4. Rep. Lynn Luker, R-Boise. This pragmatic conservative has been a skeptic of day care regulation in the past, but without his skillful brokering the House Health and Welfare Committee would never have approved a compromise version of Corder’s bill.

While this has been an unabashedly disappointing year for the legislator, Luker does appear to be one of the “pragmatic” realists in the Republican caucus more interested in solving problems than hewing to a party-line ideology. He’s broken with the leadership on several key bills, but seems a more active and effective advocate for D-15 than his invisible, do-nothing colleague Max Black.

Otter has done the most irresponsible thing by a state executive since, well, since last week when Texas’ Goveror Perry expressed sympathy for secession. You’d think that bridges were collapsing, the roads turned to cobblestone and traffic ground to a halt. The state has cut budgets two years in a row, 3-5% of state employees are going to be fired, teachers will get a salary cut, but last I checked the transportation department just hit the lottery — $182M in extra money from the federal stimulus package and another $82M in Garvee proceeds. This on top of their normal budget of almost $500M a year. 

I hope the House and Senate (but particularly the House, whose 15-55 smackdown of Otter’s latest tax increase caused this latest tantrum) dig in their heels and stand up to this bully. Now, with this economic meltdown and people losing their jobs and homes daily, is not the time to pile more pork on the transportation department. Here’s the message I left the House and Senate leaders this morning.

I am appalled at the Governor’s behavior vetoing 35 bills this week in his attempt to strong-arm the people’s house. I agree with you and the vast majority of House members that the transportation department has enough money this year with the federal stimulus and this isn’t the year to raise taxes. I urge you to stand up to the Governor and not let his tantrum alter your well-considered appropriations bills.

I would suggest you work with Senate leadership to either override all of his vetoes or pass the same bills again and quickly adjourn the session. If the Governor wants to insure his one-term status, let him veto them again and call you back into special session. 

Thanks for your service to the people of Idaho.

The people have spoken…it’s time for the Governor to listen.

While these cuts will no doubt crimp bus use in the Boise district, the dollar savings are pretty minuscule when considered against Otter’s overall goal of cutting 10′s of millions in state education funding. I expect to see more nickle and diming like this, both later this session and next year, as legislators look for savings in the largest part of the State’s budget. Of more interest will be what votes like this do to Luker’s political future. If we see a primary challenge next spring, we’ll have our answer.

“The stimulus money, I think, actually makes it worse,” said Rep. Mike Moyle, R-Star, the Idaho House majority leader. “You’ve got everybody running around trying to figure out where this funny money can and can’t go. There is a perception that the funny money is going to save us all.”

It should come as no surprise then that Idaho’s political ‘leaders’ are twiddling their thumbs for a month trying to figure out what to do with the money while Missouri started construction on a new bridge the day the bill was signed. With ‘leaders’ like these, is it any wonder Idaho has one of the fastest rates of unemployment growth in the entire country? It will be interesting to look at the jobs data a couple years out to see how Idaho fares in comparison to more progressive states.

In Idaho, Gov. C.L. “Butch” Otter said he wasn’t interested in stimulus money that would expand programs and boost the state’s costs in future years when the federal dollars disappear — a worry also cited by Jindal and Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin.

Given Otter’s libertarian streak and skepticism towards all things federal, it’s not surprising he’s taking this “beware of Greeks bearing gifts” attitude. Of course, that didn’t prevent him from voting for the No Child Left Behind Act (roll call here) — something that undoubtedly was going to “expand programs” and “boost the state’s costs” — when it was proposed by a Republican president. I guess it’s easier to stick to your libertarian guns when opposing a ‘big government’ Democrat instead of a ‘big government’ Republican.

Asked for his reaction to House passage of the bill, Obama said “thumbs up” and indeed gave a thumbs-up sign as he left the White House with his family for a long weekend in Chicago.

And it seems like the State of Idaho is going to benefit quite significantly — to the tune of $1 billion. With $200M going to education, another $200M for roads (Gov. Butch must be very happy with this) and $300M for Medicaid, i.e. health care to those without. This looks like a great deal for the state. Yet both of Idaho’s Representatves voted no– including our beloved Democrat Walt Minnick – as did both of our Senators.

Given Idado’s unanimous rejection of Federal money — what most around here call handouts — isn’t the honorable thing to reject it? Isn’t it the height of hypocricy to vote against — nay, denounce — such federal ‘socialism’, while simultaneously planning on how best to use such booty to fill budget gaps in the state? It seems that the honorable path would be to forfeit our share to one of our neighbors like Oregon, Nevada or California that probably need the money more than Idaho and actually want it. 

OTOH, maybe ‘father knows best’ and we should just set aside our natural libertarian tendencies for a while to forestall our path to a Dickensian dystopia of social Darwinism.

If Luker and the  rest of the D-15 crew were serious about breaking the grip of moneyed interests on Idaho’s lawmakers, they would throw their support behind H0027, Rep. Durst’s (Dem, D-18 ) bill to create publicly funded legislative campaigns. Even this is a pretty lame step, as it only provides for up to $7500 in state matching funds for the primary and a $15K grant in the general, but hey, you’ve got to start somewhere and this would certainly dilute the effect of those $1000 checks from the realtor/developer lobby.

To get their attention, the next time you email your representative with a suggestion, better tack on a twenty from your Paypal account.

By Fairy Hitchcock, Democratic District 15 chair:

I attended the District 15 Town Hall meeting on Tuesday night. State Reps. Lynn Luker and Max Black were there; state Sen. John Andreason didn’t show up.

My overall impression was that our elected representatives unfortunately have a sense of entitlement and disdain for constituents’ questions. Rep. Black actually laughed at a question about whether the homeless lacking shelter is a City of Boise problem or a state problem. He also bristled when I asked about the Eagle/Star High Tech Business Park and if it was going to be required to foot the bill for roads, schools, sewer and water as well as other needs that area is already stressed in trying to deal with. He said that the Microns and HPs would not have come here and we would be much worse off if we hadn’t given them tax breaks to locate in Boise.

Asked about Idaho’s lack of shovel-ready projects for President Obama’s recovery plan, Rep. Black blamed the cities – not the state, even though the Legislature has blocked progress on transit projects by failing to trust communities with local option authority. Rep. Luker was more amiable when he spoke, though still sided with Rep. Black. They were not ready to address anything directly.

There were about 25 people at the meeting, including a few people asking for recognition of same-sex marriage and other equal rights issues. I passed around a paper for names and addresses and phones for the legislators to have if they choose to use it. Most people came late because the meeting started at 5:15, which didn’t allow people enough time to arrive after work.

I’d like to have a Democratic Town Hall meeting in District 15. Keep an eye on this blog for news about that. Meanwhile, you can get regular updates from the legislature on the Idaho Democratic Party’s action page at http://www.idaho-democrats.org and the Democratic legislators’ blog, http://www.workingforidaho.org.

It’s laughable to hear them stick to their tax-cut mantra for attracting business. HP didn’t get any tax breaks to locate here 30 years ago, nor did Micron. Micron started as a two-man operation in the basement of a dentist’s office on the corner of Northview and Cole and the primary reason Ward Parkinson located here was that he was originally from Idaho and wanted to live closer to family. His partner, Doug Pitman, loved the outdoors and thought Idaho looked like a much better place to raise a family than Dallas (where they were working at the time). Grand government subsidies had nothing to do with it. HP located here for similar quality-of-life issues (the cheap farmland didn’t hurt either).

It’s great to hear we have such aggressive, take-charge leadership for D-15 looking out for our interests. With fireballs like this, perhaps we could just bypass the middleman and have our mayor and county commissioners do double duty at the legislature.