And all are in the Midwest or Plains.  Figure that one out.

Most young people today believe getting an education and being economically successful are the most important milestones of being an adult.  Used to be getting married and having kids.  Today, not so much.   Big switch there.

Young men seem more stuck at the bottom of the income ladder than before.  Forty years ago, 25-percent ages 25-34 had incomes of less than $30,000 a year.  In 2015, that percentage jumped to 41.  The comparison used 2015 dollars in both cases.  Imagine the loss in purchasing power.

And, finally, of those still living at home, one-in-four are unemployed.  Not going to school.  Not working.  So, figure about 2.2-million 25-34-year-olds not in the workforce.  They're also more likely to have a child and more than a quarter qualify as disabled.

Those are some pretty startling statistics.  Most of us just cruise along with our lives, thinking the young folks are doing about the same as we did.  Working.  Getting married.  Having kids.  Making payments on the pickup.  Just "going along" and paying the bills.

But, these findings tell us a very different story.  Like so much in our existence, change is occurring in every aspect of life.  And everywhere.  Whether you're still in Hickville or got out to those larger cities that seemed so alluring.

Or, even in a burg of 1,400.  With five bars - two gas stations - and a grocery store a mile out of town.

 

A legal masquerade

July 14, 2025

Please believe me, I have tried to limit my criticism of Attorney General Raul Labrador. But, as a former Idaho AG for 8 years, I know the importance of providing sound legal advice to state entities. When the Idaho AG issues an obvious political opinion in response to a state official’s request for legal guidance, he must be called out for giving harmful advice. Labrador recently advised the State Superintendent of Public Instruction that a classroom sign reading “Everyone is Welcome Here” was prohibited by law. The legally-correct answer, based on the law in question–Idaho Code section 33-143–was that the sign fully complies with the law.

Labrador made two major errors in reaching his conclusion. First and foremost, the law specifies that its purpose is “to maintain a neutral and inclusive environment for all students.” What could possibly be more neutral and inclusive than a sign saying that everyone in the classroom is welcome to be there?

The AG’s second legal error was improperly reading an intent into the words used on the classroom sign. Were the words of the sign to be reviewed by a court, it would give them their plain, usual and ordinary meaning. The literal words used on a document are the best guide to their intent. Labrador only reached his erroneous conclusion by reading a nefarious intent into the four simple words on the sign.

The very worst part of Labrador’s politically-charged opinion was the completely fabricated history he invented for the sign’s intent. He claimed it was “part of an ideological/social movement which started in the Twin Cities, Minnesota following the 2016 election of Donald Trump.” His clear implication was that a Twin Cities sign reading “All Are Welcome Here” was intended to convey an anti-Trump message. Quite to the contrary. The intent and purpose of the sign was to convey an anti-hate message. It was a repudiation of “racist graffiti” that appeared on the walls of a school the day after Trump was elected.

Labrador claimed that Sarah Inama, the teacher who placed the welcoming sign in her classroom, “first displayed” it in 2017, which is either an outright fabrication or sloppy research. Inama was not a teacher in 2017 and did not display the sign until 2020 or 2021. She had not heard of the Minnesota story until she saw Labrador’s opinion on June 27. Labrador claimed the “Idaho Democratic Party even sells these signs as part of its fundraising efforts,” while failing to disclose that no such sales occurred until March 25 of this year–after Inama’s story went viral.

Labrador has demonstrated a penchant for providing politically-biased legal advice to some of his state clients. That probably explains why the State Land Board voted on June 27 to stop using Labrador as its lawyer–the first time in Idaho history that the Board decided to hire outside legal representation. State government, just like private businesses, can’t afford to rely on political opinions. The AG is the State’s official lawyer and must give unbiased legal advice to that important client.

The Legislature also deserves mention for its shoddy workmanship. The statute in question is a mishmash, more designed to intimidate schools than to pinpoint prohibited content. The language is vague and all-encompassing. It prohibits content related to a vast array of political, religious and ideological subject matter from being displayed on classroom walls. It equates several words that have somewhat related, but distinct, meanings–views, viewpoints, ideologies and expressions.

By prohibiting political views, viewpoints, ideologies and expressions, the whole range of historic phrases appears to be banned from Idaho classroom walls–All men are created equal; Blue lives matter; Give me liberty or give me death; Make America Great Again; A house divided against itself cannot stand; Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall; The only thing we have to fear is fear itself; Drill, baby, drill; Speak softly and carry a big stick; and so on through the course of America’s political history.

The prohibition of religious expressions, ideologies, viewpoints and views would likely keep the Ten Commandments off of classroom walls, which in my view would be in keeping with the Founding Fathers' intention for keeping a separation between church and state. But other phrases with religious overtones would also be banned–Love thy neighbor, In God we trust, and the like.

The Legislature has no apparent interest in obtaining competent legal advice before enacting culture war legislation. On the other hand, Labrador has failed to comply with his statutory responsibility to provide official legal opinions to legislators to guide their legislation around legal pitfalls. The people deserve better from their elected officials.

 

The real housing crisis

The real housing crisis

July 13, 2025

Oregon has a housing crisis. And with it, good reason for establishing the state Housing Accountability and Production Office, which Gov. Tina Kotek launched on July 1 after it was first authorized in 2024 legislation.

In announcing the new housing accountability office, Kotek remarked, “My North Star is for every Oregonian to be able to afford a home. Our economic prosperity depends on it. I believe that we can get this done.”

If that is to happen, the target should be clear: There is no large crisis in the raw amount or supply of housing. The crisis lies in its price.

In this current decade, Oregon’s population increased only slightly, from about 4.2 million at the decade’s start, to about 4.3 million now, and there’s been no mass destruction of housing. Not a lot of houses are needed to service the population growth, since before the price explosion a half-decade ago, at a time when housing wasn’t widely seen as in notably short supply.

Legislative Republicans this April complained that in the last three years only about 43,000 building permits for residences had been issued in the state, well below the governor’s plan for 108,000. But the state’s number of households rose by about the same amount during that time. The new construction that happened should, in theory, have been enough to keep up with it.

In 2023 (the most recent year available), Oregon had about 1.75 million “households” with the average household comprising 2.4 people, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

That same year, the Census counted in the state 1.88 million “housing units” — over 100,000 more housing units than the number of households — including “a house, an apartment, a group of rooms, or a single room occupied or intended for occupancy as separate living quarters.” It doesn’t include some other residential places, such as trailer and mobile home parks.

The upshot is that Oregon, like most states, has more residential units than households.

And there is no crisis for people of sufficient means. Anyone who can afford to plunk down a half-million or so (which includes many existing homeowners, in or out of state) will not have much trouble finding a house. People below that level, a large part of the population, may find that a house (or in some places apartment rentals, too) are simply out of reach.

The problem with Oregon’s housing crisis is affordability. The median house value in Oregon (which reflects purchase prices) as of May was $540,300, according to online real estate market platform Zillow. One home-buying calculator estimates that if a purchaser puts down 18% for the home — the median downpayment of home buyers in the U.S., according to the National Association of Realtors — they would need to have more than $97,000 saved, and earn more than $120,000 per year to afford their mortgage payments. That means fewer than a fifth of Oregon households could afford a median-priced house based on income. (Sales by owners of currently owned houses could expand that number.)

Despite the limited pool of buyers, prices have climbed and stayed high.

Why?

Oregon’s notably strict laws on land use are often mentioned as a cause of the problem. They may contribute to it, but many other states — such as next-door Idaho — have far fewer building restrictions but still have house pricing problems as bad, or worse, as Oregon’s.

High priced homes can be more profitable for builders and developers, so they build more of them.

But the key explanation for why so many more houses are purchased, compared to the number of local residents who can buy, seems to be that relatively wealthy investors — individuals and especially businesses — are buying large numbers of houses and apartments in Oregon, and around the country.

Many national studies have found as much.

Redfin News, which tracks home sales nationally, said last August that investor home buying has been rising steadily in recent years — about 3% annually — and bought one of every six U.S. homes that sold — purchasing $43 billion worth of properties — and one of every four low-priced homes that sold.

Redfin found that during the 2nd quarter of 2024 in Portland, 13% of homes sold (valued at $511,419,529) were bought by investors, an amount rising in recent years. Many homes are then flipped and resold for still higher prices. All of that activity places upward pressure on sales prices of other homes as well.

A variety of buyers have been among the mass purchasers. Oregon Sen. Jeff Merkley has for several years focused on the role of hedge funds in home buys, and with U.S. Rep. Adam Smith, a Democrat from Washington, introduced in 2023 the End Hedge Fund Control of American Homes Act.

Merkley called hedgefunds, “a contributing factor that has made it more difficult for middle-class Americans to become homeowners and is contributing to America’s twin crises of housing unaffordability and wealth inequality.”

Others have disagreed about how large a role the finance organizations have played. But someone can afford to buy all those houses — in many cases well beyond the asking price — and less-wealthy wage earners cannot compete.

That would be a real and pertinent, albeit sensitive, topic for the new state agency to address. Until someone does, the housing shortage for most Oregonians will go on.

This column originally appeared in the Oregon Capital Chronicle.

 

What Mike Crapo did

July 12, 2025

Donald Trump is claiming his victory. His One Big Beautiful Bill passed, reshaping the country in ways he doesn’t understand but we will – soon.

The legislation, passed entirely with Republican votes, is the largest wealth transfer from poor to wealthy Americans in the history. It shreds the social safety net that millions of fellow Americans depend upon for health care and food security. Donald Trump promised over and over that he would not touch Medicaid. His bill touches Medicaid with a flaming sledgehammer.

Yet, victory lap notwithstanding, this really wasn’t Trump’s legislation. He is infamously hands off on details, particularly details like complicated tax policy. No, this legislation is really the handiwork of the senior senator from Idaho, Mike Crapo, the chairman of the Finance Committee, the committee overseeing your taxes, Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, and tariff policy.

A serious argument can be made that no previous federal legislator from Idaho has ever had such a big thumb on the scale of American domestic policy. The legislation will be Crapo’s legacy after 30 years in Congress, and you sense he knows it.

Crapo stood at Trump’s elbow for the bill signing at the White House looking frankly a bit uncomfortable, perhaps starting to wonder what he’ll say when rural hospitals, already financially stressed, start to close.

One recent analysis found nearly 800 rural hospitals in the United States “at risk of closure due to financial problems, with about 40% of those hospitals at immediate risk of closure.” Nine of those hospitals are in Idaho.

Another analysis based on the financial position of individual hospitals shows three Idaho hospitals – American Falls, Jerome and Burley – as most likely to go under. The reason, of course, is that rural hospitals rely overwhelmingly on Medicaid dollars Crapo slashed in his bill.

During the run up to Trump’s signing ceremony Crapo said virtually nothing about cuts to Medicaid (or food assistance) other than to claim the legislation will root out “waste, fraud and abuse.” How much waste, fraud and abuse do you suspect exists at the community-owned Power County Hospital in American Falls, Idaho?

Mike Crapo surely knows that voters in Power County voted to tax themselves in 2017 to make improvements to their hospital. One suspects they didn’t do so because they believed the place was rotten with fraud.

Crapo’s main argument for his bill is that it makes permanent tax cuts enacted the same year Power County voters approved $15 million in property taxes to improve their hospital. Like other Republicans who voted for the legislation, Crapo has argued that the tax cuts will stimulate the economy without adding to the ballooning federal deficit. No serious economist agrees with this assessment.

As a reader pointed out recently: if permanent tax cuts don’t add to the deficit why did Crapo vote to raise the debt ceiling by $5 trillion? It’s impossible to escape the fact that Crapo spent years gaslighting constituents regarding concerns about deficit spending.

Tax cuts that overwhelmingly benefit the wealthiest Americans do indeed add to the deficit.

And not just income tax rates, but pages of special interest tax benefits that Crapo inserted or allowed to be insert in his legislation.

As Politico reported:

There’s a new supersized deduction for business meals – though only for employees at certain Alaskan fishing boats and processing plants, with the measure stipulating the facilities must be ‘located in the United States north of 50 degrees north latitude’ though not in a ‘metropolitan statistical area.’

That was the Lisa Murkowski buy off.

There’s more:

A $17 billion expansion of a provision that helps venture capitalists make fortunes tax-free.

An Oklahoma senator got a sweet deal for the oil and gas industry.

Senator Bill Cassidy of Louisiana championed a $2 billion giveaway for the rum industry. “We have the highest per capita intake of alcohol in the nation,” Cassidy said. I guess you could call that taking care of the folks back home.

There is an expansion of a “little-known break that Silicon Valley investors have used to nix tax bills on tens and even hundreds of millions of dollars in earnings from Internet startups.”

And $26 billion for a new tax credits for gifts to groups that provide scholarships for private school students.

A cool $1 billion, tax exempt, for “spaceports,” which the legislation says are “any facility located at or in close proximity to a launch site or reentry site.”

Oregon’s Ron Wyden, the ranking Democrat on Crapo’s committee, said in a social media post that this tax break was “Trump’s [or Crapo’s] wedding gift to [Jeff] Bezos and birthday gift to [Elon] Musk … tucked in the new budget bill.”

While cutting Medicaid by $1 trillion over ten years, Crapo’s bill found billions for a 150 percent increase in homeland security spending and billions more for a border wall even as the Trump Administration boasts it has closed the border. Wall bucks, cuts for wellness.

So, what to make of Crapo’s legacy bill? He’s a smart guy, a Harvard trained lawyer. Surely he knows what his bill will do. Surely he know how wildly unpopular it is.

Surely he has an answer for former Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers who says the legislation is a victory for “human brutality.”

Surely Crapo knows, as the National Catholic Reporter put it in an editorial: “This bill is the signature of a democracy in decay. A government that no longer reflects the will or welfare of its people. A political system where a party can seize the presidency with less than half of the popular vote and still impose an agenda that serves only the wealthiest.”

What a legacy.

 

A final thought on the senator from Idaho.

Your memory may go back far enough to remember the release of the Access Hollywood tape very late in the 2016 presidential campaign. The tape featured Donald Trump boasting about his sexual conquests and his admitted abuse of women. Trump said, among other things, as “a star” he could get away grabbing women by, well, you know.

For many at the time, including Senator Crapo, the tape seemed likely to end Trump’s campaign and Crapo publicly called on Trump to do just that.

Here’s Crapo’s full statement from October 2016:

I have reached a decision that I can no longer endorse Donald Trump. This is not a decision that I have reached lightly, but his pattern of behavior has left me no choice. His repeated actions and comments toward women have been disrespectful, profane and demeaning. I have spent more than two decades working on domestic violence prevention. Trump’s most recent excuse of ‘locker room talk’ is completely unacceptable and is inconsistent with protecting women from abusive, disparaging treatment.

Make no mistake - we [need] conservative leadership in the White House. I urge Donald Trump to step aside and allow the Republican party to put forward a conservative candidate like Mike Pence who can defeat Hillary Clinton.

Crapo is far from alone, of course, in completely flipping on that strong statement, as he did three weeks after he issued it.

Politico noted at the time:

For Sen. Mike Crapo (R-Idaho), the third time’s the charm for his presidential endorsement.

He backed Donald Trump once he became the presumptive Republican nominee in May. But Crapo then revoked his endorsement earlier this month, citing Trump’s offensive comments — caught on tape — boasting of sexually assaulting women.

You might say Crapo was for Trump then against Trump and then for him again. He made his peace, apparently. These days Crapo has nothing but praise.

Crapo was correct in 2016 when he said he had been working to address domestic violence against women, but not so much since. His focus seems to have changed to preventing transgender women from participating in sports.

Perhaps this is just in keeping with the arc of the moral universe of MAGA. What once was considered “disrespectful, profane and demeaning” is now abject Republican acceptance of a president with 34 felony convictions related to paying hush money to a porn star.

Still, you have to wonder: how does a Mike Crapo square this circle?

Are billionaire tax cuts and ending health care for millions of Americans, including his own constituents, worth the unblinking embrace of the politics of Trumpism?

Is continuing a 30 year career in Congress worth debasing yourself by embracing an authoritarian who clearly relishes dominating weak men like Mike Crapo?

The answer is certainly - sure. It is clearly worth it to these folks.

I understand the power and the prospect of another re-election - Crapo is 74 - and the bloated, fawning congressional staff and all that, but in the quiet of his own heart you have to wonder if Mike Crapo knows what an awful bargain he has made and what a lie he is living.

Surely he knows.

From the Substack of Marc Johnson.

 

Talking abortion

Talking abortion

July 11, 2025

The ballot battle over abortion is on again, now that the Idahoans United for Women & Families group has started its petition signature campaign.

From here,  the group will necessarily begin its efforts with its friends and allies. But a lot of their success or failure will hinge on what kind of appeal they make to the larger Idaho community.

They have a lot of work ahead. To win a spot on the November 2026 ballot, the organizers will have to collect 70,700 valid signatures, and enough of them have to be spread across the state’s counties and legislative districts. It’s a massive effort that requires excellent planning, and also an ability to reach out to many kinds of people and communities.

If they can manage that petition stage, they’re qualified to launch the toughest part. The group said on its website that, “Our polling indicates that majorities of Idahoans agree: government should stay out of private medical decisions.” Indicators I’ve seen over the years suggest it will be a difficult and close slog - very possibly doable, but not easy.

This may be a case where the actual language of the measure, and of the arguments for it, matter politically. Just as polling results about abortion vary a lot depending on how the question is phrased, so the language of the initiative may affect how many votes it gets.

The initiative itself  - meaning the proposed law - is not especially wordy, running just over three pages, and most of the critical text is within a few paragraphs. The core language in the measure is this:

“Notwithstanding any other provision of law to the contrary: Every person has the right to reproductive freedom and privacy, which is the right to make personal decisions about reproductive health care that directly impact the person’s own body, including but not limited to the right to make decisions about: Abortion; Childbirth care; Contraception; Fertility treatment; Miscarriage care; and Prenatal, pregnancy, and postpartum care.  The right to reproductive freedom and privacy includes the right of privacy in making personal decisions about reproductive health care in consultation with a health care provider.

“A person’s voluntary exercise of the right to reproductive freedom and privacy shall not be burdened, interfered with, discriminated against, deprived, or prohibited by the state, directly or indirectly, in any manner, unless such state action is narrowly tailored to improve or maintain the health of the person seeking reproductive health care through the least restrictive means.”

It also says abortion could still be regulated after viability.

The initiative is framed in the contest of personal rights. The Idahoans United website uses a similar approach, saying “This initiative would restore the personal liberty to make one’s own reproductive healthcare decisions—including birth control, IVF, regulated abortion access, and more—with their doctor WITHOUT undue government overreach.”

This is close to the kind of appeal that worked in Kansas, a state with partisan politics similar in many ways (not all) to Idaho’s,when a ballot referendum resulted in a stunning 59% win for the anti-regulation forces. The primary argument there was: The new abortion laws are government overreach, imposing too far on your private life. That argument seems to have had powerful appeal.

One analysis of the  Kansas results in the Washington Monthly said, “To appeal to libertarian sentiments, the spots aggressively attacked the anti-abortion amendment as a ‘government mandate.’ To avoid alienating moderates who support constraints on abortion, one ad embraced the regulations already on the Kansas books. And they used testimonials to reach the electorate: a male doctor who refused to violate his ‘oath’; a Catholic grandmother worried about her granddaughter’s freedom; a married mom who had a life-saving abortion; and a male pastor offering a religious argument for women’s rights and, implicitly, abortion.”

Something like that, coupled with stories from Idaho’s abortion law experiences so far and otherwise adapted to the Gem State, could be a blueprint for the upcoming Idaho abortion campaign. Whether it would succeed or not is far from certain. But it could have a good shot.