OPINION: Cheers & Jeers: Why name Labrador to elections post?

JEERS ... to Rep. Brandon Mitchell, R-Moscow.

Along with freshman Rep. Joe Alfieri, R-Coeur d’Alene, Mitchell wants to waste up to $80,000 expanding state government unnecessarily.

They want to create an Office of Elections Crimes and Security to respond to alleged elections violations.

But where’s the fire?

There are more than 20 statutes against election interference on the part of a voter, the elections officers and even people on the outside looking in. But those laws are rarely invoked. Take Nez Perce County, for instance. In nearly two decades, the elections office has uncovered three — count them, three — legitimate instances in which someone willfully engaged in fraud. Internal controls within the clerk’s office caught the offenders and they were prosecuted.

This is creating another government office that will justify its existence by seeking a solution in search of a problem.

What’s more, Mitchell and Alfieri won’t assign this task to Idaho’s chief elections officer, Secretary of State Phil McGrane. By virtue of statutes, his own experience as a former Ada County clerk and the expertise of his staff, McGrane would be the logical person to oversee this office.

Instead, they would place it under the authority of Attorney General Raul Labrador.

Labrador can’t do his own job, let alone take on another.

Just in the past 14 months, the attorney general has:

Driven off much of the experienced staff he inherited from former Attorney General Lawrence Wasden. He’s also burned through a chief deputy, a solicitor general, a communications director, a chief of staff and a chief of the civil and constitutional defense division.

Bungled the ballot titles for the proposed Open Primary Initiative. The Idaho Supreme ordered a rewrite and imposed $80,000 in attorneys fees.

Got personally booted off his lawsuit against the State Board of Education. Then his office lost the case. Key in that decision was the fact that the State Board followed the legal advice delivered from Labrador’s own deputy in reviewing the proposed University of Idaho acquisition of the online for profit University of Phoenix behind closed doors.

Got booted off another case, this one involving Labrador’s lawsuit against another of his clients, the Department of Health and Welfare, over how the agency allocated federal child care grants.

Was enjoined by a federal judge after he issued — then withdrew but never repudiated — an opinion that doctors could be punished under Idaho’s abortion ban for referring patients for treatment out of state.

Engaged in cronyism by meddling around in a child protection case involving Diego Rodriguez, an associate of professional insurrectionist Ammon Bundy, dismissing a trespassing charge brought against political ally Sara Walton Brady and providing a political ally working temporarily on his staff, former Sen. Mitch Toryanski, R-Boise, with nearly $16,000 in overtime pay he wasn’t entitled to.

What makes Mitchell and Alfieri think Labrador would do any better monitoring election integrity?

CHEERS ... to Sens. Jim Risch and Mike Crapo, both R-Idaho.

Early Monday morning, they both refused to surrender Ukraine to Vladimir Putin.

Risch and Crapo were among 22 Republicans who joined nearly all Democrats to pass a $95.3 billion package, two-thirds of which is earmarked for Ukraine.

“Our first and primary responsibility as senators is the safety and security of Idaho and the United States of America,” Risch and Crapo wrote. “This is done through a strong and ready national defense and by having capable and equipped allies.”

In so doing, Risch and Crapo stood up against the Putin lackey Donald Trump’s appeasement wing of the modern Republican Party.

It just happens to include a majority of their GOP colleagues in the Senate — including the malleable Lindsey Graham, of South Carolina — as well as their party apparatus at home, which accused them of spending “nearly 100 billion dollars, most of which goes to fund the seemingly endless war in Ukraine.”

It doesn’t happen nearly enough. But Risch and Crapo matched this moment of courage.

JEERS ... to Idaho House Speaker Mike Moyle, R-Star.

Too many Idaho children attend school in decrepit conditions — but in many Idaho communities local taxpayers are unable or unwilling — or both — to fix or replace buildings.

But the price of passing even part of Gov. Brad Little’s $2 billion school building package is paying extortion to the House speaker. And here are Moyle’s terms:

Take 25% less.

Cut income taxes on corporations and high-income individuals by another $59.1 million. If money gets tight, that may force the state to choose between school buildings and ongoing programs.

Eliminate the possibility of holding school levy or bond elections in August. That means removing the one reprieve available to school districts by running a last-minute supplemental levy election before the school year begins.

Substantially reduce the political independence of the State Board of Education by making the board’s executive director a gubernatorial appointee. The governor, not the members, also would name the state board’s president.

Moyle has too many of his little fingers in too many little pies. And, as always, you won’t know the ramifications of his mischief until months later.

JEERS ... to Idaho Republican Party Chairperson Dorothy Moon.

Maybe she’d be more at home operating elections in Saddam Hussein’s Iraq or Putin’s Russia. But that’s how she plans to conduct the March 2 GOP caucuses.

Nowhere in those sessions — whether they’re held in public buildings or not — will you find independent journalists monitoring how her party intends to help select its candidate for highest office in the land. Nor will reporters be allowed to watch as Moon’s underlings count the ballots.

Talk about breeding suspicion.

Idahoans wanted a presidential primary. They got a closed caucus system that disenfranchises anyone whose job or family responsibilities prevents them from devoting the time required to participate.

If there are any questions about how this process plays out, who will be able to verify that the GOP did things above board?

Certainly not Moon, for whom gaslighting is a way of life. — M.T.