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Disappearing delegation

May 3, 2025

Idaho, that oddly shaped state up in the northwestern corner of the United States, has long been a conservative stronghold. Republicans have dominated the state with minor exceptions since statehouse in 1890.

Although, as my old boss, Cecil Andrus, the last Democratic governor of Idaho, liked to say, “Idaho borders on six states and a foreign country,” politically the state would more comfortably fit in the deep South.

In fact, some Idahoans have long bemoaned the state as “the Mississippi of the northwest” with limited support for public education, perhaps the most dystopian anti-abortion law in the country and ever more cranks and conspiracy theorists in the state legislature.

At the same time the state has a theoretically powerful congressional delegation that could assert itself, but won’t out of fear - fear of the pushback from the White House and fear of the next election.

Here’s a brief case study of a state captured by the politics of Trumpism.

Idaho makes national news for all the wrong reasons, including a bizarre incident recently where a woman was carted out of GOP town hall meeting by six private security guards who were subsequently charged with battery and false imprisonment.

The Idaho GOP has supported the private security guards.

In another recent case a young elementary school teacher in Meridian, Idaho was told to remove an “Everyone is Welcome Here” banner from her classroom. The school board thought the banner was not “neutral.” The story went international.

The outstanding former president of Boise State University, Marlene Tromp, was attacked by the far right from her first day on the job even as she grew enrollment, improved the school’s academic standing and kept BSU football on the national radar. Tromp recently decamped to Vermont, a state likely to embrace her competence and decency. As Kevin Richert wrote in Idaho Education News, Tromp left just as the Idaho Legislature was taking a wack - again - at higher education budgets not to save money but for ideological reasons.

The debate over that budget — and a proposed cut targeting Boise State — offers a fitting epilogue to Tromp’s six years at Idaho’s largest four-year university. Tromp is going out where she came in: at the center of controversy over higher education politics.

On Tuesday, a divided Joint Finance-Appropriations Committee voted to cut Boise State’s budget by $2 million (the University of Idaho faces an identical cut). The cuts are not driven by fiscal necessity. Instead, they are ideological, driven by hardliners hell-bent on extracting a pound of flesh from the universities.

Meanwhile, an Idaho judge recently ordered the state’s showboating attorney general, Raul Labrador, to sit for a deposition related to a lawsuit brought for a whistleblower who alleges wrongful termination. As the Idaho Capital Sun reported:

The judge, in a separate ruling, also sanctioned the Idaho Attorney General’s Office for Labrador’s failure to appear for his previously scheduled deposition. Hours after the deposition was set to occur, the Attorney General’s Office filed a motion for a protective order that sought to stop Labrador from being deposed.

The judge required the office to pay expenses, including attorney fees, related to Labrador’s deposition. He also required the Attorney General’s Office to pay plaintiff’s expenses, including attorney fees, associated with their motion for sanctions.

Labrador, who served in Congress before being elected attorney general, has designs on the Governor’s Office, so, of course, he’s mastered the far right art of performance politics and disruption.

You won’t be surprised to recall that Labrador, while in Congress, lead the far right Republican ouster of then-Speaker John Boehner. In his book about the dysfunctional Congress in that period - American Carnage - journalist Tim Alberta places Labrador in the center of the dysfunction.

And there’s more.

The recently adjourned legislature cut taxes and then redirected state funding from public to private schools, an initial $50 million hit that everyone knows will grow exponentially at the expense of mostly small, rural schools. And to put a bow on the session the legislature declared that a firing squad is the state’s preferred method of execution.

Oh, and the legislature decided it should prescribe the flags that could legally be flown from public buildings, a law apparently aimed at a pride flag flying in front of Boise city hall. The attorney general wrote the mayor of Boise a strongly worded letter about the offending flag. The mayor told him to pound sand.

White supremacists and Christian nationalists increasingly influence Idaho politics, while the always very conservative core of traditional Republicans are marginalized. 1

I could go on, but you get the drift. Idaho is the deep south bordering on Canada. The Idaho governor’s name is Little, but it could easily be Huckabee Sanders or Landry.

To paraphrase the great Civil War historian Gary Gallagher, “Idaho joined the Confederacy after the Civil War.”

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Idaho once elected independent minded Democrats as governor (Andrus elected four times), to the Senate (Frank Church for four terms) and to the House of Representatives (Larry LaRocco, Richard Stallings and Walt Minnick) in the 1980’s and 1990’s.

No more.

The Trumpified Republican Party is fully in charge of Idaho and no where does that influence show more than in the state’s all-Republican congressional delegation.

The delegation features three long-tenured lawmakers - two Senate committee chairs and a House appropriations “cardinal” - who could exercise real clout if they chose to do so.

That they don’t is really the story of the Republican Party in Congress, complete acceptance of what the White House offers up on a daily basis and genuinely cowed into never questioning let alone challenging Trump and the MAGA gossip.

So, do a thought experiment with me and consider what has been happening over the last 10 days or so and then consider just how completely the Idaho congressional delegation has vanished.

Poof.

President Donald Trump’s madcap tariff policy, complete with the daily reversals and contradictions, has caused wild gyrations in world and U.S. markets. The S&P 500, as a result, is down nearly 15% since Trump took office. The dollar is weaker. Recession fears are stronger. This week, CEOs from stores like Home Depot, Target and Walmart warned Trump that tariff chaos is affecting supply chains and soon many store shelves will be empty. Trump attacked — again — Jerome Powell, chairperson of the Federal Reserve, before backing off when the attack further spooked the markets.

The market fits and starts have created, as numerous news organizations have reported, enormous opportunities for insider trading. A quiet heads up that Trump is going to post a change in direction on social media is a signal to act in the markets. Trump himself issued such an advisory recently before pausing some of his tariff actions. Some folks undoubtedly, and illegally, made out like bandits.

Trump is personally benefiting from the increasingly unregulated crypto market. Now he’s inviting the biggest owners of his own memecoin to an exclusive dinner at his Virginia golf club, followed by tours of the White House. In short: Buy the Trump crypto, put money into the president’s pocket and get direct access to him.

“This is really incredible,” Corey Frayer, who oversaw crypto policy for the Securities and Exchange Commission during the Biden administration, told the New York Times. “They are making the pay-to-play deal explicit.”

It’s an unprecedented level of presidential corruption that makes Bill Clinton’s invitations to spend a night in the Lincoln Bedroom look almost quaint by comparison.

News also broke this week that Pete Hegseth, the former Fox News weekend host who now occupies a big office in the Pentagon, shared operational details of a U.S. military strike in Yemen with his wife, his brother and his lawyer, again using an insecure Signal messaging app. Some of the information was originally transmitted to Hegseth by secure channels, as is appropriate, by the top U.S. general in the Middle East. The president again defended Hegseth.

A NATO official was quoted by Politico as saying: “Did Putin write this for him?” when Trump unveiled his latest “peace” plan for Ukraine. The plan is widely seen in Europe is a gold-plated gift to Russian dictator Vladimir Putin. Meanwhile, Trump bashed Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy for refusing to accept Putin’s demand that Ukraine accept Russian annexation of Crimea, while handing Russia its territorial gains and removing sanctions against the brutal regime.

“The Trump ‘peace’ plan is no such thing; it is an instrument of surrender, and the Ukrainians are unlikely to accept it,” says conservative writer Tom Nichols. All this foreshadows a total U.S. capitulation to the Kremlin.

That’s just a portion of a week’s worth of utter chaos. I will leave for another day what a federal judge termed the “willful” and “bad faith” disregard of court orders related to illegal deportations, the shakedowns of major law firms, threats to Social Security and Medicaid, the administration’s growing efforts to sell off public lands, the ongoing efforts to intimidate American colleges and universities and the widespread — and often illegal and unconstitutional — executive branch dismantling of the federal government.

Amid this vast executive branch disruption — even destruction — of international trade and foreign and domestic policy you might wonder what has happened to the first branch of government, the Article I branch that the Founders believed would be the most important of three co-equal branches of the federal government? The question begs: Does Idaho even have a congressional delegation anymore?

By virtue of longevity if not capability or accomplishment, the all-Republican Idaho delegation, theoretically, has a lot of power and could exercise real influence. That it doesn’t even try explains a great deal about the state of American democracy.

Sen. Mike Crapo is uniquely positioned as chairperson of the Senate Finance Committee to exercise influence over trade policy. What has Crapo done? Well, he did recently say it was a good thing that people were asking questions about tariffs, a response that in a different context might get a young athlete a participation medal. The Constitution gives Congress power over trade policy.

Crapo has punted his power.

Is Crapo happy with the administration’s increasing war on Idaho industries, including agriculture and computer chips? Does the Finance Committee chairperson have any concerns about an unregulated crypto market? Crapo’s committee has broad jurisdiction over many targets of the current administration, including Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid policy and the Federal Reserve.

How does Crapo feel about a policy that seems certain to replace the U.S. with China as the world’s champion of international trade and stable markets? Does he have anything to say about these issues?

Anything at all?

Sen. James Risch’s position of influence is as chairperson of the Foreign Relations Committee. Risch, once a staunch supporter of Ukraine in its existential struggle against Russia, has gone totally missing other than to twice recently stop consideration of Senate resolutions condemning Putin’s brutal war of aggression. Big change is afoot at the State Department, including a determination to reduce American diplomatic and humanitarian influence across the globe. Does Risch care? Will he even stir himself to conduct a hearing on the administration’s policy? I think we know the answer.

Rep. Mike Simpson has roused himself, more or less, to push back against the sale of public lands. Yet despite his senior position as an appropriator, Simpson seems perfectly fine with executive branch domination over spending.

Does Simpson have anything to say about widespread layoffs of U.S. Forest Service, National Park Service and Bureau of Land Management personnel? Does Simpson care that the agricultural college at the University of Idaho had a $59 million grant designed to assist Idaho farmers — the largest in school history — cancelled by the Trump Administration?

Idaho’s other congressman, Russ Fulcher, should really be on milk cartons. He’s not even reached the status of a replacement level backbencher in the House. In his increasingly rare public comments, Fulcher toes the Trumpist line, but must be feeling some heat around the tariff chaos and much else.

As Fulcher told the Coeur d’ Alene Press this week:

“I don’t know if there really is a solid plan,” he said. “That’s not a criticism. But it is creating some uncertainty. I have talked to the president, and I think I know what he’s looking at. It’s a valid vantage point, somewhere in the neighborhood of $7 trillion in foreign investment committed to the U.S.”

From the Trump administration’s perspective, it’s a “huge win,” Fulcher said. But tariffs are putting pressure on Idaho businesses.

That’s “not a criticism” is the weak gruel of a man without a clue or a real reason to be in Congress. But, hey, that’s Idaho.

Co-president Elon Musk has been demanding federal employees provide weekly accountings of what they are doing to earn their salary. Idaho constituents might ask the same of their disappeared congressional delegation.

An honest answer would be: nothing.

Idaho is a case study: Republicans members of Congress in thrall to an increasingly unpopular president supporting presidential policies that are hurting their own voters.

These are not stupid people. But they are frightened people, afraid of a dangerous leader of their own party, afraid of being targeted for speaking out, so afraid that they literally won’t go out in public. None of these elected officials have had a real public appearance in months, even years, afraid they might be asked an awkward question about about our time of chaos, turmoil and unlawfulness.

There is a moral and intellectual rot here deeper than Hells Canyon.

Marc Johnson's column and comments can be found on Substack.

Watch it closely and warily

Watch it closely and warily

May 2, 2025

Years after the fact, Phil Batt would recall that when he became Idaho’s governor In 1995, “the nuclear waste issue hit me right between the eyes.”

It sure did. He was taking over the office and the issue from Cecil Andrus, who had gone to court and taken other action blocking shipments of nuclear waste from entering the state, primarily around the Idaho National Laboratory (as it’s now called) site. That status was unstable and untenable for long, the legal and political case eventually likely would have been decided against the state, and Batt spent several of his early months in office figuring out how to deal with it.

The situation was not simple, and Batt understood that. He said in his memoir that he was persuaded national military capabilities were implicated, and “I believe Congress would have soon dictated our acceptance of this small amount of spent fuel rather than to idle any ships or submarines. However, I admired Governor Andrus’ actions that got the attention of both the Navy and the Department of Energy, and that generated almost universal support among Idahoans.”

What Batt negotiated over a period of months - recognizing that INL was already home to significant amounts of waste - was a complex deal intended to minimize the volume of nuclear waste in Idaho. He maintained that the agreement was the best he could get at the time, and that may be true. It was not a clean-cut or easily described decision even then, and Batt pragmatically would say of it, “I got every ounce of flesh I could get.”

That’s the backdrop to the news last week that the state agreed to a waiver of key elements of that 1995 deal. It allows for shipping a nuclear fuel cask from Virginia to the INL, and for research at the site on nuclear waste.

On the surface, the new agreement sounds reasonable, and it may turn out to be.

There’s plenty of nuclear waste in the country and we still don’t fully understand (as well as we should) what we can or should do with it. INL is a logical place to research the question, or rather continue researching it.

No one wants to store nuclear waste, and no state including Idaho wants to be known as a dumping ground, but there’s an increasing amount of it that has to go somewhere. A new study on the subject from Ohio noted, “Around the U.S., about 90,000 tons of nuclear waste is stored at over 100 sites in 39 states, in a range of different structures and containers. For decades, the nation has been trying to send it all to one secure location.”

Andrus got sideways with the federal government over nuclear waste in large part because he sensed a tendency by federal agencies to roll over the state, and concluded a sharp response was called for. After Batt negotiated his deal, he concluded that the state’s best posture was to keep an eagle eye on the proceedings. And in fact, over the 30 years since, the feds have from time to time pressed against the envelope, sometimes, possibly, breaching the agreement.

But a steady watch from all parties has averted what Andrus and Batt were most trying to avoid, the turning of eastern Idaho into a nuclear waste junkyard. It hasn’t been perfect, but it’s more or less worked.

So might this new agreement, probably the most significant development in the field for quite a few years. Only a limited amount of waste is supposed to be imported, and its purpose is supposed to involve research.

What Andrus and Batt also knew was that such agreements have to be closely monitored so they don’t become the proverbial camel’s nose under the tent.

Idaho state officials may have been right to sign off on the latest deal, but they should not take their eyes off the bottom of the tent, lest more of the camel try to ease inside.

 

Show me

Show me

May 1, 2025

All you Trump aficionados out there hailing DOGE chainsaw efforts need to give me a little help. I do know how to run a chainsaw and I respect a chainsaw.

The chainsaw analogy is overblown.

The excuse I am hearing for all this chainsaw wielding is “fraud and abuse”.

Excuse me if I roll my eyes right here. I have heard these claims in Idaho. Fraud and abuse.

Abuse is evil and bad, I agree, but fraud is a crime. Here’s the Idaho code. I’m sure there are federal codes for defrauding the federal government too. We have a State Attorney General. We have a US Attorney for Idaho.

If people are committing crimes against the rest of us, who pay taxes and follow the law, why the hell aren’t our elected prosecutors prosecuting them? Should we take a chain saw to these slackers?

Instead, we hear all these claims of ‘fraud and abuse’ and somehow think these fraud and abuse claims justify retribution. Is there something else behind these claims?

Let’s go to court.

Let’s sort this out.

At a recent Health and Welfare Board meeting we got told that a program supporting families caring for their disabled members at home would be discontinued. The Directors statement to us justifying this was because the Department had found evidence of ‘fraud and abuse’.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I do understand there are people out there who will abuse any system we build. People will steal water. People will park where they shouldn’t. People will litter. And we should shame them, even prosecute them.

But to shut down a program that has been helping families on the ‘fraud and abuse’ excuse tips me over.

Show me the fraud.

Prosecute it, damn it.

So, I asked our director at that board meeting 6 months ago, “Have there been any cases referred to the State Attorney General? Are we prosecuting this fraud?”

He deferred.

He will move on to serve a broader sphere. I have not read of any prosecutions by our Attorney General. Please, let me know.

Are we just using this ‘fraud and abuse’ smear as an excuse for the new age lynching of cutting off promised funds and employment?

We can do better.

People need to be honest. And they need to fear their dishonest behavior. I don’t mind making myself a prosecutor.

We have a place here in town to drop off yard waste instead of driving 5 miles out of town. It is a wonderful service. And it is abused.

I took a video of a commercial landscaper dumping his 5-yard trailer at the site and sent it to our mayor.

Last week I watched and scowled at people dumping on the pavement what they could have thrown their clippings in the bins.

If we make things easy for people, people abuse it.

Abuse is not fraud. Abuse deserves our approbation. Please feel free with me to look at, make eye contact with folks abusing the systems that are here to serve all of us. They deserve the shame.

But fraud is a crime. To lump it in with “abuse” is giving the prosecutors a free ride. Fraud means the perpetrator got money through their falsehoods. Fraud needs to be prosecuted.

DOGE is not prosecuting. DOGE is wielding a chainsaw.

Prosecution enforces the rule of law. Our government appointed law enforcers should prosecute those who take our taxpayer dollars through deceit.

We are on the cusp of turning this government ‘of the people, by the people, for the people’ into a government that now rewards those in power.

My glaring at abusers at our yard waste dump is not enough.

It will take more effort to show that we believe this republic is worth saving.

 

Wringing our hands

April 30, 2025

Well, here we are – 100 days in, and from listening to the torrent of comment spewing from the ivory towers of the more prolific observers, things are only going to get worse. With the mid-terms only a breath away, there are no clear signs that the Democratic party has found its footing. Unless those in control of its levers of power come to their senses soon, the mid-terms may turn into a disaster, leaving control of Congress in limbo and thereby paving the way for the continued dismantling of the 250- year-old experiment we call our democracy.

No one can explain how this happened, but it is becoming clear now that everyone contributed to it. The media viewed his introduction to the process in the early days of the 21st century with high humor, covering every step he took with ridicule and corny jokes. By the time it came to its senses and began taking him seriously, it was too late. He had over half the states lined up from his party’s primaries, and no organized opposition to his nomination.

The wiser heads of the Republican party chose to sit on their hands. The opposition party was coming off the incredibly popular Obama presidency, and with the velocity of the winds coming from his office, they believed his party could not be stopped. This left a band of second stringers and odd-ball right wingers to fiddle around offering mixtures of stale choices in the various early primaries which left the path open for the apparent fresh voice of a political newcomer. By the time any potentially serious contenders within the Republican party came to their senses, it was too late.

The then party in power followed in its own history and in a series of traditional mis-steps, shot itself in its own foot. The Democrats chose the first woman ever to run for the presidency, but picked a candidate with a history, being an unshakable tail that attached her current candidacy to the irrelevant past. The candidate herself raised no serious issues, avoiding any conflicts and maintaining only that it was her turn and she deserved to win. Her campaign became over-confident at the end, and she was persuaded to take her eye off the ball, which saw the critical key state of Pennsylvania slip away merely for lack of attention.

With Congress not out of control, the first term of the current office holder’s  tenure was only moderatly upsetting. Without Congress and with a potentially unfriendly Supreme Court, he was unable to do any real damage while in office.

The tear 2020 saw the next the next presidential campaign. In a brief respite from potential error, the Democrats managed to select a capable middle of the roader to be its candidate, when facing the current office holder’s bid for re-election, and in an unpredicted squeaker, he managed to win.

The wining party offered no celebrations for their candidate’s victory but instead embroiled itself into a series of intramural squabbles, pitching the left wing against the middle and disdaining or ignoring the achievements of their office holder. This allowed the most successful presidency of the last 100 years to proceed without fanfare. The president himself chose not to blow his own horn as his administration succeeded in achieving goal after goal in the objectives it set for itself, producing the best economy in recent history with the highest employment, lowest interest rates, and broadest tax reform, but with no one to offer any rebuttal to the outlandishly false claims by the outed president, who was beginning to clamor for his return to office.

The next election in 2024 turned into a fiasco. The office holder was grudgingly renominated by his party, again without giving credit for his tremendously successful first term. The former president was renominated by his party in a convention that appeared to be firmly under the control of its right-edge fringe. When the Democratic  candidate performed poorly in an irrelevant early debate, the party panicked. Despite the uncontroverted history of failure that inevitably results from the decision, the candidate resigned.

With no other feasible option, the party selected the vice-presidential candidate to step up and take over the campaign. She ran a remarkable campaign, making no errors, demonstrating herself to be more than capable to take on the job, and presenting a seamless picture of an unbeatable target for office.

Which missed, with a stunning loss that should have been predicted as the result of two factors. First, the fringes of the party became embroiled in an irrelevant disagreement over her stand on some international policy and decided to stay home – probably or apparently in significant numbers. But second, and perhaps more significant, was the impossibly insurmountable combination of the candidate (a) being a woman, (b) of color, and (c) of an uncertain religious heritage, i.e., not Christian.  Her mother was a Buddhest, and her husband is a Jew. Although never mentioned in public debate, and operating completely behind the curtain, this combination took over to prevent “the unthinkable.”  While the electorate may have submitted to one and perhaps two of these unspeakably disqualifying circumstances, it is clear they did not stand for all three.  The election was not even close.

We are now facing the beginning of the potential run-up to the 2028 election. The current office holder has made it clear that he intends to run again, despite his age, despite the mounting disapproval of what he has accomplished so far, and despite the fact that the Constitution can probably be interpreted as preventing a third term. There is no indication that anyone in the Republican party intends to step forward with any opposition to his plan.

What is the Democratic party doing in the face of all this? Wringing its hands in terror. And winding itself into internal knots over accepting the necessity of finding middle-of-the-roaders to step in to the multi-colored districts where changes are at least possible.

Could the picture of the future be any bleaker?

 

Overcoming divisions

April 29, 2025

If I were asked to draw a map of the United States, using only the outlines of the 48 contiguous states, I'd have to give it some thought.

As a child in school, so many years ago, I could whip one up in short order.  But, now, as a grown-up, some eighty-years later, the same project would take a lot more time.  More thought.

Because this nation is divided.  No.  It's more like fractured.  Red vs Blue - rural vs urban - gay vs straight and still, to our shame, Black vs White.  And Brown.  And Yellow.

We've even got folks who want to redraw state borders to fit their political beliefs.  Make part of Oregon part of Idaho.  Or, make part of California a piece of Oregon.  Never gonna happen.  But, they're out there and they'll keep making noises.

Long ago, I quit saying the Pledge of Allegiance.  "One nation."  "Liberty and justice for all."  I just can't do it.

Same for parts of the National Anthem and "America, the Beautiful."  "...Alabaster cities."  "Brotherhood."  "From sea to shining sea."  Our seas haven't been shining for at least a hundred years.  "Brotherhood" is in short supply.  And I challenge anyone to find an "alabaster city." Been to downtown Portland or Seattle lately?

The oft-repeated words of our anthems and the pledge just don't square with the reality out there.  We can mouth the words or sing the tunes.  But, the words have become descriptive of some other country where "brotherhood" and "shining seas" exist.  Maybe Norway, Sweden or Finland.

Please don't get me wrong.  We're blessed with our Republic - our democracy.  I have strong, positive and loving feelings for my country - for our way of life.  But, both are in danger of being lost if we continue to walk our current, widely divided pathways.

Maybe the strongest division we must overcome is the rural vs urban.  Eastern Washington vs West of the Cascades.  Eastern Oregon vs West of the Cascades.  Northern Idaho vs Southern Idaho.

Or Eastern Idaho vs the more populous Western Idaho.

Many of us have lived in both urban and rural environments at one time or another.  And, we've found there's something to be said for both.

But, somehow, we're pitting one against the other - economically and politically.  We believe someone else is getting more than we are.  Someone else is getting more benefit - more dollars - more recognition.  I heard a lot of that living in Eastern Idaho.  "Those guys in Boise" most often claimed.  Now, I live in small town Oregon so it's "those guys in Portland."

Maybe the most divisive issues are political.  Like people wanting to redraw Idaho's Western border clear over to the Cascades and South to California.  It's notable they made a little detour around Bend which most rural Oregonians think is a hotbed of "liberals."  Another made-up division.

Abe Lincoln was the guy who said a "house divided against itself cannot stand."  He certainly headed a nation deeply divided in 1865.  More than any other accomplishment, he laid the groundwork to bring North and South together as much as was possible at the time.  Even though we still have that division in some small, angry Southern corners.

We must get past these divisions, whatever they may be.  We've got to rid ourselves of divisive politicians and their false rhetoric.  We need new, younger voices vying for political leadership and others socially and culturally.  We need to accept - and understand - whatever differences there may be, get past them and concentrate on things that bind us.

We need to work hard on the "brotherhood," "shining seas" and the "alabaster cities."  We had 'em once.   Maybe we can have 'em again.

 

Unconstitutional here, too

April 28, 2025

A district judge in Utah issued a marvelous decision on April 18, finding Utah’s school voucher law to be unconstitutional. The 60-page decision was based on a variety of constitutional flaws that the Utah law shares with Idaho’s recently-enacted education tax credit law. The Utah law was enacted in 2023 with $42.5 million in state funds. State funding increased by $40 million in each of the next two years.

The Utah judge said the Utah Constitution gives “a direct command to the legislature to perform a single duty: establish and maintain the state’s education systems.’” The judge continued, “This clear expression of one duty–coupled with the absence of any general duty to provide for the education or intellectual improvement of Utahns — impliedly restricts the legislature from creating a publicly funded school or education program outside of the public school system.” In other words, Utah’s legislature is restricted from using public funds to support any form of private education.

Of interest is the fact that every member of the Idaho Legislature was sent a “Legislative Alert” on the first day of the 2025 legislative session, warning that any scheme to use taxpayer money for private education would be violative of the Idaho Constitution in a number of respects. The Alert was provided by The Committee to Protect and Preserve the Idaho Constitution, a group that participated in the successful lawsuit to overturn the restrictive initiative law enacted in 2021.

The Alert identified the same constitutional flaw focused upon by the Utah judge–that Idaho’s Constitution prohibits the funding of private and parochial education. That has been the law of Idaho ever since statehood in 1890.

The Alert spelled out several other constitutional infirmities that any voucher scheme would entail, including a deliberate transgression of Idaho’s strong prohibition against state support for religious education, discrimination against rural kids and Idaho religions that don’t operate parochial schools, lack of accountability for taxpayer money expended on private schooling, and diminution of state money necessary to support Idaho’s public school system, which has been chronically underfunded for decades.

The Utah judge’s decision mentioned a number of other infirmities in the Utah law--private schools often exclude students with special needs, or condition admission upon adherence to certain religious beliefs, or fail to provide “free” schooling as constitutionally required for taxpayer-supported education. These flaws are also inherent in House Bill 93, the subsidy bill approved by the Legislature this year.

The Idaho Legislature was clearly warned of the serious constitutional problems with HB 93, which will subsidize private and parochial education to the tune of $50 million in just the first year. Yet, because of massive funding from out-of-state groups that are seeking to weaken public schools across the nation, a majority of our legislators cast aside the Constitution and passed the subsidy bill. The Governor lacked the courage to veto the legislation, despite overwhelming public outcry against it.

Now, as with the similar travesty in Utah, concerned Idahoans will have to resort to the courts in order to protect the wishes of Idaho’s constitutional drafters. Please stay tuned.

 

Canaries in the chair

Canaries in the chair

April 27, 2025

In recent weeks, both of Oregon’s major political parties have changed leadership, under very different circumstances. Party leadership is only a small part of what makes the candidates under their banner successful, but it can be a coal mine canary of sorts, an indicator of underlying issues or strengths.

Over the last generation, Democrats have been faring gradually better in Oregon, and Republicans less well. What might we learn from a look at party leadership?

Start with the Democrats.

They have had three chairs in this decade. Carla “KC” Hanson, following five years leading the Multnomah County Democrats, was elected to two-year terms in 2019 and 2021. In 2023, she departed and the party’s vice chair, Rosa Colquitt, who also had worked for years in various positions in the party organization, was elected to the top spot.

This year, the state Democratic Central Committee met in Corvallis on March 16 and in a contested election replaced her with a new chair, Nathan Soltz, who at age 27 happens to be the youngest person to hold that job. He isn’t a newcomer to the party organization, however.

Soltz started work with the Democrats in Jackson County (one of Oregon’s most competitive) a decade ago, has worked in labor organizing and in the Legislature and was elected state party secretary two years ago.

There’s something to be said for injecting new blood in leadership positions from time to time (and Soltz may well provide some of that). But party organizations also can benefit from leaders who know how things work and understand how to get along with the various interests and groups that make up a large party, and manage to avoid conflict and controversy (other than when directed at the opposition).

Over to the Republicans.

Six people have led the Oregon Republican Party since 2020. These years opened with a period of some stability under Bill Currier, a mayor of Adair Village who had worked in various party positions for years before his election as chair in February 2015.

Six years later, shortly after releasing a statement (that many party leaders had backed) saying the Jan. 6, 2021 attempted insurrection in Washington, D.C. was a “false flag” operation (drawing complaints from within and outside the party), he lost a re-election bid to state Sen. Dallas Heard of Myrtle Creek.

After serving just over a year, Heard departed after complaining about conflict within the party, including “communist psychological warfare tactics.” (Others in the party said a flashpoint was debate over whether to open the party’s primary to non-Republicans.) The vice-chair, former legislator Herman Baertschiger, served as acting chair for about four months but then quit.

The job next went to Justin Hwang, a Gresham restaurant owner and former legislative candidate who had become vice-chair of the state party only three months before. He held the job until February of this year, providing some stability. During Hwang’s tenure, Oregon Republicans won in 2022 — and then lost in 2024 — a second congressional seat and legislative races that temporarily ended Democrats’ supermajority control in the House and Senate.

When the post came open for election early this year, a range of candidates contended, including former Senate candidate Jo Rae Perkins (the incumbent party secretary), Washington County Republican leader Gabriel Buehler, as well as a legislative candidate and a city councilor.

It was won from outside: A Columbia County pastor and insurance agent, Jerry Cummings. He prevailed after saying the party should focus less on hot-button issues to “reach beyond the Republican base and do a better job of presenting a message that makes us contenders around the state.”

But on April 8, the Oregon Journalism Project reported on court records from a long-running divorce and custody case and more recent lawsuits filed by creditors. The legal records included accusations from Cummings’ ex-wife that he engaged in sexual violence, allegations Cummings denied.

He soon resigned, and the job once again went to the party’s vice chair, Connie Whelchel of Deschutes County.

Considering that the party chair takes the lead in party organization, hiring, planning for campaigns and more, these rapid-fire turnovers, frequent controversies and overall lack of stability could have contributed to the party’s gradual weakening in the state during the last couple of decades.

That’s not all, of course. A great deal of political strength in the party is held by people and groups outside the Oregon voting mainstream.

But problems with stable leadership aren’t helping the party either. They may do well to consider why the job seems hard to fill with the kind of leaders they need.

This column originally appeared in the Oregon Capital Chronicle.

 

The constitutional crisis is here

April 26, 2025

The New York Times Sunday night:

The Trump administration on Sunday evening doubled down on its assertion that a federal judge cannot force it to bring back to the United States a Maryland man who was unlawfully deported to a notorious prison in El Salvador last month.

So this is the case of Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, a native of El Salvador who the Trump Justice Department admits was illegally deported last month - to El Salvador - and is now being held in a notorious prison in that central American country.

Federal Judge Paula Xinis in Maryland originally ordered the government to bring Abrego Garcia back to the United States, presumably so that the U.S. Justice Department could provide evidence that he deserved to be deported rather than merely abducted and then spirited away to a gulag.

That’s the way the system is supposed to work.

The government believes an immigrant, refugee, etc. has done something to warrant deportation so they go to court and make that case. The person in question has a right to “due process” to defend against the government’s charge. None of that happened in the Abrego Garcia case.

When the Trump Administration told Judge Xinis to effectively pound sand the case went to the U.S. Supreme Court. The Court then ruled unanimously last week that the government must “facilitate” Abrego Garcia’s release, but cautioned Judge Xinis to act “with due regard for the deference owed to the executive branch in the conduct of foreign affairs.”

This less than precise Supreme Court language has become a serious problem in the case, but only because of the incredible bad faith and the willful embrace of illegality by the Trump Administration.

After first essentially telling the judge they couldn’t do anything to get Abrego Garcia out of his Salvadoran hell hole, the administration’s lawyers now say the District court has no power to interfere with the president’s authority to make U.S. foreign policy. This seems to be a suggestion that somehow the president of the United States has determined that holding a man illegally in a foreign jail in a country with a brutal authoritarian leader is all in keeping with the responsible conduct of American foreign policy.

And, of course, an administration that confirms the timing and scope of air attacks on Middle East targets over an insecure Signal app that just happened to include the editor of The Atlantic conjures up some fresh BS about the judiciary interfering “with ongoing diplomatic discussions” that might result in the release of “classified documents.”

Furthermore, the administration argues - very convincing, right - that when the lawyers for Abrego Garcia’s request for more information concerning their client that request amounts to “micromanaging” U.S. foreign relations.

Good lord.

As Politico reported:

The administration continued Sunday to flout a Friday order from Xinis to deliver “daily updates” to the court describing its efforts to return Abrego Garcia to the United States. Sunday’s update from Evan Katz, the assistant director of removal operations for Immigration and Customs Enforcement, said the administration had “no updates” for the judge. A day earlier, in a similarly threadbare update, the administration turned to Michael Kozak, the State Department’s senior bureau official in the Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs, who said Abrego Garcia was still alive in El Salvador’s CECOT prison.

The administration is also bucking demands from Abrego Garcia’s attorneys that officials detail the arrangement to ship hundreds of foreign nationals to a notorious prison in El Salvador. One of the Sunday filings insists those details are classified and could be subject to attorney-client and state secrets privileges.

Judge Xinis has a hearing on Tuesday. Wonder how she spent her weekend?

Like so much with the Trump Administration the basic and essential facts of this tremendously disturbing case tend to get lost in a reeking pile of bad faith, gaslighting and malicious intent. The lawyers piling up the bad faith, we should remind ourselves, are charged with representing the American people, but in this case they are actually micromanaging the dictatorial whims of our commander-in-chief and his many enablers.

To wit on the bad faith front:

  • The government admits Abrego Garcia was illegally deported.
  • The administration, it is reported, is paying El Salvador’s government $6 million to lock up around 300 individuals who have been deported in the last month or so. That means the administration has all the contacts, all the leverage, all the authority it needs to do what is simply the right thing and bring Abrego Garcia back.
  • Abrego García, who has three children and has lived in the U.S. for a decade, has never been arrested or accused of a crime and denies any affiliation with the MS-13 gang.
  • Yet, the administration - and it’s lawyers (you really wonder how they live with themselves) - concoct an entirely bad faith argument to do nothing.

The administration is clearly challenging the judicial branch to either back down or ratchet up. What comes next? Nobody knows.

I’m no constitutional lawyer, but I would suggest if we really are headed for a “constitutional crisis” let’s have it out over a man wrongly imprisoned in a foreign country by a government that admits it’s error and then gives the middle finger to what almost any fair minded person would say is a reasonable demand that helps ensure the rights of every individual under our Constitution and laws.

I also don’t know - and suspect the administration doesn’t either - if Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia is a really bad guy. May he is, may not. But that is not really the pressing issue.

What is clear - and this is a hugely important bedrock principle of our Constitution and the rule of law - is that the Fifth and Fourteenth amendments to the United State Constitution guarantee “due process” to “any person.”

Any person means any person. You, me, Abrego Garcia, Donald Trump, Martha Stewart - anyone. No exceptions. Period.

If it acts like a Constitutional crisis it really is one.

 

Out in the desert

Out in the desert

April 25, 2025

For all the change Idaho has seen in its larger metro areas there’s been little or none in most of the state, and you can find no more dramatic example of that than the great empty of the 35 or so desert miles between Boise and Mountain Home.

For the half-century I have driven I-84 between those communities, there’s been some change in the city of Mountain Home (sometimes up, sometimes down) and strong - sometimes explosive - growth on the other end at Boise. In between, except for some barely-settled windswept ranch country and the Boise Stage Stop center partway through, there’s been and still is only open landscape. At times through the years someone would come up with a big development idea, but nothing ever came of it.

That may be about to change.

The catalyst would be a planned new casino being developed by the Shoshone-Paiute Tribes (which are based at the Duck Valley Reservation on the Nevada-Idaho border) together with the Coeur d’Alene Tribe in northern Idaho, which has decades of experience successfully running their casino near Worley. The Sho-Pai bought 557 acres along the Ada-Canyon border, located not far from the Stage Stop, and about 40 acres of it would be used for the casino.

The tribe said, “The fully envisioned project may include: Luxury hotel, Gaming floor with the latest tribal gaming machines, Spa and fitness center, Fine dining restaurants, Food hall with multiple vendors, Event and entertainment center.” The project also would give them a link to off-reservation lands associated historically with the tribes.

Since less than a tenth of the land area presumably would be occupied by the casino, there would be space for other developments too. If this project - which still needs federal approval, a sign-off from the Idaho governor’s office and local government okays - does go forward, the large desert area east of Boise could be transformed.

There are obstacles: One of the big problems blocking major development in the area up to now has been water, which locally is in short supply;This is dry country. Services generally have been limited too.

And there could be another challenge. The Shoshone-Bannock Tribes of eastern Idaho (between Pocatello and Blackfoot) have proposed another casino project, a $300 million center located in Mountain Home. They have been working on economic development in the area ever since buying the land in 2020, and appear ready to make a major investment in it. Federal review of that project is already underway. (And the Sho-Bans too point to historical links to the land where they plan to build.)

While that one probably would lead to some economic expansion at Mountain Home, it probably wouldn’t change the territory between that city and Boise. Probably.

Some opposition to any of this also could materialize. Certainly not everyone in Idaho likes gaming or its expansion. And the Nevada operators at Jackpot and Elko are sure to militate against the developments; they currently get a lot of traffic from fast-growing southwest Idaho.

But it could happen. The Duck Valley Reservation has had a challenging history, and the Sho-Pais have a compelling and sympathetic story to tell. The Coeur d’Alenes, with their background in developing highly successful operations up north (and a history of developing smart leadership) could be an excellent partner for steering the project through difficult paths.

If it does happen, there’s a real chance the landscape and the use of it between Boise and Mountain Home could change significantly. Casino developments most often do not spin off large numbers of nearby start-ups, but the long-standing interest in developing housing and business operations out in the desert - and away from Boise’s high prices and regulation - could be irresistible for people who have given up on, or been interested in, earlier ideas for the area. A whole new community - even a city? - might be the result.

The announcement of this new casino project didn’t get the top-rank headlines around the region it should have. But in time to come, there’s a good chance it will.