[Vision2020] In hostile territory, Idaho moderates flee

[Tom Hansen]

How soon will the Idaho state legislature adopt tea as the official state beverage?

Courtesy of the Idaho Statesman (with thanks to a friend and Viz subscriber) at:

http://www.idahostatesman.com/2012/03/08/2026037/in-hostile-territory-idaho-moderates.html
 
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Dan Popkey: In hostile territory, Idaho moderates flee
The tea strainer that filters Idaho Republicans is producing a strong right-wing brew for the 2012 election.

Much of the Statehouse scuttlebutt has focused on eight House Republicans seeking Senate seats and upsetting a more moderate culture there. But the retirement of eight House veterans threatens to silence moderates in that chamber.

“There’s no doubt in my mind that the moderates are out of business in this state,” said GOP Rep. Carlos Bilbao, who at 73 is leaving the House to run for Gem County commissioner. “They’ve pretty much all given up.”

Bilbao is one of eight House moderates, all in their 70s, who have decided to quit banging their heads. I spoke to seven of them; Rep. Sharon Block, R-Twin Falls, was away this week.

“There’s a sense of indifference from those who have the power,” said Rep. Mack Shirley, R-Rexburg, an Army veteran and LDS father of eight. “You’re given a chance to be heard, but they don’t listen.”

Shirley, 78, is distrusted because he made his living as a teacher and college administrator. Despite seniority putting him in line to chair the Education Committee in 2007, House Speaker Lawerence Denney snubbed him.

“It’s an awkward and frustrating position for a group that’s getting smaller and smaller,” said Shirley, a 10-year lawmaker. “There’s a question of whether you really belong or not, whether you’re even accepted.”

Denney, R-Midvale, said all 57 members of the GOP caucus get their say: “Everyone has an opportunity to make their point.”

But vote wrong and Denney exacts a price. On the final day of the 2011 session, he stripped moderate Reps. Leon Smith and Tom Trail of their chairmanships, saying they’d been disloyal.

“I would have considered running again had this not been such a toxic environment,” said Smith, R-Twin Falls, who said he and Denney haven’t spoken or looked one another in the eye in more than a year. “He avoids mine and I avoid his. It’s a mutual thing.”

Smith is an expert on transportation — he is a former chairman of the Idaho Transportation Board — and played a key role in protecting schools from huge cuts in the 2000s when he backed a sales tax hike.

“My wife was encouraging me to run again because she thought a voice from my sector was important,” said Smith, 74. “But it’s just not that much fun anymore.”

Trail, 76, helped enact college scholarships, pension reform, a minimum wage for farmworkers and a “Right to Farm” law. He declined comment. “I’ve got legislation coming down,” he explained.

House Business Committee Chairman Max Black, 75, a 20-year lawmaker from Boise, also waved me off, citing pending legislation.

Resources Committee Chairman Bert Stevenson, R-Rupert, is a retired LDS farmer, Army veteran and director of the Minidoka Irrigation District.

“I’ll just go back home and see if the boys will let me play in the dirt,” said Stevenson, 76, who was mentored by one of the legendary fiscal conservatives in House history, the late Mack Neibaur. Stevenson earned his scarlet “M” for opposing nullification of federal law.

“I’ve always considered myself a conservative, but the way things are swinging, I guess I’m a moderate,” said Stevenson. “I guess Mack wouldn’t be considered conservative anymore, either.”

House Revenue & Taxation Committee Chairman Dennis Lake, R-Blackfoot, is quitting at 74. Another LDS agribusinessman, Lake was once the conservative alternative to former Speaker Bruce Newcomb. “We were the right wing at one time,” said Lake. “I guess we’ve all gone liberal in our old age.”

Lake and his departing colleagues come from a generation of conservatives who backed the Chamber of Commerce, served on the school board, joined Optimists, Rotary or Kiwanis and coached Little League.

They leave behind colleagues who think a state controlled by a GOP Legislature since 1961 is a “beast” that must be denied succor.

“I see it as wanting to starve government,” said Lake. “The plan seems to be to take away revenues so you force budgets down.”

House Democratic Leader John Rusche of Lewiston said the new GOP primary election open only to registered Republicans could produce nominees so extreme that a few might be vulnerable in November.

“I see it as both a threat and an opportunity,” he said. “A threat to the maintenance and performance of a functioning state government; an opportunity for moderate Democrats to pick up seats in 2012 and down the road.”
 
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Seeya later, Moscow.

Tom Hansen
Post Falls, Idaho

"If not us, who?
If not now, when?"

- Unknown


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