Notes From The Floor

After its Over

I am home in front of the wood stove with the dog snoring and Carol doing her taxes. The pundits are assessing the session while I work to dig myself our from under mountains of unopened envelopes and unsorted e-mail.

All across Idaho legislators are taking off their badges and putting on sweat pants and finding home again. We visited Rep. Donna Pence in Gooding this morning. She had on her tree digging clothes, no lipstick. Human again. I had on my green corduroy jacket and a t-shirt. I'll be happy not to see my black tights or a skirt for a few weeks. I'm sure I won't get my way on that one.

But there is much to do after the session ends. I've taken a day to breathe and clean and sort and poke around in the yard. I'll go to debates and forums and meetings now. Soon I'll look forward to planting tomatoes and getting ready for the campaigns ahead.

But I'm lucky, I've not been away from home and family for months like most my colleagues. Some have children they have left at home, young ones. Ken Andrus, Brent Crane, Steve Kren, and Branden Durst. Some are teachers and go back to work. Others take up small businesses that have sat still and dead, others return to larger firms where secretaries and staff filled the gaps. Many go home to ready for planting, lambing, burning ditches and moving cattle. As we grow more urban, we lose that feel of seasonal change. I remember traveling between teaching and my work for the forest service many years back.

But the legislative session distorts the seasons a bit. It is like a time warp where we miss winter altogether. We go in in the cold and dark and gray and come out with the lawn mowers blaring and now here the grass is coming up green and wild.

Democratic Conclusions

I adapted the following based on a piece by House Democratic Assistant Minority Leader, George Sayler, I added several points as did many of the 19 members of the Democratic Caucus of the House of Representatives.

Democrats came to the Capitol ready to make progress on issues of importance to the people of Idaho. We listened to the Governor's state of the state speech, set our own budget priorities and gave our own response in which we said we agreed with many of the goals set by the Governor, not necessarily the means toward them.

 

Sadly this session shows that Republican legislative leaders are out of touch on issues of importance to Idahoans. 

They ignored the advice of several statewide coalitions and working groups. They ignored "Moving Idaho Forward" which came offering public transit solutions. They stood in the way of the Farm, Ranch, and Forest Preservation working group which came ready to save Idaho lands from development. They set aside the principles developed by the legislative interim committee on tax exemptions.

• They chose this year to fly on a private airplane to a fund raising dinner, fly back to Boise, and the next day vote to pass a bill that is bad for working people but favorable to the owner of the airplane.
• This year again they catered to special interests at the expense of ordinary Idahoans, nearly shifting over $100 million dollars in big industry taxes onto the sales tax which families pay.
• They have opposed reforms that would clean up politics at the state level including ethics legislation that would end lobbyists' revolving door to politics.

As the majority party since 1990, Republicans chair every legislative committee in both houses. This year when we challenged Republican leadership to hold hearings and discuss issues; when we called for real cooperation and consideration of sound solutions, they refused.

• We worked to start removal of the sales tax on food at the register; Republican leaders opposed it.
• We crafted legislation to limit how much health insurance companies could raise premiums on Idaho families and small businesses; Republicans refused to hear the bill.
• We supported conservation easements to protect Idaho's vanishing working farms and forests; Republicans killed that bill too.
• We supported systematically reviewing special interest tax exemptions; Republicans would not consider it.
• We supported affordable housing legislation; Republicans would not consider it.
• We proposed residential sales price disclosure to put more accountability into how we set property taxes; House Republicans would not hold a hearing.
• We wanted to provide Idaho's teachers with the needed level of pay increases; The Governor's plan for education penalized Idaho's teachers and included disastrous proposals like Tom Luna's iSTARS. 
• We supported creating treatment focused alternatives to mandatory minimum sentences to make communities safer and prisons less costly and crowded; Republican committee chairs would not give this bill a hearing.
• We supported adequate and reasonable state employee pay increases; Republicans ignored the needs of state employees and their families and took a hatchet to retirement benefits.
• We supported protecting children in child care by requiring criminal background checks on child care providers; Republicans refused to hold a hearing on this bill.
• We supported early childhood education programs to improve quality of life and success for Idaho's kids; Republicans opposed this effort to strengthen families and improve education.
• We supported measures to expand children's health insurance; Republicans opposed providing 6000 children in need with essential medical care.
• We led bipartisan efforts for human rights, successfully introducing fair employment policies for gays and lesbians and strategies for divesting state funds from companies supporting genocide in Darfur; Key Republican leaders blocked consideration of these measures in Senate.
• We supported building energy efficient schools and public buildings to save money, energy and prevent climate change. We encouraged the use of global climate change studies to protect Idahoans health and our precious resources. Senate Republican Leadership killed or watered down these measures one after another.
• We supported open, deliberative and inclusive politics and decision making; Republicans at the end of the session proposed a 93 page bill on election consolidation and another on closing Idaho primaries without including input from voters or dialog with the county clerks. 
• We supported local option sales taxes to allow local people to vote to fund urgent local needs including public transit and roads; Republicans derailed the process and stood in the way with a restrictive and unnecessary constitutional amendment.
• We proposed providing a $50,000 exemption to the personal property tax to help small business; until their special interest version of the bill nearly died, House Republican Leaders would not consider our proposal.
• We supported lowering property taxes by making growth pay for itself and by allowing local governments to more easily charge impact fees on new development; Republicans would not even consider the bill.

The bottom line is, Democrats worked hard this session to provide solutions and make progress on issues of importance to ordinary Idahoans. We continually seek to protect the interests of our citizens, and have stood up to the special interests who seek to warp the state's democratic processes. We are committed to standing up for Idaho's middle class and small businesses, preserving Idahos quality of life and access to public lands. We support transparency and ethics in government.   

The Republican Majority has been an obstacle to progress on those same issues. They have pursued their own ideological goals and partnered with special interests to rob Idahoans of the kind of representation they deserve. Under current Republican leadership and with government so very unbalanced, the changes that Idahoans care about will never be accomplished.

However, we will not give up. We will not stop laboring to make sure your voice is heard.

With your help, we will continue to make progress issue by issue. And, with your help, we will make progress this year by electing more Democrats to the legislature. Our goal in 2008 is to bring democracy, balance and better policy to the Idaho Legislature by winning more seats in both the House and the Senate. No matter where in Idaho you live, you can help us.  http://www.idaho-democrats.org/

Saying Goodbye

I'm wearing the mixed perfume and cologne of many colleagues. I've found those I wanted to give a big hug to. Some escaped before I got to say good bye. Some when you say good bye you wonder with the hard races ahead will they be back. We all wonder. With the hours everyone puts in and what many give up in family and marriage and what might have been retirement I know the year will be heart wrenching for some. I'll write more later. Now I'm going home.

Getting Silly

As we prepare to adjourn Sine Die as we call it... things are getting silly. People are playing competing country music songs on their computers, the speaker has a baseball he's joking about throwing to the ceiling and Bill Killen has passed out some little plastic parachuters for all of us upstairs to throw from the balcony to those below.

We laid several issues to rest today and I'm in a good mood. I've done my mourning for the year so today I'm amazed at where we are after all this toil.

Business personal property tax is now a small-business-focused $100,000 exemption which costs about $17 million, rather than an unlimited exemption that would help mostly big industry. This exemption looks a lot like the $50,000 exemption Democrats crafted and proposed both this year and last. We have reason to be proud.

This afternoon the state retiree benefit plan, restricting what the state will pay for health benefits was killed by the State Affairs Committee. This issue should be taken up with state employees and retirees involved in the process and more information provided so they are informed and not left in fear of what complex legislation will mean to their lives. It will be a sad day when we as a legislature choose leave state employees to the whims of private plans and rising premiums, with less healthcare security rather than more.

Of the two pieces of legislation dealing with local option sales taxes, sadly H688, the legislation which I'd hoped would be amended to give authority to local voters to fund public transportation and other needs, was killed by the senate and never revived. Fortunately, HJR4, the constitutional amendment restricting the use of local option taxes was laid to rest by the Senate this afternoon. The delay the amendment caused communities like ours here in the Treasure Valley is inexcusable. Each year more people grow frustrated waiting in traffic. They have every right to be angry with this legislative majority which did nothing but stand in the way and propose obstacles to the local authority which local people have waited far too long for.

Agreeing to Disagree

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We use the term "holding harmless" to talk about making changes of law have as little adverse impact as possible on those we do not intend harm. It is an attempt to minimize collateral damage.

So interesting watching Reps Clark and Lake sit with Rep Killen and Sens Hill, Langhorst, and Stegner trying to pick apart the Senate personal property tax bill. The more that Senator Hill talks, the more clear it becomes that Senate has come back with an elegant, well crafted piece of compromise legislation. It looks much like Bill Killen's proposed draft from earlier this year.

A conference committee is an odd creature that is born out of Mason's rules and legislative history. It has unusual characteristics. The three house members vote and the majority within that three is counted separately from the three Senate members vote. One can imagine the house and senate being split again as Clark & Lake try to knock holes in this bill to give cover for killing what is now a simple $75,000 exemption from personal property tax for every business in the state. It now is kind of like the homeowners exemption except that the $15 million this now costs will be paid by the sales tax rather than by other property tax payers.

The question is then since small business benefits from a greater share of this version of the bill and is the class of business most likely to invest the benefit back in the community, wages and health benefits and thus the economy, is this then wise and equitable tax policy. I'd say yes. Far more so than the huge $120 million tax shift IACI almost forced through.

What is yet to be seen is whether IACI still has any hand on the reigns. From Alex LaBeau's face there at the other end of the row from me, I suspect not. Unlike some Lobbyists in here, he works hard for a client that the small business focused House might love to hate. He and Rep. Clark turned a big industry dream bill into a bill about tracking staplers and tape and about mom and pop and the lady selling hot dogs from a cart in front of the statehouse. You've got to give them an A for effort and strategy.

Empty Baskets

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I know it is as much a message for us to go home as is Betsy Russel's huge gold tie, but all the food in this place is gone. This is no plea for pity, just a phenomenon producing some interesting results. Low blood sugar is only aggravating the testiness of this place just now as tough votes threaten to hit the floor. Rep Jaquet suggested some gestures she would use if one more person said that a committee vote was some how more democratic than a floor vote.

As our caucus was starting (in the lounge because at first our caucus room was locked) and the press filed in, Lenore Barrett came in looking to get to the refrigerator. It, like the snack table and bowls and baskets normally holding granola bars, was undoubtedly empty. She stared around the room, with all the democrats stacked on couches and chairs, and commented that if she saw a nice leg she might take a bite.

Later I ran down and got her some licorice and made her a few legs she could actually eat. It is April fools day and some say we can not adjourn on April fools day. I'm ready. We've passed the substance abuse funds the Governor axed and those with the strings in their hands stand ready to kill or destroy everything good that remains, so let's go home. Now.

Competing Motions

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Minority Leadership approaches the Speaker's desk to debate whether a motion by the Minority will be allowed. The motion was not allowed on a party line vote of 13 to 37. 20 members were missing since House State Affairs Committee was in meetings.

The Speaker moved the bill to the Rev & Tax Committee where we voted 6 to 10 to not concur with the Senate amendments and instead go into a conference committee. Sadly, the conference committee gives IACI cover to kill the bill or amend it to start the elimination of the whole $120 million personal property tax. The House will vote on the move to send the bill to the joint house and senate conference committee when we re-convene at 1:15 PM.

Challenging the Speaker

If you have one member of leadership on your side, you have half a prayer. Just now, our Minority Leader,  Rep. Jaquet made sudden a motion to concur with Senate Amendments to H599 and create a $75,000 exemption to the business personal property tax. We fly by a little white spiral bound book of rules. What we can do is limited by that. This was one option in rule 37. The Speaker we believe was going to move the bill to the Rev & Tax Committee where we believed we would have a tie vote on any motion to concur or not concur with the Senate version of the bill. So we thought maybe the floor was the better place to have this fight. Last week, by 5 votes, the House sent the full $120 million exemption to the Senate. We feel we have enough people who would prefer this small business version of the bill to get a floor vote to pass it. Some want to kill the bill, others want to amend it for a third time, which would be very very risky, even in a conference committee of both the House and Senate. We shall see how this unfolds.

The Speaker claims Rep Jaquet's motion is out of order and is calling her motion a "challenge to the Speaker" with brings emotional and partisan weight to this debate. The vote we take now will not be so much then on policy and on small businesses or taxes, but on party allegiance. I think you can predict the out come. Things are flying: rule books, emotions, lobbyists, leaders, whispers.

Choosing a Lobbyist

Thinking about where we are today on an issue I care about almost as much as any other, I offer a few things to consider when choosing a lobbyist for your legislation:

1) Don't choose a lobbyist whose career has been dedicated to a cause a vast majority of legislators hated.
2) Make sure your lobbyist does not believe that the legislature is like the real world in that people forgive mistakes and that good intentions count for something.
3) You might want to be cautious choosing a well known and powerful lobbyist whose bread and butter rests on relationships with members of leadership who are deadly opposed to your issue. If you think this lobbyist is going to draw the line and cut off negotiations or work around their friends, forget it.
4) Don't ever think that an unknown face is a bad thing. The friendly nature in us gets the best of us and we usually are intrigued by someone new. Let's just say this too: no history, no baggage.
5) Consider it imporatant that your lobbyist sees communication and respect as the most important responsibility they have.
6) And finally, you might consider seeing what reaction your lobbyist has to any likely legislative allies you already have on the issue. While they might be the smoothest talker in town, will they really be willing to work with everyone or will they anger those who care about the cause so that nothing gets done.

Republican Caucus

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Before the door closes it is possible to visit republicans in their caucus. Here Representatives gather for what was announced on the floor as an hour and a half meeting where some have come braced for an arm twisting.  This will be less than fun for moderates or small business oriented legislators who want to "concur" or agree with the Senate amendments to H599.

Friday the Senate turned the big business bill into a more modest $75,000 exemption from personal property tax which will be more focused on small businesses without shifting over $100 million in taxes to families.

We are going back on the floor at threeish and now in our caucus are strategizing about how to concur with the $75,000 exemption. The Idaho Association of Commerce and Industry wants to kill the bill now so they can get the whole $120 million tax break next year. They seem to know  that the public will lose  sympathy for their cause once the sponsors can no longer hold up examples of small businesses like the hot dog lady and the burden of her paying her personal property tax (which it turns out was grossly misrepresented in Jim Clark's stirring floor debate.)

So our caucus is done and the door on the Rev & Tax room where our colleagues meet is still closed. I think that before they went in we probably had the votes to pass the $75,000 exemption. When they come out, who knows.

Healthcare: No Debate

    There is a fine line as to how many times one person can get up and debate in one day. I was so far over that line on Thursday that I didn't bother looking back. I'm serving my last days in the Idaho House of Representatives. I have credibility I want to maintain there for next year, voters willing, when I'll be far across the hall in the Senate. But it didn't matter on Thursday.
    Some of my Republican cohorts have said they will miss me. Brent Crane has said it kindly more than once. But he has a smile which I suspect means he knows I keep the place lively. Thursday was no exception.
     I went into the floor session knowing that I'd be working along side Mike Moyle on defeating the CID tax. (A scheme under the guise of growth paying for itself where developers have no liability at all to pay for the cost of their development's impacts on cities and towns, but instead pass the whole liability on to home buyers in a large and easily hidden special CID property tax.) I debated twice and asked pointed questions of the sponsor on that issue. That's rare. It did little good. The floor fight was spectacular on both sides but the bill sailed to through, and is now headed for the Senate.
    Phil Hart's horrible memorial to congress on immigration was up after that. I sat up in the balcony waiting there after his long, cruel speech, hearing no one get up to debate against the boilerplate John Birch Society rhetoric. And so I did get up again and when the house made its voice vote we had a fair number of nos. Not enough to make the speaker call for division, but enough that I wish more people across Idaho could have heard the vote itself.
     Later there somewhere in the blur of that day was a little memorial to congress saying Idaho was doing a grand job regulating its insurance companies and that Idaho wants no part of plans to let the federal government create consistent policies to regulate health care. I have yet to determine if the federal law is good or bad. I also realize that memorials have no weight of law and are at best grand statements of legislative sentiment with lots of whereas and therefores. But when they pass they send those sentiments off to Congress, the president or the universe with my name attached to them and the people of Idaho supposedly standing behind them.
     What got to me with this memorial was that this would be as close as we will probably get to having a floor debate on health care for the entire legislative session. People across the state are opening envelopes to paper printed with numbers, dollar figures beyond their comprehension. They are going bankrupt, setting aside plans of retirement, eating the heart out of savings accounts with prescription medication bills, cancer therapies, physical therapy, surgery, and psychiatric care. And very, very few of us, when those white envelopes come, are prepared or often in any way able to pay for what the bills say we must.
    Even with insurance, or especially with it, I think we often are lulled into the false assumption that we will be OK. We have paid, and maybe too our employer has paid thousands of dollars over the course of the year, maybe even thousands more this year then last, just for the privilege of having insurance. But here is no security in it any more.
    What is wrong is that our nation has allowed the insurance industry and our nation's health care to become so completely devastating to the finances of the vast majority of Americans. Here in Idaho even if you have health insurance, today you can still go bankrupt, end up with your home in hawk and yourself at the mercy of the temporary charity of the county indigent fund, subsidized by property tax dollars and general state tax funds. Small businesses struggling to find something to offer employees, typically can only afford bare bones coverage, a policy so full of lifetime maximums, deductibles and exclusions that the narrow strip of what it covers leaves families vulnerable and employees desperate when they realize what cost they are stuck with.
    And what have we done about it this year? Well, a house committee refused to consider and actually allow us to debate the merits of Margaret Henbest's proposal to begin universal health coverage by starting with opening up the state's CHIP program to all low and moderate income uninsured children. They refused to dedicate the tax dollars and consider offering parents an affordable option to ensure all kids have insurance and preventative care to save the state and families millions across Idaho. Margaret has run numbers on expanding state programs like Medicaid to more and more adults as well, especially that band of people who (and the small businesses that employ them) can not at all afford coverage now.
     Ask yourself and ask your neighbors, because I'm curious, would you rather trust a health insurance company, rather pay them premiums and let them decide your rates each year and what they will cover and not cover and how much of each procedure they will pay-- or would you rather pay those premiums in taxes and allow the state or federal government to expand their Medicaid or Medicare programs to let every middle class family buy in if they wanted. You might not get cosmetic surgery, but you'd have care  you could predict. You'd have the security of knowing that your premium would not double the next year and that your only cost might be a co-pay for office visits based on your income.
    National research is clear that access to early detection and prevention, eliminating administrative costs (insurance company's infinite red tape) and things like the need for costly county indigent funds and hospital charity care (which increases the cost of everyone's care,) would hugely reduce the cost of American health care.
    But why do I bother mentioning these issues? We did not debate them on Thursday. No. I sat in my seat after Mark Snodgrass presented his insurance regulation memorial and no one spoke. Though it was futile, and I was so far over the line in debate for the day, I stood up and pressed the white button on my desk at the base of the microphone on its long, black neck. I leaned in to ask one relatively brief question about whether federal regulation had any chance of ending the random raising of rates and denial of coverage which is common practice under insurance companies in our country and state now. The answer was that the sponsor didn't think so. He did reiterate that Idaho does just great regulating insurance companies.
    "Compared to what?" I wish I'd asked. "Couldn't we make them just a little more accountable to someone, especially since we have so few choices here in Idaho and since we don't really get to take our business somewhere else or just decide to do without if they do something we think is unconscionable, deceptive or dishonest?" But I'd been at that microphone far too many times that day.
    Has anyone asked Idahoans about how pleased they are with what they pay insurance companies so very much for? 
    We sent a memorial to Congress telling our nation that we are regulating insurance companies just fine in Idaho. There was no critique, no room for improvement, even just under the category "Healthcare." Everything is peachy with health insurance here. We "heart" our insurance companies. They, in their gigantic shiny new buildings, with their outstanding board member and CEO salaries and bonuses, are doing just the best work for our families here in the great potato state. Let's give them a medal for creative problem solving, selflessness and clear dedication to those families they send white envelopes to year after year after year. 

   

How Long

    I'm sure many Idahoans are wondering just how long this session will last. This session which was supposed to be expedited, which began in dark of winter and now has languished into the time that crocus are wilted and tulips are working on flowers inside their tough green skins.
    I can say this. The length of a session is largely about ego. Who will give first? There are definite power dynamics and struggle between conservative House leadership and the moderate Senate. Then there are the dynamics between the governor and the legislature. This is an election year so the fear of raising taxes creates a tension over not fully funding substance abuse programs and failing to address shortfalls in transportation funding. Shifts in funding and taxes seem to be fair game as we have moved items like the state police off transportation budgets on to the general fund (the sales and income tax dollars which fund all our health, safety and social service programs.) But we seem to have moved beyond real debates over how to raise even just the $50 million or so for paying for the debt service on our GARVEE highway project loans. We've even abandon talk of raising the beer and wine taxes for the first time in many decades to provide more substance abuse funding to avoid the need for even more costly prison expansion and backlogs in those who need treatment for meth, heroin or alcohol addiction.
    With all legislative elections falling every two years, you seen the willingness to think ahead vanish every two years.
    So here we are diving into April we know we have an even more difficult year ahead for revenue, where tax dollars coming in may, because of the economy, force us to cut essential services. We are with S1447 already on the verge of making this year's budget balance on the backs of state retirees, cutting their allowance for supplemental health coverage and leaving them at the whims of private insurance companies who can raise retirees rates at will, leaving many services uncovered and prescription drug coverage sliding into the donut hole.
     When will it end? Not necessarily next week, but probably. It all depends on whether House leadership digs in on their big business version of personal property tax breaks. It depends on whether the Governor who came in a day late with with half baked transportation solutions bothers to come up with something sensible and balanced.
    We as democrats have proposed solutions, most of which are no longer on the table, most were never given hearings, because after all this is an election year and who can allow democrats to solve problems. But we know that. We shape the process in other ways, through amendments and through working with the Senate. Someday, maybe not so long from now we will be in the majority. We will gain the 16 seats we need in the House to set the committee agendas and choose to spend wisely and with forethought to save taxpayer dollars by not always waiting until things bleed and fall into expensive crises of meth addiction, over flowing prisons, dirty air and water and limping transit alternatives. Someday. But for this year we push and run back and forth to the Senate whispering mutual plots and plans. I've worn a pair of shoes out so the nails have come up through the soles and the rain comes in.
    When will it end? Hopefully after a bill or two is finally changed and another killed. So, soon, while we have half a chance of being sure no more damage to the future is done.
      

Those We Like

It is hard to debate against those we like. Maybe we see harm in a piece of legislation that they don't see. Maybe the harm they see of not passing it is out-weighed by the harm we see in passing it. But we disagree and we have to debate, maybe even with some vigor. Maybe we are in our same party, maybe not. But we are friends. We have shared meals or conversation, stories of our lives and families. And today we have different positions and we each have to fight them, advocate for those we are standing for, who we represent.
    We all try not to take it personally but the words said in debate are hard to hear sometimes, especially when you have legislators who lose if a bill passes and others who gain politically, in terms credibility with constituents or real policy that is part of their life's work. Tomorrow we all have to rearrange ourselves into other alliances and coalitions, so, rather than taking the fight off the floor, we all as seasoned lawmakers in the end of our two year terms, we know to leave the heat there in the big black seats in front of the lap top computer screens, go to lunch, go home, let it rest until it is less raw.
    There is a line in debate we have to be careful not to cross, that is in characterizing another's intent, or speaking poorly of their efforts or integrity. There are unspoken rules about this. When a line is crossed, a legislator is seen to have an edge that I think makes many dread having that person debate on the floor. It takes a while to learn that, to see how it works. Its part of fair play that you are careful. At the same time, in an election year, making partisan contrasts, claiming better moral high ground for a position on an issue that falls largely on party lines, is a role many of us are supposed to take. But it is a delicate balance to do that with in the rules. This time of year you can watch us walk that line, delicately or not.

It is hard to debate against those we like. Maybe we see harm in a piece of legislation that they don't see. Maybe the harm they see of not passing it is out-weighed by the harm we see in passing it. But we disagree and we have to debate, maybe even with some vigor. Maybe we are in our same party, maybe not. But we are friends. We have shared meals or conversation, stories of our lives and families. And today we have different positions and we each have to fight them, advocate for those we are standing for, who we represent.
    We all try not to take it personally but the words said in debate are hard to hear sometimes, especially when you have legislators who lose if a bill passes and others who gain politically, in terms credibility with constituents or real policy that is part of their life's work. Tomorrow we all have to rearrange ourselves into other alliances and coalitions, so, rather than taking the fight off the floor, we all as seasoned lawmakers in the end of our two year terms, we know to leave the heat there in the big black seats in front of the lap top computer screens, go to lunch, go home, let it rest until it is less raw.
    There is a line in debate we have to be careful not to cross, that is in characterizing another's intent, or speaking poorly of their efforts or integrity. There are unspoken rules about this. When a line is crossed, a legislator is seen to have an edge that I think makes many dread having that person debate on the floor. It takes a while to learn that, to see how it works. Its part of fair play that you are careful. At the same time, in an election year, making partisan contrasts, claiming better moral high ground for a position on an issue that falls largely on party lines, is a role many of us are supposed to take. But it is a delicate balance to do that with in the rules. This time of year you can watch us walk that line, delicately or not.

Caucus

We debate strategy on tough issues including passing local option taxing, public transportation funding and proceeding with a small business focused $75,000 exemption for the business personal property tax.

Margaret talks about substance abuse funding as the caucus takes a position against the Governor's veto.

Bill Killen calculates fiscal impacts.

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House Democrats caucus. Our door is open and so you could walk in to the legislature and come in and join us. The Republican majority party does not hold open caucuses so I can't post a photo of their caucuses. But maybe one of my good Republican balcony colleagues will get me one next week.

Survival

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Put the head phones on and wow. Here I am. The message-focused, issue-automaton that I become falls away and its just me here at the computer on the floor listening to Taj Mahal, Tracy Chapman and Concrete Blonde. I've literally been too busy spinning here between committee and balcony, key board and sleep to dig out the ear phones and listen to music here since weeks back in February.

    We are far from there now. Today I went to the press conference which some of Boise's stalwart Human Rights organizations had pulled together, there out on the lawn as the rain turned to white snow. We discussed Senate Bill 1323... a bill saying I, as a gay person, am human. I matter. Saying that this state agrees that harm against me is not OK. Saying that firing me or throwing me out of my apartment for no other reason than that I'm gay is not O.K. What state or nation would not up hold that value?

    Odd day today. Full of odd moments. I've written so much e-mail that my brain now naturally streams bill phrases, numbers, consequences, debate. The music here in the head phones reminds me that I can survive anything, even as good bills go down and bad ones creep ever forward. If it all gets to me for a day or two each session, I'm doing pretty well. I have a well of strength from many places. Carol's brilliant humor, my years in the wilds, having seen a world where I know never to pity myself too much. I've seen lives people live elsewhere in the world. I can survive anything here.

Here's one I will share....... Having walked alone for hours following foot prints, through deep snow at first, and then downhill for miles along the winding dirt road out of a Tibetan mountain town through forest, toward the boarder with Nepal. An army jeep stopped and I took a ride with a group of Chinese military men in uniform. It was a ride that I know from the faces and voices there in the cramped seats very nearly went wrong. I speak no Chinese only some Nepali and when I insisted on getting out, I was on a huge hill side above the boarder gate. Rocks fell constantly across the road from high up in the rain and I threaded my way down huge switchbacks until a voice below the road called out. An old man sat there under a low piece of corrugated metal. He invited me in with hand gestures. Leaning over a little fire, he made Tibetan tea for me, a kind of salty yellow soup made with yack butter. He showed me how to dip little dough balls made from tsampa flour into the warm broth and I sat with him, communicating with gestures and smiles there in his shelter of tin by the road side where he had pulled me out of the rain to share with me what food he had.

Shenanigans

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Quite a moment in Committee this morning. Chairman Lake banged the gavel and the 18 of us committee members were starting a to hear testimony from the public on a bill which had been granted a hearing with a majority vote the day before. Suddenly the chairman addressed the committee in his formal, friendly way and announced that we would have our hearing on a different draft of the bill instead, a substantially changed version which the committee did not pass and did not approve at any time, and in fact had not yet seen.

As Democrats, we sit together in a row at a leg of the table on one side of the room. We looked at each other and I raised my hand. I objected, pointing out that it was improper to substitute one bill with another bill, when the committee approved only the one of them. I also pointed out that it was particularly a problem that the changed bill would affect people in North Idaho who clearly were not at today's hearing and would have not chance to comment on how the bill would affect them and the local option sales tax which they use for property tax relief.

The Chair shrugged off the discussion saying we'd take testimony. As the few speakers wrapped up, the chair announced that we would not vote today but would have a hearing instead tomorrow on the new bill. The chair mentioned that since we had "an agreement" in the last committee meeting to hear this other draft, we would do that instead of voting on the broad local option sales tax authority we had just heard testimony on.

You know sometimes it takes a second for an incongruity to register. When you hear it, there is that moment of delay while your memory registers that no such thing took place. Rep. Jaquet pointed out that we were part of no agreement at any time on this bill and that the agreement clearly took place within republican leadership. (There is no such agreement in the committee minutes.) Chairman Lake smiled and looked down ready to adjourn the meeting without a vote on the bill people had just come to testify on.

Rep. Jaquet raised her hand and made a motion to approve the existing bill anyway. She moved to send HB 688, the broad local option tax authority bill, to the floor with a due pass recommendation. Rep. Lake squirmed and smiled and said that it would be his call. Even with a motion on the table, he adjourned the committee, no vote, no other motion, just the gavel.

So you might wonder what would matter so much that the chairman would bend rules to change this bill and eliminate the ability for local communities to use a local option sales tax for property tax relief. If you think about all the ways that certain members of House Republican leadership have tried to stand in the way of local people's ability to fund urgent local needs like public transportation, you realize it is likely that they recognize that property tax relief might be pretty popular use for a local sales tax, especially since communities in North Idaho already use local option for this purpose. It might even be popular enough that, when combined with a proposal to fund public transportation, it would easily pass by 2/3 majority, even in places like Star, Eagle and Canyon County. And well, even if it means eliminating a potential method of lowering property taxes, they seem to stop at nothing to stand in the way of this kind of progress. Light rail, street cars, a real bus system. Apparently, the last thing Rep. Moyle wants is having the local option legislation include anything that improves the chances that the Treasure Valley will ever use a 1/2 penny local sales tax to fund public transportation.

Coercive Rhetoric

Interesting our debate now on Rep. Bob Nonini's HB 654A making it unlawful to coerce a woman to have an abortion but leaving it lawful to coerce and threaten a woman with violence to force her not to have an abortion. Do the sponsors think it is OK to threaten a woman to force her to have a baby she feels unable to bear? Do the sponsors want to protect their right to coerce women for this purpose? Nonini said this was about protecting women, about our safety and our rights. I would have to say I doubt that. This bill is about politics and religion, not about women.

Only two men voted with the 9 women who voted no.

Blues

    People ask me if it ever gets to me, bashing my well gelled skull against the polished granite of this place. I don't give up easily but at the end of the session it is over, there is no hope but next year, the will of frustrated voters, a gift from the courts, acts of congress or something as yet beyond me. I know how to recover in the interim, how to take this feeling and turn it into determination, bring it to the voters and help them to take it to the ballot box to create change in this place. But for now we are stuck here with little but sinister excuses for policy before us.
    Yesterday I left the building on the verge of tears and walked in this morning trying to swallow the lump in my throat. We could go home now, bang the gavel now. Call it damage control. We would forgo hurting state retirees, encumbering the constitution, shifting burdens, letting developers charge hidden taxes and yes admitting that the majority are again this year leaving many still in harms way. That the Governor and Republican leaders have waited this long to address transportation funding of all kinds means we will likely do this badly, in some sort of forced or leveraged way.
    Here on the floor with a list of bills in front of us, I whisper to the white ceiling that we could go home now, before we vote. Make the clerk stop reading. Turn off the computers, empty our desks, hug, shake hands and be gone. The state would likely be better for it.

Waiting for the Train

If you look at legislative agendas (see link at right) you'll see a lot of notes that the committee will meet at the call of the chair. That is to say the committee room sits empty and the secretary may be wrapping up  committee minutes or doing other tasks (and, on a side note, yes, as far as I know all the committee secretaries are female. Four of our committee Chairs in the House are also female: Jo An Wood in Transportation, Lenore Barrett for Local Government, Sharon Block in Health & Welfare, and Maxine Bell as chair of the House's most powerful committee, Appropriations. In the Senate only Patti-Anne Lodge is a committee chair and in all, only six of the Senate's 35 members are women.)
    So, call of the chair is a suspended state of non-animation. There may be back room meetings, like that this morning to discuss transportation. Or there may be a bill coming from the Senate or a bill that the Senate wants which won't get a hearing until the Senate passes something else. That would be the case with Public Transportation Funding right now. Tomorrow morning we finally will see a hearing on a bill AUTHORIZING (not just limiting as the constitutional amendment does) the use of voter approved local option taxes perhaps for pubic transportation and roads. I'm not sure what exactly we'll let local people vote to raise their own sales tax for. I've not seen the bill since several have been proposed and counter proposed, trying to please Republican leadership in the house. I'm fascinated to learn if the crafters of the constitutional amendment will allow the Treasure Valley or others to begin work on funding public transit systems this year or if everyone must now wait a whole year more until November 2009 after this constitutional amendment passes statewide this election year.

Playing Chicken

    Feels later than it is and I should go to sleep. Home thinking about tomorrow and the week. We have still left much undone. So much good effort dead in drawers or on the committee room floor.
    This week will be about force. These last days are. The big boys fight, take hostages and dare each other to kill bills. It sometimes is as if no issue is attached to the legislation. Like Governor Otter vetoing a substance abuse budget line. You never know if its about policy or personalities. Did the sponsor make him mad? Was there a political rival who would benefit. Did he have other designs for the money?
    So we have to do battle with plans to change retiree benefits. We have to remind the overzealous amenders of our constitutional that their work is not done until they actually pass a real piece of legislation to let local people vote for local option sales tax for roads and transit. They can pass fifty of these useless constitutional amendments and we are no closer, only farther from having public transit or local road funds.
    And we could stop the foolish amendment but the house Republican leaders have kept lots of Senate bill as hostages. They will commence a grand game of chicken to see if the Senate will cave and give them what they want. I'd like to be wagering for some backbone but treasure valley Republicans should be leading that fight and I'm not sure if they will step up, steel themselves and take that thorny bill by the horns.

Brutal Day

The floor is empty. The pages have come up to try throwing paper airplanes from the balcony. We are all headed home now to lick wounds and tie up the last of it next week.

This morning I made my final visit to the Senate, looking for my 5th vote to advance S1323, the addition of gays and lesbians to the Human Rights act to protect us from discrimination in employment, housing and education. Finally today I give up and concede that we will pick this work up again next year. I can't say dead. The bill is resting in a drawer until next year. We will be back. As many times as it takes-- and really too many have said that some year they know the time will be right. But why do they wait while people live in fear of losing jobs? Why do they wait while so many are forced to pretend they are other than they are? Why do they wait when so many in here clearly agree this is something which will be done someday. When will all the fear within this body stop overtaking the sense of what is right?

There were other losses today. Democrats watched as we lost MaryLou Shepard's vote (actually a typical thing to have happen) and gained only Leon Smith's vote on fending off a useless constitutional amendment to restrict local people's ability to use local option taxes for local needs. Personal Property taxes passed. International Education, carried by Tom Trail, who I think has drawn unimaginable derision from his own party, died on the floor.

I know how hard it is to be a Democrat but being a moderate Republican might just be harder in here and may produce lesser, more stressful results. It is the fear thing. Fear of your own party. Something about party allegiance, where, under this kind of conservative leadership, you might pay dearly for stepping out of the fold. We Democrats don't bother MaryLou, but Tom Trail, Mark Snodgrass, Leon Smith and Carlos Bilbao have paid for representing their districts and may still be paying for who they voted for as speaker or how they voted on something or how they spoke out and objected to a process or a piece of legislation.

But that's what is feeding the fear, all this tension, all these primaries, a year of fear of primaries. The filing closes in five minutes. Republicans are going at each other out there. We Democrats have some good candidates and good issues after this session. It all unfolds now, after this brutal day.

Noise Under the Surface

As hard as it has been to learn to sit still, sit quiet, I did that today. The single issue I've worked hardest to oppose, not just this year but for three years now, the total repeal of Personal Property Tax, just passed the 70 member House by 4 votes.
    Fred Wood and I (he had paired with Eric Anderson who was gone and so was prohibited from debating,) the two of us were on the phone counting votes, talking to swing votes and urging our Republican colleagues to debate with the Democrats.
    Being on the phone helped. It kept me busy. Not debating but working the floor from the phone meant I could stand up and ask Steve Thayne to call Tom Loertscher, ask Diane Thomas to make her points about counties, ask Maxine to get someone downstairs to debate against.
    There was a most unusual mix of people on both sides of this bill. Pete Nielsen said that those he often follows are split so he was wavering. In the end he voted Aye. Somehow we even lost JoAn Wood who debated so eloquently against the bill in committee. We gained a no vote from Tom Trail who was a co-sponsor. People like Lyn Luker swung and stood up with concern that the bill reads that in 2014, regardless of the economic situation, the whole $120 million is due and the whole business tax comes off and shifts to the sales tax. 
    My quiet was on the surface, on the screen and the microphone. I know I did all I could, everything I possibly could. It is now up to the Senate. The Idaho Association of Commerce and Industry won't sleep until they get every vote tied down in shiny pro-industry barbed wire. May the counties and families and schools and future budget writers tread lightly but not rest until we get a bill to fix personal property tax that does not do the harm this one does.

Ending Debate

White haired Reverend of anti-gay causes, Brian Fischer, caught up with me in the brown marble stair case last week. He wanted to tell me that he wants us to get along. I said, as long as you are pushing legislation which affects my life, that will be hard. He said he didn't want it to be personal. I said, it's my life, my family. That is personal.

    Oddly, Reverend Fischer nodded. When you debate him on issues he doesn't give up. Like with me, there is no end to it with him. I guess that's because you can't debate different values and priorities. If one person thinks another is unworthy of rights and they see that belief as sanctioned in their religious documents, how do you debate that? You can debate whether their religion should be expressed in Idaho law, but can not really debate the belief itself. But Fischer looked up and nodded on the stairway landing below me, almost understandingly at last, and turned away.

Of Cars and Roads

House Ways and Means Committee. Rep. Ruchti presents his bill.

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It felt really good to stand in the back of the room while the Flying M Six presented a state transportation funding plan to the House Ways and Means Committee this afternoon. Looking at Governor Otter's idea of requiring a $150 across the board annual vehicle registration fee and at the other plans proposed so far, we decided there could be more equity and more account for how much impact trucks, especially heavy trucks have on roads. Six of us democrats from the house sat in the sun one afternoon early this week wit calculators, a computer and cell phones to draft a plan. A photo appears a few post back on this blog at Alternative Solutions. http://notesfromthefloor.typepad.com/notes_from_the_floor/2008/03/alternatve-solu.html
    Ways and means is an unusual committee made up of equal numbers of the house's Democratic and Republican leadership: Reps. Jaquet, Rusche, Sayler, Moyle, Bedke and Roberts, plus the chairman Rep. Rich Wills who I know to be one of the more honorable legislators in the body, (and one of the best actors. He's part of a theater troupe.)
    The committee heard our presentation from Rep. Philis King first. An alternative proposal for personal vehicle registrations. Our proposal is hardly Otter's $150 and will include a hardship exemption for those who could not afford the $42 fee for an older car. Our increase at this level was less than a proposal from the committee earlier which would have made the fee $48 and would have provided no hardship exemption.
    Rep. Ruchti got up next and proposed our 38% across the board increase in heavy truck fees and ton mile calculations (no, before working on this plan I did not know what ton miles were and that they were a way of accounting for impact on roads.)
    Finally Rep. Ringo presented our proposal for a 2% sales tax on the retail price of gasoline. This was a hard decision, but to raise $100 million to address shortfalls in transportation funding without raising registration fees to $100 we had to get creative. This money, because it is not just based on the gallons of gas used, will hold revenue for roads steady, even as fuel consumption falls and prices rise.
    All three bills got unanimous votes for introduction and the dialog was friendly, with the chair expressing enthusiasm for discussing the plans and coming up with a transportation funding solution we can reach consensus on.
    Our plan included support for the bi-partisan Moving Idaho Forward local option sales tax legisation to allow local governments, with voter approval, to share in the cost of urgent local road projects and to let them construct public transportation projects such as light rail or trolleys, bus systems or other projects to reduce the need for expensive freeway and road expansions and reduce congestions on highways and roads.
    Doing this felt good. It is hard to grab time to plan, especially to address an issue that comes up in the middle of a session. In fact, in general, I don't think legislatures plan ahead particularly well. We respond to crisis. Successfully finding elected law makers willing to spend or "invest" to avert disaster is hard. Disaster is typically more expensive than preventing the disaster. I think sometimes in conservative bodies like ours though we have to be pretty familiar with the data and projects to be ready to justify to voters why we used tax dollars for a project, especially if some might say it means "growing government," increasing regulation or raising taxes.
    Something has to be really bleeding for the Idaho legislature to raise taxes. We seem to shift taxes readily, but raising them is feared now after years of anti-tax rhetoric from within the Republican party. Yet this year you heard Republican law makers and Governor Otter talking about more than doubling major car registration fees which almost every family pays. Pavement and tail pipes, over passed and rush hour traffic is bleeding in Idaho or about to bleed.

Some Numbers

Some numbers:

• Percent of Idaho businesses that are small businesses employing less than 50 people:  96%
• Percent of Idaho employees working in small businesses with fewer than 100 employees:  66%
• Percent of Idaho sales tax paid by businesses:  about 33%
• Percent of the sales tax paid by families and individuals:  about 66%
• Percent of the corporate and individual income tax paid by businesses:  .00015%
• Percent paid by families and individuals:  99%
• Cost of IACI's HB599 tax exemption:  $120 million every year after the bill is fully phased in.
• Where would more than 80% or $103 million of the IACI $120 million go:  To the 15% of Idaho's largest businesses.
• Tax exemptions these businesses already get and thus taxes they already do not have to pay on the personal property they buy:
  • --Idaho's sales tax production exemption
  • --Investment Tax Credits
  • --179 Income Tax Deduction
• Cost of a smaller $50,000 personal property tax exemption for all businesses:  $9  million
• Percent of businesses which have less than $50,000 in personal property anyway :  aprox. 85%
• Percent of all Idaho businesses that would benefit from a $50,000 exemption:  100%
• Percent of benefit of $50,000 exemption going to small business:  44%
• Percent of benefit of $120 million IACI proposal going to small businesses:  less than 20%
• Estimated tax shift from businesses to families and individuals if IACI bill passes:  roughly $80 million
• IACI proposals which included a way for business to pay for this tax exemption through extension of another business tax which their members feel would be less onerous than the personal property tax:  0

Amending the Shift

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Rep Bill Killen and a group of us in the House just made an attempt to amend House Bill 599, a bill which shifts $120 million in business personal property taxes onto the sales tax. The Idaho Association of Commerce and Industry (IACI), the big industry lobby and the sponsors of 599 moved the bill to the amending order to fix constitutional concerns brought up by the Attorney General. We rushed to prepare and Rep. Killen submitted amendments to the Speaker to compete with theirs.
    After some debate about which amendment would go first, the drafts were passed out by pages onto to the desks of 70 members of the house. Which amendment goes first can matter because sometimes, once one amendment passes, the other is moot. For that reason our amendment went last. Our amendment gutted their bill and replaced it with a far more simple and more equitable $50,000 personal property tax exemption for all businesses. This would cost taxpayers only $9 million in sales tax dollars rather than $120 million and would benefit small businesses most since about 80% of businesses have less than $50,000 in personal property to be taxed.
    The procedure for Amendments is quite elaborate. Normally the floor session where the 70 of us vote on bills is run by the Speaker. To amend bills the floor session is dissolved and the Majority Caucus Chair, Rep Scott Bedke, takes the podium as Chairman of "The Committee of the Whole." Rep Killen addressed the Chairman and fielded questions from all over the floor with precision and poise. We debated the shift to taxpayers, the impact to the county's ability to borrow and the lack of guarantee that the replacement moneys will be adequate to cover county services (from hospitals to needed fire, ambulance, schools and more.)
    In the end the Chaiman for our Committee of the Whole closed debate. Normally we make a voice vote on amendments which is not recorded. Someone requested "division" which means we vote instead by standing or sitting in response to "all those in favor" and "all those opposed." I had called JoAn Wood to ask her  to second Bill's motion to amend (this is a formality where we have a second person listed on the sheet which looks like a regular bill. In this case it was a thick packet.Lenore Barrett argued that since the amendment was longer than the original bill, everyone should vote no. An amendment often has to be longer because it includes section that have been changed or language to be eliminated.)
    When we rose for division, only Diana Thomas from Emmett stood with the six of us Democrats on the balcony. I could see Leon Smith and Jim Marriot standing downstairs but most people are not visible from upstairs. I'm sure JoAn stood.
    It is amazing the power IACI has over this place some days. I would have said their power was waning when they changed their organization to represent only the biggest businesses in Idaho. They did a lot of work on this year's bill but we have labored to to make sure that Idahoans see the cost of this legislation and who pays that cost. They can call it apple pie and economic development but in the end  it is just a $90 million give-away to some of the biggest industry in the state, much of which is publicly traded and will go to shareholders, not to employees through the kind of trickle down IACI insists will occur. Small businesses we know would invest those dollars in wages, benefits and local expenditures which might benefit families and the economy. That can be said of many who benefit most from IACI's bill.
    The benefit to small business is fully granted by the $50,000 exemption amendment we proposed. And our amendment would not have carried with it the $90 million tax shift that comes if the bill is passes exactly as IACI wants it to.

Madame Speaker

Retiring Rep. Margaret Henbest as acting Speaker of the House.

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I am a bit teary still. Long time democratic legislator for District 16, Margaret Henbest is retiring this year. She is very well known for her tireless work on health care and the House Health and Welfare Committee.
    It is a tradition of sorts that a long time legislator might have a chance, at the speaker's consent, to serve as speaker for part of a floor session. When Margaret got up just now and the first of us had to address her as "Madame Speaker" a cheer went up. It sounded so good. Madame Speaker. May the day come and maybe should our numbers grow this year and next, just maybe that balance point in the state will be reached and maybe someday that Madame Speaker will be a woman, a democratic woman.
    I am leaving the House for the Senate so may never see that day. Seeing Margaret up there reminds me how close to the end of this session and this term we are. The board is full of bills to debate but committees are shutting down. We did not have Rev & Tax this morning but will print a few bills tomorrow. One will be mine. My technical fix to the sales tax exemption for non-profit organizations. I've labored over it for more than a year and may now have something that will work. The chair wouldn't hear substantive proposals I or other democrats had, but this technical fix is probably not very threatening or likely to help me in my campaign or career so I think it escapes the political net.
    Somber times in a way. The secretary of state's filings grow each day. Many of us will not be back. Sometimes that is healthy, sometimes we lose a unique voice or perspective common out in the voting public but not in here. I will miss Margaret. She is a strong, wise voice in the caucus, a balance to leadership sometimes much needed. I wish her well in her new adventures. 

Alternative Solutions

House Democrats' "Flying M Six" (Clockwise starting at left: Shirley Ringo -Moscow, Phylis King - Boise, Bill Killen - Boise, James Ruchti - Pocatello and not pictured Sue Chew and Nicole LeFavour) gather to craft a transportation funding plan.

Trusting Government

    My partner Carol's favorite legislator has got to be Lenore Barrett. Carol, like some Idahoans, tunes in to the IPTV webcast of House floor debate every day and plays it in the back ground as she works. If the debate sounds interesting she might even watch the video for a bit. http://www.idahoptv.org/leglive/ She always tunes in when Lenore debates. I've long thought Lenore could be a champion slam poet. As a former slam poet myself and one who went to the Slam Nationals in Chicago with a team of other poets from Boise a few years back, I'd know. Slam poetry is performance poetry. Some people have a style of delivery that would make the phone book sound interesting. Others just have a way with words. Yet others have a way with metaphors that makes for outrageous content. Lenore is one of those. She is legendary for the wild images she evokes in floor debate and even in committee. She'll pencil something down, leaning back in her seat, pursing her lips and contemplating the ceiling to find the next line or rhyme.
    Today's debate in Rev and Tax was not particularly poetic but she did make a statement that spoke volumes about our state. Lynn Tominaga was presenting a bill on irrigation water and noted that some who opposed the bill simply don't trust the city council to decide who should be exempted from the tax we were debating. He noted further that these people just didn't seem to trust government.
    Lenore, with her usual flair raised her hand and the Chairman, sitting next to her, leaned back and let her speak.
    "I don't trust government either, babe," she said with some gravity. And on raged the debate about who should pay the tax and when and who should be exempted.
    Now further disclosure is probably necessary at this point. I in fact grew up in Custer County in Lenore's home district #35. It is the largest legislative district in the state. It encompasses several wilderness areas, miles ad miles of national forest, national recreation areas, bureau of land management lands and then too, little threads of habitation along rivers and canyon bottoms and farmed valleys between the mountains. It is the home of the anti-environment and anti-government militias of the late 80s. I grew up hearing heated discussion about government and its evils when we went to gas up at the Clayton Mercantile.
    I've got to say that from Clayton, Idaho government sure seems far away and abstract. It might just be embodied by a property tax tax notice or the IRS. It might be a law you don't like or a cop that gives you a speeding ticket. But as with anything we don't know personally, the animosities sure can grow when  you don't goverment meet face to face.
    I think about government and my own relationship to it. I worked for the forest service for 7 years outside Challis, Lenore's hometown. I embodied government to people who saw me inspecting their outfitter camps as an intrusion into a way of life and a business they had run the same way for decades long before the area was designated wilderness. I think of my feelings toward government as a gay person and how disenfranchised I've felt and how disrespected and unvalued I've felt as I faced the hostile laws and lack of appreciation for what it is like to belong to a group of people who are sometimes killed just for who we are. What kind of government would not care? Would not do all it could to keep young people from being beaten and fired from jobs when we work so hard and just want to be left to make a living and live our lives in peace.
    Lenore's point was about taxes. I think it cuts to the heart of it as well as anything. Do we see government as being made up of people with values like ours? Is government a vast majority which sees us as an insignificant blip on a screen? Will it look out for our unique concerns or steam roll over us without a second thought?
    Maybe it is my job as a legislator to make sure to put a face on government. We as elected officials have to do more than wait for people to contact us to say when something is wrong. By that time I think the damage is often done. It is all of our job to ensure that government is in part made up of people from diverse backgrounds who set policy having walked in the shoes of more than just a privileged few. 
    We will all trust government better if we see it as made up of people like ourselves. Helen Chenoweth was not elected on a fluke. She and Lenore Barrett represent a part of Idaho that does see black helicopters in the rain clouds and can not begin to fathom why it takes so much tax money to sustain the infrastructure of protections, facilities, services, relief and communication required to cobble together a nation like ours. We all shudder at "trust us." If we picture a faceless government above our heads, it might all seem pretty foreign to us. We might still see its interests as alien and its intentions as potentially hostile.

Spin Control

Republican leadership threw an emergency press conference Friday after passing their constitutional amendment out of committee. They claim their amendment is all about making it harder to raise taxes. They say anyone opposing it just wants to raise taxes.
     Let's be clear, if this amendment passes it will make it harder for local people to raise their own taxes for things like public transportation which they urgently need (which typically the legislature doesn't value and won't fund.) Where is our faith in local people or local governments with this constitutional amendment. We are holding local governments up to a bar we do not hold ourselves to. Do we have to be elected by a 2/3 vote to vote on tax issues? Not as I recall.
     And let's be a little more clear, House Republican leaders Mike Moyle and Ken Roberts who are quoted as caring about keeping Idahoans taxes low are the same two who are behind shifting almost $100 million in business taxes onto families and individuals by repealing the $120 million personal property tax. It should be hard to raise taxes they say? How about shifting taxes from one group of payers to another? Is that some how OK? Maybe we need to let the people of Idaho vote on that. Vote and see if they believe the idea that the benefits of the multi million tax cut for Simplot and Canadian mining companies will trickle back down to the families of Idaho who will soon pay for this huge business tax.
    Of course if we did take a vote on this one on a ballot in November it would probably end up being written so that it would sound like the Jim Risch tax shift did, like motherhood and apple pie. Like something designed to save education when it simply took locally controlled school dollars and made schools come begging to the legislature for every dime instead. It cut taxes for vacation homeowners and big business while raising the sales tax, which is mostly paid by families. Can you call that protecting tax payers from tax increases? I don't think so.
    I'm tired. But we have many miles to go before we sleep. The session is far from over. Every one is just gearing up for elections with a fresh batch of wholesome "we are only saving you from yourselves" rhetoric. The house PR guy is running over time. It seems to be time for the spin doctors to go to work.

Constitutional Politics

Out legislative committees meet in fairly small rooms downstairs from the floor of the house here in the old Ada County Courthouse, our temporary Capit