[Vision2020] Otter Plans Closed-Door Oath Taking

[Tom Hansen]

>From today's (December 23, 2006) Lewiston Tribune -

Governor-elect "Butch" Otter has elected to have his oath of office
conducted privately.  This leaves to the imaginations:  

What other business will Governor Otter be conducting privately, out of view
from Idaho's concerned citizenry?

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Otter plans closed-door oath taking

By DEAN A. FERGUSON
of the Tribune
When Idaho's new governor takes the oath of office on Jan. 1, the public
won't see it. Historians can't recall a recent governor taking his oath in
complete privacy. 

A spokesman for the governor-elect called the closed-door oath "procedural,"
noting a public ceremony will be later that week. 

"There's no skullduggery," said Jon Hanian, spokesman for Republican
Governor-elect C.L. (Butch) Otter. "It has to be done so that's how he's
doing it." 

Idaho's constitution requires Otter to take his oath, "beginning on the
first Monday in January next after his election." 

That's New Year's Day. A public swearing-in ceremony will take place on the
Capitol steps on Jan. 5. 

"It's fair to say that on the first (of January), for most people, that's a
holiday," Hanian said. "We're concentrating all of our effort on the fifth
for the public swearing-in with all the pomp and circumstance and the
speeches and the prayers." 

Historians scratched their heads to recall a private swearing-in. One
historian said excluding the press struck him as odd. 

"I never heard of anything like that before," said Arthur Hart, former
director of the Idaho State Historical Society. 

"If memory serves, some territorial governors might have been sworn-in in
Washington, D.C. ... and some of them never even bothered coming back here,"
Hart said. 

Jim Weatherby, a retired political science professor from Boise State
University, said Gov. Dirk Kempthorne held a private ceremony in the
governor's office one minute after midnight on Jan. 3, 1999 -- but it didn't
involve an oath. 

Kempthorne was so eager to be governor he changed the locks on the office
four days early -- or, so his predecessor Gov. Phil Batt charged. But
Kempthorne's midnight ceremony was little more than a prayer and a glass of
water raised in a toast with First Lady Patricia Kempthorne, according to an
Idaho Statesman report. 

His actual oath came at a public event later that day. 

"Swearing in the governor, that should be public," Weatherby said. 

In 1994, Batt's official beginning fell on a Jan. 2. He took the oath in a
small affair with reporters present. 

Elected officials must file oaths with the Idaho Secretary of State's office
on Jan. 1, said Miren Artiach, a deputy in the office. 

"All of them are concerned about having the proper paperwork in order," said
Artiach, who will work Jan. 1 to record the various oaths of office. "Some
people think that ceremony on the steps is the actual swearing-in but it's
just a public ceremony." 

Anyone from judges to notaries can witness the oaths. 

Outgoing Gov. Jim Risch will be in Sun Valley on New Year's Day and also
plans a private swearing-in ceremony. Risch became governor when Kempthorne
stepped down in May to be interior secretary. But, Risch was re-elected as
lieutenant governor. 

"It's not public, but if someone in the media is up there in Sun Valley and
says, 'Can I come in and watch?' I don't think we'd be opposed to it," said
Brad Hoaglun, a spokesman for Risch. 

Judy Austin of Boise, who retired after 36 years as an editor and historian
for the Idaho State Historical Society, said the "narrow question" would
make it tough to research how often oaths were privately taken. 

She doesn't doubt Otter will take his oath in a sincere and ordinary manner.
But a private oath disquiets her nonetheless. 

"I find it ever so slightly uncomfortable that there is no witness on behalf
of the public is how I'd put it," Austin said.

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Seeya round town, Moscow.

Tom Hansen
Moscow, Idaho

"Let It Snow"
http://www.tomandrodna.com/Songs/Let_It_Snow.mp3