[Vision2020] Otter Plans Closed-Door Oath Taking

[Mark Solomon]

Maybe he's going to take his oath on the Koran and doesn't want anyone to know.

Mark

At 12:11 PM -0800 12/23/06, Bill London wrote:
>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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