CHEERS ... to U.S. Sens. Mike Crapo and Jim Risch, both R-Idaho.
Time was bringing home the bacon was just part of the job. No longer in this hyperpartisan era. So when these two voted in favor of a $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill in August, they weren’t playing it safe.
The measure finally cleared the House Friday, without the support of their Idaho Republican colleagues, Congressmen Russ Fulcher and Mike Simpson.
Here’s what this bill means to you:
l Highways — With a backlog of more than $400 million in needed transportation work, Idaho will collect $2 billion in federal highway aid and another $225 million to repair and replace its aging bridges. The state also has a chance to secure a portion of $12.5 billion in competitive bridge program funds and $16 billion available for major transportation projects.
l Public transportation — Idaho’s share comes to $192 million.
l Electric vehicle chargers — Idaho would collect $30 million and could compete for a portion of $2.5 billion available in grants.
l Bridging the digital divide — One in eight Idaho households lack access to the internet. Idaho will draw at least $100 million to expand broadband coverage across the state while about a quarter of Idahoans will qualify for help to pay for internet service.
l Disasters —The state will collect $24 million to fight wildfires and $13 million for cybersecurity.
l Drinking water — Idaho’s share comes to $355 million.
l Airports — The bill allocates $86 million to Idaho.
In addition, as Crapo noted, the measure reauthorizes the Secure Rural Schools program that is vital to timber communities, notably Idaho and Clearwater counties.
By joining with 17 Senate Republicans and 50 Democrats in supporting this package, Crapo and Risch broke a logjam that had stopped infrastructure bills for years.
For that, they’re drawing fire from corners of their own party who question handing a win to President Joe Biden. Famous for four years of unsucessful infrastructure iniatives, former President Donald Trump has called it a “terrible Democrat socialist infrastructure plan.”
Since passage required a simple majority, Crapo and Risch had the option of voting no and taking the dough. Instead, they put the good of their state ahead of themselves.
JEERS ... to state Rep. Priscilla Giddings, R-White Bird.
Add one more brick to her wall of shame.
She’s about to face her colleagues next week on the censure motion the House Ethics Committee unanimously passed against her in August. Several of those committee members accused her of blatantly lying about her role in exposing and ridiculing the young intern who has accused former Rep. Aaron von Ehlinger of raping her.
Based on medical evidence presented at a preliminary hearing, an Ada County magistrate judge ordered von Ehlinger to stand trial on two charges that could put him in prison for life if he’s convicted. He pleaded not guilty on Monday.
Earlier this week, Giddings engaged in more prevarications and mischaracterized the entire episode to fool people into giving her campaign cash in her bid to become lieutenant governor. For the second time in a week, she has used a fundraising letter to commit:
Lie No. 1 — She accuses the House of censoring her. A graduate of the U.S Air Force Academy knows the difference between censor and censure. She is being disciplined for “conduct unbecoming” a state legislator. Nobody is silencing her. Nobody is kicking her out of the Legislature. She’ll retain her two most important committee assignments.
Lie No. 2 — “If the establishment is trying to silence me, they’re coming for you next.” See Lie No. 1.
Lie No. 3 — “My mission as a public servant, whether as a state representative or your next lieutenant governor, is to protect freedom and fight for the truth.” Keep in mind that Giddings didn’t bother to fight for herself when she had the chance. She brought no defense, no lawyer and no witnesses to the ethics committee session. Also absent — any empathy or simple contrition.
Lie No. 4 — Contributing up to $5,000 to her campaign for lieutenant governor “will be carefully used to champion liberty and protect conservatives from censorship.”
Why is she devoting so much energy into such a deception? And why does she think it will succeed?
CHEERS ... to Idaho’s citizens redistricting commission.
Led by former state Sens. Bart Davis, R-Idaho Falls, and Dan Schmidt, D-Moscow, the six-member panel equally divided between Republicans and Democrats unanimously adopted a plan for dividing the state among 35 similar sized legislative districts and by a 4-2 majority updated the two congressional districts.
Still ahead are the inevitable court challenges.
But give this group its due. Under a tight deadline imposed by the delay in 2020 census data, they forged a working partnership that transcended partisan and regional divides.
That’s important. The Davis-Schmidt commission has carved into precedent Idaho’s three-decade-old decision to take redistricting out of the hands of self-interested state legislators. Any politician who now contemplates giving one party an advantage will have a tough time explaining that to the voters when the bipartisan citizen commission has succeeded three times in a row.
What a positive contrast to most of the country — where more than two-thirds of the states still labor under partisan gerrymandering.
JEERS ... to Idaho Republican Party Chairman Tom Luna.
Last week, the rules didn’t apply. He blatantly played his party’s numerical advantage by encouraging Idahoans to seek out and defeat any non-Republican candidate in local city and school races.
Those contests are nonpartisan. The party affiliation — if any — of the candidates is not listed on the ballot for a reason. There is no Republican or Democratic way to patch a pothole or teach a youngster to read.
Luna even took a victory lap, writing: “The tremendous voter turnout and Republican wins did not happen by chance.”
But now that those dreaded Democrats, independents and unaffiliated voters want to “disingenuously” cast a ballot in his party’s closed primary election next spring, Luna insists on playing “by the book, according to the rules” and keep it an all-Republican affair.
Who does he think he’s kidding? — M.T.
