Notes From The Floor

Adding the Words: What We Agree On

The first amendment of the US Constitution, guaranteeing freedom of speech and freedom of religion is one which I and other advocates for Add the Words respect deeply. We respect it every bit as much as Idaho legislative leaders do.

Out of this respect, some of us have agreed and have a willingness to make clear in the bill, to spell out and reiterate the exact nature of first amendment rights as they relate to the inclusion of gay and transgender people in Idaho's human rights act. Most notable is number 5 which assures business owners that they can not be compelled to produce speech (as in writing on a cake or printing on a t-shirt. I myself for example would never make a racist t-shirt if I owned a t-shirt shop.) This is a fundamental first amendment right. In fact, recently, higher courts appear to agree with what the language in number 5 below states.

Yes, we agree, a business must bake a cake or sell a t-shirt, but that business does not have to write on a product a message that's different in meaning from what they would write on a product for any other customer.

The language below is what we have proposed could be included in the Idaho Human Rights Act at the addition of the enumerated classes “sexual orientation, gender identity.” The act prohibits discrimination in employment, housing, education, and public accommodation, meaning business and government services.

The inclusion of sexual orientation and gender identity in this act 

1.    Affirms the individual religious liberties guaranteed under the provisions of the Idaho Human Rights Act, federal law the U.S. Constitution as well as other sections of Idaho code

2.    Affirms the rights of churches and clergy to refuse to solemnize marriages on church grounds or as a part of activities organized by a 501c3 religious organization

3.    Affirms the rights of clergy and church staff in performance of their religious duties as part of a 501c3 religious organization, to refuse solemnize any marriage or to refuse to participate in or celebrate any marriage or union

4.    Affirms the right of business owners to refuse to provide products, accessories, decorations or other items not otherwise produced, included, or offered for sale to other customers by that proprietor’s businesses

5.    Affirms the first amendment rights of individual business owners, including the right to refuse to customize products or produce individually tailored services if the entire product, decoration of the product, or service itself is written or verbal speech which differs substantively in content rather than in context, from that produced or made available by the business to other customers

6.    Affirms the rights of business owners to establish standards of dress if the standards do not otherwise violate this act and are applied equally to all employees, with the exception of persons with disabilities needing accommodation or those exercising their rights to religious or other expression as established by federal law and the first amendment of the U.S. Constitution 

We are not Utah. We are Idaho.

Yesterday, after another year of work asking Idaho legislative leaders to include gay and transgender people in Idaho's longstanding and well tested nondiscrimination laws, I received the following letter from Senate Leader Brent Hill on behalf of himself, Senate Leaders and Governor Otter:

 

It was titled: "Thanks"

Dear Nicole,

Thank you for the note. I appreciate your desire to work something out on legislation prohibiting discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity that is still respectful of religious rights and freedoms. Please understand, though, that “public accommodations” are not on the table. If you are interested in a balanced approach resembling Utah’s compromise, I would be happy to visit, but, as I have already indicated, feedback I am getting from my colleagues clearly indicates that there is not sufficient support in either the House or the Senate to advance even a Utah-style solution.

Again, if you and your associates want to help advance legislation not addressing public accommodations and similar to Utah’s, I would be happy to work with you to see if we could garnish enough support to give it a try. Anything more aggressive on your part is not achievable. 

Sincerely,

Brent

 

This is my response:

Senator Hill and Senators Davis, Winder and Governor Otter,

 

I am surprised by and do not understand your answer. I have asked over and over to understand why you are comfortable with the idea of Idahoans working next to gay and transgender people or renting housing to us, but will not ensure that people sell us groceries, serve us food, pump gasoline, fix our broken cars or repair our washing machines. Why is public accommodation like this unacceptable to you? I’m mystified to hear you four state leaders --whom I consider compassionate, humane people-- I’m mystified to hear you insist that gay and transgender people are not human enough to be fully included in our state human rights act. 

 

Do you see us as deserving of the daily humiliation of being turned away from businesses in communities across the state?

Do you not care that young people, especially in small communities, will simply continue to despair knowing this humiliation awaits them, even after the brutality of high school?

 

I don’t understand. I thought better of all of you.

 

I also think you grossly misunderstand the will of the body, in both the house and senate. A majority are waiting for your lead in somehow solving this problem. Because of Senator Lakey's fundamental lack of openness on this issue, using him to conduct a head count is a grave error. Many members have gay and transgender children, siblings, friends and family they feel should live with a greater sense of security and the liberty to work hard, support their families and do business in their own communities and the state they love. You will never know or see this because of the way you approach this issue with them.

 

I will publicly respond taking the Utah bill point by point to show why we in Idaho would never want legislation like that in our state. Not only did it set back Utah cities in the protections they had been able to afford to hard working citizens of their communities, but language included in it essentially destroyed the very protections it pretended to extend. I think you all, including Senator Davis, respect my intelligence more than to think I would ever agree to harm the very people I am trying to save from lives of uncertainty and loss. 

 

I think you understand that attitudes which set us apart as lesser, as undeserving of the protections extended to other classes of humans, simply reinforce the idea that we are deserving of hate and violence. And you must know by now that we do face hate and violence.

 

This is not a proud day for our state. Not a proud time. I gave you years of work, language to place within public accommodation to genuinely try to address concerns and solve the problems you were willing to share, and yet that is not enough? And after asking again and again to understand what further in public accommodation remains a problem, you still won’t answer?

 

I am saddened beyond belief by your failure to show compassion, your failure to be willing to stand up and say what is right and what is wrong. I am saddened that instead you would like to write into law a lessening of our humanity, a trojan horse of kindness to save face for yourselves.

 

This is a sad day but perhaps a necessary one. I have honestly defended each of you to the good people of this state. I am done with that role. I am done having faith in the hearts of each of you.

 

…nicole

 

Former Senator 

Nicole LeFavour

 

 

You can send a letter to your legislators explaining the harm done when they again fail at passing legislation to fully include gay and transgender people in Idaho's non discrimination laws. Persuade them it is time and that we need their support in moving Senate leaders to finally add the words.  includeusidaho.org

 

I'm still here

It's true, I'm no longer sitting in that seat on the floor of the Idaho Senate or House. I'm not rising to speak when something needs to be said, but my voice is still out here and in the Capitol each year, and though I'm often invisible, I will be in the big marble building gathering others and working quietly until gay and transgender people are finally safe here, our jobs and livelihoods and families are no longer at risk --whether we are exercising our constitutional right to marry or just simply trying to shop at a store or eat dinner in a restaurant. It is 2016. We should be safe and not have to fear that our state by its silence endorses violence against us. We should not have to fear being turned away from businesses.

In my heart I know our state is better than the policy it allows to be printed in its books of code.

I'm going nowhere until the laws change and good people are included in our state anti-discrimination statutes. I am going nowhere until hard working neighbors and friends are afforded the dignity of having recourse when they face discrimination, violence and acts of cruelty. For Idaho, it will get better. To the young I say remember the love of all of us out here and know that people can be better and braver and kinder than our laws.

It's 2016. Be brave. Let's make it so Idaho. 

...nicole

Former Idaho Senator Nicole LeFavour

I write a column every other week called From the Far Margin. I write on many topics. You might like: Three Red Lights, In Favor of Pitchforks, Walls of Ice, The Beauty of Dream

In the Interest of Both Church and State

The U.S. Constitution begs us not to let religion conflict with protecting the lives & liberties of those whom we, as public servants, are sworn to govern and serve. Some will always use religion to grasp at reasons to continue long traditions of discrimination. But in a civil society, to permit some to treat any group of humans as less-- by depriving them of employment, housing or public service by businesses --simply runs counter to the values our nation was founded to embody. On no level of government should discrimination be enshrined, not for the sake of commerce or to appease any religion. Ever.

Nicole's Open Letter to Former Colleagues

Friends, Former Colleagues,  

I no longer serve with you, but I’d like to say a few words. You, of the Idaho House and Senate, I think you know in your hearts, you still have work to do.

I never was allowed the privilege of bringing a bill to “add the words” to the floor of the house or senate. I'd like to you to hear what I would have said had i been granted that dignity. I can not do justice to all the lives affected. There is so much you will hear when you finally listen to the stories of gay people, your sons and daughters, nieces, nephews, neighbors, and silent friends.

First, despair takes far too many of young people. It never should. Please consider the loneliness of a young person who has been rejected by their parents, then their church, even their friends. Too many stand over sinks with razors or knives alone, because no one stood to protect them when the world grew cruel.

You may feel this matter is not a place for policy but for church or family. But what of when one or both fail good people? Should any one of God's beautiful young creations feel they are unworthy of life? What if this were your child?

There is sometimes folly in religions when they need to find demons from among us. Every century, every decade has had them. And politics takes them up because what church preaches is powerful. It motivates action and votes. But at the expense of lives? So people we love live in fear of meeting a baseball bat in a parking lot or alley?

I know none of you wish harm on anyone. Tragically though, this legislature’s failure to act is the same as an endorsement of the violence, a nod to the unworthiness people feel when they live in fear and no one will stand for them. In the far, most rural parts of Idaho it can be the hardest. What if this were your child? Your sister or brother?

Politics and political parties are not your highest obligation as law makers or as citizens of this beautiful state. Your highest obligation is to protect lives, to ensure freedom, liberty and life. 

Please. This is so simple. Idaho already has laws that decry cruelty on the basis of chosen religion, race, disability, national origin, age over 40 and gender. Every business in Idaho operates within these laws and has for decades. The laws mediate and protect businesses and as much as alleged victims. They allow penalization only for blatant, intentional, systematic acts of cruelty; the kind trampling of a person’s liberty that we all feel civilized societies can not function with or tolerate. It is very simple to include gay and transgender people, my people, me, within these existing public safety statutes.

Please, understand lives will be lost quietly each year, each month, you do not to act, each day that more of us despair.

Thank you for reading this. Please put conscience before politics. With respect.

…nicole

 

Former Senator Nicole LeFavour
Box 775 Boise, Idaho 83701
208 724-0468 • [email protected]

 

P.S. This bill is so simple. Just insert four words “sexual orientation, gender identity” within the Idaho Human Rights Act which is the state’s existing fair employment, housing and education law.

The Speaker or Pro Tem could request a hearing on the bill and it would, as you all well know, with your help, still have time to pass this year. Please.

 

Photos from the Road

Photos from my 2012 Campaign for U.S. Congress.

500 Volunteers. 10 Staff. 4 field offices. 2000 donors. Over $300,000 raised from regular ordinary Idahoans. 110,000 votes in one of the toughest years to run as a Democrat in Idaho. Over 1/4 million phone calls made. Over 25,000 voters contacted and logged. More votes than any Democrat has gotten in the East half of the state ever.

With my deepest respect & gratitude: Thank you all. With LOVE & hope that we can & will do better. My staff is phenomenal. We would be nothing but 10 people in a cafe without all of YOU who gave time or money to make this happen. We organized half the state in ways that helped other candidates on November 6th. The work you all did will continue to help many in the years ahead.
What will I do next. I don't know. I do know it's not over Idaho.
.. nicole

Stay in touch: http://4idaho.org

What to Celebrate

Eight months ago, standing in the statehouse considering whether to run for Congress, I figured I could run a good campaign. What's amazing is that, together with thousands of you, my team ran the best campaign many have ever seen run in Idaho. Stronger, better organized, more tech savvy, more deeply rooted in communities and more issue-focused than I could have imagined.

NUMBERS

Thirty-five percent of the vote. While that sounds dismal, it still means more than 110,000 voters chose me over Mike Simpson on Tuesday. I think that's ten thousand more votes in the east half of the state than any democrat in any congressional or statewide race has ever gotten. And in spite of how LDS enthusiasm for Mitt Romney made this one of the most difficult possible years to run as a Democrat in Idaho, it appears that our campaign brought in about 25,000 new voters to participate in this election. That's an impressive twenty-five thousand people who did not vote in the 2008 presidential race.

We engaged Idaho's powerful Hispanic community and worked so hard that Mike Simpson gained fewer than 2,000 votes from the Romney tide. In fact thousands of LDS men and women and more than 10,000 Republicans and Independents voted for me. That was the work we all did on the phones and the doors --and it mattered.

CHANGING THE DEBATE

More than anything, you all allowed me to finally have the resources to use TV and direct mail to push back on issues we so rarely get to re-define here in Idaho. I'm proud we exposed the attitudes that have led to Idaho's grim record on fair pay for women and the kind of cowardice that allowed passage of the Luna laws. We also changed the debate on budget cuts by focusing on job loss, and explained who the job creators really are in the economy and why.

And last but not least, we've put to rest the question of whether Idahoans will actually vote for a gay person.

GRATITUDE

I feel profoundly grateful to you all. From the unemployed carpenter who gave me four dollars, to the Republican mothers, fathers and working people who've crossed streets and sent email to tell me they voted for me. From the long hours and tremendous heart, hard work and intelligence of my staff and volunteers, to the sense that so many of you gave your time and money because this work is something you believe in.

This has been the most amazing experience of my life. We've made history. Idaho needs us all to keep talking to neighbors over picket fences in our communities, volunteering to organize other volunteers, raising money or using phone calls to change minds on the issues we care about -- perhaps to strengthen political organizations and non-profits, to run campaigns or, for many of you, to run for office yourselves.

WHAT'S NEXT

I have no idea what I'm doing next but I love this state. Sadly, Idaho has failed so many families who've faced hardship these past years, those who've lost jobs and homes or small businesses; those who've waited so long for respect and dignity or legal status; those who strive for simple security or the tools for independence; those who struggle to pay for a college degree or just to put a meal on the table.

The work is not over. What you all have done is so beautiful. Many of you came to this because you care and believe Idaho and its policy makers can do better. Lives depend on all of us using our skills to motivate friends to challenge our Idaho Congressmen, state lawmakers and local officials when policies become cruel or disrespectful.

For the lives and futures of people we care about, let's carry with us what we did this year and make this congressional campaign not an end, but a beginning.

 

Idaho Needs a Congresswoman Who Will Keep Seniors Secure

Thank you. Idaho, you continue to amaze me.

 

When I filed to run for office in March, I couldn't have imagined what beautiful things I'd see in this state, in its people, in the generosity and passion and kindness so many have shown me. Every day I am humbled by how much people give to this campaign. I am humbled by the words of encouragement from people I pass on the street, by people who open their doors to talk about issues they care about, by students who come and spend spare hours on phones talking to strangers about me and what matters this election.

I'm humbled by those who gave time or any amount of money to keep this campaign strong so that we've been able to open offices across the district in Idaho Falls, Pocatello and Twin Falls. A few days ago we reached an important marking point. We exceeded the amount raised by all the Democratic challengers to Mike Simpson combined. And it will take that and more to win on November 6. But it is an important marking point and it shows why some of us have faith in what's possible in this state. It also shows how serious this campaign is.

We have so much to celebrate today. We have met goals I wasn't sure I'd be able to meet. It will take a few days to count but with the mail, the credit card donations and pledges into our offices, we think we will exceed what we thought possible for yesterdays deadline. Amazing.

I look around and every day I'm astounded by the creativity and hard work of my staff and particularly the field team, and the solid leadership of Ryan Hill, the let's get this done brilliance of Rialin Flores my finance director and the many of you who have talked to others or raised funds for me these past months by hosting house parties or calling and asking friends to give.

We have a month more now to raise what it will take to buy television and the last of our mail. So no, it's not over. I have more weeks of torturing you all with my asks for donations.

But last night proved we can do this. The total fundraising goal of our plan is within reach now. With new donors, more house parties, more generosity and creativity and passion, I know now that I can raise what it takes and run the kind of campaign it will take to win on November 6th -- to become Idaho's next Congresswoman. Thanks to you, I can say I know this now.

To all those willing to work hard for what matters to them, my deepest deepest thanks, You just continue to amaze me. 

Just 5 weeks left. For me, no resting. Back to work. Again, thank you.

...nicole

 

You can buy TV Ads here: https://secure.actblue.com/page/nicole-on-tv

 

 

Congressional Budget Cuts Decimating Jobs

As a member of the House Budget Committee today voting to oppose a continuing resolution to keep from shutting every federal agency and service down, Rep. Mike Simpson does little to offer solutions to the current budget stalemate.

As a state lawmaker who has served for four years balancing Idaho budgets and dealing with fiscal crises, it seems clear to me that those offering a "cuts only" approach to eliminating the deficit and passing a budget, have created not only this impasse but in part also created our nation's continuing economic crisis.

Over the course of the past five years federal budget cuts have eliminated more than 600,000 American jobs. Congress still pays unemployment benefits to a great number of these workers. We have to ask, if job creation is the most critical key to economic recovery, why has congress not restored these jobs so those families again have full income to support their community's small businesses, American manufacturers and our nation's economy?

Like many, I fear Congress these past two years has delayed addressing real economic issues in the interest of keeping the economy down until after the November election. Essentially they have played politics with American lives. This sort of partisanship has decimated jobs, families, security and the values of cooperation and compassion which made this country great.

It is time for Congressman Simpson to do the real work of proposing a budget that takes into account that the problem with our deficit goes beyond simple government spending and has an equal amount to do with fighting two wars and refusing to roll back eight years of tax cuts that have benefited the nation's most wealthy, obviously with no positive economic affect.

Rep. Simpson has voted more than once in favor of the Ryan Budget which further decimates jobs while cutting and essentially privatizing social security and Medicare for future generations of American seniors. Paul Ryan's budget is no solution to our nation's economic problems and is not a proposal any thinking policy maker would seriously consider as a compromise to resolve the current budget impasse.

Yes, it is time for Congress to get to work and to take seriously the affect that repeated cuts have on the economy. It is time for them to look all of us in the eye and ensure for once they are not decimating jobs more quickly than America's private sector can create them.

 

Senator Nicole LeFavour grew up on a ranch in rural Custer County in Central Idaho. She’s well-known across the state as a hard working legislator, respected advocate and teacher. In her eight years in the Idaho legislature, Senator LeFavour built strong relationships with Democratic and Republican colleagues from across the political spectrum. She earned bi-partisan support on her legislation year after year and has been formally recognized for her leadership by local and national organizations.

 

DONATIONS: https://secure.actblue.com/contribute/page/go-nicole

VOLUNTEER: http://4idaho.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=29&Itemid=31

INFO: http://4idaho.org

These Issues Matter to Idaho

These are some of the critical issues voters will consider in the congressional campaign and election on Tuesday November 6.

Senator Nicole LeFavour is a teacher and former small business owner who grew up in rural central Idaho. She’s served eight years in the legislature standing up for education, small class sizes and to stop budget cuts which have eliminated thousands of Idaho jobs.

 

 

I’m an Idaho Democrat because Democrats care about working people, families and small businesses. We believe in communities and that people pull together to overcome great obstacles. We believe a strong public education system and a more affordable college education are the foundations of the American dream.

Our nation needs new congressmen and women determined to solve problems and lead our country back to prosperity and the values of compassion and cooperation that made us great.

THE ECONOMY

Our nation’s job creators are not millionaires or corporations but small businesses and regular working people. Americans create jobs when they can participate fully in the economy, when they can afford replace a broken washing machine, buy clothes for their children, fix the car, eat out at a restaurant or afford a home or college degree.

FINANCIAL CRISIS

Congressman Simpson voted again and again to loosen the federal banking regulations that led to our nation’s financial crisis.  Sadly he also voted to spend $700 billion to bail out banks without providing any help for the small businesses struggling to get loans to create jobs across Idaho.

FAIRNESS

Our nation has reduced taxes on millionaires at a time when our national debt has reached record levels. Congress should allow the Bush era tax cuts to expire for everyone making more than $250,000 a year and keep the cuts and credits in place for working families and seniors. If the most wealthy 1% in America again paid their fair share we could trim more than $1.2 trillion from the deficit.

EDUCATION

Four years of budget cuts have created fiscal crises in our neighborhood schools, caused property taxes to rise and led to a loss of critical resources teachers need to make sure every child achieves his or her full potential. I strongly oppose forcing kids to learn in crowded classrooms as a result of state and federal budget cuts.

HIGHER EDUCATION

No American should feel that taking on a lifetime of debt is the only way to complete a college degree. We can lower the cost of a college education by using federal funds to incentivize colleges and universities to lower student fees. Increasing accountability for tuition increases and using $1.50 federal incentive for every $1.00 reduction in tuition I believe would pay for itself in the economic benefits of making a college education affordable to more Americans.

SENIORS

Unlike Congressman Mike Simpson, I oppose further cuts to Medicare that jeopardize the security of American Seniors. The nation's budget should not be balanced at the expense of school children, people with disabilities or our seniors. Cutting Medicare violates a promise our nation makes to each American who pays taxes or funds these programs that we will have some level of security in providing for ourselves and living out our lives in our communities as we age.

JOBS

I will dedicate myself to restoring jobs, not eliminating thousands with irresponsible budget cuts. Food processing plants have closed and most Idaho products are now exported as raw materials, sending Idaho food producing jobs overseas and across state lines. I’d ensure grants, (not incentives which shift taxes to small business and families) are available for Idaho businesses to open food manufacturing facilities that create jobs and prosperity in Idaho. 

POLLUTION and HEALTH

I believe that weakening the EPA will only put at risk the clean drinking water and air that the next generation of Idahoans must depend on for a healthy start in life. While we all may trust some industries not to pollute our water and air, others we are glad are watched and regulated by an agency whose job it is to protect human health. Sadly, Mike Simpson has made it a priority to weaken the EPA the one agency charged with using science and solid research to protect American children and families from cancer-causing pollution and toxic contamination.

EQUAL PAY AND RESPECT FOR WOMEN

Today, Idaho ranks 43rd in the nation for how much more a man is paid compared to a what a woman doing the same job is paid for the same work. Unlike Congressman Simpson, I support the Lilly Ledbetter fair pay act because it improves families’ ability to bring pay disparities to the attention of our state and nation when they do occur. Fair wages improve our economy and keep families independent and strong.I oppose allowing government to intrude in private matters by mandating that women undergo invasive medical procedures. I believe government should respect the private health decisions of women, families and individuals. 

RESPECT & HUMAN DIGNITY

I have worked for decades to advance human rights and respect across Idaho. In contrast, Mike Simpson has refused to address our broken immigration system in a way that unites families and best serves Idaho communities, agriculture, commerce and our economy. Additionally, in Congress Mr. Simpson has consistently opposed legislation to end discrimination against gay people in employment and military service and has even voted against ending the violence too many still face in their communities.

HEALTH INSURANCE

I was never a fan of the Mitt Romney-style mandate to buy private insurance as it was included in the nation’s health care law. Sadly Congress made the industry more powerful by mandating that everyone buy private insurance. A strong nationwide non-profit program would be far more affordable and could simplify the current system which has created endless administrative costs in every doctor’s office and hospital. There are some important new consumer protections in the Affordable Care Act or "Obamacare." Telling insurers they can't deny coverage to Americans because of pre-existing conditions has saved many families and individuals from going without any insurance. I also support the provision which allows young people to stay on their parents plans until age 26. There's still much work to do and it's time for congress members to start proposing solutions and stop playing politics with people’s lives. It's time to fix the law to ensure no American goes bankrupt over medical bills or fear that the cost having of insurance is out of their reach.

Donate: https://secure.actblue.com/contribute/page/go-nicole

To volunteer or get involved go to http://4idaho.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=29&Itemid=31

To find out where you vote: http://idahovotes.gov

Even if you have never voted and are not registered you can go to the polls on election day and bring your photo ID and something with your address (like a utility bill) and you can vote! No need to vote in every race for your votes to count.

 

 

IMMEDIATE RELEASE: LeFavour announces candidacy for congress

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
March 10, 2012


Four-term Idaho State Senator Nicole LeFavour announced today she will seek election to the U.S. House of Representatives in Idaho’s second congressional district which encompasses North East Boise, Mountain Home, Twin Falls, Ketchum, Burley, Pocatello and Idaho Falls.

Said LeFavour in a Friday twitter post, “I’m running for Congress because I love Idaho and we can do better.”

Stepping down after eight years serving as one of Idaho’s most passionate voices in the legislature, LeFavour said of her move to run for Congress, “This is a hard time in our nation and sadly I feel Congress is not doing all it could to set our economy right. Idaho families want to feel secure about retirement, about their jobs and the opportunities their children will have. I understand that so well. We have a job to do as a nation and we have no time for partisan struggles.”

“I don’t love political parties but I am a Democrat because Democrats care about working people and families, we believe in communities and that people can pull together to overcome great obstacles. We believe that a strong public education system and a more affordable college education are the foundations of our own American dreams. I’m a democrat because I feel it’s time to recognize that the wealthy do not create jobs, ordinary families create jobs. They create jobs when they can afford their doctor bills and can replace a broken washing machine, buy clothes for their children, eat out at a restaurant, travel, or pay for a college degree.”

LeFavour was not a supporter of the Mitt Romney style health care reform adopted in Federal health reform, “No one should go bankrupt over medical bills or fear that the cost having of insurance is out of their reach. We needed to hold insurance companies accountable, not make them more powerful by mandating that everyone buy coverage and offering no other option.”

Well known statewide for her work opposing Tom Luna’s three bills which cut support for teachers to pay for laptop computers and mandatory on line classes, LeFavour is a former teacher. She grew up in rural Custer County in central Idaho where for seven years she worked in water quality, fire fighting and as a wilderness ranger for the U.S. Forest Service.

“I grew up on a ranch which was once a pretty modest place. We took in guests and raised chickens, milked cows, made butter, bread, bacon and raised a lot of vegetables. My sister waited tables in the restaurant and I worked in the kitchen. I’ve always worked hard.”
 
“Working for the forest service I saw how the federal government works. It creates a lot of important jobs for rural communities protecting our drinking water from pollution, our forests from devastating fires and making sure Idaho still has amazing places to hunt and fish. At the same time government can feel huge and can grow uncaring if we don’t have people representing us who watch out for our communities and our families.”

In the legislature LeFavour served for four years on the powerful Joint Finance and Appropriations Committee while Idaho balanced its budget through some of the worst economic times in the nation’s history. LeFavour was an advocate for Idaho’s schools and reducing prison budgets by increasing funding and access to mental health and substance abuse treatment statewide. “Balancing a budget is about cutting spending and about understanding how cuts will affect jobs, families, the economy and next year’s budget. Some cuts don’t make economic or human sense because we eliminate thousands of jobs, create greater costs in our prisons or in emergency medical care. Congress needs to recognize this.”

LeFavour continued, “We all want our tax dollars to be put to use for the betterment of our country, keeping wages livable, ensuring seniors and people with disabilities stay independent in their homes, making a college degree more meaningful and more affordable, lowering health care costs for small businesses and inspiring American companies to increase their manufacturing and create jobs here in America to make us strong again.”

Senator LeFavour can be reached for comment at208 724-0468

Those wishing to donate, volunteer or help build a base of support across eastern Idaho should contact the campaign at [email protected]

I can now accept checks of $30, $60, $100, $500 or ANY amount up to $5,000 before the Primary May 15 or $2500 after May 15. P.O. Box 775 Boise 83701. The more quickly I get my first $100,000, the more likely I can win Nov. 6!

IMMEDIATE RELEASE: LeFavour will not seek another term

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Feburary 24, 2012


Idaho State Senator Nicole LeFavour announced Friday that after eight years serving in the Idaho legislature she will not seek a third term in the Idaho Senate. “It has been such a deep honor to represent the amazing people of Boise’s district 19 where I live. The district has been so good to me and I like to think I’ve been a dedicated voice for those here and for many statewide who otherwise might not have had someone to speak for them.”

In her four terms in the legislature LeFavour was well known for her work on tax policy, prison sentencing reform and improving Idaho’s treatment and support for those facing mental health or substance abuse issues. She also has advocated for adequate services to keep Idahoans with disabilities independent and healthy in their homes and communities.

“It is with the deepest sense of regret and sorrow that I leave the legislature, a place that has taught me so much about politics, policy, process and people. Idaho is a tough place to be in the minority. I took very, very seriously my duty to speak for those who were to be harmed by the policy we passed. That’s not a popular role to play and one simply can’t do it forever. It is especially hard knowing that speaking up for a wrong about to be done was so often not enough to change the outcome. You hope for the best in people and I always have hoped my colleagues would rise to that. Last year was tough and I left the session knowing this would be my last.”

In the legislature, LeFavour served for four years on the powerful Joint Finance and Appropriations committee, for six years on the Judiciary & Rules Committees of the House and Senate and for four years on the Senate Education Committee where she led efforts to oppose Tom Luna’s 2011 Education reform bills which make it law that the state would increase public school class sizes by using drastic cuts in funding for teaching positions to pay for new lap tops and mandatory on line courses.

LeFavour was elected by her peers in the House and Senate three times to serve on Legislative Council. For more than four years she served on the Commission on Hispanic Affairs. All eight of her years in the legislature she served on the Joint Economic Outlook and Revenue Assessment Committee where for five out of the seven years she had the closest year end revenue estimate of any legislator on the committee.

First elected in 2004, LeFavour was Idaho’s first openly gay elected official and the only openly gay person elected to Idaho’s legislature.

“The four or so months of the legislative session are hard on family. My partner Carol has put up with a lot of stress and has stood by me as I dealt with a lot of loss. She’s so smart and keeps me laughing through the hardest times but you can only ask that of someone for so long.”

LeFavour hopes her district will work to make sure that she is replaced in the legislature by another openly gay member.

“It is so critical that the house and senate have openly gay members. If I weren’t here there are times I’m certain that some in this Capitol would say they didn’t know anyone gay. And then how would they ever know that they cared about what happens to gay people in our state?”

LeFavour says she’s seen progress,  “After all these years, finally this body of 105 people is beginning to see that people do still discriminate and do intentional harm to gay and transgender people in our state. I know for a fact that a majority of my colleagues also finally feel that doing intentional harm to gay people is wrong. In a civil society it is our duty to say this is wrong. If we don’t, we might as well be saying that we condone the harm and don’t care about the lives of good people who lose their jobs, housing or educational opportunities for no other reason than that they are gay.”

“I began this session knowing I would not be returning and had one of the most amazing experiences of my legislative career. In August I began working with a group of people who became known as Add the Words, Idaho. Many, gave their every spare hour over the last five months strategizing and organizing to help the Idaho legislature see that Idahoans believe it is time to include gay and transgender people in our existing human rights act. I love the group of people I’ve gotten to know these past months. I think they’ve changed history on this issue. For the first time in all my years working on this issue I have two votes shy of a majority supporting the bill in both the house and senate with at least three maybes and several I’ve not talked to yet. That alone keeps me hopeful about what may still be possible this year.”

“I leave the legislature knowing I did everything I could last year to try to stop the cuts to education and the radical change in priorities from teachers to technology. I put my whole heart into stopping the cuts to Medicaid and to mental health treatment therapy and to services that keep people with disabilities independent in their homes. This year I will continue to do everything I can to get my politically fearful colleagues to acknowledge that this may be the only year in the next ten years that we have such a clear opportunity to pass legislation to include gay people in Idaho’s human rights act. I hope it weighs heavy on their consciences that in history they have the choice to do that now or to continue to allow good people across the state to live in fear every day.”


Senator LeFavour can be reached for comment at208 724-0468
Texting is an efficient way to reach her as well.

Add the Words 3rd VIDEO: Only Stronger

On February 10 the bill to Add the Words to include gay and transgender people in Idaho's Human Rights Act was killed without a word of public testimony. For six years the Idaho legislature has refused to allow a single public hearing on the legislation to ban discrimination in employment, housing and education. Tell your Idaho law makers it is finally time to stand up and say discrimination is wrong. http://addthewords.org

Send your message now respectfully asking the Senators to reconsider the bill and Add the Words.

Sen. McKenzie: [email protected] (208) 367-9400
Sen. McGee: [email protected] (208) 455-3950
Sen. Lodge: [email protected]
Sen. Winder: [email protected] (208) 343-2300
Sen. Fulcher: [email protected] (208) 332-1340
Sen Davis: [email protected] (208) 522-8100
Sen. Hill: [email protected] (208) 356-3677

Letters to the Editor Idaho Statesman: https://forms.idahostatesman.com/lettertoeditor/

Idaho Press Tribune: You may mail, fax or e-mail your letter to the editor, but letters must include your full name (no initials), home address and daytime and evening telephone numbers for verification. If you have questions regarding your letter, please call (208) 465-8115 or e-mail:
[email protected]

......................................

Add the Words Idaho is an all volunteer organization of people all across Idaho working to demonstrate the level of public support for inclusion of gay and transgender Idahoans in the state's laws banning discrimination in employment, housing education and public accommodation. Add the Words has gathered over 2000 messages to Idaho legislators written on sticky notes from people in more than 60 Idaho towns. http://addthewords.org

Thanks to Lucy Juarez for video footage, and to Jim Huggins and Stacy Ericson for still photos. Thanks to Lisa Perry and all those organizing or participating in positive silent protests across the state.
Thanks to Dave at Rail Tees on Overland for the Add the Words T-shirt design and printing.

Live in Boise? Find out how you can post your sticky note in the statehouse any time, day or night.

http://addthewords.org

Add the Words VIDEO

http://addthewords.org

Add the Words Events Statewide today

For immediate release
January 24, 2012
Add the Words Continues to Post Sticky Notes in Capitol

In an ongoing effort, members of the Add the Words, Idaho campaign, continue to post sticky notes daily on the doors of the House and Senate Chambers in the Capitol Building.

"It was a bit tense the first week when the state police still seemed determined to stop our volunteers from peacefully posting any of the hundreds of stickies we've gathered from around the state," said Mistie Tolman, spokesperson for Add the Words. "Still, volunteers and members of the community are posting the notes every day on the glass doors of the chambers and committee rooms. In meeting with the ProTem and Speaker they wanted us to understand that the notes will be taken down as soon as they are posted.It's frustrating for some of our volunteers but at least no one is being detained by the troopers. People's words are there in the statehouse. For some of us, that's a start to a powerful conversation that's constantly improving the outlook for the legislation this year,"

Lisa Perry was asked more than once to stop or she'd be removed from the building, "I went in there last week for my gay and transgender friends. We're determined to make sure people's voices are heard since in years past the community's never been given the chance to speak at a public hearing. People still live in fear and too often face discrimination at work and school and in renting houses and apartments."

Add the Words campaign member, Cody Hafer, explained that every day volunteers read the following statement as they post sticky notes: "This is the most peaceful way we could think of to both protest the fact that year after year we are denied a public hearing, and to make sure that those across the state can have their voices heard inside the capitol. Our sticky notes are simply words, not a permanent fixture, just our calm way of respectfully and quietly bringing the voices and stories of thousands of Idahoans here."

"We find that many lawmakers still believe that gay and transgender people have legal recourse when they get fired from their jobs or denied housing just because they are gay or transgender." said Emilie Jackson-Edney of Add the Words. "Many in the statehouse don't know how the Human Rights Act works. It created a process already in use in Idaho to investigate, mediate and make findings to protect both businesses and employees should discrimination happen. Even after six years there's still a lot of education work to do to explain that we are not asking for anything new or different, just to let the Commission work on those cases that involve us."

Add the Words, Idaho is an all volunteer organization of people across Idaho working to demonstrate the level of public support for inclusion of gay and transgender Idahoans in the state’s laws banning discrimination in employment, housing education and public accommodation. Add the Words has gathered over 500 of messages to Idaho legislators written on sticky notes from people in more than 50 Idaho towns. Add the Words is working with organizations and individuals in more than 13 towns to hold public candlelight vigils, rallies and events on Saturday January 28th in support of passage of legislation to add the words “sexual orientation” and “gender identity” to Idaho’s Human Rights Act.

Those wishing to send sticky notes to law makers or hoping to participate in the groups vigils, rallies and other events statewide on January 28 can go to http://addthewords.org , for more information.

For More Information please contact Mistie Tolman 208 861-4371 [email protected]

 

Add the Words First Video: The Sticky Note Story

 

You are changing Idaho! TODAY is the day.

Sharing this from Add the Words:

Friends Statewide,
     Today's the day.
From Coeur d'Alene to
Idaho Falls we'll
gather. Bring a pen and,
if you can, a sticky
note all written out. If
there's no event in your
town, PLEASE gather
yourself, a friend, a
sign and take a photo.
Send it to us at [email protected]
Post to facebook. Tell
friends.

    Thank you for being
part of the amazing
progress this year in
legislator's attitudes
toward gay people. We
now have a hearing for
introduction in the
Senate. The next step
would be a public
hearing. Our first ever.
But we need YOUR
legislator's vote. Let
them know you care.

    We CAN
finally end the fear
and legal
discrimination still
faced by so many of
our gay and
transgender family
members and friends. Please
stand with us TODAY.
Let's make history.  

        ---Mistie
Tolman, Cody Hafer,
Lisa Perry, Emilie
Jackson Edney, Rialin
Flores, James
Tidmarsh, Victoria
Brown, Stacy Ericson,
Lucy Juarez, Ashley
New, Lee Thompson,
Hannah Brass, Jim
Huggins, Jennifer
Whitney, Jonny Carkin
& all of us across
the state working with
Add the Words.




Julie Zicha from
Pocatello: "I
lost my son to
intolerance
last January.
Please Add the
Words so we
don't lose any
more kids."



"Let's add the
words already!,"
Emily Walton
from Declo,
Idaho.




"Please think.
There are many
kids wondering
what they did
wrong & the
answer is
Nothing. Please
Add the Words."




Former HP
Executive Don
Curtis Sr. says,
"I want all my
children equal
under the law.
Please add the
words."




Jazz Musician
Curtis Stigers says, "Add
the Words, Idaho!"

.........................

 

Like
you, we are
dertermined
it's time for
Idaho law
makers to
finally add
the words
"sexual
orientation"
and "gender
identity" to
Idaho's human
rights act!

Together
this Saturday
we can bring
friends and
gather from
Weiser to
Coeur d'Alene
from Idaho
Falls to Twin
Falls and help
make Idaho a
better place
for our gay
and
transgender
friends.

We
now have over
500 sticky
note messages
from over 50
Idaho cities
and every
legislative
district in
the state.
Email yours.


Share
with friends
and ask them
to sign the petition
and write a 20
word message
for us to post
for them in
the statehouse.

 
Live
in Boise? Post
your own sticky note
on glass doors
inside the
Capitol in the
weeks ahead.


Watch
our video.

On
mobile/phone.


Click
to hear radio ads
for events
around the
state.
 

RSVP
and LIKE us on
Facebook.

 
..................
 
STATEWIDE SCHEDULE of
EVENTS this SATURDAY
JANUARY 28

IDAHO FALLS
RALLY with signs
and hot cocoa.
Elizabeth Cogliati &
Rev. Lyn Cameron
Broadway Bridge
(East-West route
crossing the
Snake River in
the center of
town adjacent to
the Green Belt
and parking.)
12:00-1:00 PM

TWIN FALLS
RALLY with signs.
James Tidmarsh.
Twin Falls County
Courthouse (427
Shoshone Street
N. Twin Falls,
Idaho 83301)
RSVP on Facebook
1:00-2:00 PM

LEWISTON
STICKY NOTE WRITING & DAYLIGHT VIGIL
Jennifer Whitney
Sticky note
photos followed
by a daylight vigil
Lewis-Clark
State College
SUB Room 225
(500 8th Avenue)
(Starting in
SUB, ending in
amphitheater.)
10:30-11:30 AM

PLUMMER
STICKY NOTE WRITING & DAYLIGHT VIGIL
Co-sponsored w/
Benewah Human
Rights Coalition
Plummer
Community Center
& Park (5th
and C Street)
(Starting in
Community
Center, ending
in park.)
2:00-3:30 PM

WEISER
CANDLELIGHT VIGIL
Tony Edmundson
Weiser Post
Office Post
Office (106 W
Main St Weiser)
6:00 PM

NAMPA
CANDLE LIGHT VIGIL
Victoria Brown
The Fountain at
2nd St. South
and 12th Ave
6:00-7:00 PM

BOISE
RALLY With
Music, Speakers
& Sticky
Note Writing.
Lisa Perry
State Capitol
Steps
RSVP & LIKE
Add the Words on
Facebook.
1:00-2:00 PM

CALDWELL
RALLY with
Speakers College
of Idaho Campus
Chelsea Gaonoa Lincoln
(2112 Cleveland
Blvd. Caldwell,
ID 83605) (Right
on Cleveland
Blvd. in front
of college.)
11:00 AM-12:00
PM

COEUR
D'ALENE
VIGIL and Sticky
Note Writing
Human Rights
& Education
Institute
6:00 PM

MOSCOW
Gathering for a
presentation on
the Human Rights
Act and Sticky
Note Writing
Jim Huggins
1912 Center St
11:00 AM

POCATELLO
MARCH, VIGIL and
Sticky Note Writing w/ photos
Thoshia Harke
4:30 PM Add the
Words Idaho
Workshop Sticky
note writing to
law makers
starts at the
Canoe Room in
the ISU SUB
(1065 South
Cesar Chavez)

MARCH
5:15 PM From ISU
SUB to the
Bannock County
Courthouse for
Vigil (624 East
Center /
Pocatello)
CANDLELIGHT
VIGIL
at Courthouse
5:45 PM


(Let Cody know if you would like to help organize
an event in your town.)



You can help: addthewords.org

Idaho's Reverse New Deal

Today I sit at home at my living room table, a scarf, hot tea and afternoon sun keeping me from feeling the cold of the house-- which we keep in the low 50s except when the wood stove is burning. We are trying right now to avoid buying another cord of wood from our favorite man with an axe. If things felt more hopeful economically we might spring for it. But In this environment, we all have our own ways of being frugal.

Tomorrow, Idaho's economic outlook committee will meet deep in the polished underground wings of the Capitol. We'll make wild guesses as to how much money Idahoans will pay in taxes in the year ahead. I've served all 8 years of my 4 terms in the Idaho legislature on this committee. I have a record of regular closest "guesses" at total tax revenues, a fact that's pleasing in good years but grim in years like 2009 when Idaho's economy began to take its dive.

The number we pick in the next week will set a limit for how much money we have to spend in our next state budget. We all know the number gets good when more people are employed and buy goods and services. Businesses do better then as well. And from it all, the state collects tax revenues which will fund elementary schools and community colleges, parks and drug treatment programs.

Does anyone think this year the Idaho legislature will suddenly re-consider our current strategy of telling every single state agency, "This year, no building anything, no hiring anyone, no replacing broken items or taking on new projects?" No. This three year austerity strategy has cost Idaho over 3000 state jobs. And somehow the Governor still seems proud of it.

When America had its last great depression, rather than paying unemployment for laid off workers, government paid them to do jobs communities needed to have done. Idaho has closed parks, health department offices, scaled back mental health treatment programs, laid off school teachers, increased class sizes in schools colleges and universities and much more.

Yet I'm sad to say I suspect those who loathe government will have their way with our economy again. They will continue the austerity in spite of the fact that it's hurting the very people who cry for lower taxes. Business owners. It all cycles around. Even 2000 jobs would do a lot for the Idaho economy, for builders, retailers, restaurants, and those who sell cord wood or consumer services. If we resisted the urge to deepen tax breaks and exemptions and focused instead on creating the most needed of state jobs, we might just inspire a few business owners to do a bit of hiring themselves. Imagine that.

 

If it Doesn't Work

Off through the dark tonight the stathouse grounds are cold and snowless. When the gavel falls and the 2012 session begins on January 9th, I will begin my 8th year serving in the Idaho legislature. After what seem like so many years, I still come to the work with the expectation that what lies ahead holds some promise of hope. I work hard to hold onto that.

Each year is different. That is comforting. It could be better.

But going into this session I hear far too many whisperings of Republican colleagues setting their agendas and limiting the range of legislation they will support based on what they think the extreme of their party demands. This will be an eleaction year. New closed Republican primaries are unknown enough to strike fear into every moderate heart.

Tonight as vapor clings in frozen patterns on windsheids and cold cuts deep into every stone, I have a caution for my colleagues: You give them this power. With their threats will they now get everything they want? While perfectly reasonable people elected you, often by overwealming margins, will you none the less vote in the interest of the few in your districts who wish you ill and in May will seek to drive you from office regardless of how you answer their threats?

And what if you wake up tomorrow and those who elected you for your intelligence and integrity grow disgusted? What if those who purposely elected you as a moderate, a reasonable person, what if they abandon you and stay home on election day or vote for Democrats because of the compormises you made out of fear of the central committee lynch mobs down the street?

What if standing for what you believe in your heart inspires others to do the same? What if it inspires people at home in their houses to work for you, to grow passionate in their support?

Which will you really choose?

Don't bother telling me you have no choice. I see those conversations coming. Do you really think that voting the way they want will make them easier on you? Sadly, I suspect no matter how you vote those cross hairs will still be leveled at your heart.

To Those In Favor of Bullying

I've paced every bit of marble around the rotunda between the two chambers many times today. I've been on the phone and visited members in their rabbit warren of basement office suites one after another. Senate members have talked to House members with me but it is no good now. The bullying bill S1105 is dead. It died on the calendar for lack of consideration.

To the young people from Sandpoint, Nampa, Jerome, Boise, Challis and across the state who I have told "It gets Better" -- I need you to know, it does. Even if the most powerful in our state don't all yet understand the road you've walked, the strength you have had to find inside your selves when others said you had none. Still it gets better. I have promised to make it better -- and I will. We will.

This year we tried so hard and came so close. But you must know there are people here who have not heard your stories. There are elected Representatives who think that bullying makes a person stronger. They need to understand how wrong that is.

And yes I asked them:

Have you never walked then in the shoes of a child whose family has rejected them, their church has turned them away, and now, at school, they are taunted or hit by those who think difference is a weakness -- that it gives others a license to cause pain.

Have you never been a child whose life is a struggle on its own --and for whom school could be salvation or a hell --but because of the calculated cruelty of just one person, it does become a hell.

Have you have never watched a young person fail to see the beauty inside themselves? Have you watched someone see nothing but darkness -- no strength or promise -- until that they take their own life?

If you ever imagined such sadness, you might have fought for this bill.

But the House has just gaveled an end and adjourned for the year. The Senate has been done for a few hours. The kind words there flowed for a bit like and odd balm after three months of battle. The issues from closed primaries to rejecting federal health reform, cutting mental health treatment and education all split the Republican Party and the Senate itself again and again.

And the bill to make it better for young people died.

 

..........................................

There is no end in this though only a beginning because there need to be more voices next year. If you have stories you need to share them. We need them. We need you to help us make sure it gets better. [email protected]

Hard Endings

In these last days, the boxes come out. Empty stacks of them line the halls like flimsy coffins. Senator McKenzie announced this morning we have tied now with the 10th longest session in our 121 year history. By Friday we will tie with the 5th longest. Yet this one with its gut wrenching policies and passionate, even desperate bipartisan debate, seems to have passed like a blurred dream.

--Long evenings pouring over each new version of Tom Luna's long, painful bills to find any change, the implications of each new word or deletion.

--Walking in here from dark streets in the snow or rain or cold. People honking, waving, thumbs up.

--Streams of email like water, where my email box came alive, filling faster than i could read or move to sort or answer.

--The tears of teachers. Many times. Passing words. Me wishing I could say how sorry I am, in my core.

And somehow I expected we would do more than just damage, that there would be a limit to the damage we were willing to do. But, with a few brilliant exceptions, we moderates and Democrats lost every major floor debate: protecting schools; trying to stop the bleeding in Medicaid, mental health and disability services; protecting private end of life and medical decisions; opposing the Republican Party's attempts to strip voters bare, branding party affiliation in waterproof marker on every human chest.

And here I need to say this --say the Republican Party seems broken, bogged down in divisive social and anti-government issues that have been impairing its ability to deal with our state's failure to recover economically; to grow not destroy jobs; protect services which people's lives depend on; stop policy that is already demoralizing and decimating the most important profession in this state, policy which gives millions away to corporations under the guise of reform.

I wish all those moderates out there and in here who have been bashed and bloodied -- those who have had enough of all this would join Democrats, help us re-build the Democratic Party back to something powerful enough to check this freight train that is taking our schools and economy downhill before our eyes. What more does it take? What more has to happen? What more can they do to you?

Primary Transgression

On the floor of the Senate in afternoon session. The sun shines down from above through the frosted sky lights and we Democrats are posing a long series of questions to Brent Hill, the Senator charged with carrying the Republican Party's closed primary bill.

The bill gets personal to me. As you dig through the layers you find that not only does it allow Republicans to do as they have long wished to and close their primary races off to Democrats or even independent voters, but in fact it forces counties all over the state to reveal publicly which ballot an independent or unaffiliated voter chooses when they come to vote in any primary election -- even a Democratic primary that our party will keep open to anyone.

Even worse, this choice of chosen primary ballot by an unaffiliated or independent voter will become an assigned party affiliation for that voter if they choose to vote in a primary that is closed by a party like the Republican Party. And it will not be easy for voters under this legislation to get your names again unaffiliated and  your selves once again unassociated with a political party if you perhaps don't live and die by political parties and you want instead to vote for the candidate of your choice without having a Political Party listed by your name.

But today the debate is unlike any I've seen. Many Republicans in this room smile at our questions, nod and many even laughed when Diane Bilyeu asked Senator Hill to explain why the Republican Party brought the lawsuit that forced the state to pass legislation changing its primary elections. It was a bold question and Senator Hill answered that he could not explain that.

But Senator Siddoway just now stood, clearly shaken, he broke ranks and debated how the Republican Party has forced its way into the Capitol "into our house" to make him and others pass this legislation. In the gallery, Rod Beck, former Republican Party Chair sat watching. Siddoway concluded his debate against the bill telling Senators to vote yes. Many laughed. His statement obviously adhered to whatever agreement was reached on this bill in the closed Republican caucus meeting held yesterday upstairs in the grand room facing West.

Like Senator Siddoway, I grew up in the small town wilds of rural East central Idaho where privacy is precious. This bill did not have to trample on Idaho's privacy. No court or judge or constitution dictated that it do that -- but sadly that is exactly what the Republican Party has chosen that it will do, that the state will do and that we all must suffer with as this bill flies through the statehouse to become law.

Never Personal

This is the annual struggle: not taking the battle personally. For each of us when we must oppose a bill we know we may offend the sponsors. Even though each of us is doing our best to serve democracy, struggling to represent different constituencies, sometimes I know it feels personal. What is hard is not to inpugn the intent of the sponsors. That is hard. I try to focus on the policy but there are times that criticism can stray to something that feels like a question of motivation. This year has been hard for all of us because the lines are drawn with so much at stake and so much pressure because of the magnitude of the impact of the bills. I recognize the pressures on others. My words are far more mild than those I get in letters every day. But I do have a duty to be sure my own words are not personal. This is, for me, what makes a blog often incompatible with policy making. I try to represent the experience here. But to be honest about how I feel sometimes puts my ability to do this work and to pass policy at risk. I've blogged little this year because of that. The balance is hard. I apologize and wish I walked that delicate line better.

Not Rational

In all my seven years in the Idaho legislature, this is the most damage we have ever done. I say "we" because I'm an elected part of the body, like an errant leg or toe. I picture myself reaching for the ground in hopes that the whole thing will come crashing down to face the reality of what we have done, what we have taken from every community, every family with children, every school from Sandpoint to Bear Lake.

And the sadness I feel. How I want to ask everyone to thank their teachers, send a bag of groceries, paper, pens, supplies, gift cards, flowers. Just because I feel the damage about to settle down on them. The bills are cruel. They make a proud and difficult profession into an uncertain one, a nearly impossible one.

And during debate Thursday night Senators sat on the floor in the big chairs taking calls from the Governor. Otter's administration may not be skilled at all things, but strong arming it has mastered. I think it's clear with the vote. And in my mind I remember Dean Cameron pleading with our colleagues to remember who they represent. I know why he said that now.

The debate there in favor of the bills in was surreal. Listening I often felt like the proponents of the bill were reading different legislation or that they live in different world where young people need to spend more, not less time on technology; where the challenges of the twenty first century are actually using a lap top and internet chat to discuss topics rather than learning face to face negotiating skills, mastering fluid persuasive written communication, becoming skilled in debate, collaboration, creative problem solving, invention and leadership.

In the end, like so much of what comes down hard from above, this must be about money. Like raising taxes for roads, eliminating the personal property tax on business equipment or deregulating land line phone service -- there are tens or even hundreds of millions of dollars to be made by someone.

That is what we get when the state is beset by elusive PACs running millions in campaign ads with no requirement to report their donors. Who will ever know exactly where the money really flowed.

All I know is that this policy won't improve education. Reading the hundred or so pages of legislation, I can't see where it ever will.

Hope and Referendum

I feel my breath in my lungs oddly. Closing debate about to melt into the roll call where one at a time we say "aye" or "nay."  Tom Luna's final bill S1184 YES: 20   NO: 15

I have to whisper "I'm sorry" a thousand times into the air and shift my mind now to those preparing to gather signatures once the legislature adjourns. I remind myself: the 15 of us who voted no are not alone.

NO Votes: Andreason, Bilyeu, Bock, Broadsword, Cameron, Corder, Davis, Darrington, Keough, LeFavour, Malepeai (McWilliams as substitute), Schmidt, Stegner, Stennett, Werk.

Thousands of people, maybe tens of thousands outside this strange marble dome know well what these bills will do to our schools and they are ready to take up a special part of Democracy and work for repeal of all three of Luna's bills by referendum.

We have told teachers a horrible lie in these three bills. We promise "pay for performance" bonuses but we pay for the bonuses by cutting teacher's salaries. Five years from now we will have cut salaries more than we pay out in bonuses. The bonuses are a smoke screen for how radically the bills cut education, how drasically unequal schools will be in their ability to afford to keep teachers employed, expensive experienced teachers who are the anchor of schools, who make education something worthwhile for tens of thousands of Idaho kids. Twenty Republican Senators voted yes.

YES Votes: Bair, Bracket, Fulcher, Goedde, Hammond, Heider, Hill, Lodge, McGee, McKeague, McKenzie, Mortimer, Nuxoll, Pearce, Siddoway, Smyser, Tippets, Toryanski, Vick, Winder.

There will be a narrow window for gathering signatures but as soon as they're gathered an injunction stops implementation and we start working at getting those who care to go to the polls to vote. We have a lot of work to do changing this legislature and electing one with priorities that resemble those I've seen in the past two months in Idaho. Idahoans care about their schools, class sizes and teachers. These bills do not. To think we can stop them in spite of how out of touch this body seems to be.

That gives me hope.

.......................................

Scroll down and sign up on the email list of Parents and Teachers to find out about volunteering to gather signatures once the Referendum signature gathering begins. http://idahoparentsandteachers.com/

Real Debate

Floor of the senate. So quiet for 35 people sitting still for three hours. We take turns standing one at a time. Debating for. Debating against. The debate against is full of references to the bill. S1184 the third version of the last of Tom Luna's three bills. There is weight in this debate, huge wight. The impacts of this bill set a course for every school and classroom in this state for five years forward. Thousands of teacher's lives hang in this bill as much as in the other two.They give up more of their salaries in this bill than they will ever gain in pay for performance bonuses.

And the bill still steals basic money to keep schools solvent in these very lean times to pay for on-line courses, dual credit, technology and eventually lap tops for every student needed or not.

Never have we seen such powerful opposition to legislation in all my 7 years in here. Yet here we are. Slowly as members debate we realize Toryanski is voting yes, Tippets has changed his opposition. I see Dean Cameron, like me looking into the faces of those we thought might be swing votes, those we'd hoped would grow humble and brave with this powerful debate on the flaws and sinister nature of the math in these 16 pages.

But on the phone we grow somber. This will pass.

But now Hammond is up debating against the bill and with him we would be only two votes shy of defeating this.

In Silence We Risk All

My office lies in an alcove off the long marble hallway that leads from the underground wings into the depths of the Capitol. Two freshmen Republican Senators share this suite with four of us Democrats. Across the bright stone passage, Republican offices circle another suite, and, down the steps behind the committee rooms, a long dark hall lit by skylights hides the offices of the Republican Committee Chairs for nine of the Senate's ten committees.

In the evening, some law makers stay late sorting and answering email, others have given up. The voices flow like bitter sounds that only rarely fall to whisper. The building has riled a sea of discontent. Oddly for all the voices I fear few are listening.

Still, crisis unfolds far away on littered beaches seeming not yet to soften this hard determination of newly elected men to hate the collective expression of America we call government, taxation, regulation and welfare. If compassion is an anthem to some of us, to others it remains a sign of weakness and pitiful need.

It is as if, divided into camps of those who fear and those who hold out a hand in offering, our nation and state have both split themselves into parties, factions, armies of America.

In times of world crisis can we afford these lines we draw? These tendencies to label groups of the unknown into good and evil. Is not the essence of humanity, patriotism, and our constitution that all are created equal and that we exist to express our will with free voices that honor the opinions of the minority whether those voices are ours or those of others, also American, also patriots for expressing an opinion about the nature of their duty in government.

But sacred is the obligation of the majority not to trespass or violate the outnumbered. Serious are the obligations of those who govern to not only hear but to heed those most vulnerable with whom we together constitute our union, our state, our country and nation.

But our nation is none other than an island to which the disparate have come seeking refuge, each of us claiming bits of its land as our home. Yet we should know there's nothing permanent in history but change and the rising and falling of nations, governments, kingdoms, empires and tribes.

If today in our fear of discomfort, our fear of giving up time or troubling with those we don't agree with, if in this fear we fail to rise when others fall, when the strong step hard upon the vulnerable; if too few stand, then all may be lost, not just the perpetuity of our wealth or safety, but eventually the very land and government upon which all order relies.

So, if participation is politics seems inconvenient, think how difficult is the consequence of disengagement. Not always will there be others to stand when we do not. And sadly it is not until it is too late that we will ever know that others did not stand. And then where shall we be but lost in a shaken tide of regret; landless and anchorless without a nation to recognize because, for us, standing up when all might be lost, was more than we were willing to do.

So stand now, in the midst of our state's determination to suffocate its tradition of decency toward those with disabilities, teachers, children and those who may wish never to have to carry a gun. It's not too late to stand now, even though the ground shakes. Single voices make a difference. Single acts of courage and leadership against a tide can turn that tide, bend history toward compassion.

Indeed something must move us to common action in this tiny red corner of our bleeding nation. We are not yet lost as other nations are. Our buildings tower still above our minds. For the sake of those that come after us, we can not let slip the beauty of a better nature, the heart of our uncommon good. We are more than greed, more than soft silent masses.

Where are our voices Americans? What will be left for the generations to come if we don't stand up and speak now?

Letter to Rev & Tax

Anyone who says the state has no options but to cut the budgets for public schools & Meidicad is forgetting a major componenet of a legislature's responsibility to balance the state's budget. Many are asking for an increase in the tobacco tax to fund medicaid. With that in mind I have asked other members of the Senate Education Committe to sign on to the following letter to the only committee in the legislature that can make changes in Idaho's taxes, exemptions, credits and incentives.

 

March 10, 2011                                                                           DRAFT LETTER

 

Chairman Lake & Members of the House Revenue & Taxation Committee,

As a committee that has been asked to make recommendations toward building a public education budget for FY2012, we are concerned that the remaining revenue available to the legislature for general fund appropriations leaves Idaho with between $6 million and $31 million less funding for the upcoming budget than we allocated for the FY 2011 budget. That budget saw a reduction of $128 million in state funding.

At the same time, Idaho student populations have increased, creating a need to fund an additional 176 new classrooms or support units at a cost of $27.3 million. Indeed funding the $27.3 million in student growth was the governors recommendation for a total of $1,235,894,000 to public schools. This amount funds all school class rooms at the reduced amount now in use for the FY 2011 budget.

Reductions to education funding on the order of $30 million or more can not occur without consequences. We will again have to consolidate, reduce or eliminate line items for textbooks, transportation, gifted and talented, Limited English Proficiency, Idaho reading initiative, Idaho math initiative, teacher incentive awards, dual credit for early graduates, math and science requirements, college entrance exams, technology, the Idaho Digital Learning Academy and more.

We recognize the reluctance to raise taxes at a time when the economy is challenging families and businesses but we feel that much deeper cuts to education will also be devastating to both.

With that in mind we encourage you to be creative and to consider not only delaying advancements in the size of Idaho’s grocery tax credit but making temporary changes to the structure of the credit to reduce its cost to 2007 levels, recovering $27 million or more to fund growth in student enrollment and assist in meeting the most basic needs of Idaho public schools in the year ahead. We would encourage a return to full funding and full structure of the credit following this fiscal year.

Thank you.

 

Sincerely

 

Members of the Senate Education Committee 

 

Legislative Hell

We are the minority.

By definition we don't have the numbers to win unless the majority bothers to care.

Some of those we represent this time will die if the policy in House bill 221 passes.

Some will lose their independent lives and go into institutions.

But we are told there are no options.

Even asking Idahoans to pay $50 more a year is not an option allowed on the table in this debate

To save those lives.

What are lives worth?

Not even $50?

Yet we must stay here and debate as if this were a sane process

A process where rational people act in the best interest of our state.

Are we collectively better as Idahoans, as people, if we willingly let people with disabilities die?

Let families suffer?

People we could have saved with mental health support?

With adequate in home care or therapy that keeps someone independent in their home?

Really.

When the crisis you create grows, everything stops.

Even our theory that this will save money.

Hospitals, funerals, prisons and emergency rooms are not cheaper than simply providing care.

Ever.

Where on earth has our civility, our compassion and humanity gone?

 

 

Joint hearings on HB221 begin at 1:30 Tuesday. Are these your values? Let your law makers know.

 

Not Giving Up

It is a bit sad that it was on Valentines day that Senator McKenzie said he didn't plan to schedule a hearing on S1033 to finally make it so gay people in Idaho can no longer be legally fired from our jobs for no other reason than that we are gay.

But let's be clear, no one I know is giving up. We can't. Next year is an election year, and every year there has been some reason why another year would be better to consider this legislation. Enough of this.

For Idaho law to continue to stay silent is to say that all the cruelty, the violence, the discrimination is acceptable, that it is ok in the state of Idaho.

It is time for a public hearing. That is next to nothing to ask. It is long past time for the legislature to listen to our stories, see what people face, hard working men and women, many of whom love this state and stay though many other states would value our lives more, would ensure our freedom and ensure we can work at a job, keep our houses, go to school and simply live our lives in peace.

 ..........................

The Safe Schools & Fair Employment Working Group is not giving up. Please let law makers know how you feel, lend your name in support using the on line petition or have your business endorse the legislation:  http://4idaho.org/humanrights

Only Cosmetic Changes

After three days of intense and powerful testimony it is clear how vast the concerns are with Tom Luna’s education proposals. Today Tom Luna pulled back the two bills 1068 & 1068 and brought us virtually identical proposals in the form of three bills with the pay for performance legislation separated from the other two bills we had previously considered. Make no mistake these bills still eliminate funding for 770 teaching positions and will force districts to lay off experienced teachers in a desperate move to save money by hiring new, less costly teachers. Tom Luna now calls the increased class sizes "optional" for districts, but there is nothing optional about eliminating the money for 770 teachers.

I consider the changes no more than cosmetic and it astounds me that the Superintendent would so completely fail to hear the thousands of people who have spoken to and written to us as policy makers strongly opposing these misguided proposals.

How to Tank a State Economy

Easy Steps for Lawmakers.

Many Idahoans wonder when their state will begin to feel the national economic recovery.  They worry as January's Idaho jobless numbers showed the state's economic crisis deepening rather than improving. Yet today the state faces a third year of dire fiscal crisis with budget cuts now exceeding half a billion. Below are real strategies that Idaho's Superintendent of Public Instruction and / or members of the Idaho Legislature is currently contemplating, has proposed or has actually legislated during the 2010 and 2011 sessions.

How to Tank a State Economy: Easy Steps for Lawmakers.

1. Destroy Jobs

A. Lay off as many state employees as possible

• Tom Luna's proposal to eliminate 770 teaching jobs is particularly effective since these are people with benefits that hundreds of families rely on. Losing health insurance effectively makes these families more economically fragile.

• The thousands of "vacant positions" in state government guarantees increases in unemployment and reductions in consumer spending in every sector of the economy. This helps weaken struggling restaurants, shops and producers of consumer goods who rely on local spending.

B. Reduce wages

• Any legislation which offers economic incentives to school districts to lay off more experienced teachers in a budget crunch is highly effective at reducing wages and the quality of education and can half the annual salaries going to 20% of teaching families in any given community in a single budget year. This pulls hundreds of thousands to millions of dollars from local economies, small businesses and consumer spending.

• Low levels of educational attainment, high drop out rates and high cost education all decrease the wage earning, consumer spending and tax paying potential of a state's residents.

• Furloughs while less effective at harming an economy in the short term, when carried out over multiple years can ensure that family savings dwindle, can reduce discretionary spending and may produce out migration and loss of population which is one of the most effective ways to ensure economic decline. The cost of retraining workers who leave government jobs is very effective at increasing net costs to government and accomplishing goal 3 below.

• Eliminate Unions or anything that resembles an organization that would help raise wages, monitor working conditions and the quality or its members work.

C. Be sure that businesses doing contract work for the state go bankrupt

• Using a strategy that claims a state budget is balanced but which relies on not paying bills owed to private businesses is effective politically and in terms of creating an unstable environment for businesses that have agreed to contracts with the state.

• Lowering reimbursement rates not just for a single year but for multiple years to economically squeeze mental health, medical, residential and out patient care providers is an additional effective strategy.

• Long term freezes in state purchasing and construction are ideal strategies for reducing economic activity and driving many segments of the economy into decline.

D. Repel Businesses Seeking to Move into Your State

• Be sure your public schools rank last in the nation for per pupil spending, class size and adequacy of school facilities, course offerings, text books, lab supplies and equipment and materials essential to teaching.

• Create an environment of political extremism to clearly establish that the majority of those who might choose to re-locate businesses or families into the state would feel unwelcome or unrepresented.

• Ensure that premiums charged by insurance carriers are unregulated and that affordable health coverage for small business is unavailable.

• Underfund your regulatory agencies so that getting permits and compliance assistance with basic health, safety and water quality standards takes a long, long time.

• Provide no anti-discrimination job protections for gay people. Technology companies are full of gay employees. Even if a company provides its own job protections, a state needs to project a hostile enough atmosphere to guarantee that other family members seeking jobs or educational opportunities will face discrimination in employment, housing and education in any given town across the state. Companies avoid states like these and high wage workers or business owners will often leave such states in search of safer places to live and do business.

• Ensure state leaders talk as much as possible about large predatory animals decimating wildlife populations and killing domestic animals.

• Even if you can not pass such a law, at least claim you will enact Arizona-style immigration policies so that employees and business owners with darker skin or names like Martinez or Perez will fear eminent racial profiling, detainment or arrest. The out migration of skilled agricultural labor, small business owners and families will assist in achieving objective 1C above.

2. Increase Costs to Families

A. Force Families into Crisis

• Increase class sizes so struggling students fail to get help and those facing depression and suicide are less likely to interact with a teacher who has the time to notice their struggles.

• Reduce access to Mental Health and Substance Abuse Treatment. Long treatment waiting lists are helpful but eliminating the waiting lists and just failing to provide treatment is also effective and creating crises.

• Reduce services and in-home supports for seniors and people with disabilities. Independence is less costly than dependence. Children without adequate therapeutic interventions will be far more costly to families and state taxpayers.

• Fail to fund or develop a network of low cost health clinics. The fewer options families have, the more likely they are to fail to access preventative care and fall into costly medical crisis and personal bankruptcy.

• Stop funding water quality monitoring, refuse to extensively regulate day care facilities and provide as few counseling services as possible in local schools to ensure an adequate supply of physical and mental health crises statewide.

• Ensure that parole officers and health and welfare case workers carry case loads far exceeding national standards so that minimal supervision and assistance is provided to Idaho individuals and families. The added stress on the case workers themselves can create additional pressures to achieve this goal.

B. Make Education More Expensive

• Eliminate public Kindergarten. Make sure your state's children start out behind the rest of the nation.

• Fail to provide text books, paper, pencils, field trips, lab supplies, transportation and other basic materials in public schools.

• Force parents to pay fees before their children can attend certain public school classes or participate in sports, arts, field trips or other enrichment opportunities. Ensuring poorer children never participate is helpful in ensuring a state continues to have a high poverty rate, a high rate of need for public services, a greater level of of need for crisis medical care and higher need for tax increases.

• Increase class sizes to increase failure rates, decrease social and emotional support for students and increase alienation and drop out rates in upper grades. The cost to families of addressing remediation, tutoring and juvenile corrections court costs and incarceration can effectively weaken the economic stability of tens of thousands of families.

• Require public schools students take on-line classes in order to graduate. Decreased teacher interaction and the lack of support for those who struggle can be highly effective at wasting years of college tuition as students fail classes or need extensive remedial coursework. The impact on families of students with disabilities can be impressive as those with certain learning styles have higher failure rates and are more likely to fall into cycles of dependence later in life should support in these early years be inadequate.

• Fail to fund higher education so that college tuition and fees continue to increase. Making a college degree too expensive for most college graduates also helps achieve goal 1B above.

C. Remain Dependent on Fossil Fuels

• Deny local communities the ability to fund public transportation. In urban areas this guarantees tax dollars are sucked rapidly into perpetual freeway widening projects which produce few jobs but expend state revenues on raw materials. A lack of public transportation also directly increases costs to families who struggle with with car maintenance or gas prices or for those commuters who waste time in traffic during their commute.

• Make sure not to create state level car fuel efficiency standards or electric utility renewable portfolio standards. Being vulnerable to high oil prices or out of state coal generated electricity ensures that business and residential consumers pay high prices and remain vulnerable to world political strife.

D. Increase User Fees for Everything

• After all these are not taxes. Increasing costs to families and businesses through fees works just as well to fund the costly crisis care that is sure to follow a lack of adequate tax payer funded preventative care services.

• Get creative. Fees on prisoners or parents of those in the Juvenile Justice system work really at creating additional stressors for families already in crisis. Asking the general population to help fund government by paying taxes will only give those leaving prisons a chance at economic stability and ruin an opportunity to push them into a lifetime of crime and costly incarceration.

• Ensuring failure of your public school system can help bring on privatization and a stratification of the quality of educational opportunity available to families of differing incomes. User fees in education are not a new concept. They are a bridge to stratification and ensure that some kids will not be able to reach the same levels of academic attainment that the more wealthy do. This perpetuates poverty and assists in achieving goals 1B and 2A above.

3. Keep State Government in Perpetual Fiscal Crisis

A. Turn away federal matching funds or any form of money paid to the federal government by taxpayers in your state.

• Cut medicaid and with each $3 million reduction in state spending, presto $7 million in federal dollars will also be lost.

• Violate federal laws so that your state faces sanctions. Refusing to enact federal health care reform for example may well result in the state losing all federal funds for medicaid --meaning a loss to health providers, businesses and families of nearly a billion in federal dollars.

B. No matter how well the national economy is recovering, predict doom for your own state.

• Keep revenue projections artificially low so you can cut government services across the board again and again.

• Call any revenues over the low projections a "surplus" and use those to fund tax breaks for large corporations and the most wealthy. (Do not restore funding for jobs, purchasing, construction or to fund schools, classrooms, mental health treatment, substance abuse prevention or disability services.)

C. Create Political Strife.

• Make sure the super majority of your Republican party fights with itself so any moderates who happen to be re-elected in any given year will be forced to live in fear of actually voting as moderates and thus will ensure the perpetuation of your disaster.

D. No Matter How Much Things Fall Apart, Don't Raise Taxes.

• Don't think about what Jesus would do. Not raising taxes ensures that all of the above policies seem like necessary if not critical budget cutting measures.

• Raising taxes might ease the conscience in the short term as the morale of state workers improves; schools again begin to meet the needs of more fragile students; seniors, the poor and those with disabilities stop losing their homes, entering institutions and dying of preventable disease or untreated mental and physical aliments. But, in fact, raising taxes creates an expectation within a state population that government can do positive things.

• And we all know that's silly.

 4. Reduce The State's Population

A. Nothing says economic disaster like death and out migration. (See above.)

Unthinkable

There come moments when, as busy as I am this year, the absurdity of this place strikes me and I want to say something, I want to sit down and tap my frustration into this computer. Today is the worst of those.

Last night the co-chairs of the budget committee sent out letters to legislators saying that, as hard as the budget cuts last year were;

as hard as looking at intentionally increaseing class sizes to fund on line courses and lap tops has been;

as hard as contemplating cutting services to seniors and people with disabilities, contemplating risking their independence in their homes has been;

as hard as decimating state jobs and family incomes has been -- we've go to to cut more. Like 5% more.

That's like another $80 million out of public schools. That's like laying off the 770 teachers Luna is already plotting to eliminate but not even pretending to replace them with on line courses & laptops -- just cramming kids into classrooms with no new text books, no new desks, no lab equipment and just saying, good luck, we don't want to look bad to tea party voters who want government to vanish. So good luck.

Already we struggle knowing people are being denied mental health and substance abuse treatment and now we are contemplating making others with disabilities stay in their homes alone without help -- without the services some might need to go to work or others might need to avoid ending up back in state hospitals.

And dry-eyed Maxine Bell and Dean Cameron say our only job is to cut more.

Where is the leadeship? Where is the vision that in past years brought our state through crisis without costing lives or risking the future of our children? Where is that sense of patriotism that pulls us together and has great leaders asking us to step forward and share the burden when there's pain to be had?

No, we are in a time of the most unthinkable of low aspirations. We will make children and the most vunerablle pay it all rather than giving up something of ourselves, paying a bit more sales tax or asking our well-to-do neighbors to join us in payng a bit more through the income tax. No, we will just cut, calling the pain we inflict "the new normal" as if there were no other option in the world.

 

Making Sure It Gets Better in Idaho

Many times in my life i have struggled to promise young people that their lives will get better. All these decades later as so many still face school bullying, harassment and even violence, I know I am not the only one who feels the growing weight of obligation to make sure that the lives of young people actually do get better. Not someday, but now.

FIRST: Idaho's anti-bullying law doesn't even mention gay kids.

SECOND: Tragically Idaho has the third highest suicide rate in the nation.  Nationally 1/3 of teen suicides has to do with young people's struggles coping with issues of sexual orientation or gender identity. Too many American kids do not feel safe at school, welcome at church or accepted in their own homes.

THIRD: Suicide is not the only tragedy to come from rejection, fear and a lack of legal protection. Too many young people find themselves more vulnerable to drug addiction and depression as they face these issues alone in rural communities or in silence in our cities.

FORTH: Anti-gay bullying is one of the most common forms of bullying in schools. Here still some teachers fear addressing anti-gay harassment in classrooms because at times teachers have faced disciplinary measures simply for mentioning the word gay. And because Idaho's anti-bullying law doesn't mention any specific kinds of bullying, it leaves open for some students, teachers and parents to believe that gay kids might be an exception to the anti-bullying rule.

If we are going to plead with Idaho's young people not to despair or ever consider self destructive acts like suicide, then we have an obligation; That obligation is to be sure that we change Idaho law so that gay kids are clearly safe and protected.

We must do all we can to make sure it gets better now-- not years from now, but now.

 

Saturday, January 29th will be a statewide day of vigils, rallies and events to support safe schools and fair employment legislation to protect gay Idahoans from job discrimination and Idaho kids from anti-gay bullying. If you are a business person, straight ally, young person or anyone who wants to help organize an event, large or small in your community, let us know. I will pass your information to Lindsey Matson who will work to connect you with other people in your community or area who also want to help.

See photos and more from events in 11 towns across Idaho on Jan 29 and get involved in passing legislation this year. http://4idaho.org/humanrights

 

Bake Sale Schools

Rock to Read gathered fabulous and quirky musicians and song writers in a spot-light lit room full of books, authors, teachers, parents, kids and auction items. The benefit was to try to buy books for school libraries since state budgets eliminated library fuding last year.

Hard to believe something as basic as books have to be bought through benefits and bake sales. But that's what we've come to. Many kids are going without some of the key tools they need to succeed.

And yet now, as bad as this current year has been for crowded classrooms, cuts in teacher pay and loss of student class time, we're looking at an even deeper crisis in the year ahead. Just to keep school budgets at the level of cuts we had last year, we'd have to raise taxes (temporarily for a year or two until the economy recovers) by more than $300 million dollars. (That's like taxing business and professional services with a sales tax for the first time or like a penny and a half increase in sales tax or a percent and a half more in income tax for a year.) If we don't raise taxes (since we won't get another federal stimulus like the ones that saved us the past two years) then we have to cut schools yet deeper.

Can you imagine struggling kids after another year of even deeper cuts and even larger classes and less teacher time? Can you imagine not funding schools to hire the 200 new teachers we need just to guide class rooms filled with the 5000 new students who showed up in the state this year?

Is there not a finite limit to the number of bake sales and benefits a school can hold?

This is the poem I read at Rock to Read Benefit Friday night.

 

I dream of Idaho on fire.

I don’t mean the incendiary flame of combustion

I mean the simple spark of some saintly prayer that our schools will fly.

 

I sleep blocks from the capitol, that marble palace

with wings that could have lifted classrooms, libraries, teachers and minds

from survival to spiral orbits of aspiration

where children would dance with spirogyra

microscopes would raise mitochondria and mitosis to the heavens of the known

where English would flow with French, Russian and Chinese from the red lips of scholars

where numbers would glow in galaxies of geometric gem stones

where formulas and proofs would speak like poetry

 

When I sleep under the huge white pine in the turn-of-the-century Victorian that creaks

in the wind and with the whisper of tectonic secrets

our schools do spark and fly

lawmakers plot to proliferate brilliance, invention and art.

We’d fund mock courts and student Senates

celebrating teen poets and novel writers, making heroes of young physicists

and the teachers

who inspire it all again

and again

and again.

 

But I sleep still

strange slumber of frightful dreams where a marble building sinks deep in a mire

political pandering screams

and teachers cry over stacks of papers in the wee hours of the night

where there through the fogged glass students wait with hands raised

in row after row of desks.

 

But I stand here

for in waking I swear I dream for more

just as you dream.

We imagine Idaho on fire

minds sparked to lift a marble dome from the depths, high up over the trees to the sky.

With you I'll not rest as long as books must be bought by benefits

and marble wings and shiny new highways stretch to each horizon.

I will dream.

I will dream in the marble building.

There I will beg others to dream.

Leadership in Flux

Legislative Council has assembled around the big wooden table in the Senate Republican Caucus room in the top of the statehouse. The showing is sparse. Missing are the members leaving us whose terms end a month from now. In December we will be sworn in again and joined by six new senators and twelve newly elected house members. That is not unprecedented change. Compared to other states, Idaho simply stayed its red self. Interestingly we stand now at the same numbers we had six years ago when I was first elected to the house.

Legislative Council is an ongoing committee made up of Democratic and Republican leadership plus members elected by their caucus to serve in overseeing policy, procedure and the general workings of both houses. We discuss everything from whether the dining room will welcome the public, to whether committee secretaries will be detailed or vague in writing up the minutes of legislative committee meetings.

This is my fourth year on Legislative Council. I've looked around in the past and realized that the committee has been used at times as a consolation prize for members not elected to leadership positions in their respective caucuses.

And it's that time again. Leadership elections. Speaker in the House, Pro-Tem in the Senate, in both houses a Majority Leader, Assistant Majority Leader, Caucus Chair, Minority Leader, Assistant Minority Leader & Minority Caucus Chair.

Already the Pro Tem is telling people to save Friday morning after our one day December organizational session and swearing in just in case leadership races get drawn out. This year with the surge of far right or tea party Republicans one can expect some leadership challenges within the two Republican Caucuses. Never mind that, in the House, Majority Leader Mike Moyle is rumored to be taking on Speaker Denny.

Last time we had a serious Speaker's race, after Bruce Newcomb retired as Speaker of the House, committee chairships changed, new people were given JFAC seats and the tone and feel of the legislature turned from a moderate and congenial place to an often far more difficult and contentious one.

I am holding my breath about the Senate. Some say that with the final numbers there will be enough relative moderates to keep the Senate from radical change.

This year, for Democrats, members of leadership retired in both the House and Senate. New leaders will be elected from among those not serving on the Joint Finance and Appropriations Committee. In the Senate in our tiny seven member Democratic caucus with two JFAC members and three leadership positions, our choices are a bit less wide ranging than in the House. We have some pretty wide ranging personalities though.

Sunday, across the state, we legislators will pack our bags for the Northern Idaho Legislative Tour which always follows on the heels of the election. We will travel and mingle for three days getting to know new members and discussing legislative ideas. Both parties will hold caucuses to begin to brooch the topic of leadership races. We will know then who will run and begin to contemplate the temperaments, the strengths, weaknesses and personalities that will shape our lives and policy in the next two sessions and possibly in many more to come.

Thirty Percent

Last night as all unfolded here in Idaho, I had to breathe in, look around the old ballroom decorated to feel cheery and know in my gut that I represent a tough state. Candidates who poured their lives into races hoping to make a difference in protecting their schools or creating jobs or public transportation, go home now to surreally quiet homes.

Idaho. We Democrats serve in politics here knowing we are the minority. Democracy doesn't work if someone isn't up to the challenge of representing the 30% of the state that clearly prefers not to have public schools decimated by budget cuts. The 30% that will willingly pay taxes so that neighbors don't go without food, housing or medical care. The 30% that worry how expensive it is to lives and budgets when we cut mental health and substance abuse treatment, driving people and their families into desperation and cirsis.

To the other 70% of the state, I say this: what is invisible to you, the bridges, the police cars, the prison walls, the detox rooms, the teachers reading essays into the late dark of night, the prison guards, the parole officers, the social workers making sure someone takes their medication, the program that pays an 88 year old woman's electric bill, the agency that inspects day care centers: these things break down when you starve state government, when you cut it again and again and again.

Idaho, I will always see the best in you. I still hope we will pull together in crisis, look inside classrooms at the beauty and loss there, see our neighbors as people and rise above this as a state.

 

September 11th

May today we remember the fundamental value of respect for religious difference and the loss that comes from believing violence can resolve conflict from past or present. May we look at the people of the world not as faceless categories based on faith, race, national origin or political affiliation, but as individuals worthy of life and human dignity. That, I believe, is how we hope the world will view us, as Americans.

Nicole's 2010 Legislative Quiz

So you think you followed the 2010 legislative session? Let's see how you do on this Quiz. Answers provided Tuesday May 6th, 5:30 - 8 pm at my End of Session Party at Sun Ray in Hyde Park. (The cool old Lucky 13 garage.) And I'll also post them next week here after the party but you will miss the fun commentary.

In 2010 how many bills were killed on the Senate floor where legislation needs 18 votes to pass?

a. 19
b. 5
c. 2
d. 0

In 2010 how many times did Brad Little have to break a tie on the Senate floor?

a. 21
b. 7
c. 2
d. 0

How many bills were killed on the House Floor when they failed to get 36 yes votes?

a. 47
b. 22
c. 11
d. 4

How much was Idaho's 2011 public school budget cut by in the 2010 Session?

a. $128 million
b. 7.5%
c. the most it had ever been cut in Idaho history
e. All of the above

Which part of the school budget that passed was added by Rep. Fred Wood and other members of the House over the objection of teachers, after the negotiating stakeholders had agreed not to include it.

a. Provisions requiring all schools to add a simple Buddhist prayer at the start of classes each day
b. A prohibition on the teaching of any science in Idaho classrooms
c. A chunk of legislative language rendering the bulk of every teacher's work contract null & void
d. A ban on school nurses because they provide government health care

What school programs were completely not funded and thus eliminated by the legislature?

a. Luna's classroom supply stipend for teachers $4.68 million
b. Gifted & Talented teacher training $1 million statewide
c. None of the major student programs (like ISAT remediation, math initiative, reading initiative or English Language learning) were eliminated. They were just cut so much that schools will just have to bear the burden themselves of deciding which kids to serve or which will go without help.
d. Technology funding $9.1 million for computer replacement, software licenses, maintenance etc..
e. Textbook funding $5.9 million to replace outdated or damaged text books
f. All of the above answers apply

What was the deepest public school budget cut previously made and in what year?

a. 3% in 1914
b. 3% in 2010
c. Many years over the past decade, if you consider inflation and population growth, the increase in Idaho school budgets has been so small that frequently the total budget, when the increase in students and the rising cost of transportation fuels, heat, electricity and insurance is taken into account, the total budget is a cut from the previous year.
d. Idaho school budgets have never previously been cut

Which Idaho agency budget was cut the least?

a. Mike Gwartney's Department of Administration
b. The Department of Transportation/Roads
c. The Governor's office
d. Legislative Services

Which Idaho Budget was cut the most?

a. Idaho Public Television
b. Idaho Parks & Recreation
c. The Governor's Office
d. Mike Gwartney's Department of Administration

Which of the following are quotes from actual language from real bills passed by the Idaho legislature in 2010?

a. “The phrase "In God We Trust" should appear on all coin and currency and references to God should be welcome in all public places and public verse.”

b. “WHEREAS, small business is the backbone of Idaho’s economy and local food production can help promote entrepreneurism and self ­sufficiency in Idaho’s small towns, revitalizing regional small farms, creating local jobs, business opportunities and the recirculation of capital within Idaho.”

c. “The state of Idaho hereby exercises its sovereign power to declare the public policy of the state of Idaho regarding the right of all persons residing in the state of Idaho in choosing the mode of securing health care services free from the imposition of penalties, or the threat thereof, by the federal government of the United States of America relating thereto.”

d. “No health care professional or employer of the health care professional shall be civilly, criminally or administratively liable for the health care professional declining to provide health care services that violate his or her conscience, except for life ­threatening situations as provided for in subsection (6) of this section."

e. All of the Above.

Some have said that Idahoans will die because the legislature refused to do simple things like use Millennium cigarette funds, part of the grocery tax credit or eliminate certain tax exemptions to avoid cutting so deeply into health & education budgets. Which groups of people might actually face the most dire health and life consequences because of the choice to cut 2011 budgets so deep?

a. People with Cystic Fibrosis who face tens of thousands of dollars in medication costs each year just to stay alive. The legislature eliminated all funding for assistance to adults.

b. People facing trauma, depression or other mental health issues including suicide. Mental health services for adults have been reduced since 2008 in what is already a bare bones system. The suicide hot line that once existed is gone leaving Idaho as the only state in the nation without a hot line.

c. More people needing mental health services. Rumors are that in an attempt to cover a $18 million deficit in Medicaid that mental health services to those on Medicaid will also be cut, leaving people to lose jobs, families & homes. Many will find help only if they enter an Idaho prison.

d. People wanting help and ready for treatment as they facing addiction to methamphtamine, heroin, alcohol and other drugs.The legislature refused to fund a $4.5 million deficit in the program. Over 2,500 people who were on a waiting list have been turned away.

e. Some of Idaho's most vulnerable adults & children with disabilities. Deep cuts to care & therapy services put lives at risk as those who struggle to stay independent face a loss of supports to keep them out of institutions or at risk of injury or illness in their own homes.

f. More people with disabilities. While the legislature rejected Butch Otter's attempts to de-fund the state's disability advocacy agencies, advocacy services that prevent abuse, protect the legal rights of many and ensure adequate access to remove barriers for a full life have been cut back, placing more people at risk.

f.All of the above.

Sorry that's so depressing. You can change this Legislature. VOTE! May 25 and especially Nov. 2! Get involved. In Boise we especially need hard working help for District 18 as Branden Durst runs to fill Kate Kelly's Senate seat and Janie Ward-Engelking runs to replace Durst in the House. Also exciting races in Districts 14 & 15 where Jen Stanko & Steve Berch sound dedicated, hard working and ready to gain some ground for Democrats in North West Boise and Eagle.

Ode to the Senate

O Idaho Senate with your flourishes
Your contemplative strength
How the House has teeth so much sharper

O Senate with your kind men and tough women
You strut as if these endings were your making
Why do you own acts so cruel?

For in your faces lies a sadness, in your eyes aquifers rise
The blood of a million and a half lives hangs around you
Will you listen to its cry?

O Senate your demons are the sly ones
Men with voices more self righteous than mine

My death here will not come from honored stabbing
But from from friendly fire
From cold flesh cut to keep me small

O Senate in your back-hall offices the lobbyists tarry
They covet your small numbers
Your love of fine wine and red meat

Let none come here to lead you into darkness
Your voice is that of orphans
Their quest is yours to represent

As a body of the legislature, Senate you demur to Gwartney and his Governor too often
The scent of moneyed scandals rise and yet you dally
Steel your bones, we've battles yet to fight

Your skin pales at my words, still you compliment my passion
I could stay to study at your gleaming heels
But my tolerance for pain fades with age

Aye, in your finance committee lie secret angels
In your gruff leaders hide impish saints
Faces of stone, you weep when the hero falters

Nay, I'd thought to leave but have grown fond now
Thorn in your steely side, such a view you offer
The space you give, the lines you've begged me learn

Should I miss the house? Yes
I shall wander East and visit
Gaze fondly at their casual dance and return

I'll run here to your pools of formal kindness
The body of thirty-five parts which together spin a brilliant, hard and haunted heart.

Gavel Will Fall

The Senate floor is warm and, with all the hours we've spent here now, the place seems somewhat homey and a bit less like working in a museum. The brads on the chairs have dug notches into the wood desk and the pages have had to pull the red curtains back to expose hidden vents so we have more air. We are settling again into the place, good or bad, just as we are about to leave for real for this legislative session, this election cycle.

We are going into the amending order to change some bills, then out to pass the Department of Administration's budget. Why we are waiting I can only imagine. Perhaps someone is hoping to put a bit of fear of god in Mike Gwartney. I don't know. The budget has some pretty nifty strings in it. It directs him to stop cutting state employee benefits and shoving the savings into the $100 million or so in reserves he is now sitting on. Still the budget gives out the whole $3 million to the Idaho Education Network scandal mess. While we have set up new legislative elements to the oversight, depending on who those individuals are it may or may not simply allow Qwest to proceed in spending dollars they were inappropriately granted as they were neither the lowest nor the best graded bid in the contract to build the high tech network for Idaho public schools.

But we are winding down, debating more law suits in the endless stream of those we are inviting, taking up and simply subjecting ourselves to by passing glaringly poorly drafted legislation. I would wager we might set a record for money spent on law suits this coming year, at the same time we will not give $150,000 to pay for life-saving medications for people with Cystic Fibrosis, some of whom will be hospitalized. Some could face life threatening consequences or even die. But this legislature has its priorities. Law suits. Defending and Initiating law suits. Lawyers. Huge legal fees.

Deficit Budgets

What happens when we set what we call a budget but what we pass actually does not provide a department enough money to pay those businesses who provide services, keep adequate people employed, or maintain the machinery needed to do the job they are charged by law with doing?

What happens when the constitution requires us to fund an adequate education and yet we send schools $128 million less than they need and tell them to figure out which children they will not help or which classes, services and teachers the kids will have to do without?

What happens when it is an election year and law makers hate raising taxes in election years, so they adjourn leaving a fictional budget, knowing they plan to come back half way through the fiscal year to fix the mess they have made, then, only after the elections, raising raising taxes to try to balance a budget for real?

This morning Medicaid sounded desperate in the discussion over $3 to $5 million in cuts to nursing homes and care providers. Depending on how you do the math -- but at minimum Medicaid has a $22 million deficit -- and the fight we had over this small portion was so intense, I can only imagine now what will happen as they decide what to cut to save the remaining $18 or so million they are still in the hole. And to be clear, this is not shrinking government, these are private employers who provide these services, and they will be laying off people who make very low wages and will go on food stamp to make it through.

When you consider the federal match which provides $80 additional for every $20 we spend, our state loses closer to $100 million in health services with $20 million in cuts of state funding. This is $100 million in health services Idaho will not provide to Idaho's poor, to the children and people with disabilities. And there will be no hearing for those cuts. Those will be done by rule in heat of summer, quietly, no way to stop what unfolds.

Out With a Hiss

The Idaho legislature is about to evaporate into thin air. Monday, the 105 of us likely will vanish with a lingering anti-climatic hiss... having cobbled together some fiction of a budget, some duct tape and pine pitch plan to make the nightmares we are brewing stay quiet until after the elections. 

I do not recall a session this short in my six years in the legislature. The primary election is rolling toward us. May 25. Like many of my colleagues, I face a tea party opponent this year, but mine I do not face until November.

With the many May primaries, the Republican party will start to consume itself as soon as the gavel falls. Moderate Republicans face the worst of it and seem frustrated. Some have suggested that if it gets much meaner they will be joining us on the "D" side. If enough came over, and the House or Senate were then fairly evenly split, they'd have a good chance at more power and at not being marginalized as they are by more conservative leadership. But all these are just thoughts said many times before over the years. How long does it take to grow few up? I don't know. If Democrats continue to bash Walt Minnick I suspect our moderate friends will be highly disinclined to feel welcome in our party. If progressive people want more power over policy, over health issues, the environment, education and human rights, I know it is unpopular to say, but we will have to be more accepting of a wider range of political perspectives. We will have to learn to hold on to the gains and the points of common ground without dividing ourselves over the things about which we don't agree.

Running Fictional Balances

This afternoon for the third day in a row we are again running quickly through bills. Hours on end of appropriations, memorials, resolutions and legislation with pages and pages of text and meaning. Fortunately for me I have already read most these bills in committee so I can ask questions, debate and even carry those assigned to me with some level of comfort. At some point though now it has started to get a bit mind numbing. Just now the Budget for the Department of Corrections was presented and the roll call vote began before I realized. No one else got up to ask a question, to debate this huge and delicate budget. I stood at my turn to vote and used my 60 seconds to say how I feel this budget will not hold. While the committee tried to keep our prison system from bursting its seams, in the end what we did will utterly fail to do that.

We cut substance abuse funding by $5 million and eliminated a waiting list of 2,500 people because the list of those needing treatment was growing by 300 people a month and our behavioral health division could not even pretend to address its backlog of those with addiction given that funds are not improving but actually again are going to decline.

So when we realize we have barely funded current prison needs, it is clear we are not prepared for prison populations to grow as they have already begun to again now that we are so utterly failing to offer people facing addition any alternative but to end up in prison or some other more tragic state that we and Idaho's families will have to grapple with for lifetimes.

The Idaho constitution requires the legislature to balance the state budget. This is a good thing in my opinion. 

I have worried though over the past ten years as I watched the legislature cut corporate taxes again and again in good years, shifting taxes onto families, a shift that puts the state at risk in economic downturns.

On budget after budget, I hear that an agency is likely to run out of money mid year. In this I realize our budgets, or what we are calling adequate funding to create a balanced budget, I realize this balance is, at best, fiction. 

Next year I hear Republicans plan to take up "tax reform" and raise taxes (after the elections) to balance the budget especially now that our reserves are gone, the stimulus is gone and we are more than half a billion below 2008 in tax revenue. I fear with the "reform" we will see more proposals that will raise taxes on families rather than any willingness to restore balance between corporations and families.This is a sinister trend and a frightening gamble to pretend this year to have some of these budgets balance to get through the elections when in fact this mound of paper, this funding plan for schools, prisons, treatment, medical assistance and all kinds of bits of government simply doesn't balance at all.

Madam President

Senator Kate Kelly served as Senate President yesterday. There are only seven democrats in the 35 member Idaho Senate. Senator Kelly is the state's first female Senate Minority leader since Mary Lou Reed in 1994. Kate will be retiring from the legislature this year and so Republican leadership asked her to take the honor of wielding the gavel and running the lot of us through the orders of business and the hugely formal process of running the Senate floor process where we meet as a group to vote on legislation that has come to us from the Senate's ten committees. It was a delight to call her Madame President. Some on the floor stood fro recognition just to do so. She got a standing ovation as she left the diocese.

Losing Kate from the Senate means losing the state's most hardworking proponent of ethics reform. It means losing a legal mind with a strong background in environmental issues. It means losing a classmate and friend I have served with for six years, someone I have laughed with, prodded to eat more, talked of family with, respected for her frequent kindness and firm integrity.

It means likely that Branden Durst, brilliant, hardworking and on occasion religiously conservative, will run now to come here to serve with us. Kate and Branden could not possibly be more different. Branden brings to us though a sharp eye like Kate's, a voice that cracks and breaks like Kate's, but one that will surely learn (like all of us slowly must) to blend with it the kindness and deference to the proprieties of the Senate.

It feels like nothing next year will be the same here, especially without Kate. It never is though. This place is like water, ice, steam -- year to year, day to day, minute to minute.

Finding My Way in the Senate

Yesterday's debate on the Public Schools budget was the perfect day to feel the true character of the Senate. Dean Cameron in carrying the bill on the floor spoke kindly of the process and the participants. Before I debated against the bill, I complemented the process and the sponsor as well as the hard work and long hours that went into the very budget which I was soon to say was a poor choice and simply was not the best we could do.

Republicans whose daughters and wives and relatives are teachers debated about how hard teachers work and how they will just work harder with less in the year ahead, how they are not in teaching for the money. In Senator Cameron's closing he thanked the minority, said kind things about those who debated against the $128 million cut to schools and then he went on to say how lucky we are and how much worse things are in other states.

The Senate is about civility, about decorum. We say kind things before going to battle, draw a flower and a sword at the same time.

Even while we Democrats made a motion to change the bill, to send it to the 14th order to take out the part that dismantles teacher's security, their contracts, the one thing that keeps politics out of the classroom -- even while we debated this cruel language we were kind. Edgar Malepeai debated eloquently that the language on contracts cut to the very soul of teachers. His tone was even, strong and yet kind.

There is a sum of meaning, even said kindly, that implies that we Democrats feel that Republicans had a choice whether or not to cut this deep... and that they choose the easy path, choose not to challenge the house so that they could go home soon, all because it is an election year.

We Democrats asked the Senate to join us in adding $35 million back into the budget from the grocery credit, election consolidation and school facilities fund. But instead they chose to pass the bill intact, cutting teachers, growing class sizes, eliminating tutoring, saying good bye to crisis counselors, hours of paid work, programs that help struggling students, academic materials, text books, all the tools that we try to use to make sure kids succeed...

After debate, Dean Cameron came over and gave me a hug, for that is his character, and that is the character of the Senate. After session yesterday we went and played pool together, House and Senate, Democrats and Republicans. You have to spend time here together outside the highly charged environment of policy. That is what makes it all work, reminding ourselves that regardless of the blades hidden inside the cordial debate, we are human. I've long known that.

In Defense of Dignity

You don't know how slow progress is until you have worked for 15 years on an issue and have had to count movement forward in promised but hypothetical yes votes, numbers of co-sponsors and the quality of conversations you have with those many who have been seemingly dead set against the issue since you began.

There are hundreds of people in Idaho who have worked longer than I have to see some basic level of respect and dignity afforded to gay people by Idaho law. I sit in the middle of the place where this progress is supposed to happen and I see well that we have a choice. We can grow bitter and complacent writing the Idaho legislature off as hopeless, or we can work hard and cling to the incremental progress, to the raw numbers of people willing to put their names on the line, attach themselves to the bill to make this small change finally happen, even in an election year. It is glacial but if you look, there is something there.

This year again there was again of course legislation before the Idaho Senate to add sexual orientation and gender identity to Idaho's human and civil rights laws, just as local governments have now done in Salt Lake City Utah this past fall and in Pocatello, in Boise and in cities and states all across the West over the past decade. This year Idaho's legislation however never saw the light of day. The chairman would not allow it even an introductory print hearing to assign the the bill a number and put it in the state computer. Yet realize that we now have four solid yes votes in the committee, up from the three we had last year, but just shy of the five we need to get the bill actually passed from committee and to the floor of the Senate for a vote. That is progress. In many ways that is huge progress.

Senate State Affairs is a tough committee. It grew tougher for human rights issues when Brad Little left Senate Republican Majority leadership to stand over the Senate as our Lt. Governor. Russ Fulcher, very kind and willing to listen but religiously much more the fundamentalist, took Brad's place in leadership and on the State Affairs Committee. 

Other committees are far less tough and this year's human and civil rights bill would have no trouble being printed there. In one or maybe two committees it might even pass. But State Affairs is the Committee that the Pro Tem and leadership use like a sieve for social issues. Anti-immigrant bills, anti-abortion bills, anti-gay constitutional amendments and now any positive human rights legislation. Yet this is the committee we have to go through to get even a simple hearing, a chance for people to explain why our state will be a better place if we chose as a law making body to legislate that injustice against gay people is in fact also injustice; that it is the policy of the state that discrimination is wrong and that gay people will no longer be omitted -- because an omission of such an obvious and targeted group says only one thing: it says that discrimination and denial of basic dignity, human and civil rights to students, renters, business customers and employees in our sate is acceptable. We say every day by virtue of this lingering omission that such discrimination is acceptable.

Idaho is a live-and-let-live state. The fear some of my colleague's feel for this issue is strange in the face of the fact that so many people now know someone gay and that young people can not imagine why we live in a world where such injustice is acceptable policy. Three years ago 64% of Idahoans and a solid majority in every part of the state said that it should be illegal to fire people just because they are gay. What I know is change will only happen when that ordinary majority of Idahoans stop law makers on the street and say kindly that they care, that they support an improvement in Idaho law to extend dignity, civil and human rights to gay people just as we do to all people based on age, religion,sex, national origin, disability and race.

The legislature has heard from gay people for well more than 15 years and our voices I fear sometimes are seen as those of a tiny minority speaking desperately for itself. For a second year I say, we can't do this alone. We need our co-workers, neighbors, parents, friends, classmates, teachers and employers to speak up with us now.

I give deepest thanks to the fearless in the Senate who have stood up for and with us when it was hard: Joe Stegner, Tim Corder, and Edgar Malepeai. To former Senate Majority Leader Bill Roden who, with House Assistant Minority Leader James Ruchti, was ready to present the bill before Chairman Curt McKenzie and the Senate State Affairs Committee, and to the 27 co-sponsors below I say, your actions and bravery mean the world to us. 

SENATE CO-SPONSORS:

Edgar Malepeai, Joe Stegner, Kate Kelly, Elliot Werk, John Andreason, Gary Schroeder, Tim Corder, me, Les Bock.

HOUSE CO-SPONSORS:

James Ruchti, John Rusche, Bill Killen, Tom Trail, Wendy Jaquet, Donna Boe, Elaine Smith, Shirley Ringo, George Sayler, Anne Pasley-Stuart, Donna Pence, Sue Chew, Liz Chavez, Phylis King, Branden Durst, Grant Burgoyne, Elfreda Higgins, Brain Cronin.

This list does not include the many Republicans and Democrats who now will vote for the bill when it comes to the floor of the House and Senate, that list is growing long and wonderful. These above are the law makers willing to put their names on the line up front. I hope you will thank them.

To sign the petition in support of next year's legislation and to get involved go HERE.

Closing Day

Friday at 5 pm the candidate filing closes. Last chance. Outside Boise many races have no challengers still.

Many of the candidates do file on the last day. It is the big surprise day. I know of two more great candidates about to file in District 19. Other places I don't know about so I worry. I figure it is better when a seat is vacant to have too many people jump in and to sort it out later rather than to have no Democrats run because everyone is waiting politely, afraid someone better wants the seat.

We need willing people, problem solvers and passionate people. We need those brave enough to stand in front of the train with us, to stand up with school kids, the lowest paid state workers, teachers, counselors, people with disabilities, the state's Hispanic communities, the elderly, those literally dying for substance abuse treatment, those who have lost jobs, run out of unemployment, those who need a state legislature that does more than pretend to balance a budget to look good in an election year.

Money will literally run out in several state budgets right after the elections. Some will run into the red sooner. We know that now yet here this week we push those budgets to the floor and into law. Some seem to feel that the bigger the train wreck we create this year, the easier it will be for them to raise taxes next year.

We are talking about people's lives here. If you all plan to raise taxes, be honest and do it this year before schools lose their best teachers, before kids sit in crowded classrooms slowly falling behind, and before people with chronic illnesses run out of their medications and end up in the hospital. I wish we would all just be honest, not hurt people to justify what we know must do to fix the hole we blew in the state budget with all the corporate and special interest taxes we have cut this past decade.

So tomorrow is closing day and I know my speech here is not uplifting, it is damn depressing, but if it makes you mad and makes you want to do something about it  then look at the filings and if no one is running, put your name in. The Idaho Secretary of state has the forms on line. You can get them notarized and faxed back by 5 pm. Burley to Eagle, Twin Falls to Coeur d'Alene, we need you in here.

I stay in here and serve because I care. I need to say too what an honor it is. It is hard but it is an honor to serve doing what I think is right, standing up for those in the state with so little voice in here. This place can only get better if more people run. We have to keep the debate going, it makes the policy better when races are challenged, even if you don't win the first time.

Someone winning one new seat in the house can change everything, get Democrats more seats on committees, give us a larger voice, more energy and momentum. To me, the party is the people who do these basic critical things like run and volunteer and get the work done. We make the party what we want it to be. If you think something can be better, it can. That's your job and mine. I choose to make this party a party that cares, cares deeply and with that I try with all my might to make a difference.

Killing Things

My parents hunted, both of them, birds, deer, elk, rabbits. I had rabbit pelts in my doll house as a child. I still have one of those pelts at home, a bit worse for wear. When they shot game, my parents used as much of the animals as they could, not just the meat but there was something reverent about how they contemplated what would be useful.

Tuesday the Senate passed a bill changing what we define as waste. We loosened the idea of what it means to waste an animal you have hunted and killed. In another bill we allowed out of state hunters to get bonus permission to kill wolves if they do not kill an elk or deer. This is not an animal they will eat or even necessarily be able to take home as a trophy on the plane, but an animal they can legally kill and leave dead where it fell.

A few weeks ago we changed the law as to how we decide what constitutes humane killing of chickens and livestock. A panel of representatives mostly from the livestock industry will soon decide.

I debate how to respectfully say that we seem to have lost our reverence for those things we kill to feed ourselves. Personally I am not one who would ever kill an animal for amusement, for sport. I have killed animals for mercy and would hunt for food. I wonder is there no balance where we admire the beauty of and life of an animal? Its role in relation to the plants and animals around it?

I wonder about all those carcases out there. Does someone take a photo with the dead wolf, the mountain lion or the bear? Cut off a part as a souvenir? Or with an elk or deer do people just walk away from all parts but the now lawfully designated edible portions? At least the eating of an animal is personal and thus somehow reverent. It does not get much more personal than that.

I know the wild has an astounding capacity to absorb the dead. Creatures large and small dissemble carcases. Bugs and birds spread what is left far and wide, until all that remains is a hard, white shadow, the bones.

 

Choosing Not to Leave

I have a huge black and white framed photograph of U.S. Senator Frank Church in my office leaning against a desk. He is sitting on a wagon on the front lawn of the ranch in Custer County where I spent many years growing up. Frank is smiling, his sleeves rolled up, thick hair brushed to the side. He looks kind and warm. I've not yet hung this photo on the wall of my office. I've not hung any photos. It is time to. I'm staying here in the Senate, not risking leaving JFAC where there is so much work to do next year rebuilding the lifelines, health programs and schools we have torn down this year.

So I will stay here, voters willing. Our seven Senate Democrats make for a small caucus but we must be mighty. Our four budget committee Democrats, Wendy Jaquet, Diane Bliyeu, Shirley Ringo & I, are settling in together too, getting a feel for each other and how our skills and personalities complement one another. Shirley is brilliant and funny.I have sat next to her morning after morning all year. Sometimes she leans over and makes some wise crack in the midst of something tense. She is like my amazing partner Carol who keeps my spirits up through the hardest of things. Humor is a gift I only wish I had like they do.

This morning JFAC finished setting budgets and we disbanded for now until called back by the Chairs. Now each of the agency spending packages, each harsh plan with its job cuts, furloughs, fragile operations and bandaged programs will now make its way into yellow and blue folders bound for the House and Senate floors. These have to pass both bodies now; huge cuts made while we left over $70 million in millennium funds and $35 million in grocery credit saving unused. Some budgets, like the one for Medicaid, have problems. They are not plans but cobbled together statements of desperation.

Below is intent language we passed this morning. Essentially it tells the Governor and his agencies "Good luck, you figure it out now."

"The appropriation provided in this act and the provisions of this paragraph shall take precedence over any Idaho Statute that is in conflict for fiscal year 2011."

It is not a stretch to suspect that there are constitutional issues with writing this sort of broad authority into the intent language of a budget bill and with allowing the Department of Health & Welfare to ignore any Idaho law they want as we tell them to figure out how to absorb $100 million in budget cuts while still providing medical services to Idaho's most vulnerable children, people with disabilities and those with chronic, life threatening illnesses like cystic fibrosis.

I also guess in all this that Governor Otter will not take kindly to being saddled with this job in an election year.

So this is a first but perhaps this is what happens when a powerful majority votes to gut budgets but doesn't want to be the ones who decide who lives and who dies.