[Vision2020] Otter Plans Closed-Door Oath Taking

Sat Dec 23 19:40:09 PST 2006

I would think the progressives that are SO opposed to the Pledge would be happy another American tradition involving the words GOD or the Bible is being removed from the public to see.

  I am afraid they will just get rid of the oath altogether so it doesn't offend someone.

  Merry CHRISTmas,

  Donovan J Arnold

Mark Solomon <msolomon at moscow.com> wrote:
  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" 
>To: "Vision 2020" 
>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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>> =======================================================
>>

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