Many of you have asked me whether I’ll be running for State Representative again, and I wanted to let you know my thoughts on this. If you want the short answer, jump to the end of this message.
I am still committed to improving the political landscape of this District and the State of Idaho, and I trust that you are as well. I believe there are some steps that must occur before we can reasonably expect a Democratic candidate to win here.
The first is that we need to have working Democratic Committees set up in each county. Particularly in Caribou, Oneida and Franklin Counties. The fact is, there are many more Democrats in all of these counties than anyone believes, and between my campaign records and those of the State Party, we can help to build that organization. But without a core group committed to changing the status quo, and willing to meet regularly towards that end, nothing will move forward.
The filing period for all candidates for this next election is from February 27 to March 9, only weeks away. If you are interested in seeing a functional Democratic Committee in your county, now is the time to ask your friends and neighbors to run for Precinct Captain. Our government was designed by the founding fathers to be a grassroots organization, and one thing preventing that from happening is the lack of participation. We can blame it on the influence of money on politics, but the answer is people getting involved.
Here’s how it works:
People run for the easy job of Precinct Captains (also called Precinct Committeemen) in the primary. There will be one elected from each voting precinct. You may have to ask others to run. It is extremely simple, requiring no signatures, just a simple form. You can email me for the form, or pick one up at the County courthouse. Make copies and hand them to everyone who you think should run. They don’t have to campaign. People who would make good Precinct Captains are anyone who would like to see some changes and who has the willingness to participate and be involved.
Those people get elected in the primary in May, and shortly after that they get together and select a willing Chair, Vice-Chair, and secretary from anyone they choose for their County organization. They also get together with the Precinct Captains from the Legislative District and select officers for the District organization. And they make a decision to meet again on a regular basis.
That is the foundation of our government system. It’s simple. But without it, nothing changes. People getting together regularly to discuss and plan will change things in Idaho. The State Party and other local and regional organizations can help once that basic system is in place, and it will grow and find a life of its own.
The second thing that will need to happen to get a Democrat elected in this part of Idaho is getting candidates on the ballot. Sometimes having candidates on the ballot helps to get a party organization moving, sometimes it happens the other way around. But without multiple Democrats on the ballot, there will continue to be a lack of media and public interest in campaigns and elections. And nothing will change.
So those are the things it will take to get me or anyone to run as a Democrat and actually have a chance at winning. It could happen in two years, or it could take ten or more.
I may throw my name in the ring anyway for this election, but I would accept no money and I won’t go door-to-door campaigning. If I run, it will be to get an idea of how many people out there want to see change, and are willing to vote Democrat, knowing little else.
Thanks for all your past support, encouragement, and patience.
P.S. – Please let me know if you or any other local Democrats plan to run for any office in this election.
Ralph
At the beginning of the 2011 legislative session, Idaho Governor Butch Otter expressed his determination to attack the “Tyranny of Entitlement.” What does that mean, and what has he done?
It would seem that the Governor thinks folks should be able to stand on their own feet. To achieve that goal, they need the tools to be self-sufficient. How to proceed? Steps forward would include strong support for education – early childhood, K-12, and higher education. Look for ways to help young people gain access to higher education without accumulating massive debt from student loans. Look for ways to replace low-paying jobs with living-wage career opportunities. Look for ways to support and strengthen Idaho individuals and families. Help people move from welfare to work.
But instead, our Governor’s action amounts to an attack on Idaho’s most vulnerable citizens – folks dealing with mental and physical disabilities and those in extreme poverty. The guidelines of the 2011 House Bill 260, supported by Governor Otter and the majority of Idaho Legislators, brought about the following directives from the Department of Health and Welfare: Beginning July 21, adults on Medicaid will only be covered for emergency dental needs. (Except for people with chronic disease such as diabetes.) Similarly, adults will not receive coverage for routine vision care, corrective lenses, or hearing aids. Many other cuts impose hardships upon a population already facing enormous challenges.
Our Governor claims these changes and others are working superbly. We are the envy of other states, he claims. The question must be asked: For whom are these changes working so well? I have surveyed clients extensively who receive these services, and they don’t share the Governor’s euphoria. Many cannot afford treatment they need. Some feel isolated because they cannot afford glasses or hearing aids. Appropriate therapy is not available for individuals with physical or mental disabilities. Individuals fear they will lose the independence they strive to achieve. In addition, service providers find their ability to care for clients limited, as they deal with new regulations and fees. Many donate hours of service. Some have lost their jobs or gone out of business.
These cuts in service will be costly in the long run. When one does not receive treatment in a timely manner, health problems and costs escalate. Those with mental illnesses must have support for their needs or there will be dire consequences. More people will land in institutions – an option much more expensive than helping them stay in their homes and communities. There will be greater burdens on our emergency rooms, correction system, and county indigent funds. There is the threat of greater numbers of suicides and more domestic violence.
We have the resources to restore vital support cut through House Bill 260. By the end of 2010, Idaho reported $85 million in revenue that was not budgeted. Governor Otter wants to use $15 million of that to increase the Grocery Tax Credit by $10 per year for everybody, regardless of income. For now, it would be more responsible to use that $15 million to address Medicaid needs. It could potentially be used to obtain $35 million in federal matching funds, for a total of $50 million. Our priority at this time should appropriately be to direct our resources where there is the greatest need. I have the audacity to believe that, even in these challenging times, Idahoans are compassionate and would use available resources to minimize human suffering. We must give people who have extraordinary challenges the opportunity to retain their dignity and gain independence.
Governor Otter speaks derisively about “Obamacare.” (More appropriately, the National Health Care Act.) Under this program, beginning in 2014 low-income adults will qualify for Medicaid coverage with the federal government picking up much of the cost. It will be tragic if struggling Idahoans have to live with House Bill 260 and the tyranny of “Ottercare” until we get that relief.
Readers Opinion
09/07/11
Submitted by the Democratic Members of the Idaho Redistricting Commission-
Co-Chair Allen Andersen of Pocatello, George Moses of Boise, and Julie Kane of Lapwai.
In 1993, a super-majority of Idahoans amended the state constitution to create a bi-partisan Redistricting Commission. Two-thirds of the voters supported this amendment because it removed the process of redrawing legislative and congressional lines from the Legislature, eliminated the direct influence of incumbents, and prevented the majority party from overreaching its power to repress opposition. While some lawmakers and Republican operatives would still prefer this process to be done in the Legislature, Idahoans were right to protect their votes this way.
Unlike the 2001 Redistricting Commission, the current Commission was unable to pass new maps for Idaho’s legislative and congressional districts. The 90-day clock ran out this Tuesday at 5 pm (MDT), and the four votes necessary to pass a plan were not reached. The Secretary of the State now presents this conundrum to the Idaho Supreme Court for direction.
The Democratic Commissioners acted in good faith to reach a compromise. Our first proposal (L28) was an attempt to best honor the Idaho Constitutional requirement to keep counties as whole as possible. Legal precedent has determined that the only time a county should be split would be to reach equal population, as required by the U.S. Constitution. (As determined by precedent for state legislative boundaries, proposals with deviations under 10% meet the federal requirement of equal population.)
The Republican concerns with our proposal were that it violated Idaho statutes, in particular a new statute passed in 2009 which states that counties within a district should have a state or federal highway connecting them. Our final proposals addressed statute concerns, albeit cutting more counties than we felt necessary and therefore subject to a constitutional challenge, but nevertheless we proposed it in the spirit of compromise.
The Republicans continued to accuse us of being too greedy, too political, and unreasonable. This left us scratching our heads; our proposals addressed their voiced concerns. For a quick visual of our willingness to find a compromise, we are including in this readers’ opinion a map that illustrates the changes from our first proposal (L28) to one of our final proposals (L63). We made changes to almost every district, we worked to keep counties whole and honor the statutes. The green area highlighted on the map is the only district we did not alter, and the red lines show the changes made.
Our proposals do not give the Democrats any gains statewide or congressionally, in fact some of our compromise proposals result in a political loss from current maps. The Commission is bi-partisan, not non-partisan. This is designed to ensure that the majority party does not draw the lines to suppress the influence of the minority. In a state where even President Obama received a statewide vote of 37%, the Democratic political make up in the state legislature is barely 20%. If this were about political gains, our proposals could have looked very different. This simply isn’t the case.
If the Commission had begun discussions from the constitution, which states that we should keep counties whole, the political discussion would have been drastically limited. Yet, the Republican Commissioners insisted on weighing all the guidelines, statutes and the constitution with the same importance. We argued that doing so erodes the constitutional framework designed to protect individual Idahoans. A constitutional approach prevents the Commission from using its authority inappropriately, and it prevents the legislature from using statutes to influence the process.
The Supreme Court held in Bingham v Idaho Commission for Reapportionment (2002) that statutes must be considered, but “they are subordinate to the Constitutional standard of voter equality and the restrictions in the Idaho Constitution.” Simply stated, constitutions come first.
But, with a deadline fast approaching, we accepted that the Republicans were not going to approach mapping from legal precedent, so we moved drastically in their direction. We worked in good faith to address all the voiced concerns from our Republican colleagues.
Once we addressed their points, new concerns were voiced. The bait-and-switch tactics used in the last minute negotiations stymied progress. Also in the final hours, the Republican co-chair gaveled down for a recess and refused to let Democratic Commissioner Moses introduce a proposal with reasonable time for consideration. These tactics leave us wondering if there was ever a Republican intention to reach a compromise in the first place.
Yet as seen in the variance of proposals, there remains plenty of room to compromise– that is, if there isn’t a Republican covert agenda to strangle Democratic and moderate influence and to dismantle the spirit of the Redistricting Commission.
As the deadline loomed, an agreement lingered but never manifested. Perhaps the Supreme Court will summon us back to the drawing board to give us another chance to figure this out, and hopefully that will come with clarification on the legal guidelines that created the tailspin in the Commission.
The unfortunate reality though is that this Commission has taken the state to a place we have never been, and it is now up to the Supreme Court to determine where we go from here.
This last week I paid the Idaho Republican-imposed “Family Tax.” If you have kids in school, you just paid it too. I paid mine when I registered my grandson for his sophomore year at our local high school.
The cost was over $100. It included $10 for the botany class, $5 for physical education/weights, a $75 athletic fee, $22 for a student activity card, and $5 for class dues. Students also pay additional fees for band, art, and broadcasting. Other than the class dues, I was dismayed at the amounts, particularly the athletic fee so he can play football and the student activity card fee required for all band, cheer, dance and sports.
I now see firsthand just how much the budget slashing demanded by Governor Otter and the school reform plans implemented by Superintendant of Public Instruction Tom Luna and imposed by our Republican-controlled legislature are really costing Idaho’s working. taxpaying families.
The fees charged to students are only part of it. There are plenty of other costs that are included in what can only be called Idaho’s “family tax” since it hits families with school-age children the hardest. Curtailing student bus service immediately means additional costs to the family for transportation. Four-day school weeks, furlough days, and reduced kindergarten classes add to the cost of daycare and in some families means a parent has to miss a day of work every week.
Because the state cut funding to local school districts, many districts are asking for override levies to make up the additional costs. Even after districts fire teachers and cut every imaginable expense or, in many cases, shift costs to parents through additional fees, reduced services or higher local taxes, it’s still not enough to provide the quality education every Idaho family is guaranteed by law in the Idaho State Constitution.
How many families have less money in their monthly budget because of these costs? How many talented students will never play sports or be in the band or take an art class because of the extra fees? How many families already struggling in these hard economic times will finally, simply, give up—and let their kids drop out of activities or even school because they can’t afford the state’s “free” education?
Our Republican leaders defend their actions by claiming there is a budget crisis—but only after they severely and deliberately underestimated revenues last year. Why are they shifting the costs to parents rather than closing tax loopholes, cutting something else or, yes, even raising revenues?
The answer, of course, is that Republicans want public schools to fail. They want to privatize education, just like they want to privatize Social Security and Medicare. Republicans support private schools, not public education. And, in a perverse twist of logic that makes sense only to them, they want the government to pay for private schools by giving vouchers to parents.
Simply put, they want budget cuts except when they don’t and they want to get rid of government except when it is their benefits that are being cut.
Fortunately, I can afford the extra fees. My grandson will play football. But how many other young, promising athletes and students will be denied that and other opportunities because of our stingy and misguided state legislature?
Too many.
Idahoans do not need politicians who say one thing and do another. Idaho Congressman Raul Labrador wants credit for negotiating a compromise on raising the debt ceiling of the United States but when it came time to vote, he was ready to let the country default on its obligations for the first time in history. This would have been a disaster. But when coupled with his other actions, it is clear that the Congressman is more interested in his own political career than he is in doing what is right for Idahoans.
Last week, U. S. House Speaker John Boehner praised Labrador for his help in working on an agreement in Congress to raise the debt limit. But when it came time to actually vote Mr. Labrador voted no on the very legislation he helped put together.
Congressman Labrador’s explanation for his action leaves more questions than answers. He says he didn’t vote for the legislation because the final bill did not include a balanced-budget amendment to the U. S. Constitution. Republicans have talked about a balanced-budget amendment every year except those years when they could have actually acted on it. During the six years that Republicans held majorities in both the House and the Senate and had a Republican president in the White House, they failed to pass their beloved amendment. In other words, when it came time to put up or shut up, they shut up.
During his brief time in office, Labrador has firmly established himself as a politician with the habit of speaking out of both sides of his mouth. He claims to support seniors, but voted for the Republican budget that would dismantle Medicare. He says he agrees that we should close loopholes in the tax code, but has consistently voted to maintain taxpayer subsidies of the largest oil companies in America despite their record profits. And, he says he believes in keeping jobs in America, but voted against a provision that would have prevented the government from contracting with companies that outsource jobs overseas.
Congressman Labrador says he wants to help the people of Idaho, but he fights for a reckless and extreme Republican agenda. With two wars, tax cuts for the rich, and deregulation of Wall Street, Republican policies have pushed the United States into near bankruptcy. Teachers, union workers and ordinary Americans did not cause the debt crisis. The Republicans don’t care. They are using the debt crisis to end Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, to decimate our public schools, to reward oil and drug companies, and to give more tax cuts to millionaires and billionaires. Congressman Labrador is one of their most reliable soldiers, but that leaves his constituents with no one to fight for them.
Thank goodness we live in a country where the voters can decide whether Congressman Labrador has done a good job for Idaho. If he continues to vote for the pocketbook of corporate America instead of looking out for the citizens of Idaho then he won’t have any need to try and explain his actions in Washington, D. C., after the next election.
Larry Grant, Idaho Democratic Party State Chair- (208) 739-0242 larrygrant@hotmail.com
When the final tax receipt numbers through the end of the 2011 fiscal year are in the State will have $85.3 million more than estimated by the Governor or legislative Republicans. The majority of the surplus will be distributed to schools. But that is only because federal law requires it. The distribution of these surplus funds has come so late that school district cannot include them in their current budgets for the 2011-2012 school year. The damage is already done.
Remember, this last legislative session when we were told that we had no choice but to cut vital services? The Republican budget forecast was intentionally low. It purposefully ignored the expert testimony of professional economists inside and outside of government. And it resulted in a budget that significantly underfunded public schools, colleges, and the help needed for the disabled and mentally ill. It caused layoffs of state employees and private sector workers, and has likely impaired the State’s inability to oversee the performance of its contractors. None of this needed to happen.
During the legislative session, we Democrats fought these cuts as being shortsighted and unnecessary and we were right. By next June 30, the State may well be running a budget surplus of $100 Million to $200 Million. This is an opportunity to reconsider the harmful cuts made last session.
Besides starving our schools and vital health and welfare services, this artificial surplus also creates compounded problems going forward. The FY 2012 budget for the fiscal year ending June 30, 2012 is built on the FY 2011 forecast, which was built on a faulty assumption. So, relying on the artificially low budget for the fiscal year 2010, the Republicans projected that state revenues would only grow from the 2011 base by three percent to $2.430 Billion for the fiscal year ending next June 30. That is the 2012 budget number. But we know that 2011, the fiscal year which just ended, resulted in actual revenue of $2.444 Billion, which is more than that projected for the fiscal year we are now in. Even if there is no growth there will be a surplus when the current budget year ends next June 30. Meanwhile, our government agencies are stuck with the slashed budgets previously set.
We call on the Governor to help all the citizens and rework the 2012 current budget in view of the needs of the State, our citizens and the money available. If it takes a special session to recognize reality, so be it.
Representative Grant Burgoyne (208) 859-8828
Representative Bill Killen (208) 866-9496
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