Press "Enter" to skip to content
Careers of ridicule and dread

Careers of ridicule and dread

April 13, 2024

One of the truly astounding features of the last half-dozen years of American politics is how willingly so many Republican politicians have debased themselves in service to the man who now owns the GOP lock, stock and criminal liability.

The Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg wrote a fascinating — and ultimately deeply disturbing — piece this week about this phenomenon by focusing on Sen. Rob Portman, a generally well respected, often serious and very conservative politician from Ohio who retired at the close of 2022.

Goldberg interviewed Portman in front of a live audience not quite two years ago on the same day a Trump White House aide, Cassidy Hutchinson, testified before the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, assault on the U.S. Capitol. You may recall — or, if you’re inclined, you may have dismissed — Hutchison’s chilling testimony.

As a young aide to then-White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, Hutchinson, displaying remarkable courage and calm, told the House committee of former President Donald Trump watching impassively as the mob, attacking the Capitol, chanted “Hang Mike Pence.” She testified that Trump thought his vice president deserved that fate because Pence refused to violate the Constitution in order to keep Trump in office even though he had lost both the popular vote and the Electoral College.

Did Portman, hearing such first-hand testimony, regret that he had voted to acquit Trump in his second impeachment trial in 2021, Goldberg wanted to know? That trial was, of course, a turning point in American history where the Republican Party might have, with impeccable and urgent reason, banned an insurrectionist from ever holding office again.

Portman never really answered Goldberg’s question but instead became indignant that a journalist had the audacity to ask such a question.

“It would be unfair to blame Portman disproportionately for the devastating reality that Donald Trump, who is currently free on bail but could be a convicted felon by November, is once again a candidate for president,” Goldberg wrote. “The Republican leader in the Senate, Mitch McConnell, denounced Trump for his actions on January 6, and yet still voted to acquit him. Trump’s continued political viability is as much McConnell’s fault as anyone’s.”

But here’s the thing: Portman knew he was debasing himself in front of the reality of Trump’s lies and incitement of violence, yet he debased himself willingly. Portman, who worked in the George H.W. Bush White House, knows about the value of character in politics, but he chose to ignore Trump’s lack of character.

At one level, this degree to suspension of belief is a great case study in human psychology. How does a person, experienced and smart, capable of critical thinking and understanding basic right and wrong, decide to ignore what looms right in front of him?

Portman, like Idaho Sen. Mike Crapo and several others, withdrew his endorsement of Trump after the “Access Hollywood” tape became public in 2016 — Trump boasted of grabbing women by the genitals, a certain “high” point in American political history — but Portman (and Crapo) eventually came back around and willingly supported a sexual abuser for president.

Nothing, it seems, absolutely nothing is beyond the pale when it comes to Republican officeholders debasing themselves in order to stay, even temporarily, on the right side of Trump.

Nothing. Not the praise of dictators like Russia’s Vladimir Putin or Hungary’s Viktor Orbán, not the unprecedented indictments, not the former president’s outrageous attacks on judges, prosecutors and their families, not the increasingly blatant incitement of violence against his opponents, not the promise to pardon those convicted for assaulting police officers on January 6, not the civil conviction for sexual assault, not the family takeover of the Republican National Committee in order to pay his legal bills — nothing, absolutely nothing constitutes a red line for the Debasement Caucus.

So what is to be said about timid men like Crapo, Portman and so many others? Many, like career politician Crapo, are clinging to power so they dare not follow normal political instincts and abandon their authoritarian leader. Normal would be, of course, to distance oneself from a many-time-indicted, violence-spouting insurrectionist.

Other Republicans hide behind the fiction that somehow President Joe Biden presents a greater danger to the country than a man attacking judges and threatening to set free criminals who assault cops, a greater danger than a man who makes excuses for Putin and threatens to destroy a finally recovering U.S. economy by imposing sweeping tariffs that really will hit every American pocketbook.

The hyperpartisan nonsense that a steady, experienced political veteran is a greater danger to Americans than a twice-impeached grifter who will soon be the first former president to ever face a criminal trial is routinely spouted by Republicans like Idaho Senator James Risch and South Dakota Senator John Thune. But this line of argument is so blatantly flimsy as to further debase those who peddle it.

Republicans are obviously entitled to their policy differences with Biden. But to consider him a greater threat than Trump is to inhabit a la-la land of partisan fantasy.

Others who stand with Trump in the face of a mountain of evidence as to his venality are surely just afraid — afraid — of having the MAGA mob unleashed on them or their families. It’s a logical fear. But fear that doing the right thing will be uncomfortable or career-ending is simple cowardice. But when you have no red line, or the line continually moves, cowardice and the acquiesces that comes with it becomes a way of life.

Meanwhile, some Wall Street CEOs who thought Trump was done after January 6 and somehow found the courage then to distance themselves are back in the fold and writing big checks to pay his lawyers and fuel his campaign. There is no red line when it comes to the wealthiest among us putting their fortunes ahead of the country’s democracy.

All this is reminiscent of the death stages of Weimar Germany when, as recounted in Eric Vuillard’s brilliant book, The Order of the Day, 24 of Germany’s top corporate chieftains assembled in Berlin in February 1933 to bless and finance the election of a man they all disdained, but believed would be useful to them, their futures and fortunes.

The man who won that election was a sociopath, a virulent racist and the instigator of a failed coup. But he promised a return to order and stability and to conduct a war against democratic institutions. He would Make Germany Great Again, and then would destroy it.

“We never fall twice into the same abyss,” Vuillard wrote of these enablers of another time, “but we always fall the same way, in a mixture of ridicule and dread.”

As The Atlantic’s Goldberg notes, just 10 Republican senators could have reclaimed their party and ended their own nightmare by convicting Trump for his actions on January 6. That they did not will be their legacy — and ours. Theirs indeed are careers of ridicule and dread.

 

A 1990 redux?

A 1990 redux?

April 12, 2024

The idea pops up with some regularity: In Idaho politics, could 2024 turn into another 1990 - or maybe an echo of it?

Idaho Democrats, current and former Idahoans, who recall or know of what happened in 1990, and why, are pondering if some of the conditions might be in place for something similar this year.

Cutting to the chase: Probably not. But there’s a possibility of it, depending on developments between here and November.

For those less attuned to the political history from a quarter century ago, a refresher.

The big topic in the 1990 legislature was abortion, at a time when many Idaho Republicans wanted a frontal challenge to Roe v. Wade. After considering various options, and in the glare of national attention, the legislature passed a bill crafted by the National Right to Life Committee to ban most abortions. Its terms were similar to but not quite as strict as laws now effective in many states (including Idaho). There was widespread understanding that the 1990 law ran afoul of Roe, but its backers hoped the Supreme Court would use it as a lever to reverse the earlier decision (something like what actually happened in 2022).

Governor Cecil Andrus, who often expressed personal opposition to most abortions, received many more comments in opposition to the bill than in favor, and vetoed it. He warned that the state would be on the hook for big legal costs over a bill likely to fail in the courts. And: “The bill is drawn so narrowly that it would punitively and without compassion further harm an Idaho woman who may find herself in the horrible, unthinkable position of confronting a pregnancy that resulted from rape and incest.”

No one was certain what would happen in the Idaho elections in the months ahead: Would Republicans opposed to abortion see their fortunes rise and oust Andrus? Or might it work the other way?

Um, the other way. Andrus won his fourth term in a landslide (68.2% of the vote, way up from about 50% four years earlier). In the state Senate, Republicans lost two critical seats reducing them to a tie with the Democrats. (The Republican lieutenant governor, C.L. “Butch” Otter, broke ties, ensuring continuing GOP control.) The change was bigger in the House, where Republicans went from 64 to 56 seats. Many key legislators, mostly well-established incumbents in solidly Republican districts, behind the abortion bill either were defeated or had close calls.  Republicans lost the first congressional district and the attorney general’s office. It was the best year for Idaho Democrats since 1958.

After that election, in a 1992 reference book, I pondered: “1990 would not have been so favorable for Democrats except that so many voters were talking so much about abortion so much of the year, and used it as a litmus test. Abortion may be back in 1992 if the U.S. Supreme Court overturns the landmark case of Roe v. Wade; but a chastened Idaho legislature may be able to sidestep it by simply not bringing forth abortion bills.”

Of course the Supreme Court didn’t overturn Roe until the year before last, and the Idaho Legislature mostly kept clear of abortion legislation for years to come. Starting in 1992, Idaho moved sharply Republican, where it has stayed since.

Now, Roe has been overturned, and the Idaho Legislature has become more anti-abortion than ever before. So: Might some of what happened in 1990 repeat this year?

The main and short answer is, probably not, in large part because Idaho has changed. If the state was mostly Republican back around 1990, it has become much more so, and much more partisan, since.

Still. This is the first year in many when Idaho Democrats have managed to fill more than half of the legislative ballot slots with candidates. Abortion has made a significant difference in a number of elections in states around the nation, not least in deeply red states.

Keep it in the back of your mind as the campaign season begins.

Medical school

Medical school

April 11, 2024

I attended a town hall meeting with two of my elected legislative representatives a while back. Only two of the three who represent me were in attendance. The absent was my State Senator, Dan Foreman.

He beat me in 2016 (Trump-Hillary), then lost in 2018, probably because he couldn’t control his temper. But he bounced back. Maybe he’s figured out public interactions don’t suit him. That’s just Idaho Republican politics.

Instead, I want to talk about another of my representatives.

Representative Brandon Mitchell voiced an interesting idea. It’s an old, tired, worn idea that might have some credibility, given Idaho’s recent explosive growth. But I doubt he has much understanding of the history of this idea.

He suggested it might be time for Idaho to be considering establishing its own medical school. This is a guy who represents a district where there are currently 80 medical students residing. All are tax-paying voters, I presume.

Idaho shares in a consortium with the University of Washington School of Medicine. That consortium is called WWAMI, which stands for the participating states: Washington, Wyoming, Alaska, Montana, and Idaho. The states shell out cash to UWSOM to make medical school seats available for their residents. Applicants must prove their Idaho residency, then get charged in state tuition for their four years of training. Idaho taxpayers shell out the difference between tuition and the full cost of the education.

This program started back in the 1970’s. Full disclosure, I am a graduate of this program, back in the stone age. We puked and bled our patients.

But Representative Mitchell’s idea might possibly serve Idaho if we had any kind of sticking power.

But it would definitely not serve his district. Maybe he’s seeing the bigger picture. I don’t really know. He doesn’t respond to my emails.

I just drove across South Dakota. It has less population than Idaho and its own very decentralized medical school. It proudly claims to produce doctors for their rural needs. I googled the heck out of their budget documents but could not find what South Dakota taxpayers fork over to fund this program.

They must be happy with it.

Wyoming wasn’t. They had a medical school for a while but dropped it to become the second “W” in the WWAMI program. It was too expensive, and they weren’t getting the product they needed. States should be critical about how they spend their money and pay attention to what they get for the dollar. Wyoming was and joined WWAMI.

Idaho should be critical too. But what do you count?

Idaho’s current yearly funding for WWAMI is about $7.5M. That supports 40 Idaho medical students a year. These students also pay their share of their tuition coming to $55K a year per.

For South Dakota medical students it’s only $32K a year.

You can see that the numbers are piling up here. And we haven’t even discussed the cost of a cadaver lab.

Facilities are the capital costs. But, if you build them, maybe they will come.

Remember, Idaho already has a private, for-profit medical school subsidized by Idaho taxpayers because of a cheap, 60-year lease agreement made by our previous governor.

Idaho College of Medicine is down in Meridian, churning out Doctors of Osteopathy. Their tuition is significantly less than UWSOM. They seem to be doing great. Why isn’t this the model we should be following? Capitalism solves all public needs through the invisible hand, right?

Only WWAMI graduates are required to come back to Idaho, under current law. Doesn’t that solve our shortage? Unless we keep driving them away, maybe.

Will Idaho doctors be from UWSOM taxpayer supported, or ICOM, the free market variety?

These are twisted concepts that require vision.

Representative Mitchell’s idea to build an Idaho medical school will send 80 of his voters to Boise. And all the funding that goes along with them.

Who is he working for? Not his district.

 

Review: What It takes

Review: What It takes

April 10, 2024

The book What It Takes: The Way to the White House, by Richard Ben Cramer, came out in 1992, and I originally read it not too long after - somewhere around, in other words, 30 years ago. For various reasons it seemed  a good idea to give it another spin, and it was. Would be for you, too.

I don't say that lightly, because the book sure isn't light either, running well over 1,000 pages. But it has resonance today, both directly and because the backboard for thought it offers.

The context is the presidential campaign, underway now; and the presidential campaign of 1988, which is the subject of the book as seen through the eyes and lives of six of its participants. The idea here was to work out what it takes to run for president - or at least, that's how most of it reads: What it takes to actually do the job of president as opposed to campaign for it is, of course, a very different story.

All of these candidates were well-known at the time, and all were major contenders, but two probably have the most connection to Americans now. One was the candidate who went all the way and became president, for one term, George H.W. Bush. The other is our president as of 2024: Joseph R. Biden.

The book is structured as a loose interior group biography, shifting from one candidate to another, sometimes comparing and contrasting, sometimes simply bouncing around, but written in a style neither academic nor journalistic but instead intended to reflect the different mindset and personalities of the candidates. You can quickly tell, for example, if you're reading about Robert Dole as opposed Dick Gephardt just from the tone and the word choices. For Bush, for example, while there are scary and even near-death experiences (when his plane was shot down in the Pacific) and tragedy (the death of his infant daughter), much of the sensibility reflects a take on the world that things come together as they should, and things just wonderfully fit together. Most of the time.

The Biden story is almost a variation on that, but a distinct variation. Unlike Bush, Biden came from a background much closer to hard-scrabble, but his sense of confidence and optimism suffuses, most of the time, everything else. The shattering tragedy he faced in the book's narrative - the death in a traffic accident of his first wife and daughter, shortly after his first election to the U.S. Senate - does not seem to have changed his fundamental stance toward life: He knew where he was supposed to go, what he was supposed to do, and what it would look like and feel like when he got there. He envisioned himself from an early age as becoming president, and simply never let anything get in the way.

(That was not true only about the presidency. A revealing and even hilarious section concerned a house he bought around the time of his Senate election and the almost wild lengths he went to to get it the way he wanted it. Or somewhere close ...)

What It Takes isn't a true bio of any of the six candidates (the others I haven't mentioned was Gary Hart, who had his own spectacular collapse story in that election cycle, and Michael Dukakis, who won the Democratic nomination but lost the general election to Bush) it does get inside their heads enough to press a reader into considering, at length: What makes a person do this? Why run? What's the motivation, what keeps it going, and what does it take to prosper in such a difficult environment in which there can be, after all, only one winner?

The Biden sections (certainly nowhere near a hagiography but not terribly critical either) are worth a fresh review, in the context of that long-ago election, today because of this election year. But it's also worth using what that 1988 campaign has to suggest abut Biden's Republican opponent today, and what it takes to run for the presidency ... and fulfill the responsibility, once won.

 

Hawking bibles

Hawking bibles

April 9, 2024

A multiple, criminally-charged, former President of these United States is hawking Bibles for $59.99.

Leather, embossed, Declaration of Independence, copy of the U.S. Constitution.  King James version.  All for just $59.99.  Probably autographed by a former President facing four criminal trials.

What a deal!

What a national - even international - embarrassment!

Donald John Trump could not have attached himself to anything further from his true personality and proclivities than a leather-covered Bible and all that book means to millions upon millions of Christians.

A real stroke of demented marketing genius.  Oh, yeah!

Just when you think the Trump-backed shell game couldn't reach further down in the barrel, comes this shameful demagoguery.

"Demagoguery" is the absolute kindest noun you can attach to DJT's flailing dissolution.

This guy belongs in a stone-cold, four-walled cell instead of the top floors of his babel-filled apartment in NYC.

Hawking Bibles is something so far out for even him, it's a real oxymoron.

Bibles?  Really?

Yes, really.

At the moment, recognizing the guy's highly successful stalling abilities, it seems unlikely he'll see the inside of a prison cell in our lifetimes.  Club Fed, maybe.  Eventually.  But, not "hard" time.

You'll remember he's got 91 felonies attached to him and, at some future date(s), more than one courtroom appearance.

Millions would like to see one or more of those sessions result in some of that "hard" time.  As a nation, we're entitled, as payback for the years and years of putting up with the ongoing media fascination resulting in his daily presence in our lives.

It's pure speculation - well, almost pure - that prosecutors from several states are trying to figure out how to work around his earned status as a "former President."  I'm sure that title is giving heartburn to some in our justice system.  Who's going to make the first call to put a former President before the local bar of justice?

My money's on that Georgia prosecutor - Miss Willis.  She seems to have enough facts for several indictments.  It's a good bet she has her evidence lined up, given her solid public appearances.  She'd have to before saying a word to the assembled media.  She doesn't want the embarrassment of a "not guilty" verdict after several years of taxpayer-funded staff work.

She doesn't strike folks as an attention-seeking, lowball hack looking for more publicity than she's getting.  She already has a police detail for protection at her office and home.

So much for "attention-seeking."  I'd guess she'd be more than happy to get back to being just the prosecutor for DeKalb County and enjoying the privacy she previously had.

We're told Trump's Georgia trial(s) will be televised.  Best guess is it'll be You Tube.  Streaming, too, probably.  Which should produce some unexpected revenues for cable and satellite companies.

So, crack open a cold one and get your hands on the popcorn.  Sounds like it'll be a highly-updated version of the old Roman trials.

 

Will Labrador address the court?

Will Labrador address the court?

April 8, 2024

April 24 could be a critical turning point in Raul Labrador's tenure as Idaho Attorney General–an opportunity to shine on the national stage. That is the day scheduled for oral argument in the U.S. Supreme Court (SCOTUS) on Idaho’s restrictive abortion laws, which criminalize emergency abortion care unless “necessary to prevent the death of the pregnant woman.” Labrador wants the Court to rule that the Idaho law takes precedence over a federal statute requiring hospital emergency room physicians to provide “necessary stabilizing treatment” when an ER patient’s health is in danger. That includes emergency abortion services for dangerous pregnancy conditions.

Labrador has been subject to criticism, including from me, for the way he has politicized the office. If he decides to personally argue this case and makes a competent and convincing case to the high court, it could certainly put him in a more favorable light.

One of the rare privileges of being a state attorney general is to have the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to argue before the Supreme Court. Only the faint hearted or unqualified would turn it down. I had three such opportunities during my service as Attorney General and consider them to be the high point of my legal career.

More than a personal achievement, a masterful argument by a state attorney general can add some heft to the state’s side of the case. I expect that the Court will be closely divided on this case and a competent argument could tip the balance to Labrador.

The case has drawn a great deal of interest across the country and it will be closely watched. Dozens of friend-of-the-court briefs have been filed in support of both sides of the case. I believe that 24 other state attorneys general, who oppose Labrador’s position, have stated a much better case. They correctly contend that “when a decision needs to be made in an emergency medical situation, that decision should be made by the patient, not dictated by the government.”

Even though I disagree with his position, Labrador owes it to his supporters to step forward and personally argue the case to the Justices. He has made this a signature issue, milking his opposition to the federal law for all it is worth. Many of his claims are flat wrong, including that the federal law forces ER doctors to perform abortions and that Idaho’s law protects the lives of women. A number of Idaho women who developed dangerous pregnancy conditions strongly disagree and have sued the state over those abortion restrictions, claiming it is “unsafe to be pregnant in Idaho.”

Recognizing problems with the severe restrictions of Idaho abortion laws, several legislators promised to address the issue this year. Representative Brent Crane said last year that legislators would “do more work to define what constitutes a risk to a mother’s life” this year. He also said, “It has to be fixed.” The 2024 legislative session did not see any real effort to address the issue, leaving women with pregnancy complications in a dangerous limbo. A credible source reports that key legislators were asked to hold off action to fix the law until after the April 24 SCOTUS hearing.

It is hard to understand what a delay in fixing Idaho’s restrictive law would have to do with the April hearing, unless it was based on an unfounded fear that a fix might undercut the State’s case or might, at minimum, detract from Labrador’s build-up of the case as a clash of titans.

Regardless of the politics behind the case, Mr. Labrador has the right to choose who will make the SCOTUS argument for his part of the case (the Idaho Legislature will be represented by other attorneys in a companion case–a clear case of costly double teaming). He can personally argue the case, which would give him the chance to strut his stuff and prove his worth. Or he could palm off the job to someone else who would not have the authority of his elected office. I doubt that he’ll put himself under the gun.

 

Next steps on campaign finance

Next steps on campaign finance

April 7, 2024

They said it couldn’t be done, but Oregon will finally more closely resemble most other states in how it regulates campaign finance. Thanks to a bill passed during the just-wrapped legislative session, contributions to state candidates will no longer be able to stretch to infinity.

House Bill 4024, which Gov. Tina Kotek signed, takes effect in 2027. That is cause for celebration.

But Oregonians should keep their expectations in line and take personal responsibility for tracking campaign funding – data available online – for holding candidates accountable for what they receive and what they do with that money.

And policymakers should start focusing on steps Oregon can take to actively move the state toward the top ranks among finance regulators.

The weakness of Oregon’s current campaign finance rules was underscored by a Feb. 15 contribution of $2 million by Nike co-founder  – and Oregon’s wealthiest person – Phil Knight to the Bring Balance to Salem PAC, which aims to elect Republicans. The contribution was only the latest million-dollar donation from the billionaire, less than a third of the total he has given to the Balance group atop major contributions in the 2022 governor’s race.

And yet even those amounts are swamped by the biggest political contribution Oregon has ever seen, which also is relatively recent. That was the $11.4 million donation in 2022 to a political action committee backing the District 6 U.S. House campaign of Carrick Flynn, who ran unsuccessfully in the Democratic primary. That PAC was backed by  the recently sentenced cryptocurrency fraudster Sam Bankman-Fried and stands as the largest in Oregon state history, though it might not have retained that record forever if Oregon had not approved new limits.

Oregon can take some relief from the idea most of these mass donations went to campaigns that failed, which might not have been the case forever. At the same time, these mega contributions all have been legal under Oregon law.

House Bill 4024 sets limits for individual contributions to candidates at $3,300 in a single election, with the primary and general considered separately, and $5,000 during a two-year cycle to political committees. Committee spending on candidates would be limited as well, among other provisions regulating finance and reporting.

This law, however, still only lifts Oregon from the low ranks of the states to lower-middle in the area of campaign finance.

Most states have campaign donation limits lower than the Oregon law. Colorado’s limit is $625 for statewide candidates and $200 for legislative, for example. Many states – Arizona, Connecticut, Kansas, Maine, Massachusetts, Ohio and Wisconsin among them – simply prohibit corporate and union contributions.

Oregon’s new limits for contributions by political committees to candidates also is higher than in many states. Some limit those donations to no more than those of an individual person’s contribution.

Donations Contributions from individuals outside the U.S. nited States are limited or banned in 23 states,  (and from foreign corporations as well in about half of those), but not in Oregon. A 2018 ballot issue in North Dakota passed by voters there banned foreign contributions, and California, Illinois, Alaska and other states and localities have passed campaign finance restrictions from out-of-country sources. A modest proposed restriction in Oregon died in the 2023 legislative session.

Portland’s experience with public financing of city candidate campaigns left people with mixed reactions, but a number of states have been experimenting with the approach in certain specialized areas, especially in judicial races (in – New Mexico and West Virginia – ) where any campaign donations can be problematic. A dozen other states allow state funding for governor and legislative races.

Oregon’s finance experience with the world of cryptocurrency should raise a red flag in that area, and many state legislatures have begun to address it. None ban crypto contributions entirely, but 14 states regulate it in some way. Washington and Colorado, for instance, limit crypto donations contributions to no more than $100, while Montana and Georgia require those contributions be converted immediately into dollars to comply with amount limits. Oregon could use some guidelines in this area.

Campaign finance is an ever-evolving system, often evolving in reaction to how it is regulated. FThe federal law changes half a century ago in the wake of Watergate were intended to solve the corruption problem, but they led to new workarounds and evasions, with the creation (the of super-PACs, for one example). Solutions, however well thought out, won’t last forever.

A good question for legislative candidates this year would be:  A voter question for Oregon legislative candidates this year: What will you do to improve, and tighten, Oregon’s campaign finance law in the next couple of sessions, now that the door has been kicked open. was kicked open in 2024?

 

Messaging

Messaging

April 5, 2024

Idaho House Bill 613 said: “Any person who willfully publishes any notice or advertisement, in any medium, within the state of Idaho for a product or service that is illegal under the laws of the jurisdiction where the product or service is offered, including federal, state, or local laws, is guilty of a misdemeanor.”

That’s one sentence, and on a quick read sounds coherent enough. But is it?

That bill, proposed by Representative Judy Boyle of Midvale, was aimed at curtailing advertising for marijuana-related businesses directed toward Idahoans, where the substance is very much illegal, but located in neighboring states, nearly all of which have legalized cannabis products and services (and in some cases making good money off the Idaho border traffic). The bill passed the House overwhelmingly, 47-22.

But it failed in the Senate, narrowly, 18-16. The senators, apparently, spotted some problems their House colleagues had overlooked. Some are speculative, some obvious; some are clear and some are subtle. Many had little to do with marijuana, which the bill never actually mentioned: It referred only to products and services which are illegal “under the laws of the jurisdiction where the product or service is offered.”

That seems like a drafting flaw, because outside of Idaho - in Washington or Oregon, say - cannabis sales are legal, so a lawyer should be able to argue that advertising in Idaho their products (for sale in those states) would not violate the law at all. Shouldn’t it have referred specifically to items which are illegal in Idaho?

Maybe a court would interpret the bill differently, in which case its application could run much further. Senator Tammy Nichols of Middleton said she liked the intent of the bill, but: “The federal government at any time can make something illegal. Let’s take vitamins or raw milk or something like that, for instance. Now all of a sudden that can’t be advertised, according to what I’m reading in this legislation.”

And Senator Brian Lenney of Nampa similarly warned of “unintended consequences”: “I’m thinking about things like pistol braces or bump stocks or suppressors. … Because we know there’s always arguments around these things.” Well, yes, of course those would be an Idaho legislator’s top concerns. But Nichols’ and Lenney’s objections here at least were conceptually reasonable.

For the sake of argument, though, let’s put aside all that, consider the surface intent of the bill (since in some form it’s likely to be back, maybe rewritten, next year) and ask this: What is a “notice or advertisement” and what does it mean to say it’s published in the state of Idaho?

These are, these days, actually complicated questions, more than it might have been a couple of generations ago. Let’s say an Idahoan crosses over to Ontario, Oregon, snaps a picture of one of that city's pot shops, and posts it on Facebook - which could be taken as providing notice of it. Would that violate the law? If an Idaho newspaper did that (which has actually happened), and published it, would that violate the law?

Suppose a newspaper editorialized - or the writer of a letter to the editor or a tweet on X posted - information about such a business, maybe even quoting a sales price? Would that be legal, and if not, what offending words or information would have to be deleted to comply with Idaho law?

What if someone broadcast the information, over radio or television - or live-streamed it, online? Would a billboard violate the law; or, would it depend on what it said?  What would be permissible and what not? How about printing a flyer? Sending an email?

Is there any way this idea does not run smack into a freedom of speech wall?

Idahoans can take some relief that just enough, barely enough, legislators managed to figure enough of this out, this time, to avoid another constitutional law demolition lawsuit.

This session.

 

Who Pays

Who Pays

April 4, 2024

I can understand that the Idaho Republican Party and our Attorney General Raul Labrador like their closed Republican primary election. I just wish they didn’t expect all of us Idaho taxpayers to pay for this “good old boys” clubhouse they have built.

You know us taxpayers paid the construction costs, don’t you?

First, we paid their lawyers.

Back in 2011, the Idaho Republican Party sued the State of Idaho. There was infighting then, as there is now amongst the R Party about whether their primary should be “open” to all who want to vote, or do they have to show “club membership”, i.e., be a registered Republican.

The Idaho law back then required open primaries.

But then the Idaho Republican Party sued itself, oops, I mean the State of Idaho about whether it could have a closed primary or not. The Idaho Republican Central Committee passed its rule for closed primaries back in 2007, but it didn’t have enough control in the statehouse to get the law changed, so they filed a federal lawsuit. They won in Federal Court.

Whether that was the right or wrong decision is worth a few other columns, but it was the court’s decision.

And the Idaho Legislative Republicans then voted to pay the Idaho Republican Party lawyers’ $300,000 legal fees. Straight out of the Idaho taxpayers’ pockets straight into the Idaho Republican lawyers’ pockets. How does that make you feel? I get a greasy feeling, like after a week of camping without a shower when I think about it.

That was the first payment.

Now we taxpayers pay yearly rent to the Idaho Republican Party for them to keep a private clubhouse on the public dole. We buy with our tax dollars the voting machines they get to use in their club’s closed primary election. All of us taxpayers pay the salaries of the State and county officials who run and monitor the Private Republican Party elections with our tax dollars. We keep a taxpayer funded public list of their club members.

There’s a public list of Idaho Democrats too. I’m amazed Dorothy Moon hasn’t called for expelling all us Idaho Democrats yet.

Private clubs like the Idaho Republican Party aren’t and shouldn’t be illegal. Heck, they often do good for their communities. I’m sure the Rotarians and the Lions clubs are great organizations. I don’t mind paying for my lunch or contributing to their plate when I attend one of their meetings. But my tax dollars shouldn’t be siphoned into their coffers. The Idaho Republican Party has its hand in the Idaho taxpayer’s pocket.

Maybe this is okay with you out there because you’re an Idaho Republican. You think the amount of good you’re doing for the State of Idaho is worth the cost. But your private clubhouse must be built on principles. I believe it is. You have a noble, high-minded if not wacky platform. I don’t see anywhere in there where you support public funding of private clubs.

Let’s step back and look broadly. It’s only fair.

Every expense the state or county lays out for the Idaho Republican closed primary is also laid out, in a much smaller proportion, for the other political parties. Us half dozen Idaho Democrats get to vote in our publicly funded primary.

But we don’t require club membership. We allow anybody to choose a Democratic Primary ballot, even if you are unaffiliated with any party. We are not a private club, just a small public one.

This is why primary elections in Idaho should include everybody. Because we all pay for it. Even people who don’t vote pay for it.

But the Idaho Republican Party is getting away with keeping their primary private, “closed” in their terms, and still getting public support to run their elections.

If this sleazy behavior makes you feel dirty, there’s an initiative soon to be on the ballot I need to tell you about.