Posts published in “Stapilus”

While Democrats in Maine struggle with their preferences for the U.S. Senate, Idaho Democrats, for different reasons, are struggling too. They’re having to deal with two big considerations: One short term, one longer term, both focused now on the Gem State race for the U.S. Senate.

The Republican nominee is three-term incumbent Jim Risch. The Democratic nominee is David Roth, who won a contested primary with 64% of the vote.

Roth’s track record up to now is similar to that of most Democratic nominees for federal office in recent decades. In 2024, he received 31% of the vote against Republican Representative Mike Simpson. In 2022, running against incumbent Republican Senator Mike Crapo, he pulled 28.7%. In 2020 he got 34.9% in an Idaho Falls-area legislative race. His percentages have been in a consistent range and comparable to many other Democrats. There’s little reason to think he would much exceed those numbers this time.

The Senate race has a complicating factor in the person of Todd Achilles, a former Democratic legislator who has been running an energetic and evidently well received campaign as an independent. His race is in the mold of several other recent red-state independent candidacies, such as independent Dan Osborn, who took 47% of the vote in 2024 against a Republican incumbent, and is running again now. In his case, this year, the Democratic nominee for the Senate there, Cindy Burbank, withdrew in favor of Osborn.

So, if you’re a voter who would rather not reelect Risch, what do you do? That question has evolved in a spat among Democrats.

Former Representative Larry LaRocco sparked the debate shortly after the primary election when he wrote an essay saying: “the best course for Idaho and the United States would be for Roth to channel the pragmatic decision of Burbank in Nebraska. Roth should drop out of this hopeless and biennial cause, endorse Achilles for the U.S. Senate and ask the Idaho Democratic Party to do the same. This unselfish act would allow Idaho to have a fully funded, fully debated, fully visible and fully engaged campaign for the U.S. Senate.”

There’s been some pushback on the idea that Achilles would be a stronger general election candidate than Roth, and both sides can cite some polling to pitch their case. In truth, it’s speculative, since Idaho hasn’t had an independent candidate for the Senate like Achilles before, so we can’t be sure how well he will do. (Polling results have conflicted.) The argument is between the upside prospect of another Osborne against another near-certain Democratic overwhelming loss.

LaRocco’s main point is that the largest chance of a non-Risch win in November lies in an opposition unified behind Achilles. He argued that Roth should drop out to allow that opposition to coalesce, and that more candidates would surely benefit Risch. He is right about that.

Roth has declined to withdraw. In his own online post, he made a variety of arguments, such as that when he ran for and won the Democratic nomination, he did so with the clear intent of staying into November. In other states (as in Nebraska), Democrats have prepared for the independent possibility by nominating candidates who said in advance they would drop out. He also pointed out issues disagreements with Achilles.

Roth’s statement also included the suggestion that the Achilles candidacy really represents a lack of faith that in Idaho, Democrats can win a major race.

Here we have a very large point to consider. Democrats have not won an Idaho race for the U.S. Senate since 1974, for the U.S. House since 2008, for governor since 1990, and for any other statewide race since 2002. Democrats have held only about a fifth of state legislative seats since the early 90s.

The question becomes reasonable: Is the Democratic brand in Idaho simply too torched, too untouchable (for whatever reason) to succeed anymore in this state? Is it too toxic for any person, however wonderful they may be or how bad their opponent, to succeed electorally (outside of Boise and a few other places) in Idaho anymore? Is some very new approach, maybe including independent candidacies, what’s needed?

That’s a question this debate raises that Idaho Democrats ought to grapple with in a serious way. Soon.

David Hahn was hired formally on July 1 by the State Board of Education to become Boise State University’s eighth president, and the expected expressions of energy and enthusiasm were there in abundance, even if the meeting was mostly an online Zoom session.

Hahn remarked, “Boise State University is the place for me. I can’t wait to get going.”

The reply from Board President Kurt Libich was, “I hope you’re ready to hit the ground running, because you’re running as of today.”

Take that response seriously: The challenges waiting for Hahn at Boise will be formidable.

Some of what he encounters, what may be a serious, important and intensive but ultimately easier part of the job, should be very much in his wheelhouse.

We don’t know a lot about him - his name wasn’t even associated publicly with BSU until about two weeks before the hiring - but much of what we do know sounds as if it should match up well with large parts of what the university does.

Hahn’s background is in mechanical engineering research, and he holds a dozen patents. He has not been an institution president or vice president, which might have been expected and often has been the case; he is dean of the College of Education at the University of Arizona. That’s probably a stronger credential, though, than it may first suggest, since UA is a major research institution. Before that he was an administrator at the University of Florida.

BSU is in a major growth mode, and UA has been a growing institution too, and in some of the same areas that BSU seems most likely to position itself for. You could easily imagine someone with Hahn’s background locking into a smooth working relationship with, say, Micron. Words like “builder” were often used to describe him, with some reason.

Administering, managing, developing at Boise State are undoubtedly an important part of the job, and he appears well suited to it. What we don’t know a lot about, yet, is how in other ways he will fit into his new environment, something that may be more challenging in some ways than what he’s worked with before.

Idaho’s governing Republican Party of yore was a clear supporter of higher education, but these days it and the governing structure of the state have a touchy relationship with it. To judge from its actions, the Idaho Legislature seems as least as skeptical as supportive of the college and universities and their mission. At the same time, BSU’s student and professional base, and the city where it is located, have a very different set of expectations from much of political Idaho.

The canyon between the two put a BSU president, any BSU president, in a difficult spot. Hahn’s immediate predecessors probably could have quite a bit to say about that.

So could people at BSU. Just one occasion was built into the presidential selection process when people at the university could question Hahn directly; it drew about 500 people, which as he remarked is a sign of strong interest.

That interest may not always be easy to manage. A couple of exchanges, as reported in the Idaho Ed News, make the point.

One student, a self-described conservative, said people in that group often feel outnumbered on campus, and asked how Hahn would protect freedom of expression. (That concern about free expression also cuts the other way in Idaho.) Hahn’s response - that an open atmosphere helps and “when everyone comes, that’s when you have what society looks like” - was not bad but won’t come close to resolving tensions on either side of the political fence. These days, feel-good statements won’t be enough.

Nor will his response to a question about legislative attacks on diversity and inclusion: That he wants to see a welcoming university, but that state laws have to be obeyed. He was trying to thread a needle, but wound up making an internally conflicfting statement.

The arrival of a new university president is always marked by a small tide of optimism. But the challenges ahead are likely to be large, and as Hahn hits the ground he will have his hands full.

Before we get to what the Idaho Republican Party did at its just-ended convention, we need to review a couple of other things.

One is the cheerful wrap-up comment from Dorothy Moon, just re-elected to a third term as party chair. In her e-mail message, she said, “Debates within the Idaho GOP during the primary election and at the state convention have been intense, as they should be. Now, we stand united not only to keep Idaho red, but to keep Idaho a place where all life is valued.”

One party, united, period. Got it. And this is totally consistent with messages implicit and explicitly from the party in recent years..

The second point is enforcement of that unity. Shortly before the primary election, the party sent to the candidates running in its primary a document seeking their affirmation that they agree with all of the party’s platform. Some candidates disagreed with a point here or there, but many simply said that yes, they sign on with everything.

It’s more than paperwork. In recent years, party leaders have insisted that Republican officials, notably legislators, vote and speak in strict accordance with the party’s platform and resolutions - and have gone after those who veered from the party line. One good example is Representative Lori McCann of Lewiston, who was repeatedly censured by county Republican central committees for voting differently than the party dictated. Last month she lost a primary election in her district.

Unity and follow the party line. Do not stray from it. That’s the message from the Idaho Republican Party.

Now let’s consider one piece of this year’s party message, approved at the recent convention, a plank in the platform, advanced by the former and likely future state Senator Scott Herndon:

“We believe property tax is incompatible with true private property ownership. A tax that allows the government to place a lien on and ultimately seize a citizen's home for nonpayment is fundamentally at odds with the right to own property. No Idahoan should face the loss of their home because they cannot keep up with a government assessment of what their property might sell for. We support the elimination of property taxes to protect the private property rights of all Idahoans.”

Simpler: End property taxation in Idaho. Period.

We’ll put aside the fact (which Herndon seems to ignore) of stiff legal consequences for non-payment of other forms of taxes (income and sales), which depending on the situation can be as severe as nonpayment of property taxes.

Herndon has said the state can make up for that loss of more than $2 billion in property tax revenue, which is not the only source but a key underpinning for local government in Idaho, including cities, counties, schools, roads and much more.

Around $400 million of that goes to public schools. Herndon said he would support moving all support for public schools to direct funding by the state, which in itself is not a terrible idea - but imagine the Idaho Legislature approving the additional taxes it would take to do that, and you’ll quickly see what a fantasy this is. And he said he isn’t calling for any increase in the sales or income tax.

That would be consistent with the rest of the platform. While the Republican platform specifically calls for eliminating the property tax, it nowhere suggests replacing the lost revenue with anything else. To the contrary: The platform advises, “We support lower federal, state, and local taxes.” Period.

But Herndon also suggested growth could make up for the loss in property taxes. History, local and national, makes clear what a delusion that is. You could’ve asked Reagan appointee David Stockman about the lessons he learned on that subject 40 years ago and gotten the same answer.

Democratic legislator Ilana Rubel suggested the property tax plank is “just intended to be kind of a crowd pleaser of, ‘Hey, don’t you hate property tax? Here, we want to end it,’ without any credible plan of how they would backfill that revenue.”

I wouldn’t be so sure. This is after all the Idaho Republican Party of strict ideological discipline. And the party line has been dictated. How many legislators next session will be willing to run afoul of it?

Three decades ago in Boise I attended a stand-up comedy night where the traveling comedian seized on the local place name “Kuna,” and kept scoring off it all night. It seemed so remote, and rural, and it sounded - what? - a little funny. Must’ve seemed a good comedy word.

Times change. Kuna never was especially remote, even if it was a little out of the way. The Kuna Kave (which I once descended into, in what then felt like an eerie experience) is still there, and still gives the local high school a mascot name, but it’s a lot less central to the identity of the area now.

The Kuna I knew from 40 or 50 years ago still largely exists, mainly around the downtown area which seems preserved in a time capsule. Almost everything around it is transformed. Back then, say in 1980, Kuna’s population was 1,767. Now, the number is approaching 20 times that.

The new hallmarks of Kuna are the subdivision and the strip mall. This is, after all, one of the fastest - maybe the fastest, with Eagle - growing communities in Idaho.

In the Ada-Canyon metroplex, a word that genuinely might be applied to it these days, Kuna is at a southern edge; all that lies between it and the Snake River canyon and birds of prey area to the south is miles of straight-up desert. Some what is now urbanized Kuna used to be farmland or rangeland, but some was open desert by the Snake River Birds of Prey Area.

Much of Kuna today looks like a replicant of the other suburban Ada and Canyon areas, as if someone had copied large pieces of Meridian and pasted them a few miles south. Meridian and Kuna, once clearly separated by seven miles or more, retain a visible gap between them, but one one much thinner and likely to mostly fill in before long.

The explosive growth around Kuna to the south of the Boise area and Eagle to the north represent expansions about as close to the center of the urban mass as realistically possible. Growth to the west - beyond Caldwell - and to the east - well east of Micron Technology and what used to be the Boise Outlet Mall - still seem like a bridge too far. But maybe not if the new casino, business and residential developments planned for the Mayfield area really start to take off.

This suggests the Boise area still has some cohesion, with Boise itself still the center hub of commerce, government and employment, along with much of the social activity.

But that may not be a fair assumption. Meridian is becoming a business behemoth on its own (just count with big office buildings there near I-84, not to mention elsewhere), and businesses looking to build on not-too-expensive land already has led many to start to look at places like Eagle - and Kuna.

Bringing us to the development at Kuna (encouraged by state tax exemptions) of two massive data centers, developed by Meta (the Facebook people) and Diode Ventures. Diode, explaining why it chose Kuna as a location, said, “Agencies, chambers, and economic organizations throughout Idaho undertook concerted efforts to attract data centers to the state because of the recognition of the community investment with a low developmental impact of these types of projects. Over the course of several years, this advocacy helped create a welcoming environment for IT infrastructure providers to set up shop, help grow the state’s technology sector and stimulate the creation of tech-related jobs. Diode identified Kuna as an ideal location …”

There are challenges to both centers, and concerns which include a number of issues, foremost being water: Since data centers use a lot of it (often really tremendous amounts), and since there’s not a lot outside the already diminishing aquifer underground. Both the state of Idaho (through the Department of Water Resources) and the Idaho Water Users Association have warned about the possible impacts on long-term water supply.

If water demands from data centers and residential expansion combined put enough pressure on the water supply, that may force an eventual limit to Kuna’s expansion. The question to come may be how severe that pain has to be before limitations are imposed.

Most likely, severe indeed, and there’s nothing funny about that.