JEERS ... to Sen. Dan “Don’t piss him off” Foreman, R-Moscow, and Rep. Mike Kingsley, R-Lewiston.
How did they wind up at the top of the Idaho Freedom Foundation’s pecking order?
By voting against the people who sent them to Boise.
The Freedom Foundation’s voting index ranks Foreman fourth best out of 105 lawmakers — with an A-plus on education policy, an A on its Freedom Index and another A-plus on spending issues.
Kingsley comes in at 11th with an A-minus on education policy, an A-minus on the Freedom Index and an A on spending.
Not far behind are Sen. Cindy Carlson, R-Riggins, at 19th place, and Reps. Charlie Shepherd, R-Pollock, at 24th and Brandon Mitchell, R-Moscow, at 30th.
Here’s how Foreman and Kingsley did the Freedom Foundation’s bidding:
-- Foreman was among 12 members — including Carlson — who supported a radical universal voucher bill that, according to the Idaho Center on Fiscal Policy, threatened to siphon off as much as $360 million from public schools and drive up local property taxes. Anybody who voted for it picked up five points from the IFF’s voting index but it threatened the Moscow schools Foreman represents with the loss of $2.2 million.
Since the measure died in the Senate, Kingsley never got a chance to vote on it.
-- Anybody who backed the higher education budget drew a negative-2 from the IFF index. Foreman and Kingsley voted against the measure that supports the University of Idaho in Foreman’s district and Lewis-Clark State College in Kingsley’s.
-- The Freedom Foundation didn’t like providing scholarships to Idaho’s next generation of workers so it handed a negative-6 to anyone who voted for Gov. Brad Little’s “Idaho Launch” program. Foreman and Kingsley avoided that fate — as did Carlson, Mitchell and Shepherd — by voting no.
-- The Freedom Foundation handed a negative-4 to anyone who voted for incentives to nurses who work in underserved rural regions such as north central Idaho. Foreman, along with Carlson, voted no in the Senate. Kingsley’s substitute, Dan Crawford, along with Mitchell and Shepherd, gave it a thumbs down in the House.
JEERS ... to Attorney General Raul Labrador.
About three weeks ago, the chairperson of the House State Affairs Committee, Rep. Brent Crane, R-Nampa, asked if Idaho’s abortion ban could stop a doctor in this state from discussing treatment options available elsewhere to a patient.
Labrador’s predecessors would have taken time to study court decisions and precedent, and then deliver a detailed opinion.
But as he promised during the campaign, Labrador planned to be more of a cheerleader for his partisan allies in the Legislature. So in a two-page letter dated March 27, he told Crane what he wanted to hear: “An Idaho health care professional who refers a woman across state lines to an abortion provider or who prescribes abortion pills for the woman across state lines has given support or aid to the woman in performing or attempting to perform an abortion and has thus violated the statute.”
Did Labrador forget about the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution and its free speech protections?
How about the Commerce Clause of the Constitution, which among other things stops Idaho bluenoses from outlawing gambling in Nevada?
And how did he miss the 14th Amendment’s ban on one state criminalizing behavior outside its borders?
So asked Planned Parenthood and two Idaho physicians who sued the attorney general in federal court.
Responded Labrador: Never mind.
According to CNN, Labrador followed up with this letter: “It was not a guidance document, nor was it ever published by the Office of Attorney General. Accordingly, I hereby withdraw it.”
You always knew Labrador cared more about politics than the law.
Now it turns out he’s bad at both.
CHEERS ... to Betsy Russell.
No one has been more dedicated to the day-in and day-out job of watchdogging Idaho’s political class than the veteran capitol reporter who spent four decades doing just that — including 27 years with the Spokesman-Review, another five with the Idaho Press of Nampa and five more with the Idaho Statesman.
Later this month, she will receive a well-deserved accolade, the Frank and Bethine Church Award for Public Service.
Russell retired earlier this year.
“My grandfather believed strongly in the importance of the media as being essential to democracy,” said Church Institute Executive Director Monica Church, who is the granddaughter of the late former Idaho Gov. Cecil Andrus. “He wasn’t always a fan of what the media wrote about him, but he said that public servants had a duty to be honest and available to journalists. He was a big fan of Betsy Russell’s reporting. Her voice will truly be missed.”
JEERS ... to U.S. Sen. Mike Crapo, R-Idaho.
In an interview with columnist Chuck Malloy last week, Idaho’s senior senator suggested he was open to a game of brinkmanship with the full faith and credit of the United States, the economy and the financial future of your children.
In short, he’s willing to default on the national debt if he doesn’t get his way.
“Raising the debt ceiling without addressing federal spending will only further compound the problem and kick the can down the road until we approach the debt limit again,” Crapo said.
Would Crapo’s saber rattling have something to do with the fact that Democrat Joe Biden is in White House?
He wasn’t so disturbed about deficit spending, the national debt or the debt ceiling when Republican Donald Trump was president.
Twice during Trump’s term, he voted to raise the debt ceiling.
And when Trump added $7.8 trillion to the national debt, Crapo went along with it.
The Idaho Republican voted for the 2017 tax cuts, which blew a $1.9 trillion hole in the debt.
Crapo also supported Trump’s COVID-19 packages — including the CARES (Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security) Act — which added another $3 trillion in deficit spending.
In all, the national debt on the GOP’s watch ballooned from $19.9 trillion in 2017 to $27.75 trillion four years later.
Did you hear Crapo complain then?
Hypocrisy, thy name is Crapo. — M.T.
