OPINION: Cheers & Jeers: Who do you trust?

CHEERS ... to Chairperson Ken Faunce and his colleagues on the Moscow School Board.

Moscow was among seven Idaho school districts — along with Boise, Caldwell and Highland (Craigmont) — that sponsored last week’s successful resolution putting the Idaho School Boards Association on record against siphoning off scarce public dollars into the pockets of private and/or religious schools.

After beating back the voucher movement in two successive sessions, the Idaho Legislature — prodded along by groups such as the American Federation for Children that wouldn’t know Idaho from Iowa — now seems poised to acquiesce.

Never mind such moves in other states have led to budget-busters. In Arizona, for instance, what started out as a $65 million program ballooned to $723.5 million in just two years.

Never mind that most of the vouchers will support private schools in urban centers while undermining Idaho’s rural communities.

Never mind there would be no control over how private schools spend these public tax dollars.

If you’re looking for a group the public trusts on education issues, it’s the school board members who mirror their communities — not the politicians who are sent to Boise.

If you’re looking for a mandate in last week’s election, remember that while Idahoans handed Republicans a solid win, they also voted overwhelmingly to support local schools with their own checkbooks.

Add this to the equation: Voters in other states are rejecting this elitist agenda backed by out-of-state money:

-- Kentucky — 65% opposed amending the state constitution to permit public subsidies of private education.

-- Nebraska — 57.1% repealed the Legislature’s voucher plan.

-- Colorado — 50.8% rejected Amendment 80 enshrining school choice in the state constitution, a move Colorado Education Association President Kevin Vick characterized as “a backdoor way of bringing private school vouchers into Colorado.”

After Idaho lawmakers approved unpopular education policies, voters went to the polls in 2012 to repeal the so-called Luna laws by margins of up to 67%.

Lawmakers who ignore the voice of local school board members do so at their own peril.

CHEERS ... to Asotin County Commissioners Brian Shinn and Chuck Whitman.

Earlier this week, the commissioners noted the state Office of Public Defense is providing Asotin County with $31,560 to cover roughly $850,000 in legal bills. A dozen years ago, public defense cost Asotin County $240,000.

It’s a “slap in the face,” Shinn said.

“It’s a train wreck,” Whitman said.

Even worse, the state is on the verge of adopting caseload caps on public defenders, something that will drive up costs and/or compromise the community’s ability to prosecute lower-tier felonies.

Where is it written that public defense is an obligation of county commissioners?

Not in the Fifth and Sixth amendment guarantees of a fair, speedy trial — with legal representation.

And certainly not in the 14th Amendment. It plainly obligates the state to enforce the Bill of Rights.

JEERS ... to a handful of recently elected Idaho lawmakers who profess to know what’s best about legislative compensation.

Granted, the 43% pay boost legislative leadership proposed was beyond the pale. But what the Citizens’ Committee on Legislative Compensation achieved was a fair compromise — increasing pay from $19,913 to $25,000 a year.

That at least opens the door to legislative service to people who aren’t financially independent or retired.

Far easier is pandering against the proposal — which is what you’re seeing from Sen.-elect Christy Zito, R-Hammett, and Sen. Glenneda Zuiderveld, R-Twin Falls.

At least Zito, who previously had served three terms, and Zuiderveld, who was reelected to a second, have some skin in the game.

How do you explain Reps.-elect Lucas Cayler, R-Nampa, Clint Hostetler, R-Twin Falls, David Leavitt, R-Twin Falls, Kent Marmon, R-Caldwell, and Faye Thompson, R-McCall, as well as Sen.-elect Josh Kohl, R-Twin Falls, all campaigning against it?

They haven’t even waited long enough to be sworn into office. You’d think they’d want to first learn about the financial burdens of serving in the Legislature before mouthing off?

CHEERS ... to four women who are enduring a trial in hopes that the Gem State might find a more compassionate way to help women in crisis pregnancies.

They are:

-- Jennifer Adkins, of Caldwell.

-- Jillaine St. Michel, now a Minnesota resident who formerly lived in Meridian.

-- Kayla Smith, who moved from Nampa to Washington state.

-- Rebecca Vincen-Brown, of Kuna.

They bear witness to how Idaho’s draconian abortion ban forced them to seek emergency care out of state.

Their lawsuit asks Idaho’s courts to clarify whether the right to life in Idaho extends to women. At the moment, the state does not provide an exception to protect the health of a woman or preserve her ability to have other children in the future.

“It was the worst four days of my life. I can’t describe it any other way,” St. Michel said of traveling to a Seattle clinic to terminate a pregnancy that had no chance of survival.

Countered James Craig, Attorney General Raul Labrador’s chief of the Civil Litigation and Constitutional Defense division: “They’re asking the court to declare that women have a right to kill their baby, their unborn child, anytime they have a risk of infection.”

That’s just the kind of callousness you’d expect from this attorney general’s office that fought emergency room care, medication abortions and a proposed health exception during this year’s legislative session while accusing doctors of lying about helicoptering women in crisis to states where they could get medical attention. — M.T.