[Vision2020] Otter Plans Closed-Door Oath Taking

[Bill London]

Idaho's governor taking the official oath of office...what could be more
public than that?
Yet Otter is taking that oath at a private gathering and not allowing media
coverage.
Otter's choice to take the oath and then later to have a public party (which
is the present plan) is OK with me...but not allowing media coverage of the
official oath event sucks.
I am afraid Otter is planning to run a Bush-like secretive government for
this state....
BL



----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Tom Hansen" <thansen at moscow.com>
To: "Vision 2020" <vision2020 at moscow.com>
Sent: Saturday, December 23, 2006 8:26 AM
Subject: [Vision2020] Otter Plans Closed-Door Oath Taking


> >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?
>
> --------------------------------------------------------
>
> 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.
>
> --------------------------------------------------------
>
> Seeya round town, Moscow.
>
> Tom Hansen
> Moscow, Idaho
>
> "Let It Snow"
> http://www.tomandrodna.com/Songs/Let_It_Snow.mp3
>
>
>
>
>
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