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By Emilie Ritter Saunder

Bottom Rung: Gov. Otter Touts Idaho’s Low Wages To Attract Gun Companies

StateImpact Idaho
By Emilie Ritter Saunders

For the last two years, Gov. Otter has pushed for lower business taxes, a state-based health insurance exchange, and hiring tax credits.

Gov. C.L. “Butch” Otter is using Idaho’s low wages as a selling point. In a letter sent to out-of-state gun manufacturers last month to encourage them to relocate to Idaho, Otter touts the comparatively low cost of labor here.

This week we’re reporting on wages in Idaho. The governor portrays as an asset the wage trends we’ve been reporting on. Bureau of Labor Statistics data show Idaho has the largest percentage of minimum wage workers in the country; Idaho’s average per capita personal income is second from the bottom. Mississippi is the only state where personal income is less.

In the letter sent to 79 gun and ammunition makers in 28 states, the governor highlights Idaho’s low wages as a way for those companies to save money.

Bottom Rung: Gov. Otter Touts Idaho’s Low Wages To Attract Gun CompaniesClick Play to ListenDownload

“Business profits increase in Idaho. Idaho’s average cost for our highly skilled, often custom-trained workforce is 21 percent less than Connecticut.” – Gov. Otter’s letter

Spokesman-Review reporter Betsy Russell posted a letter sent to companies in Connecticut. Idaho Department of Commerce spokeswoman Megan Ronk says her agency calculated workforce cost differences using Bureau of Labor Statistics data for each of the states where letters were sent.

Connecticut has the highest per capita personal income among states. Only in Washington, D.C. is it higher.

Connecticut Wages

$20.13 per hour = median wage in Conn.
$25.73 per hour = average wage in Conn.
$58,908 = Conn. per capita personal income in 2012
Idaho Wages

$14.51 per hour = median wage in Idaho
$18.52 per hour = average wage in Idaho
$33,749 = Idaho per capita personal income in 2012

Gov. Otter is out of the office this week to celebrate his 71st birthday, which was on May 3. His spokesman, Jon Hanian tells StateImpact the governor is simply using all the tools available to him to entice new businesses to Idaho.

“I think we’re going to leverage every advantage we have here in Idaho to attract business,” says Hanian. “The governor is a businessman.”

The Otter administration hasn’t been shy about making it clear Idaho welcomes the gun industry. The state has made a concerted effort to lure firearms makers to Idaho. “Most states aren’t right for the firearms industry, but Idaho is,” said an Idaho Commerce Department employee in this 2011 video from the national SHOT Show. There are more than 180 gun and ammunition manufacturers already in the Gem State.

When asked if the governor’s letter was playing up a sore spot for many Idahoans — that wages are low, Hanian responded: “I think the point he was making was that our workforce is highly competitive for prospective employers when they are considering things like where to locate, or relocate a company.”

The letter also mentions Idaho’s low energy costs, low health insurance costs, recent tax cuts, and a balanced state budget. Hanian says Gov. Otter’s main selling point is that Idaho is predictable for business.

“You want predictability in taxes, you want predictability in labor costs, you want predictability in your costs,” Hanian says. “Right now, in this business sector, in a number of states, there is anything but certainty. That’s not the case with Idaho.”

May 18, 2013 at 8:00 p.m.

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Posted: Saturday, May 11, 2013 3:22 am

Associated Press

BOISE, Idaho (AP) — Republican U.S. Sen. Mike Crapo’s campaign said Friday it lost $250,000 after a former campaign manager loaned the money to a friend who contends somebody else later stole it.

Crapo, who said he learned of the loan in 2010, two years after it was made, is amending his Federal Election Commission campaign finance reports for the third quarters of 2008 and 2009 to reflect the loan.

Until now, it hasn’t been reported separately in Crapo’s public FEC filings, a potential violation of the agency’s rules.

The loan was approved in 2008 by ex-Crapo campaign manager Jake Ball, who submitted his resignation Thursday as district director for Republican U.S. Rep. Raul Labrador. The money went to an Idaho-based company, Blueberry Guru, an investment company that’s now defunct.

Ball has known Blueberry Guru owner Gavin McCaleb for 16 years.

Crapo said Ball gave the money to McCaleb’s business, which reinvested it in a real-estate venture in California and Nevada. Crapo didn’t give details of the recipients of the money, but his lawyers say they’ve disappeared.

“The loan was never repaid,” Crapo said. “According to Gavin McCaleb… Blueberry Guru handed the funds over to a third-party venture that absconded with the money.”

Crapo, who sits on the Senate’s Banking and Finance committees, said he has approved other, federally protected investments in the past by the campaign, but had no knowledge of this transaction until it was brought to his attention in 2010.

It’s been a difficult year for Crapo already since his driving under the influence arrest in December in Virginia followed by his January guilty plea.

He lost his driver’s license for a year.

Ball’s last day in Labrador’s office will be May 31. He said Labrador would have allowed him to stay on, but elected to exit to pursue a personal business venture.

He said he didn’t try to keep the loan secret.

“We never generally discussed investments,” Ball said, of why Crapo was never told of the transaction. “He trusted me to place cash and I did.”

He said he regrets the campaign lost money, but calculated in 2008 that he’d done sufficient due-diligence on his investment with his friend to conclude that the transaction was appropriate.

“I saw what Gavin was going to do on his end, I saw how the funds were going to be held, and I evaluated it to be safe,” he said.

Crapo’s Washington, D.C. lawyer Stephen Ryan said Ball is “embarrassed” by his poor business judgment, extending a loan to a friend without telling his boss.

“Mr. Ball made an error of judgment, there’s no evidence he intended to benefit personally in any way,” Ryan said, adding he’s uncertain how the FEC will proceed. “The FEC may want to take action against someone, they may want to investigate.”

An FEC spokeswoman in Washington, D.C., declined to comment on the case.

Ryan said Crapo was in a transition period between two campaign treasurers in 2008, a situation that afforded Ball authority as sole signatory to withdraw the $250,000 from a bank and lend it to McCaleb without another campaign official scrutinizing the transaction.

McCaleb, who declined comment Friday, is listed on his website as a real estate salesman in Boise with 10 years of experience flipping houses.

He sought federal bankruptcy protection in 2011. The case was closed in 2012.

Crapo said he’s sought to resolve the matter since learning of the loan in 2010, including referring the case to the FBI and the U.S. Attorney’s office. He said they concluded their investigation without filing charges.

Hired later, Ryan told the campaign that further efforts to recover the lost cash were neither cost-effective nor likely to succeed, in part because McCaleb is broke.

“He’s bankrupt,” Ryan said, adding McCaleb “took people’s money and invested it. Based on our experience, he didn’t do a very good job.”

Crapo now has $3.4 million in his campaign treasury, according to his most recent FEC filing, a figure that now reflects the $250,000 loss. He faces re-election in 2016.

First and now: We absolutely must hire a political director to help candidates and activists. One of the greatest tools we have is our Votebuilder database, which connects voters to candidates. The political director’s job to help everyone use that database.

If you haven’t joined our Dem Drive, please join now. Small contributions make a big difference. Big contributions make up for those who can’t afford to help right now. If a tiny percentage of Idaho Democrats contributed, the IDP would have enough money to be as competitive as we need to be. Competitive candidates win elections.

Click to donate anywhere from $5 a month to $1,000 a month.

These elections matter. So, remember school Board elections will be May 21.

Find more information on who is running in your area, check with your county clerk’s office.

StateImpact Idaho is running a great series on this issue.

Only if we keep voting for him …

Popkey: Resigned to its dysfunction, Risch loves the Senate
By DAN POPKEY — Idaho Statesman

Idaho Sen. Jim Risch celebrated his 70th birthday Friday, content in his likely re-election in 2014 to another six years where he can fine-tune his expertise on the Middle East and North Africa.

“You know, I really enjoy this job. I really like this job,” Risch said last week, saying it’s a breeze compared to the seven months he served as governor in 2006. “Governor will wear you down. You can’t do that job permanently. This you can do ad infinitum.”

Home for a Senate recess that included a visit with the Statesman editorial board, Risch was remarkably passive about the failure of Congress to deal with the country’s problems, starting with a $16 trillion debt.

“I can’t explain to you how dysfunctional it is back there,” Risch said, predicting it will take a catastrophe for the national legislature to tackle its responsibilities. “They’re really not bad when it comes to crisis. If there’s a war, if there’s, you know, like the Dust Bowl in the 1930s, those kinds of crises seem to bring people together.”

Rather than stick his neck out like his Idaho GOP colleagues — Sen. Mike Crapo and Reps. Mike Simpson and Raul Labrador — Risch has avoided leadership on the debt crisis or immigration.

The biggest splash of his four-plus years came last month, when he was the voice of Republicans vowing a filibuster aimed at stalling votes on gun legislation, a sure-fire base builder for re-election.

Risch also is proud of employing a temporary block of President Barack Obama’s nomination of Sally Jewell as Interior secretary. The tactic was meant to persuade the administration to embrace Gov. Butch Otter’s plan to keep sage grouse off the endangered species list.

“If you’ve got a low tolerance for frustration with the governing process this isn’t the job for you,” Risch said. “You’ve got to learn to do the best you can, get what you can and move on.”

Risch touts his role as the top Republican on the Foreign Relations Subcommittee on Near Eastern and South and Central Asian Affairs, which tracks North Africa and the Middle East. That’s meant a lot of overseas trips for the senator and his staff.

On Syria, he says, “the president does not have good options,” because supporting the rebellion against Syrian President Bashar Assad will mean “you’re going to be having to sidle up to al-Qaida and some others that are not-so-savory characters.”

The last Idaho senator to take such an interest in foreign affairs was Democrat Frank Church, who chaired the full committee and led the passage of the Panama Canal treaty. Church, after 24 years, was defeated in 1980 in significant part because Idahoans thought he’d caught “Potomac fever” and lost touch with Idaho.

Risch’s conservative voting may inoculate him from such a malady. But to hear him wax eloquent about life in the Senate makes one wonder if he risks being branded as a dilettante.

With his wife, Vicki, at his side, Risch boasted about her membership on the board of Ford’s Theater, where the couple entertain themselves “relatively frequently.” Last year, Mrs. Risch chaired the luncheon for Michelle Obama, organized by Senate spouses. Their condo is on Pennsylvania Avenue, Risch said, allowing the pleasure of spectating at various misguided protests.

Despite the failure of the Senate to agree on matters vital to the nation’s future, everybody gets along just swell, Risch reports.

“You hear about this toxic atmosphere,” he said, but it’s not like that when senators and their spouses get together. “We talk about our kids, we talk about sports. … Socially, the people are incredibly, incredibly civil to each other.”

Risch brushes off criticism the Senate takes too much time off from Washington. “There’s nothing happening when we’re back there and there’s nothing happening when we’re not back there. What’s the difference?”
He chortles at the toothless threats of Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., to make the Senate work weekends. Said Risch, who spent about two decades as a leader in the Idaho Senate: “Can you imagine if I would have stood up on the floor as the majority leader and said, ‘We’re going to work this Saturday’ and then not do it?”

Risch is nostalgic about his 22 years in the state Senate, 5 1/2 years as lieutenant governor and brief stint as governor. He wishes he could click his heels and transport 105 Idaho lawmakers to Washington. “Put them in charge and they’d straighten this thing out in a couple few months,” he said. “They’ve got common sense. They can understand these things and they actually do stuff.”

What I find odd about Risch’s blithe spirit is how easily he’s adapted after a lifetime of making things happen.
“When you wake up in the morning and you’re governor they hand you a plate and it’s pretty full and they say, ‘Eat this.’ And you’ve got to eat what’s on the plate.

“That’s one of the differences with this job. You can do a lot more of what you want to do. There’s 100 senators, 435 congressmen; we all have our own ideas, our own passions in life. We all have our own interests and you can pursue them.”

Take a look at this snazzy map to see census figures for your county.