A look at the text of Idaho Governor Brad Little’s state of the state speech delivered this week suggests he had two audiences primarily in mind. And they are related, but while the effect on one may be as intended, the other may be more complex.
One audience is President Donald Trump and his White House, unconstrained praise for which dominated the first part of the speech. Some of it read like an excerpt from a Trump Administration cabinet meeting. One example: “For Idaho, the change from the last administration to having a Republican in the White House now is night and day. Under Biden, Idaho was kept in the dark. Now, we have a real partner at the federal level.”
Through the speech, Trump was a woven-in element, subtly evident even when not directly cited.
I can’t recall a state of the state speech in Idaho (or for that matter elsewhere) as overwhelmed by the current presidential administration, either positively or negatively. It left less time and room for other subjects, which seemed addressed with abridged detail.
Trump’s endorsement of Little for re-election may have cleared the path for him this year. It also may help avert the attacks from federal agencies some other states, including at least one neighbor, have endured in the past year.
The second major target audience, a more usual one, is the legislature. After all, the state of the state is where governors set forth their budget and legislative proposals, and legislators will decide what to do about them.
Here Little’s money and policy approach sounded less different from earlier years. But the lack of extended argument or relative emphasis for most of his policies suggested he knew the legislature is unlikely to wholeheartedly embrace many of them.
If you need evidence, consider the provocative statements shortly afterward from Representative Josh Tanner, the newly-installed co-chair of the Joint Finance-Appropriations Committee, which drafts the budget after hearing the governor’s proposals. Tanner said in a press release about Little’s budget plan, “The governor’s budget does not balance. It relies on one-time gimmicks, spends more than the state takes in on an ongoing basis, and leaves Idaho with the lowest ending fund balances in nearly a decade.”
Another useful indication of where many Republican legislators are coming from can be gleaned from the Idaho Republican Party’s January 9-10 midwinter conference. Writing just in advance of it, party chair Dorothy Moon previewed the expected highlights: “This year, the Idaho GOP will consider resolutions addressing issues such as consolidating elections into even-numbered years, prohibiting the use of Sharia law in Idaho, preventing universities from becoming gun-free zones, calling on the Legislature to cut spending, and, of course, honoring the memory of Charlie Kirk.”
A review of the adopted resolutions shows Moon’s assessment was accurate, and may be close to what many Republican legislators came to Boise thinking about.
It’s a drastically different view of the state of the state. And a comparison of the two viewpoints – Little’s far more upbeat, for one thing – tells you a lot about what’s going on in the Idaho Republican Party, which is to say in Idaho’s elected leadership.
The many references to Trump may have been intended, among other things, to tell those legislators that he’s one of them.
But all those references to Trump may not be enough. Little and many of the legislators simply look at the world in different ways: sunnier on one side, culture-warriorish on the other, with a gap between what each thinks is important.
That’s not to say that this legislative session necessarily will be a bad one for Little.
But it’s unlikely to be easy.
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