"I am not an advocate for frequent changes in laws and constitutions. But laws and institutions must go hand in hand with the progress of the human mind. As that becomes more developed, more enlightened, as new discoveries are made, new truths discovered and manners and opinions change, with the change of circumstances, institutions must advance also to keep pace with the times. We might as well require a man to wear still the coat which fitted him when a boy as civilized society to remain ever under the regimen of their barbarous ancestors." - Thomas Jefferson (appears in the Jefferson Memorial)
Published June 30, 2014 by

An Arkansas lesson

malloy CHUCK
MALLOY
 
In Idaho

Years ago, I bumped into my old boss on an elevator – former Arkansas Congressman Ed Bethune – and he was gushing about how nice it would be to live in Idaho, where Republicans receive such enthusiastic support.

At the time, he never saw such a level of support in Arkansas. Democrats held the kind of stronghold in Arkansas that Republicans have held for so long in Idaho. Bethune, who served three terms in the House of Representatives, was one of the few Republicans who managed to win elections in the late ‘70s and early ‘80s.

It’s no mystery why Democrats were so strong in Arkansas. Gov. Bill Clinton was the pride and joy of the Democratic Party and Hillary, as the first lady, was a rising star. Arguably, the most popular political figure at that time was then-Sen. David Pryor, who also was a former governor. Bethune decided to challenge Pryor for the Senate in 1984, and Pryor won convincingly.

At the time, Democrats seemed to have a dynasty that wouldn’t quit. Today, Arkansas is almost as red as Idaho. Republicans hold all four House seats, one Senate seat and majorities in both chambers of the Legislature. Arkansas also has voted consistently for Republicans in recent presidential elections.

So can Idaho turn from a Republican state to a Democratic state? It’s far too early to take that leap, but there may be at least slight movement in that direction – and especially if Idaho Republicans continue to stumble over themselves. Back in the day, Arkansas Democrats were a pretty arrogant bunch and they took elections for granted. Democratic candidates always talked the conservative game, but their voting records didn’t match their rhetoric. So over time, Republicans became the party of choice in Arkansas. The pattern for Idaho Republicans is much the same. They’re arrogant and tend to take elections for granted. And in the eyes of some, policy records of the likes of Gov. Butch Otter and Rep. Mike Simpson don’t live up to their conservative campaign themes.

A sea change in Idaho wouldn’t be easy for Idaho Democrats. For one thing, Democrats will never out-conservative the GOP in the Gem State. But Democrats could make headway talking about how Idaho’s leadership formula has led to Idaho being near last in education and first in low wages – issues that Sen. Russ Fulcher raised during his narrow loss to Otter in the governor’s race.

Unlike most years, Democrats have a decent shot at winning some big races – including governor. Democratic Candidate A.J. Balukoff is touting a poll that shows the race is a dead heat, and some conservatives are saying they will vote Democratic just to prevent Otter from getting a third term. Rep. Lawerence Denney, the GOP candidate for secretary of state, has more baggage than Sampsonite; his opponent, Rep. Holli Woodings Boise, looks more like a girl scout than a grizzled politician. Democrat Jana Jones, who is running for state superintendent, might have the edge over a Republican candidate who hardly campaigned in the primary. Democrat Deborah Silver could win the treasurer’s race if she can convince enough people that the incumbent, Ron Crane, is incompetent. Former Democratic Congressman Richard Stallings is a formidable challenger to Simpson in the 2nd District.

The Dems still are a long way from winning over the majority of Idahoans, but there’s hope if Republicans don’t get their acts together. If sweeping change can happen in Arkansas, where Arkansans are every bit as independent and stubborn as Idahoans, then it can happen anywhere.

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Malloy

Published June 30, 2014 by

In the briefings

guard training

 
Two Oregon Army National Guard Soldiers with Golf Troop, 141st Brigade Support Battalion, guard an entry control point at the 2-218th Field Artillery Battalion compound at Yakima Training Site, Wash., June 21. Several Oregon Army National Guard units converged on the training site for their two-week annual training cycle. (Photo/Master Sgt. Nick Choy, Oregon Military Department Public Affairs).

 

The federal section is busy this week with congressional action. That may reflect the upcoming congressional recess (over the July 4 period), when congressional news usually slows. Many members of Congress will be back in their home states and district in the coming week, up through July 7 or so.

Next week may be a little quieter, given the long (and Friday-driven) weekend this week for the 4th.

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Briefings

Published June 30, 2014 by

On the front pages

news

Here’s what public affairs news made the front page of newspapers in the Northwest today, excluding local crime, features and sports stories. (Newspaper names contracted with location)

New Idaho laws take effect July 1 (Boise Statesman, Nampa Press Trbune)
Fish and Game studies trout, pelican predation (Boise Statesman)
School budgets can be hard to read (Nampa Press Tribune)
Major Murtaugh pipeline being moved (TF Times News)

Safety questions at skateboard parks (Eugene Register Guard)
Ashland talks pot dispensaries, again (Ashland Tidings)
School at Talent will avoid pesticides (Ashland Tidings)
Teachings saying classes still too large (Medford Tribune)
State consider dental care expansion (Salem Statesman Journal)

Considering market share in mental health (Everett Herald)
Supply shortages for retail pot (Everett Herald)
UW and WSU battle over medical ed (Kennewick Herald)
Sea star wasting disease studied (Longview News)
Sounds Transit wants 25 acres in Bellevue (Seattle Times)
Liquor law change two years on, mixed report (Seattle Times, Yakima Herald Republic)
Washington state looks at escalator rules (Tacoma News Tribune)
Adoptees get more birth record access (Tacoma News Tribune, Vancouver Columbian)

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First Take

Published June 29, 2014 by

When Republicans collapse

idaho RANDY
STAPILUS
 
Idaho

Several weeks ago Marc Johnson, who has been a Boise consultant, press secretary and journalist, wrote a piece of a blog post that has been sticking in my mind these last couple of weeks. It may stick in yours.

The key sentence in it says this: “The near total history of Democratic success in Idaho, dating back to at least Frank Church’s first election in 1956, has its foundation in Republican mistakes.”

He went on to cite a few examples, but many more are available. Let’s recap, starting with Church, the highly capable campaigner who likely would not have won his first Senate race in 1956 but for the weaknesses of incumbent Republican Herman Welker. Welker had been Senator Joe McCarthy’s closest Senate ally, and McCarthy was by 1956 in national disgrace. Coupled with that, Idahoans were seeing Welker had some kind of serious but unacknowledged physical problem that was causing him to behave erratically; it was widely assumed to be alcoholism but was in fact a brain tumor, which killed him not long after the election.

In 1960, Democrat Ralph Harding was able to beat Republican Representative Hamer Budge after Budge had become too enamored of his committee assignments and lost track of his district.

A decade later, Democrat Cecil Andrus thinly beat incumbent Republican Governor Don Samuelson after a long series of small but embarrassing glitches and an overall weak governorship.

In 1984, it took a string of felony convictions to narrowly remove Republican Representative George Hansen in favor of Democrat Richard Stallings.

In 1990, Republican legislators pushed too far for the state’s preference (at the time at least) on abortion legislation, and Democrats did uncommonly well that year, the last time to date that’s been true. That also happened to be the last time Republicans were as internally divided as they are now, though the emotions didn’t run nearly so hot then.

In 1998, Republican Superintendent of Public Instruction Anne Fox was the subject of long strings of negative headlines and criticism, and she lost to Democrat Marilyn Howard, who ran as a capable and low key alternative.

A string of mistakes too in the following decade happened in the single term of Representative Bill Sali, who lost in 2008 to Democrat Walt Minnick.

Taken together, these instances pretty much account for substantial Democratic Idaho wins in the last few decades. A common denominator has been a serious flaw, or flaws, on the Republican side – and a Democratic alternative in place to take advantage when those emerged. (The smooth, functional and harmonious Democratic convention last week at the least gives the impression of a batch of candidates who plausibly could take such advantage.)

Which brings us up to this year, and the question of the moment: Do the Idaho Republicans’ ongoing round of internal battles, some of which have resulted in internationally embarrassing viral moments, have the potential to knock out Republican candidates in this year’s general election? And if so, which?

From here, the jury’s still out.

But I suspect Johnson might agree that the question has become worth asking.

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Idaho Idaho column

Published June 29, 2014 by

On the front pages

news

Here’s what public affairs news made the front page of newspapers in the Northwest today, excluding local crime, features and sports stories. (Newspaper names contracted with location)

Early efforts on natural gas (Boise Statesman, Lewiston Tribune)
Bardenays deals with health care law (Boise Statesman)
Competition heavy for DOE cleanup contracts (IF Post Register)
UI, LCSC dealing with guns on campus (Lewiston Tribune)
Gardner works on smaller Nampa library (Nampa Press Tribune)
Nampa schools at risk for another financial mess (Nampa Press Tribune)
Should kids under 12 be in big game drawing? (Pocatello Journal)
Drones may help with potato research (Pocatello Journal)
Will drones help with firefighting? (TF Times News)

Bilingual proficiency encouraged in OR (Eugene Register Guard)
UO plans improving scholarship with clusters (Eugene Register Guard)
River suction mining may not stay legal (Medford Tribune)
Conflicts over sex harassment reporting law (Medford Tribune)
What if a quake hit LNG operations at Coos? (Portland Oregonian)
Federal money uncertain for coast cleaning (Salem Statesman Journal)

WA still struggling with money for schools (Everett Herald)
Same sex partnerships become marriages (Vancouver Columbian, Kennewick Herald, Longview News)
Pot may be scarce in some WA stores (Longview News)
Liquor still not cheaper after two private years (Seattle Times)
Researching sea star wasting disease (Seattle Times)
State isn’t properly regulating escalators (Tacoma News Tribune)
Gorge Commission makes pitch for money (Vancouver Columbian)

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First Take

Published June 29, 2014 by

Going to extremes

oregon
RANDY STAPILUS / Washington

Washington State University’s weather center has delivered one of its periodic reports on weather changes (much of it is in the Weather section in this issue) and this one, like many of them in recent years, has become compelling reading.
There’s this for example:

“In a span of three years, Washingtonians have experienced both extremes of spring weather. In 2011, the state lived through one of the coolest early growing seasons on record, only to see one of the warmest in recent memory in 2014.”

The state has been whipsawed over the last few years and even in the most recent season. It went from unseasonably warm weather at the beginning of spring to cool and wet, quickly – and the landslide at Oso on the Stillaguamish River may have been attributable in part to just that change.

And then there was this:

“A major heat wave at the end of April caused the high temperature at Long Beach to rise from 58 degrees on April 28 to 88 degrees on April 30. The sweltering reading shattered the previous April record by 12 degrees and marked the warmest temperature since September 2012.

“On May 1, the heat spread eastward and Seattle spiked to 89 degrees. However, a return to onshore flow allowed the daily high to decrease to a more seasonable 69 degrees on May 2.”

Makes you wonder what’s ahead for this year’s summer.

And over the span of the next few years, because these whipsaws have been becoming more pronounced with time.

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Washington Washington column

Published June 28, 2014 by

What they use on the farm

oregon
RANDY STAPILUS / Oregon

The chemistry of farming is becoming an unexpectedly heated subject of discussion which is about to go deeply political.

The issue of genetic modification has already gone political, of course, notably in Jackson and Josephine Counties, where voters chose to ban those substances. (The vote was advisory only in Josephine, since state law didn’t allow a by-county change anywhere but Jackson.)

That issue going statewide, with either legislative or ballot issue action almost surely just around the bend.

Then there’s the matter of pesticides, which have been popping up in headlines around the state more and more.

You’ll note in this issue, for example, the Department of Agriculture is taking additional steps to protect bees and other pollinators from exposure to specific pesticide products following multiple incidents of bee deaths this summer. In adopting a temporary rule, ODA is prohibiting the use of pesticide products containing the active ingredients dinotefuran and imidacloprid on linden trees or other species of Tilia.

Then there were the reports out of Eugene contending that trees which were treated with certain types of chemicals (mainly with the idea of protection against pests) sprayed on to trees could do harm to bee populations in the areas where the trees were replanted.

What seems to be changing about some of this, and is taking the issue more directly political, is the distribution element. Some groups of people long have been critics of various types of chemicals or bioengineering, but those complaints were not likely to become a big political deal as long as the people (and plants, and animals) affected by them were only those already inside a system of mutual agreement – contracting partners of some type. When wind can blow the substances elsewhere, making non-participants unwitting and unwilling participants, a totally new legal element has been introduced.

A new set of standards will be needed to cope with this. It may be coming soon.

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Oregon Oregon column

Published June 28, 2014 by

On the front pages

news

Here’s what public affairs news made the front page of newspapers in the Northwest today, excluding local crime, features and sports stories. (Newspaper names contracted with location)

Minnick pursues tax cases over land donation (Boise Statesman)
Simpson backs keeping Dubois sheep station (IF Post Register)
State transportation holds off 80 mph speeds (IF Post Register, Nampa Press Tribune, TF Times News, Pocatello Journal)
Payette forest rescinds gold mine permit (Lewiston Tribune)
Vaccination exemption rate high in Whitman County (Moscow News)
Backgrounding Idaho’s concealed carry law (Moscow News)
Colleges change rules on textbook purchases (Nampa Press Tribune)
Results unchanged in same sex bias Pocatello ballot (Pocatello Journal)
Water resources sets plan for Rangen water call (TF Times News)
Reviewing noxious weed control in Magic Valley (TF Times News)

ODOT tries dodging I-5 trouble at Drain (Eugene Register Guard)
Groundbreaking on Eugene veteran center (Eugene Register Guard)
Shutoff notices issued to some in Klamath (KF Herald & News)
Mercury possible in Applegate Lake fish (Ashland Tidings)
Kitzhaber at Pendleton round table (Pendleton E Oregonian)
ConAgra Lamb Weston expands at Boardman (Pendleton E Oregonian)
Attack on secretary state web site from Asia (Portland Oregonian)
PERS court battle continues (Salem Statesman Journal)

ConAgra expands Boardman plant, fries line (Kennewick Herald)
Columbia Reach center opens at Richland (Kennewick Herald)
Army may cut 16,000 at Lewis-McChord (Longview News)
WA adoptees get more access to birth records (Seattle Times)
Bee specialists hopeful of rebound (Seattle Times)
Tacoma Narrows bridge toll rises again (Tacoma News Tribune)
SW Washington rail still below normal (Vancouver Columbian)
Derailment of rail tank carrying asphalt (Vancouver Columbian)
Union Gap pays nearly $1m to former employee (Yakima Herald Republic)

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First Take

Published June 27, 2014 by

On the front pages

news

Here’s what public affairs news made the front page of newspapers in the Northwest today, excluding local crime, features and sports stories. (Newspaper names contracted with location)

New mental health crisis operation in IF (IF Post Register, Pocatello Journal)
Engineering firm Fluor opens IF office (IF Post Register)
Lewiston urban renewal cuts back on projects (Lewiston Tribune)
Idaho GOP has just Peterson left (Lewiston Tribune, Pocatello Journal)
Will McCleary lead to state fund cuts to counties? (Moscow News)
UI students, not security, will have guns (Moscow News)
Idahoans are heavy wine drinkers (Nampa Press Tribune)
Neighbors blast property owner’s junk (Nampa Press Tribune)
Light foot militia meets at TF (TF Times News)

Counties go after tax non-payers (Eugene Register Guard)
Eugene school chief departure a suprises some (Eugene Register Guard)
KF merger on public safety services possible (KF Herald & News)
New BBQ place in Ashland (Ashland Tidings)
Medford still reviews penalties for dog owners (Medford Tribune)
Fed regulators respond to senators on oil trains (Pendleton E Oregonian)
Morrow County Courthouse gets dome back (Pendleton E Oregonian)
OR secretary state site hacked from Asia? (Portland Oregonian)
Petitions for legal pot initiative placed (Portland Oregonian)
Bee die-off leads to pesticide bans (Salem Statesman Journal)

Pot sales tax sets up in Black Diamond (Everett Herald)
Half-million donated for ridge trail effort (Kennewick Herald)
Drinking water study approved at Longview (Longview News)
WA high court reviews SeaTac minimum wage rule (Longview News)
Russell Investments sold to British firm (Seattle Times)
Salaries holding even in Spokane schools (Spokane Spokesman)
Lewis-McChord may face troop reductions (Tacoma News Tribune)
Court will decide rights in psychiatric boarding (Tacoma News Tribune)
Diminishing car thefts in Yakima area (Yakima Herald Republic)

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First Take

Published June 26, 2014 by

Family values

carlson CHRIS
CARLSON
 
Carlson
Chronicles

A steadily growing trend in political television advertising is the appearance of a candidate’s mother, spouse, daughter, son or his entire immediate family, all testifying to what a good person the candidate is. And yes, almost always it is a male candidate running these family testimonials.

Even the family dog can get drawn into the net. A few years back in the neighboring Fifth congressional district (Spokane), Congressman George Nethercutt prominently featured the family dog in his television commercials.

It used to be that just a picture of the candidate’s family would appear in a print ad or a brochure. Such pictures were designed to help the voter identify with the candidate. “See, I’m a normal person with a spouse, kids, pets, an old beater of a car, a mortgage and bills, just like you,” the ad would imply. Therefore vote for me because I know your challenges and I can feel your pain (As Bill Clinton famously said).

Such family testimonials must work at some level because media consultants would not be utilizing them if polling didn’t tell them that many voters accept such ads at face value. This is a classic case of myth-making overcoming reality.

It is also a classic case of a political aspirant using loved ones as props to feed the candidate’s ego and ambition. Often it is unseemly and demeaning, especially when the long-suffering spouse is asked to stand behind her man despite his blatant infidelity and is expected to look into the camera and testify that she still loves her spouse and please give them a zone of privacy to work through their difficulty.

Most of us recoil at such maudlin scenes and instinctively feel sorry for the spouse being asked to endure the public humiliation. Deep down most of us know also there is no such entity as a normal person nor a normal family nor a normal marriage.

We know that every marriage has its challenges. Couples have to work through these challenges together if they are to keep growing together. To pretend that maintaining the appearance of a normal family is somehow proof that if one can manage a fmaily they can manage a state is patently absurd.

Families and relationships are dynamic entities full of divegent, ever-changing personalities, and truth be told, most families have their dysfunctional aspects.

One thing we do know for sure is a spouse knows our weaknesses better than anyone else. We also know that it is just plain wrong for one spouse to expect the other to sacrifice their self-esteem, goals and ambitions on the altar of the other’s ambitions.

The smartest move I ever made was to marry my wife. On June 12th we will celebrate 44 years of marriage. We met when I was teaching at Kootenai High School and she was in Nursing school at Sacred Heart Hospital in Spokane. The daughter of a hard-working, sometimes hard drinking north Idaho gyppo logger, she is one of nine children.

Her mother did not think the marriage would last because we seemed so different, a classic case of opposites attracting. I was gregarious and outgoing¸ she is shy and quiet, for example.

One of the critical keys to our marriage is good communications.

Two examples of her ability to communicate clearly:

Right after we were married I accepted a job in Washington, D.C. as a newspaper correspondent for the Anchorage Daily News. After about 20 months in D.C., I received a call from Cecil Andrus inviting me to Boise to discuss possibly going to work for him.

The day I flew out to interview as she dropped me off at National Airport she looked me in the eye and said, “I don’t care if he offers you a janitorship. You take it. I want to go home.” We went home.

A few years later I came through the door towards the end of my tenure with Andrus and asked the dear wife what would she think if I were to run for some statewide office back in Idaho?

By then we had four children, a mortgage and all the other challenges that come with raising a family. Once again she looked me square in the eye, then quietly said, “The day you file, I file.” I was pretty sure she didn’t mean she’d be running against me.

She was absolutely correct though. Raising four kids requires both parents on the scene and she wasn´about to be a sacrificial lamb on any altar of dear old hubby’s posssible ambitions.

Deep down, I knew she was correct. I love, admire and respect her all the more for telling me, all too often, I’m afraid, what I need to hear not what I want to hear. Happy 44th dear!

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Carlson

Published June 26, 2014 by

On the front pages

news

Here’s what public affairs news made the front page of newspapers in the Northwest today, excluding local crime, features and sports stories. (Newspaper names contracted with location)

Boise launches children’s bike trail (Boise Statesman)
DOE shows master plan for INL waste cleanup (IF Post Register)
Sheep station at Dubois loses federal funding (IF Post Register)
Campus gun law draws varied responses (Moscow News)
Moscow teachers, districts still stuck on contract (Moscow News)
Latah economic development group wants expansion (Moscow News)
Nampa library repurposesd for veterans (Nampa Press Tribune)
Ag-gag ruling expected soon (Nampa Press Tribune)
No inquiry into Bergdahl issues yet (Lewiston Tribune, Nampa Press Tribune)
Raving committee sessions in GOP fight (TF Times News)
Hailey tries to refocus on tourism (TF Times News)

Corvallis still mulls railroad right of way (Corvallis Gazette)
Eugene schools chief leaves after next year (Eugene Register Guard)
Chemicals on some trees may be killing bees (Eugene Register Guard)
Portland lawyer key in Scotus cell phone decision (Portland Oregonian)
State buys 357 acres on coast (Salem Statesman Journal)
PGE seeks to build solar power plant near Salem (Salem Statesman Journal)

Sliding is continuing along Stillaguamish (Everett Herald)
Property condemned for new Snohomish courthouse (Everett Herald)
New Delta High School sees groundbreaking (Kennewick Herald)
Wanapum Dam cracks to be repaired this year (Kennewick Herald)
Longview business mixes coffee, pot (Longview News)
Peninsula involved in orca study (Seattle Times, Post Angeles News)
Boeing execs explain recent cutbacks (Seattle Times)
New Seattle police chief O’Toole, union talk (Seattle Times)
Pot retailers to open July 8; supplied? (Spokane Spokesman, Tacoma News Tribune)
Amtrak, old rail station bumping heads? (Tacoma News Tribune)
Killing hoof rot infected elk (Vancouver Columbian)

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First Take

Published June 25, 2014 by

Maybe June was great for Labrador

peterson MARTIN
PETERSON
 

The consensus seems to be that June was a disaster for first district Congressman Raul Labrador. First he presided over what most people are saying was the worst and least productive Republic state convention in Idaho’s history. Then he ran for House Majority Leader and appears to have been soundly trounced.

If his long-range plans call for building a career as an influential member of Congress, or for running for higher office, then the month was largely a disaster. But what if his long-range plans have goals unrelated to remaining in elective office?

The truth is, Labrador hasn’t seemed to be strongly driven by the need to deliver measurable results to his district, other than occasionally jumping on the bandwagon in support of legislation being sponsored by other members of Idaho’s delegation. Certainly not the way that former senators Jim McClure, Frank Church and Larry Craig were driven to address constituent needs. Nor the way that his second district counterpart Mike Simpson has been able to focus on strengthening the Idaho National Laboratory or trying to address issues related to wilderness.

Rather, most of his focus has been on pushing for a Congress that is philosophically true to the most conservative political dogma of the day. And he has been unflinching in this, with few exceptions. So unflinching that it has endeared him to many of the most conservative elements of our country. This unbending support of the far right philosophy and his natural ability to communicate in a calm and pleasant way has made him a favorite of the media.

Given all of this, why might June have been a great month for him? As chair of the state Republican convention, he was able to effectively work with the tea party group to keep the “regular” Republicans from controlling any element of the convention and actually keeping the delegations from two of Idaho’s largest counties, Ada and Bannock, from being seated. He was also able to assist in bringing far right standard bearers Rand Paul and Mike Huckabee to address the convention. While the convention accomplished absolutely nothing, the party gave no ground to those representing centrist Republican thought, even though tea party challengers were defeated by centrists in all but one statewide primary race.

The race for House Majority Leader was also an opportunity for Labrador to demonstrate that he is true to the interests of the far right. He was unafraid to take on the existing House leadership, along with most of the rest of the House, to voice his concerns about the need for the party and the House to shift much farther to the right, even though it likely further marginalized him as an effective House member.

So, given all of that, how does Labrador come out a winner?

He comes out a winner if, at some point, he contemplates leaving elective office and pursuing a career more financially lucrative than being either a Congressman or an Idaho immigration attorney. Former Senator Jim DeMint from South Carolina followed this course, leaving his $174,000 a year Senate seat and becoming head of the Heritage Foundation earning over $1 million a year. According to reports filed with the IRS, leaders of seven prominent conservative groups average salaries well in excess of $500,000 a year.

The billionaire Koch brothers pump hundreds of millions of dollars into such organizations, including, in addition to the Freedom Foundation, Freedom Works, Heritage Action, Americans for Prosperity and Freedom Partners. The Koch brothers probably see little to disagree with in Congressman Labrador. In fact Freedom Works supported his candidacy for House Majority Leader.

Labrador is comfortable before both the camera and microphone and has become something of a national media favorite when it comes to the far right. He has appeared on most of the major national news programs and has made repeat performances on some Sunday talk shows, such as Meet the Press. In fact, during his brief campaign for Majority Leader, he indicated that one the strengths he had over his opponent, Congressman Kevin McCarthy, was his ability to work effectively with the news media.

So another financially lucrative path that could be open to the Congressman is would to join the ranks of former elected officials such as former Congressmen Newt Gingrich and Joe Walsh, and former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee who have become highly paid broadcast personalities. In fact, in late March, Congressman Mike Rogers, chair of the powerful House Intelligence Committee, announced that he was resigning both his chairmanship and his House seat to become a radio talk show host.

Although Glenn Beck, another talk show host, has never held elective office, he and Labrador are cut from much the same cloth and appeal to similar audiences. According to journalist Zev Chafets, Beck’s annual income “is greater than the combined salaries of the entire U.S. Senate – and you can toss in a few dozen congressman and cabinet secretaries for good measure.”

Labrador’s wife and five children have remained in Idaho, perhaps largely because of the expense of housing and living in the Washington, DC area. If at some point he decides to leave the House and accept a high paying job with one of the options I have suggested, June 2014 will probably be viewed as a great month that helped make it all possible.

Marty Peterson is a native of the Lewiston Clarkston Valley. He is retired and lives in Boise.

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Peterson