OPINION: Cheers & Jeers: Raul Labrador is oblivious

JEERS ... to Idaho Attorney General Raul Labrador.

His latest political ploy — joining Utah’s legal challenge to federal public lands ownership in the Western states — is a discredited retread.

So concluded a group of Idaho Republican lawmakers — working under the title the Public Lands Task Force — who ardently pursued the idea more than a decade ago. Here’s what the task force learned:

The legal strategy is doomed to fail.

Suing the federal government runs smack up against the Property Clause of the U.S. Constitution, which delegates to Congress absolute control over disposal of federal lands.

The U.S. Supreme Court has reiterated that precedent over and over again.

And for 134 years, Idaho’s state Constitution has proclaimed: “The people of the state of Idaho do agree and declare that we forever disclaim all right and title to the unappropriated public lands lying within the boundaries thereof ... .”

Don’t believe it?

Ask Steve Strack. The veteran chief of then-Attorney General Lawrence Wasden’s natural resources section outlined that case to the task force.

“If litigation were a panacea, it would have succeeded decades ago,” Strack wrote.

Not persuaded, the panel spent close to $100,000 securing the services of former Interior Solicitor General William Myers to come up with a different answer. He didn’t.

And following up on the trend, the Conference of Western Attorneys General on an 11-1 vote found the idea of suing the federal government into submission to be legally unsound.

The state would lose millions. The University of Idaho Policy Analysis Group found the only way Idaho could cover the cost of managing these lands would be returning to logging levels not seen since 1968, 1969 and 1976 — assuming a high rate of return.

At Congressman Mike Simpson’s direction, the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service found Idaho could lose $392 million a year managing federal lands and that did not include another $101 million in firefighting costs.

So the choice confronting Idahoans would be raising taxes, cutting spending — particularly public education — or liquidating these lands into private hands.

No wonder it’s unpopular. The polling firm of Dan Jones and Associates found 48% of Idahoans opposed to the idea of moving federal lands into state control. When Idahoans learned about the costs, Boise State University’s Public Policy Survey concluded support for the lands transfer dropped to 39.3%.

How could Labrador not know this? He was in Congress at the time.

Being ignorant of the recent past is not necessarily disqualifying for a politician. It is, however, rather inconvenient for a lawyer.

JEERS ... to Idaho state schools Superintendent Debbie Critchfield.

Approving curriculum for Idaho’s school children is a serious responsibility. Usually, it’s subjected to a rigorous process involving professional educators and State Department of Education staffers who ascertain whether curriculum is age appropriate, effective and has survived a pilot program.

So how did Critchfield decide to give her sanction to the curriculum offered by the right-wing PragerU?

As Idaho Education News’ Carly Flandro reported, patrons from a Treasure Valley school district wanted the option to use it. Critchfield “spent her summer vacation going over the materials” and decided to allow individual districts to use it or not at their discretion.

PragerU is not an accredited university so much as a university of opinions. Among those opinions: American slavery gets a bad rap. Adolf Hitler’s Nazis were not motivated by racism when they exterminated 6 million Jews. And European settlers are not entirely responsible for the genocide of America’s indigenous people.

And how did Critchfield avoid the venom spewing from its namesake’s broadcasts and newspaper columns? According to Dennis Prager:

“To be ‘pro-Palestinian’ today means being pro-Hamas, just as to be ‘pro-German’ during World War II was the same as being pro-Nazi. The only difference is that the Germans as a whole were a better people than the Palestinians.”

“The further left you go, the less likely you are to believe that you are accountable to an absolute moral code.”

“The single best thing Americans can do to counter the left-wing attack on America — against its freedoms, its schools, its families, its children, its governmental institutions, its sports, its news and entertainment media, its medical establishment, the CIA, the FBI, the State Department and the military — is to take their children out of America’s schools.”

Pandering to the extreme wing of her own Republican Party is bad enough. Please don’t tell us Critchfield actually agrees with this stuff.

CHEERS ... to Idaho Freedom Foundation President Ron Nate.

Nate’s minions in the Idaho Legislature think they’re entitled to a 43% pay hike. The Legislature’s proposal requires the Citizens’ Committee on Legislative Compensation to go along. That panel meets Wednesday.

But Nate, himself a former lawmaker from Rexburg, is going to disappoint his friends.

“Let me ask you a couple of questions,” Nate wrote. “Has your pay increased 43% over the past few years? Do you enjoy taxpayer-funded health care benefits? Do taxpayers fund your retirement?”

Nate is wrong in one respect: Legislative compensation should not be tied to whether you agree with what lawmakers produce. But on one point, he’s absolutely correct: Boosting yearly legislative pay from $19,394 to $37,801 — while eliminating some expense reimbursements — is another step toward transforming Idaho’s Legislature into a full-time body. And what Judge Gideon Tucker observed in 1866 remains true today: “No man’s life, liberty or property are safe while the Legislature is in session.” — M.T.