CHEERS ... to Idaho Gov. Brad Little.
True to his word, the governor Monday pledged to allocate $410 million in new education money lawmakers approved last summer in a one-day special session as follows:
l $145 million to help Idaho pay competitive teacher wages.
l $97.4 million to help schools hire people for increasingly hard-to-fill jobs in the cafeterias, buses and information technology.
l $80 million to provide each Idaho high school graduate with an $8,500 scholarship to “go on” and continue their education, whether that is academic or vocational.
l $30 million to replace one-time federal funds for the Empowering Parents grants that provide families up to $3,000 for such things as tutoring or computers.
The reviews are in.
From Idaho Republican Party Chairwoman Dorothy Moon: “Idaho Republican primary voters sent a clear message with unprecedented turnover in both houses of the Legislature this cycle. And our delegates at the Idaho Republican Party convention made education reform, including education savings accounts, a priority in the Republican Party platform. We encourage the governor to work less with (American Federation of Teachers President) Randi Weingarten and more with the Idaho State Legislature to advance conservative policies that will benefit all of Idaho’s children.”
Voters did send a clear message last year: Little cinched the GOP primary election over Lt. Gov. Janice McGeachin by 20 percentage points. He won reelection in November by 40 percentage points. And the ballot measure reaffirming the $410 million education package won by nearly 80%.
On the other hand, Republican primary voters rejected Moon’s bid to become secretary of state.
Moon embraced the “big lie” that former President Donald Trump won the 2020 election. Obviously, she knows a thing or two about ignoring the will of the voters.
From Sen. Dan “don’t piss him off” Foreman, R-Moscow: “He talked about spending more money on education, and I’m against that. ... I want to see a better return on investment.”
When Foreman is not barking at disagreeable constituents, he betrays the heart of his own district. No community is more devoted to its public schools than Moscow, which is also the home of the University of Idaho — and Foreman detests both.
From Foreman’s allies at the Idaho Freedom Caucus — which also includes Rep. Mike Kingsley, R-Lewiston, and Sen. Cindy Carlson, R-Riggins: “The governor proposes to give every high school graduate an $8,500 scholarship to further their education. This is something we expect from the Biden administration, not from ‘conservative’ Idaho. Welfare education is a tool of socialist countries, not a path to limited government and fiscal conservatism.”
Who does this help?
Not middle- and working-class Idaho families who struggle to provide their kids with the education they’ll need to survive. And not Idaho’s employers, who are desperate to find trained workers.
From Idaho Freedom Foundation President Wayne Hoffman: “It’s an absolute disaster of a policy blueprint and, if followed, will lead the state further down the path of greater government dependency, socialism, and unfettered transgenderism.”
Should Idaho ever follow Hoffman’s path, it will spell the doom of public schools for the many and the rise of taxpayer-subsidized private education for the privileged.
It’s not the people who stand behind a leader who define him; it’s those standing in his way.
By that measure, Gov. Little’s State of State address will go down as the best speech he ever gave.
JEERS ... to Branden Durst, a former Idaho Democratic legislator who switched parties — and now wants to purify the GOP.
Durst, who lost the GOP primary contest for state schools superintendent to Debbie Critchfield, didn’t get everything he wanted from last weekend’s state central committee meeting.
But he got enough. His win is your loss.
As of now, Idaho’s closed Republican primary is geared toward stopping registered Democratic voters from crossing over. For them to vote in the all-important GOP contest, Democrats have to change their party affiliation roughly two months earlier.
But any unaffiliated voter can register at the polls and vote in the GOP primary. That’s how mainstream Republicans — including Little and Critchfield — prevailed.
Durst’s handiwork — which may be subject to legislative or judicial scrutiny — would require Democrats to change their affiliation as much as 17 months before the next primary.
And unaffiliated voters must formally register as Republicans by Dec. 30 of the year preceding the primary election.
So what if Durst is disenfranchising thousands of moderate Idaho voters to the benefit of hard-core partisans.
If rigging an election is what he needs to win, Durst is happy to do so.
CHEERS ... to Congressman Russ Fulcher, R-Idaho.
The 21 House Freedom Caucus members responsible for last week’s spectacle that denied Kevin McCarthy the speaker’s gavel for three days and 15 ballots include some of Fulcher’s closest allies.
Fulcher was with the likes of Matt Gaetz of Florida and Andy Biggs of Arizona when he voted to decertify Joe Biden’s election as president after the deadly Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol insurrection.
He joined Scott Perry of Pennsylvania and Lauren Boebert of Colorado by taking the Kremlin’s side over Ukraine’s.
Fulcher even thought more highly of Rep. Andrew Clyde of Georgia then he did of Idaho sportsmen when he co-sponsored Clyde’s attempt to gut the Pittman-Robertson Act of 1937. That law has provided $15 billion for such things as hunter safety programs, shooting ranges, conservation easements, elk and deer management and restoration of areas damaged by wildfires.
But last week, Fulcher stood apart from his friends and with McCarthy.
“This does not bode well for Republicans,” Fulcher told columnist Chuck Malloy as the saga unfolded. “It makes it look as though we are incapable of governing, and that’s not the impression that we want to give.”
To be sure, there’s a lot of self-interest here. Alienating the new House speaker might take Fulcher from legislative back-bencher to subterranean status.
So what? Preserving his influence with McCarthy makes Fulcher more effective for us. — M.T.
