Posts published in “Idaho”

The first Senate bill of the new legislative session offers something to ponder: The political backdrop and connections of the sponsors as opposed to what the bill actually does, which appears to be highly positive.

Senate Bill 1001 is described by its backers as a freedom of speech measure, but more specifically it provides a mechanism for “swiftly dismissing meritless Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation, ensuring public engagement and expression on matters of societal or community interest not stifled by legal intimidation.”

A SLAPP is a legal action, usually undertaken by a well-funded person who has plenty of money to spend on lawyers, to attack someone else for marginal or no good reasons when they speak out on an issue of public concern. Wikipedia describes such suits as “lawsuits intended to censor, intimidate, and silence critics by burdening them with the cost of a legal defense until they abandon their criticism or opposition.”

SLAPPs are a real problem, in Idaho and nationally, and these sorts of lawsuits have popped up in Idaho in recent years; some have generated statewide headlines.

Laws comparable to this bill are on the books in 34 states and the District of Columbia. Washington, Oregon, Nevada and California have had anti-SLAPP laws on the books for years. The Institute for Free Speech currently gives Idaho an “F” grade on its lack of an anti-SLAPP law.

The new Idaho bill would allow a defendant, within 60 days after a suit is filed, to seek dismissal of the case if it’s not strong enough, and stay actions until or unless the judge concludes the case does pass muster. It’s a simple approach but could choke some damaging legal maneuvers in the meantime. It would be a big improvement over existing Idaho law.

The political positioning of SB 1001’s backers, Nampa Senator Brian Lenney (who also pressed a similar failed measure in the 2024 measure)  and Representative Heather Scott of Blanchard, both Republicans, is a little less clear. Both have been close to a number of the Republican activists and interest groups involved with lawsuits of this kind in recent times.

One of the people caught up in one of those legal conflicts is Gregory Graf, an Idaho blogger and political activist, who has conflicted with some of the people now backing the bill. And he adds, in a detailed online post (at https://idaho.politicalpotatoes.com/p/idaho-needs-good-faith-anti-slapp, and which I won’t try to parse here) about the background of the bill, that, “It’s hard to ignore the irony of Lenney’s sudden interest in curbing the very tool his allies have wielded for years.”

So what about the bill?

Graf made clear he would like to see and would better trust a SLAPP bill coming from a different source, but concluded, “This bill may pass, and if it does, Idaho will finally have protections against SLAPP lawsuits.

As Lenney said in asking for support for the bill, “Good people don’t deserve to get buried for exercising their First Amendment rights.”

That would seem to be the bottom line, even if there are some questions about how and why this one specifically came to be.

There are larger issues here too about how our legal system works: Clearly, there are bugs in the system. The anti-SLAPP laws don’t solve the underlying problems, but they do help protect against some of the worst immediate abuses.

It isn’t perfect (few bills are), and its use probably eventually ought to be expanded beyond the relatively narrow reach it has at present. It does say it should be “broadly construed and applied to protect the exercise of the right of freedom of speech and of the press, the right to assemble and petition, and the right of association, guaranteed by the constitution of the United States and the constitution of the state of Idaho.”

The details should get close legal analysis. But if it’s as described, it’s a good bill and should pass.

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The standard Idaho political rhetoric speaks of “school choice” - which sounds wonderful, doesn’t it? - and in his state of the state speech, Governor Brad Little added to that with the descriptor “education freedom.”

The suggestion underlying that language is that public education is somehow oppressing Idahoans, that what’s being pursued here is the ability to pursue non-public school options for education. That construct is a crock. Idahoans, like people in other states, have and always have had the ability to educate children in private schools or at home. The choice is and has been theirs. That’s unchanged. And no one is talking about changing it.

So what is “school choice/education freedom” about?

It’s about the money. Watch the money, in the session ahead, as legislators prepare to shift a large chunk of it - the debate likely will center on how much and when, more than if it happens - away from public schools to, well, somewhere else.

After all, roughly half of the general fund budget in Idaho (and across most states this is more or less true) goes to education, and that’s not all the money schools get. This is a large pile of money, and some people out there salivate at the thought of taking a personal or corporate bite out of it. It’s not that there’s no concern about actual, you know, learning among these people; some no doubt are committed to doing something better.

But a moment’s reflection should tell you it’s not that simple. Remember the old saying, that if someone tells you it’s about the principle of the thing, it’s probably about the money.

In his state of the state, Little - who may recognize the school voucher train coming hard at him from the legislature, which rejected past voucher plans but likely won’t this session - proposed spending $50 million “to further expand education options.” He said he will “ensure there is oversight” and “prioritize first and foremost our public schools.” (Don’t be fooled: Money used for vouchers or related programs is money that isn’t being spent on public schools.)

Or at least that’s the governor’s opening move. One floor above in the Statehouse, a crop of voucher-adjacent measures is arising, with many possible price tags. One of them, backed by two legislators in top leadership positions, would offer $5,000 tax credits for students who attend school other than the public kind. Spending on this is said to be limited to $50 million.

Last month, one of the co-sponsors of that measure, Representative Wendy Horman, faced off at an event sponsored by the Idaho Falls City Club against Rod Gramer, former president of Idaho Business for Education, which has opposed vouchers. Gramer pointed out that once voucher payments in other states have begun, they have sometimes exploded, as in Arizona and Indiana. He said, “Out-of-state billionaires and their front organizations never stop pushing vouchers until they have universal vouchers with no income limit and no accountability.”

Horman said that the legislature would have to approve any future increases. That would be true, but it was true in Arizona and Indiana too.

Something in this area, or maybe more than one option, feels like a slam dunk to emerge from the legislature, a probability signified by a big pro-voucher event held just hours before the launching of this year’s session, by the Mountain States Policy Center.

There are complexities, of course. Much of the national discussion about vouchers (incoming President Trump last year proposed a federal voucher program) has centered on schooling options for lower-income or special needs students; the Idaho options seem not to focus on those areas. And there’s the geographic difficulty, that many Idaho students live far from the nearest private school option, or maybe near only one that might not be a good choice.

Follow the money.

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In the last few years I’ve been scaling back my use of social media, meaning among other things that I’m not in the crowd using the highly popular app Tik Tok. Which in turn means I have no very strong views about what happens to it, a subject that has become a heated issue - involving critics and users - over the last year or so.

Legislation passed by Congress earlier this year has aimed to stop distribution of the app if its parent company, ByteDance, doesn’t unload it by January 19. Incoming President Donald Trump hasn’t been clear about what he may or may not do about it, and the Supreme Court has said that it will weigh in, so we don’t know what will happen. The specific issue concerns the influence of China's government, and mass data collection from people here, that might be felt through its use. It’s a complex debate that I won’t try to litigate here.

Tik Tok clearly has been exerting itself, however, to lobby people not only in Washington but out to the far reaches of the Northwest. A few days ago, from Tik Tok or some organization acting on its behalf - the provenance wasn’t entirely clear - I received an email which sought to pitch the case that Tik Tok has a big impact on a lot of people and businesses in Idaho. A raft of statistics and analysis was included. That did get my attention.

The mail wasn’t trying to make the case that Idaho’s connections to Tik Tok were notably greater or different from those in other states. Still,  the numbers as cited, if they’re anywhere close to correct - and I have no reason to think they’re not - offer some broader food for thought.

I was directed to a report (apparently crafted at the behest of Tik Tok) from Oxford Economics, an international consulting group based in California, which ran a survey with state-specific information. Idaho’s was not notably unusual, but it was eye-opening anyway.

The survey figured that 440,000 Idahoans (close to a quarter of the state’s population) use Tik Tok, as do about 19,000 businesses. That’s a massive slice of the state, and if you look at usage among younger age groups, the percentage probably is very high.

The report focused mostly on the business impacts. The letter summarized:

“Small business use of TikTok contributed $120 million to GDP and supported 1,300 jobs. SMB activity also generated around $28 million in federal, state, and local tax revenue in the state. Small businesses in Idaho say their business sales increased after promoting their products and services on TikTok, and 68% say their business sold out of a product after promoting it on TikTok. 65% of SMBs in Idaho say TikTok grants them the ability to connect with people from diverse communities who would otherwise be unreachable, and 70% have attracted a new investor or an additional investment through a TikTok interaction.”

And according to the survey, about two-thirds of small and medium sized businesses said they felt they needed to keep using the app, and using it in more advanced ways, owing to its effectiveness.

Say the word(s) Tik Tok, and Idaho isn’t exactly what comes first to mind. But a look at the practical effects do raise some questions. What would happen - would there be negative business impacts in Idaho - if Tik Tok were banished? If it should be, what ought to be done to mitigate the effects, if that can be done? Is there any role here for state or local governments?

We live in an interconnected world. That doesn't mean we have to connect with everything (and I’m no more inclined than I was, personally, to plug in to Tik Tok).

But if we cut ties, we need to be careful about what we’re doing, think through all the effects, and be mindful of the consequences.

As we head into a new presidential era, that principle may be worth application in a bunch of other arenas as well.

Contests for legislative leadership positions often come down to personal qualities: Who do you (meaning the members of a party caucus) better like, or not? Who’s your friend - or, who could do something for you?

Because these contests usually are conducted by secret ballot, it’s hard for outsiders to be sure what the relevant factors were in making a choice between contenders. Sometimes, though, the issues look as if they might imply something a little larger.

With that in mind, consider the just-concluded contest for president pro tem of the Idaho Senate.

“President pro tem” sounds like an honorary title, but in the Idaho Senate it’s actually the top decision-making perch, the in-effect head of the Senate. The president of the Senate is the lieutenant governor, who presides over the chamber and can break a tied vote but otherwise has no real role there.

An aside: Both of Idaho’s current U.S. senators are former state Senate pro tems. The last time pro tem came open due to a lost election, in fact, Jim Risch was outgoing (having lost his Senate seat in the 1988 general) and Mike Crapo replaced him, and the differing public personas of the two played into Crapo’s elevation.

For a long time pro tems usually turned over every two or three terms, but in recent decades it has been held for much longer stretches - Jerry Twiggs from 1992 to 2000, Robert Geddes from 2000 to 2010, Brent Hill from 2010 to 2020. His successor, Chuck Winder of Eagle, seemed to be on track for another run of a decade or so, but he lost his Republican primary, narrowly, in May, stopping his run at two terms.

Winder has been in the Idaho Senate since 2008, and risen through leadership positions during his tenure. He has presented himself very much as what’s usually taken to be an Idaho conservative. But he also has been an institutionalist; you might imagine, though I have no idea if Winder would, a loose correlation here to Mitch McConnell in the U.S. Senate. Winder has been known to slap back at poor, insulting or demeaning behavior, which has happened from time to time.

That behavior has tended to come from the more extreme reaches of his caucus, and its outside backers. Winder has had issues with the Idaho Freedom Foundation as well; these clashes were a big element in his loss. He remarked after the primary, “I think we've had a huge influence from out-of-state people moving here ... All in all, Idaho is going to be fine, but good mainline Idaho people are going to have to get more involved in the party."

But what did the Idaho Senate’s Republican caucus - which controls 29 of 35 seats - conclude?

So far as was visible - we’re looking through a glass, darkly - there were two candidates to replace Winder. One is the next in line in leadership, the majority leader, Kelly Anthon from Burley. The other is Scott Grow of Eagle, the chair of the budget-setting Joint Finance-Appropriations Committee.

Neither seems to be sharply aligned with the splits that led to Winder’s defeat, but there are differences between them.

Anthon has been mostly a lower-profile legislator, and in private life the city administrator at Rupert; you don’t get a major rock-the-boat sense here.

Grow, on the other hand, has as JFAC chair pushed for major changes in budgeting practices, and told the Idaho Capital Sun  he “also would bring changes to the Idaho Senate if named president pro tem. He said he would push for Republicans in the Idaho Senate to meet before the session to develop a list of four or five major priorities for the upcoming session that Republicans agree on. Rather than introducing and debating multiple different bills on a school choice proposal, Grow would push to unite Republicans behind a single bill going into session.”

Other factors may be at play here too, but you get a clear distinction between Anthon and Grow as setters of direction for the Senate.

That the caucus went in Anthon’s direction (we don’t know what the vote was, or whether Grow even remained in contention until it happened) may say something about the caucus’ - and so the Senate’s - preferred direction. Might it mean a desire not to make major changes, to keep a cooler profile in the session ahead?

Don’t bet the bank on it. But leadership contest results sometimes can amount to tea leaves better than most.

If you’re in favor of higher education - and today that includes some but clearly not all voters - then the general election had one definite bright spot in the Idaho Panhandle: The voters’ choices to fill three seats on the North Idaho College board.

Count it as something in the Gem State to be thankful for this season.

The college has been teetering on the edge of losing accreditation, which could mean in effect the end of the college. This is not a subtle threat or much in dispute, or unimportant. The college’s future was hanging in the balance with the choices voters made to fill three critical spots on what normally, in most years until recently, has been an obscure governing body. Community college boards are quiet and publicly obscure - like a lot of offices in government - as long as they stay out of trouble.

North Idaho College has no inherent massive problems. There’s nothing about its teachers or students or administrators or facilities or the other people (vendors, community partners) raising any red flags. It long has operated like a normal community college, offering some collegiate courses and some aimed at vocational and technical training. Not terribly contentious there.

Until the Kootenai County Republican organization decided a few years ago to turn the non-partisan board into a culture war battlefield (and in campaigns, vivid apocalyptic imagery). With the support of that organization, which for a couple of decades has been politically dominant in Kootenai, new members were elected to shake things up at the college.

Shake them they did. Their tenure of control, which has extended over not all but most of the last four years - since voters in November 2020 elected a majority which set about demolishing normal practices at the college - has been a time of chaos and uproar at the college, with fired presidents and attorneys and others and a wider mix of key players, some evidently quite capable and others evidently not. The college was in endless uproar for years, and the reason was easy to point to: The elected board.

Finally the regional organization that accredits colleges stepped in and warned that the college’s credentials, which translates to the usefulness and recognition by the outside world of its education program, was at imminent risk of being lost.

That finally seems to have gotten the attention of Kootenai County voters. Not all of them, and far from enough to constitute a landslide at the polls, but enough to change the membership of the board in a direction aimed at restoring the college’s conventional role as a community college.

The stakes were public enough in the last couple of elections, but this year they finally moved front and center, ahead and in front of the bogus culture war topics that dominated so much local attention in previous cycles.

The slate of candidates trying to save the college ran under “Save NIC Now,” and the campaign language was blunt: “They aren’t here to play games; they’re here to clean up the board and get NIC back on track. If you care about NIC and the future of this community, these are the folks you need to vote for.”

It worked.

On November 20, the newly-elected board members, Rick Durbin, Eve Knudtsen and Mary Havercroft, were sworn in amid applause and no doubt deep relief. And they got to work right away on starting to repair the damage from the last few years.

This isn’t the end of the story. Word on ensuring accreditation continues will go on for months, as the accreditors move toward their final decisions. But the odds of success have improved.

What happened politically in Kootenai County could blunt efforts in other parts of the state to take other colleges down the same road NIC traveled. Attempts in southern Idaho were turned back a couple of years ago; thanks to the voters at Kootenai, they may have a harder time gaining traction in future. Maybe some broader lessons will sink in too.

Something to be thankful for, we can hope.

Transgender people have been big in politics this year, in Idaho and nationally.

They became a top battleground focus of the winning presidential campaign (especially in television ads from the Trump campaign in battleground states), and in the most recent Idaho legislative session they seldom went unremarked for long in heated debate. Transgender people have become a culture-war centerpiece in the state.

Idaho’s congressional delegation joined in the fray this month, “sending a letter today urging the Mountain West Conference to ban biological males from competing in women’s sports and protect biological female student-athletes.” This being such an obvious federal issue and all.

In September, Attorney General Raul Labrador joined in a letter from attorneys general around the country blasting the American Academy of Pediatrics (these are the leading professionals in health care for younger people) for their policy “Ensuring Comprehensive Care and Support for Transgender and Gender-Diverse Children and Adolescents.” A decision by a professional association so obviously meriting the use of state tax dollars …

From all that, a visitor from afar understandably might think a massive crisis on this subject has suddenly arisen.

They would be wrong.

Before going further, answer in your own mind this question: How many transgender people - what share of the population - do you think there are in Idaho, and in the nation?

Compare what you just thought to these results in a survey of American adults by the polling firm YouGov: “The average response was 21%, or 1 in 5 Americans. This overestimate was not an outlier, as respondents consistently overestimated the size of other minority groups, guessing that 27% of people are Muslim (the reality is 1%), or that 41% of Americans are Black (the reality is 12% to 13%).”

Okay: So what are the real numbers?

According to the Williams Institute in California, which has most thoroughly researched the subject, the nationwide number is about 1.6 million, well under one percent of the population.

In Idaho, the transgender number was about 7,000, or .52% - that’s just about half of one percent - of Idahoans. That’s in a state of two million people.  The numbers in Idaho are well below the national stats, which are not massive to begin with.

The numbers are generally reported as skewing somewhat higher for younger people; attitudes toward gender issues may be a factor in how some people see and act on their gender identity.

Presumably, one hardball political calculation is that if you want to Otherize a group of people for rile-up-the-base purposes, this is a group of people who are too small in size to cast many votes or exert much social influence. Of course, what would that say about beating up on people who can’t easily fight back?

It’s true that there are some legitimate subjects for discussion here. The issue of who should participate in gender-specific athletics is real and legitimate. I’ll not weigh in here specifically on whether the athletes complaining about transgender participation in their ranks have a case; maybe they do. But that ought to be qualified by individual cases. Every one of these transgender people are stories unto themselves. The changes they go through as well as the results are different, on varying time frames and involving different physical realities. A transgender person in one case might in no way reasonably belong on a particular gendered team or group, while another might. Wouldn’t that suggest the smarter way to go would involve addressing these issues case by case, with the specific facts at hand, rather than in making a sweeping judgment?

If the numbers involved were really large, you might argue that broad rules are needed. But, well, the numbers aren’t all that large. The Williams Institute and others have estimated that about 1,000 Idaho teens are transgender.

In general, a case by case approach probably is going to yield the best and fairest results. Doing it that way would, of course, result in less raw meat for the political and anger/fear social media grinders, but … wouldn’t that be a good thing?

There’s no cause for panic here, however extreme an emotional response political ads, and some politicians, might try to induce.