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Labels: Idaho politics BOISE, Idaho � A New York City resident plans a long-distance run as a Democrat for the Idaho U.S. Senate seat now held by Mike Crapo, a Republican. William Bryk, who is 54, hasn't raised a nickel for the May 2010 primary. The Spokesman-Review reported he also hasn't been to Idaho in his life, but says he was prompted to run because Crapo faced only a write-in challenger in 2004. Bryk says he didn't want to let that happen again in 2010. Election law requires Idaho candidates to be residents of the state only by the day of the general election; Bryk says he'll move to Idaho if he wins the Democratic nomination. Labels: Idaho politics If legislators are going to be cutting individual programmatic functions in other agencies, though, it�s going to be interesting to see how they do it. Currently, the Legislative Budget Book used by the Joint Finance-Appropriations Committee JFAC) uses an �incremental� way of describing the budget for the new fiscal year. In other words, it starts with the amount the agency received the previous year, then makes various adjustments to that figure to produce a �maintenance� figure�which would allow the agency to continue doing what it�s been doing�then adds new programs and requests. In other words, the programs that have been approved in previous years aren�t listed in detail in the budget book, at least as it currently exists. So it�s not clear how members of JFAC would receive program-specific information in order to cut existing programs. Certainly the budget development manual provided by DFM to the agencies doesn�t look any different. Labels: Idaho politics Labels: history, Idaho politics Labels: health care, Idaho politics Labels: Idaho politics Labels: freedom of speech, Idaho politics On March 25, 2008, two Capitol security officers blocked Pentico's entry to the Legislative Annex and told Pentico not to enter the annex, the third and fourth floors of the Borah Post Office (the temporary home of the governor's suite of offices), and the state Department of Education. "I was asked not to have (Pentico) come back, and I relayed that information to him," Idaho State Police Corporal Jens Pattis told me Wednesday. Pattis said he consulted with Otter adviser Clete Edmunson and House Sergeant-At-Arms Judy Christensen on how to handle Pentico. Edmunson said Pentico wanted Otter to inject himself in Pentico's dispute involving Boise State University and the State Board of Education, and persisted even after being told Otter would have no part of it. "He just kept coming back to us," Edmunson complained. Was Pentico belligerent? I asked Edmunson. "I wouldn't say belligerent," Edmunson answered. "Obstinate might be the right word for it." "He wouldn't take no for an answer," added Mark Warbis, the governor's communications director. ... Equally troubling is that a very small number of government employees proclaimed three public buildings off-limits and then compelled Pentico to obey - not because they were afraid of him, but because they were tired of dealing with him. They alone determined the point at which a diligent constituent became an obstinate one. And they alone determined that Pentico's obstinance had crossed an imaginary line requiring their action. For such a severe action, there seems to be little or no real record of the events leading up to the decision to bar Pentico from state offices, as evidenced by several competing stories. Edmunson and Pattis said the House of Representatives' Judy Christensen was included in a chat about barring Pentico, but Christensen said she doesn't know who Pentico is and doesn't recall having a discussion about him. "He's not barred from the building by any means," Christensen said unsuspectingly last week. At the Department of Education, officials were under the impression Pentico was banned because he had threatened State Board of Education members. He had not. And while Pentico was banned from the Department of Education, he was not forbidden from going to the State Board offices one floor up. Yet the Board is an original source of the conflict that soured the relationship between Otter's aides and Pentico. Labels: freedom of speech, Idaho politics Labels: Idaho politics Labels: Idaho politics NRA-ILA encourages you to attend Friday, April 17th Labels: gun rights, Idaho politics Rep. Walt Minnick, Idaho's best liaison to the Democratic majority, surprised his colleagues and some Idaho institutions with the news he wouldn't bring federal dollars to his district through the widespread but controversial use of earmarks. Minnick said he knew some people would be upset. Labels: Idaho politics The former Idaho sheriff who disappeared after he claimed to have terminal cancer has been arrested in Louisiana. Caddo County deputies found Jim Dorion after a tip led them to a residence in Shreveport, where Dorion and his wife have been staying, the Shreveport Times reported. The former Nez Perce County Sheriff is wanted in Idaho on three felony counts of accessory to burglary filed by the Idaho Attorney General's Office on Friday. Labels: Idaho politics Labels: gun rights, Idaho politics State Senator Patti Anne Lodge (R-13), Chairpalodge@senate.idaho.gov Labels: gun rights, Idaho politics Members of a new business group advocating immigration reform have been subjected to personal attacks and racist comments since announcing last month that they would advocate reforms to help secure an adequate labor supply, according to a lobbyist for the group. Brent Olmstead of the Idaho Business Coalition for Immigration told the House Agriculture Committee on Monday that the group�s members have received disturbing feedback since announcing its aims on newspaper opinion pages across the state. �Most of these letters and e-mails have ignored the issue of immigrant labor and instead have been based in personal insults and racist comments,� Olmstead said. �In response, the coalition promises to stick to the issue and what can be done to improve the availability of labor for Idaho�s employers.� The coalition includes the Idaho Association of Commerce and Industry, agriculture groups, food processors and contractors. Olmstead said some people have criticized the group for seeking �cheap slave labor.� He said Idaho agriculture pays more than the minimum wage. Irrigators make more than $8 an hour, and the fast-growing dairy industry pays $10 to $14 an hour, he said. �These are good paying jobs in rural Idaho, and they often come with benefits,� he said. Olmstead said his group opposes making mandatory the federal �E-verify� program, as some states have. E-Verify is an Internet-based system operated by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. Free to employers, it links to federal databases to help them determine employment eligibility of new hires and the validity of their Social Security numbers. If U.S. citizens and legal residents are unemployed, why would any sensible person want to "reform" our immigration laws to let more workers into the country? If an employer hires $8 per hour workers, you can be pretty sure that they aren't going to be getting health insurance. The losers on this are the taxpayers who end up subsidizing emergency rooms and Medicaid so that employers can hire $8 per hour workers--instead of paying a market wage to hire those who are already legally present. I'm not angry at illegal immigrants who want a job. I'm angry at employers that think that they have a right to socialize the costs, while enjoying the individual benefits of cheap labor. The only immigration "reform" that makes sense is enforcement of the existing laws. Either employers will have to pay legal workers better, or figure out how to automate those jobs. Either is a win for the U.S. This would have been a bad idea last year. But now? Talk about a "tin ear." I am also disappointed to see IACI involved in this. Based on discussions that we had last year when I was running for State Senate, I am surprised to see them hostile to E-verify. Perhaps it was a good thing for them that I lost! UPDATE: A reader points out that perhaps this crowd has learned from Citibank, which similarly has enjoyed individual benefits, and socialized costs. Labels: Idaho politics, immigration A Minnesota appeals court today rejected Sen. Larry Craig's (R-Idaho) latest effort to withdraw his guilty plea, 18 months after he was arrested in a Minneapolis airport bathroom during an undercover sex sting. Since pleading guilty in August 2007 to disorderly conduct charges, Craig has tried to pull back that plea, arguing that his behavior was not illegal and that he was pressured into the plea by police. The Hennepin County District Court denied that petition in October 2007, and the Minnesota state Court of Appeals today affirmed that decision. In his appeal, Craig argued that the district court fundamentally erred in its decision, that the state's disorderly conduct statute was unconstitutionally broad, and that his behavior in the airport bathroom stall should be considered legally protected speech. The Appeals Court rejected all three arguments. "Appellant has not shown that the district court abused its discretion in denying his petition to withdraw his guilty plea, and neither he nor amici have shown that the disorderly conduct statute is unconstitutionally overbroad," wrote Edward Toussaint Jr., the appeals court's chief judge. Toussaint added that even if Craig's actions in the stall were considered speech, they can be restricted because they invaded the "privacy interest" of a "captive audience" -- in this case, the undercover officer in the neighboring stall. Labels: Idaho politics So far the federal Bureau of Land Management has received applications for more than 130 projects in the desert Southwest that could occupy more than 1 million acres of land. A million acres is more than 1,500 square miles. On the other hand, the Mojave Desert measures over 50,000 square miles. According to one estimate, if all these projects were built they could supply enough electricity to fuel 20 million homes. While some national environmental groups recognize that such trade-offs are necessary, some local groups are fiercely fighting the development of utility-scale solar power generation in the desert. The California-based Alliance for Responsible Energy Policy argues that the push for Big Solar promotes the "permanent destruction of hundreds of thousands of acres of pristine public lands designated for multi-purpose use that belong to the people." The Alliance also accuses the development of solar power in the desert of "wilderness killing, unacceptable groundwater depletion and the erosion of hard fought protections of public lands and private rights." The San Diego-based Desert Protective Council also opposes the construction of a high voltage power line that San Diego Gas & Electric says it needs to transmit renewable power from a solar generation project planned for California's Imperial Valley. The power line would run through an existing right-of-way in a state park, but each of its 141 new towers would average 130 feet in height. "Our take has been from day one, 'Here we go again,'" said Terry Weiner, Imperial County conservation coordinator for the Desert Protective Council to the San Diego Union-Tribune. "Here is where we can do everything out in the desert that we don't want to do in our own backyards in the city,'" The Desert Protective Council has allies in this fight. "The idea that we're going to sacrifice critical pieces of our environment to protect other pieces of our environment seems a little ironic," said Elizabeth Goldstein, president of the nonprofit California Parks Foundation in the Los Angeles Times. "That's an irony I cannot accept. We have to find a way to do both." In other words, no trade-offs. These groups want renewable power to be generated locally, preferably by placing solar photovoltaic arrays on roofs. "It's not just businesses that have slowed things down, it's not just Republicans that have slowed things down, it's also Democrats and also environmental activists sometimes that slow things down," declared a frustrated Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (R-Calif.) during a speech at Yale University this past spring. "They say that we want renewable energy but we don't want you to put it anywhere, we don't want you to use it." Schwarzenegger added, "I don't know whether this is ironic or absurd. But, I mean, if we cannot put solar power plants in the Mojave Desert, I don't know where the hell we can put it." Labels: enviromental lunacy, Idaho politics Labels: Idaho politics Labels: Idaho politics A growing majority of Americans believe that gaining control of the border is more important than legalizing illegal immigrants, and three out of four (74%) say the government is not doing enough to make that happen. Sixty-nine percent (69%) of voters in a new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey say controlling the border is more important than legalizing the status of undocumented workers, while just 21% think legalization is more important. Only 14% think the government is doing enough to secure the borders. Thirty-four percent (34%) say the current immigration situation makes them angry, and another 25% characterize themselves as mildly frustrated. For 40%, immigration is just one of many issues. These numbers are comparable to the findings in a June survey on the same topic. At that time, 83% directed their anger at the federal government, while only 12% blamed the illegals themselves. "President Ronald Reagan was right when he said, �The simple truth is that we�ve lost control of our borders and no nation can do that and survive.� Securing our borders is a matter of national security, personal security and financial security. We cannot claim to be serious about the war on terror or say that we support our troops when terrorists, in many areas, can simply walk across our borders. While employers who knowingly hire illegal immigrants should be prosecuted, the fact remains that terrorists are not coming here looking for jobs. While illegal immigrants are clearly causing serious financial pressure on our schools, courts and health care systems, the terrorists are not coming here for education or health care. Something is terribly wrong when we send our military to secure Iraq�s border with Syria while at the same time refusing to secure the borders of this country. Congress must take immediate action to secure our borders. Securing our borders will not only enhance our national security, it will improve our financial security by stopping the epidemic of illegal immigration and the great strain that illegal immigrants place on our state and local governments. I would like to note that in 2005 our border patrol apprehended some 115,000 illegal aliens from countries other than Mexico (no one knows how many others made it through). There are some who say we must give amnesty to the millions of illegal immigrants in our country � I disagree. Amnesty does nothing more than reward illegal behavior. We must keep respect for the rule of law as the principle shaping the heart of our border and immigration policy. It is nonsense to think that a person who broke our laws to enter our country illegally will suddenly begin obeying our laws if we give them legal status through a grant of amnesty. Labels: Idaho politics, immigration Profits aren�t bad. But record profits that come from huge subsidies and high prices on a basic necessity are flat-out wrong. The special tax breaks and incentives given to �big oil� are an egregious example of how Washington insiders have got their priorities backwards. Taxpayers shouldn�t bear the brunt of breaks for special interests lining their pockets with our dollars. We shouldn�t be giving preferred tax treatment to the biggest oil companies in the world, who are reaping record profits while driving the average Idahoan into the poorhouse. Labels: Idaho politics Labels: Idaho politics Labels: Idaho politics Labels: Idaho politics Labels: Idaho politics Labels: Idaho politics Labels: Idaho politics Labels: Idaho politics Labels: Idaho politics Labels: Idaho politics
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Idaho's Budget
Like many states, Idaho is having to confront the inevitable budget shortfall that comes from a declining national economy, reduced workers earning less income and paying less income tax, corporations earning less and paying less corporate income tax, and increases in costs for such things as unemployment insurance. It's never easy. Governor Otter managed to avoid cuts in education last year, but this year it doesn't look so encouraging.
I've been aware of a politician named Rex Rammel who is running for governor against Otter, but I didn't have much of an impression, positive or negative. Purportedly he's a conservative of some sort. Listening to him interviewed by Nate Shelman on KBOI AM 670 this evening Rammel certainly made an impression on me alright: and not a good one.
Rammel's position of how to deal with the budget shortfall is to eliminate the personal and corporate income taxes and increase sales tax rates as a way to create jobs. While I'm no fan of income taxes because they encourage a variety of manipulative and economical inefficient tax shelters, it is generally very high marginal rates that create this sort of idiocy. Federal income tax rates can be a real problem, because the marginal rates are high enough to make people do dumb things. But Idaho personal income tax rates (like most states) are pretty low. It is hard to imagine that our 8% state income rate is making much of a difference in how anyone in this state decides what investments to make, how many people to hire, what factories to build.
Even more absurd: because state income taxes are deductible on your Form 1040, Schedule A, those Idahoans in the top marginal state income tax bracket (as I was until last year) were reducing their federal income tax by 35-40% of their highest marginal state income tax rate. Eliminating the Idaho state income tax would put perhaps $5000 in the pocket of the top 5% of the state's income earners--but probably $2000-$2300 of it would end up paid as federal income tax, instead. The gain for the taxpayers, even for the high end Idaho taxpayers, isn't as impressive as it first sounds.
The notion that reducing personal and corporate state income taxes is going to be a big win for creating new jobs here, or moving existing jobs from other states, is really hare-brained. Yes, they do probably impair job growth a bit--but it is a minor factor when you consider how low the rates are. (At the federal level, it is a stronger argument, where the marginal rates are much higher.) In a thriving economy, there might be a stronger argument for eliminating these taxes to encourage growth--but the only thing growing in Idaho (and much of the rest of the country), is discouragement about jobs.
Increasing sales tax rates, while a pretty simple and economically efficient method of gathering revenues, is extraordinarily regressive--especially in a state where groceries are still subject to sales tax. I'm not a raving liberal bleeding heart, but people at the bottom of the economic scale are hardly in a position to pick up a bigger share of the state budget. Many of them are having trouble paying their rents and car payments.
Then Rammel proposed that the loss of about 1.25 billion dollars from our budget by eliminating these two taxes could be handled by turning all the public schools back to the local governments, and wiping out those parts of the state board of education handling K-12. Again, I am skeptical of the value of much of the centralized state bureaucracy, but I am very skeptical that's this is where most of the money being spent on public education in this state is going.
There's a case for pretty radical transformation of our education system, perhaps using vouchers to create more competition for schools. I just don't get the impression that Rammel has given much thought to what he is talking about.
New York Arrogance
I saw this story in the October 29, 2009 Idaho Statesman, and I still can't quite get over the arrogance of it:
How kind of him! He can find out that we don't have tails and horns before he lowers himself to being the Democratic nominee!
Idaho Budget Cutting
Sharon Fisher has an article at New West's blog about the painful process of budget cutting for Idaho state government:
This is, as I understand it, how the federal government does budgeting as well--start with an assumption that every program is necessary, and at its current level, and then adjust accordingly. Now, if every governmental program was created for good reasons, and those reasons remain just as valid today as they did when it was created, this would be just fine.
But we all know that programs acquire a life of their own, and even when they no longer make sense--or at least, don't justify as big a slice of the pie as they used to--they survive. I gave two examples to my students last week: the strategic helium reserve (originally in support of our warfighting dirigible fleet) that persisted into the 1990s. The last I checked, this program was still consuming money in figuring out how to dispose of the assets and liabilities. The other was the program that required U.S. military bases in Germany to use anthracite coal from the U.S. for power generation, shipped in American bottoms. More than a decade after our bases stopped burning anthracite coal, at the request of the German government, we were still shipping it over--and then burying it on leased land.
It's a big project to sit down and revisit the decisions to create every program. But when a budget crisis arrives, maybe that's what they need to do. They may not get much else done in the meantime, but perhaps that a feature, not a bug.
The Idaho Constitution Gets More & More Curious
Art. XIII, sec. 1 directs:Bureau of immigration -- Commissioner. There shall be established a bureau of immigration, labor and statistics, which shall be under the charge of a commissioner of immigration, labor and statistics, who shall be appointed by the governor, by and with the consent of the senate. The commissioner shall hold his office for two years, and until his successor shall have been appointed and qualified, unless sooner removed. The commissioner shall collect information upon the subject of labor, its relation to capital, the hours of labor and the earnings of laboring men and women, and the means of promoting their material, social, intellectual and moral prosperity. The commissioner shall annually make a report in writing to the governor of the state of the information collected and collated by him, and containing such recommendations as he may deem calculated to promote the efficiency of the bureau.
Yet when I search Idaho government pages for information about this "Bureau of Immigration Commissioner," and search the Idaho Code, the only actual reference that I can find is in this report from the Division of Building Safety, which acknowledges that the Bureau of Immigration Labor and Statistics was created in 1899, and eliminated in 1919.
State constitutions tend to accumulate debris over time, as ideas of one era become unfashionable, or get struck down by the courts--but tend not to get removed, since this requires a vote of the people to amend the state constitution. I've read that the infamous "The Chinese" article XIX of the 1879 California Constitution wasn't actually removed until 1952, even though it had been unenforceable for a long time before that. If Idaho Const., Art. XIII, sec. 1 merely granted authority to the legislature to create such a bureau, and the governor to appoint such a commissioner, that would be one thing. But this seems to obligate both to do both. A general cleanup of the Idaho Constitution would seem like a good idea.
I'm pretty sure that Art. XIII, sec. 5 is also no longer enforced:Aliens not to be employed on public work. No person, not a citizen of the United States, or who has not declared his intention to become such, shall be employed upon, or in connection with, any state or municipal works.
This is probably the more subtle Idaho version of the California Constitution's Art. XIX. It is pretty clearly contrary to the Fourteenth Amendment's equal protection clause, which has been repeatedly recognized to protect the rights of permanent residents.
Interesting Telephone Meeting With Rep. Minnick (D-ID)
A couple of nights ago, I received a phone call that let me join into a telephone town meeting with Rep. Minnick (D-ID) concerning health care. I was really quite impressed--if there were more Democrats like this, I wouldn't regard the Democrats quite so negatively. (Of course, on either coast, someone like this wouldn't stand a chance of winning the Democratic nomination for Congress.) He made it quite clear that he was not supportive of the so-called "public option," apparently because he can see that the goal of it is to destroy the private insurers. He was also quite supportive of looking for ways to increase competition in the health insurance market--although he was also arguing for regulations to prevent insurers from refusing or dropping coverage based on pre-existing conditions.
I guess what I found most encouraging is that Minnick was saying that rather than push for a health care reform bill that represent some Democratic views, that it would make more sense to push for reforms that enjoy broad, bipartisan support. But that wouldn't be the corrupt dirty package that Pelosi and real Democrats want, so I'm guessing that Minnick's not going to get his way.
A Friend Is Running For Boise City Council
Lucas Baumbach. I don't live in Boise, but some of you do! You might want to visit his campaign website, and see if you want to get involved.
Chris Pentico's Sentencing
I showed up at the courthouse--and found a sign on the second floor, where Judge Swain's courtroom is, announcing that the Chris Pentico sentencing had been moved to courtroom 504. I suspect that they moved the sentencing because of the anticipated crowd--and it was a crowd. There wasn't a seat free, and the aisles were filled with folding chairs and standing people. I noticed Dan Popkey of the Idaho Statesman present, taking notes.
Rep. Pete Nielsen (R-ID) testified in mitigation of the sentence. (Essentially, arguing why the sentence should be light.) One of the claims made by the prosecution was that the governor's staff had asked to have Pentico banned. Nielsen testified that when he first heard about this ban, he contacted both Captain Rogers, of the capitol security detail of the state police, and Clete Edmondsen of the governor's office. Rogers at first didn't know who gave the order, and Edmondsen claimed to know nothing of it. (I believe that Nielsen passed this word back to Pentico at some point, which would at least give Pentico reason to be unsure if he was banned or not.) Later, Captain Rogers got back to Nielsen, and told Nielsen that Edmondsen had ordered Pentico's ban.
Nielsen also testified that in the almost four years that he had known Pentico, through Elmore County Republican Party activities, and at the legislature, he had never known Pentico to be anything but honest and polite in his dealings with others. Nielsen also turned over a letter to the judge to this effect signed by a number of other members of the legislature. (And remember: one of the original reasons for banning Pentico was that he made members of the legislature "nervous.") I don't know how many other members signed that letter, but I don't get the impression that it was more than a couple.
The prosecutor claimed that the reason Pentico was banned was that had repeatedly harassed staff in the Board of Education offices, and requested that Pentico be given a $500 fine ($300 suspended), 90 days in jail (85 days suspended), and a no-contact order with the governor's office, Idaho department of education, and a couple of other branches of the government, for some significant period of time. (I don't have the period in my notes, but I think it might have been two years.)
Pentico's attorney, Derr, is pretty old--beginning to get the shakes associated with Parkinson's. His statement wasn't spectacularly well delivered, and at one point, he called a witness out of the crowd, Wayne Hoffman of the Idaho Freedom Foundation, who had apparently worked at the Board of Education during the time Pentico was supposedly harassing staff (although he was never arrested or ordered to leave the premises during that period). After a few words between them, Derr changed his mind. Derr should have talked to Hoffman first before calling him as a witness, I think.
Where Derr did best was point out that the statute prohibiting trespass requires you to be told to leave and not return--and when Officer Pattis claims that he told Pentico that there were places that he was not welcome, and was not to return, these were not places that he had been at that day, and was not at them at the time of notice. More importantly and more eloquently, Derr asked if any officer could tell any citizen they can only exercise their First Amendment rights in writing, or with a police escort to and from a government office? There's an obvious chilling effect when you have to give 48 hours notice to the police that you wish to deliver a complaint to a government official. (This was the circumstances under which Officer Pattis says he told Pentico that he could hand deliver complaints to the governor's office.)
Judge Swain argued that the statute under which Pentico was convicted is defective, in that it treats both public and private property the same, but that he was obligated to "apply the laws to the facts." He also acknowledged that there was a First Amendment conflict in a situation like this--which suggests to me that he didn't read the Korsen decision as carefully (or perhaps as broadly) as I did. He did acknowledge that Pentico's conduct, assuming all the facts that he obviously believed to convict him, constituted a de minimis violation of the statute. Because of "the unusual facts of the case," such as Pentico's community standing, lack of criminal history, indeed, lack of any evidence of dangerousness, "no jail time" "no fine" "no court costs" and "no no-contact order." All of this was a withheld judgment for thirty days. If Pentico can stay out of trouble for that period of time, the conviction disappears.
I don't know if Judge Swain was influenced by the large crowd of well behaved people that showed up to make sure that justice was done. In one sense, I would hope that Swain was not influenced. Justice shouldn't be determined by popular sentiment. On the other hand, if there's something fishy about a case, and a defendant has this much of the public concerned about it, maybe it should influence a judge to rethink his position.
Clearly, Judge Swain was putting it back on the legislature to fix what he acknowledged was a defective statute. I approached Rep. Nielsen after adjournment, and indicated that he needs to introduce a bill next session to fix this. He agreed, and asked me to suggest some language. I told him I would think about it for a few days, and do so.
Pretty clearly, there are circumstances where it is appropriate to exclude someone from governmental offices. But those circumstances need to be pretty extreme--not just to make government officials and their employees comfortable. I would suggest that requiring a judge to issue a restraining order should be the first step, or perhaps the second step--something that provides for due process, and an impartial observer to decide whether a citizen's legitimate reason to enter public parts of government offices is exceeded by the legitimate needs of government to operate without intimidation or physical danger. Any ideas that you have: let me know.
UPDATE: Dan Popkey's article about the sentencing hearing was mostly correct, but what was left out is no surprise, consider Popkey's political leanings. The comments by the liberals that dominate the Idaho Statesman's comment board are unsurprising: lots of personal insults to Pentico, and general contempt for the First Amendment right of free speech and right to petition government officials for redress of grievances. If you aren't engaged in nude dancing, Idaho liberals aren't big on those protections.
Chris Pentico & The First Amendment
I mentioned several weeks ago that an acquaintance had been convicted of trespassing for dropping off a letter complaining of what he considers unlawful activity by Boise State University with respect to funding of student clubs. I now have the transcripts of the trial and pre-trial hearings. The trial itself is astonishingly uninteresting, except for the March 25, 2008 incident in which Officer Pattis told Pentico that he was not welcome in state government buildings. If you believe Pattis, he was orally warned that he would be arrested for trespassing. If you believe Pentico, he was told that he wasn't welcome. There was no written warning to Pentico. From the cross-examination by Pentico's attorney of Officer Pattis, on p. 25:BY MR. DERR:
In a criminal case (as this is), there's a requirement for a guilt beyond a reasonable doubt--and whether Mr. Pentico was formally warned that he would subject to arrest if he returned to the state office buildings seems to be Officer Pattis's word versus Chris Pentico's word. While there was a recording of Pentico's arrest on April 2--the only recording of what happened March 25, when Pattis claims to have to told Pentico that he was subject to arrest if he returned, seems to have some problems. From p. 32 of the trial transcript, is this exchange between the prosecutor (Wallace) the defense attorney (Derr), and Judge Swain:
Q You did not provide any written orders to Mr. Pentico on March 25, did you?
A No, sir. I did not.
Q Nor any other statements, except what you�ve testified to, I mean as far as trespassing and coming back, not welcome?
A Not to -- not that I remember, sir.MR. DERR: Well I�m looking for a tape, a video, that I wanted to show of 3/25.
It appears from the rest of the transcript that Derr never got it to play--and if this audio confirmed Officer Pattis's claim about the March 25th conversation, you would have expected the prosecution to have played it, because it would have demonstrated that Pentico had been warned not to return, at risk of arrest. Whether Pentico knowingly violated the law hinges entirely on whether he was warned that he was risking arrest for a crime if he returned--and all the state is Pattis's word vs. Pentico's word.
THE COURT: Does state have it?
MS. WALLACE: Well, Your Honor, we previously disclosed a tape from 3/25. There�s no audio on it and it�s an encrypted CD that doesn�t play, and that�s previously been disclosed. Mr. Derr called me about it yesterday and mentioned that it doesn�t play well, and it just doesn�t play well. That�s what we�ve disclosed and we gave what we had.
THE COURT: Alright. Well there we go. Ball�s in your court, Mr. Derr.
(Off-record colloquy of defendant�s counsel)
MR. DERR: I don�t know how to run this machine.
THE COURT: Well Mr. Derr, I�ll tell you what I tell all the young lawyers that come before me to practice. Presentation of evidence is the responsibility of the proponent of the evidence. We�ll give you a little time to figure it out and then we�ll -- do you if it -- will it even play?
More troubling is that the judge had ruled in pretrial motions that no First Amendment challenge to the charge would be allowed. From the April 20 pretrial motion, pp. 4-6:THE COURT: Well I�m concerned about the late disclosure, but I�m also concerned about the proffered testimony in your motion which states that Mr. Parker will be a character witness, and knows among other things, of his valuable and extensive activities in First Amendment matters, which is specifically not relevant to this trial, Mr. Derr. That�s a legal question, and I�ve already ruled. We�re not going to have testimony about Mr. Pentico�s actions were justified under the First Amendment.
MR. DERR: I see. And of course, the Court understands we�ve argued that before. We think that�s the basic element of this case.
THE COURT: Well Mr. Derr, I�m very concerned. You don�t have to agree with my ruling --
MR. DERR: I know.
And yet being able to petition for redress of grievances is a fundamental human right, recognized by the First Amendment. The testimony of the Claudia Nally, under direct examination by the prosecutor, is pretty clear about Pentico's behavior at the time he dropped off the letter on April 2, pp. 27-29 of the trial transcript:
THE COURT: -- but you do have to follow it. You can appeal, but we�re not going to have testimony about the First Amendment in this trial. There are only two issues here. One is whether Mr. Pentico was properly advised that he could not be present on certain specified locations, and number two, was he present, physically, on certain specified locations. The state is not going to be allowed to present testimony about why he was excluded. On the other hand, Mr. Pentico is not going to be allowed to present testimony regarding the content of his communication or assert that it�s protected by the First Amendment. That�s a legal question and I�ve ruled. I don�t see that based on your motion, Mr. Parker has character testimony of a pertinent nature to the trial, that in combination with the late disclosure, I�m going to grant the state�s objection. Mr. Parker will not be allowed to testify.Q And do you recall -- well, you must get to know people pretty well working in that office. People coming and going. Are you familiar with a man by the name of Christopher Pentico?
Oddly enough, even though there seems to have been some claim that Pentico was harassing people working there--there was no testimony at trial about this, and it seems that the judge had decided not to allow it--and yet this would seem to be the only legitimate basis for denying Pentico his First Amendment right to go into government buildings, and leave a letter complaining about improper governmental actions.
A Yes. I am.
Q And how do you know that person?
A He has been in the office, to the best of my recollection, five or six different times, not necessarily at this location, but at the Capitol building also.
Q Okay. And back in -- in March and April of 2008, did you receive information that he wasn�t welcome anymore?
A I did, actually.
Q And after you received that information, did you see him again?
A I did, actually. He came in on April 2nd and dropped off a letter.
Q Okay. And when you say April 2nd, was that April 2nd of 2008?
A 2008. Mm-hmm.
Q And tell us about when he came in.
A He -- he just came through the front door and I was actually kind of surprised to see him, and he came in and said he had a letter he�d like to drop off. And I said I�d take the letter. And he left it on my desk and then he went out the door.
Now, Mr. Pentico is a somewhat intense person--but no more intense than I am. He's not someone that anyone would have much reason to fear--he's not 6'4" with bulging muscles. He's fairly slight of build. To deny someone their First Amendment rights should require some pretty strong evidence--but the judge seems to have decided that it was irrelevant to the question. It's unfortunate that the ACLU here isn't interested in First Amendment questions.
Mr. Pentico is supposed to be sentenced on Monday; I guess that I will go to see what happens.
UPDATE: Wayne Hoffman at Idaho Freedom Foundation interviewed some of the players in this matter, and has some interesting reporting:
There are at least two cases in which the Idaho courts have attempted to define the limits of the trespassing statute under which Pentico was convicted with respect to public property. The Idaho Supreme Court decided State v. Korsen (2003) and an Idaho district court decided State v. Stonecalf WarriorWoman (2008). Neither is exactly on point, but Korsen in particular should have given Judge Swain some guidance.
In the WarriorWoman case, a New Ager announced that she wasplanning on attending a concert at NIC, on February 27, 2007, for the purpose of making a political statement. NIC learned of this through a posting placed on the internet by Warriorwoman. Tr. p. 2, Ll. 16-25; p. 2, Ll. 8-11. NIC also received a telephone call from Warriorwoman saying she was going to be at the Raining Jane concert that night, and she was going to bring a �Tomahawk with a 30-million-year-old part to it, that she planned to dance and would be wearing too tight of clothing, and she wanted a black student and a yellow student to dance with her.� Tr. p. 5, Ll. 1-8. The stated reason was �She was holding the four corners of the earth to save the evil American.� Id., Ll. 24-25.
WarriorWoman was arrested at the gate for refusing to allow for a search of her backpack, and was told that she was trespassing. The decision decided that while she might have a right to free speech, the tomahawk crossed the line from speech to conduct. It's not a terribly good decision, in my opinion, because it fails to answer the question of whether WarriorWoman could have been denied entry if she had said that she was going to show up and hold up a sign expressing her opinion.
The Korsen decision is again not exactly on point, but closer. The defendant, Korsen:
At trial:
David Korsen appeared at the office of the Idaho Department of Health and Welfare in Boise to discuss his child support obligations. He informed personnel at the office that he might get loud and that he was not going to leave until he obtained some relief regarding his support requirements. He learned from the social worker that only the court could grant the relief he was seeking through making adjustments to child support payments he owed. The discussion grew louder and louder and, although Korsen did not use profanities or make any threats, he refused to leave the offices. The police were called, and Korsen was arrested at the scene on a charge of trespass under I.C. � 18-7008(8), because he refused to leave after being asked by the regional director of the department, who was in charge of the offices, to vacate
the premises.The magistrate concluded that the statute violated the Constitution because it was void for vagueness as applied to public property and because the statute failed to properly inform a person on public property about the specific conduct prohibited by the statute.
The Idaho Supreme Court overturned this ruling. With respect to vagueness:Neither the magistrate nor the district court examined the constitutionality of I.C. � 18-7008(8) as it applied to Korsen�s specific conduct in this case. Nor did they examine the statute in toto. Rather, they applied a hybridized form of the facial test, which ordinarily is used to determine if a statute is void in all its applications, by considering the statute only in its application to public property. By finding the statute vague, not as applied to Korsen�s conduct, but as to all applications on public property alone, the magistrate and the district court used an improper standard for determining whether the statute was facially vague. It was improper to conclude that the statute is invalid on its face as applied to public property, because the standard to sustain a facial challenge requires that a statute be held impermissibly vague in all of its applications. See Hoffman Estates, 455 U.S. at 497. Furthermore, because the magistrate failed to examine the individual conduct of Korsen, consideration of the �as applied� standard with respect to only public property was in error.
This argues that Judge Swain should have considered evidence of whether Pentico's conduct constituted constitutionally protected activity or not. He apparently did not allow it. The Idaho Supreme Court also found that the lower court had erred because they had concluded that any free speech was protected on public property from such a trespassing charge, rather than looking at the specific conduct of Korsen. And this paragraph seems to fit Pentico's case rather well:As an example of the statute�s reaching constitutionally protected speech, the district court pointed out the situation of people entering the Capitol to meet with legislators, asserting that, because the threat of prosecution under the trespass statute �potentially chills such clearly protected activity, the Court finds that the statute is unconstitutional in a substantial portion of the cases to which it applies.� This conclusion, however, illustrates the district court�s erroneous application of the facial overbreadth doctrine. A statute will not be invalidated for overbreadth merely because it is possible to come up with a hypothetical situation in which the statute is
Okay, Pentico's situation isn't hypothetical. The following paragraphs indicate that Korsen's conduct ceased to be free speech when he was informed that he was barking up the wrong tree:
unconstitutional as applied. Taxpayers for Vincent, 466 U.S. at 800. Rather, �there must be a realistic danger that the statute itself will significantly compromise recognized First Amendment protections of parties not before the Court. . . .� Id., at 801-02.The facts in Korsen�s case do not provide a situation where the exercise of free speech was impinged. Rather, Korsen showed up at the Health and Welfare office to conduct legitimate business, i.e., to discuss his child support obligation with the agency charged with overseeing collection of child support. When it appeared that his desire to obtain modification of the obligation could not be obtained at that office but, as he was informed, was a matter that properly should be addressed to the court where the obligation was established, the purpose of his visit to the Health and Welfare office came to an end.
There seems to be no claim that Pentico was doing anything but freedom of speech and petition of public officials for redress of grievances. Persistent, yes. The governor may not have wanted to involve himself in the dispute that Pentico was raising. But it was within the governor's power to do so. Banning Pentico seems a pretty clear violation of the First Amendment.
Assuming that a criminal trespass prosecution is filed pursuant to I.C. � 18-7008(8) against a person on public property who is exercising his or her free speech rights, the statute could be attacked as applied to that constitutionally-protected conduct. This does not render the statute substantially overbroad. A reasonable reading of I.C. � 18-7008(8) shows that the statute does not reach a substantial amount of constitutionally protected conduct. The district court therefore committed reversible error in determining that the statutory language is overbroad.
Gun Safety Class For Women
I love these little reminders that I don't live in California anymore! From the April 29, 2009 Idaho World:
I'm A Bit Stumped By This
The Idaho legislature recently passed a bill that, at least in Idaho, would be right up there Mom and apple pie:Adds to and amends existing law relating to sport shooting activities to provide for a limitation of liability on certain sport shooting activities and to provide exceptions; and to provide an exception to governmental liability relating to certain sport shooting ranges.
Essentially, it protects the operator of a shooting range from being sued except if the operator:(i) Commits an act or omission that constitutes gross negligence or willful and wanton disregard for the safety of the participant and that act or omission caused the injury? or
The reason should be obvious: shooting is intrinsically somewhat hazardous. You accept certain risks if you are firing a deadly weapon, or going somewhere that deadly weapons are being fired. (Sort of like skydiving.) The net effect is that if the operator of a shooting range is making a reasonable effort to keep it safe, you can't sue him. It also seems to protect the operator if he has taken reasonable efforts, and another customer does something stupid, irrational, or criminal, that causes injury to another customer.
(ii) Intentionally injures the participant.
I believe that if the operator saw customer X do something obviously dangerous (like handling a gun on the firing line while customers were downrange), and didn't tell customer X to knock it off, and this lead to customer Y being injured, this would qualify as "gross negligence" or "willlful and wanton disregard."
Such a bill prevents ambulance chasing antigun lawyers from using a a trivial error by an operator, or the actions of another customer, from being used to bankrupt a shooting range. You can see why those who look out for ambulance chasers and antigun activists would oppose such a bill.
Well, the bill passed the legislature, but State Senator Tim Corder (who represents me up there), was one of only five state senators to vote against it! The other four who voted against it? All Democrats? All representing Boise. (The ambulance chaser, antigun part of Idaho.)
I know that this vote won't go down well with the voters of Corder's district. But my experience in the last election when I ran against Corder in the Republican primary was that a lot of Republicans I talked to disagreed with Corder's votes and bill sponsorships, often at the level of complete bewilderment. It wasn't that there were angry, but they found how he voted and the bills he sponsored so bizarre that they seemed to have trouble holding Corder responsible for his actions. Yet they still planned to vote for him, because...well, they went to church with him (and a church that can't possibly be happy with that sexual orientation bill he sponsored), and he was from Elmore County. (Our district includes Elmore and Boise Counties, and Elmore is the majority of the votes.)
I'm really hoping that someone from Elmore County runs against Corder in the Republican primary next time around. As near as I can tell, that's the only way to unseat someone who votes more like a Democrat than a Republican.
Walt Minnick Wants To Hear From Us
Well, maybe not. But he will!
Remember: polite, calm words. Minnick is a sportsman, and needs reminding that the Second Amendment wasn't passed to protect the right to hunt, but so that the people retained the authority to overthrow a tyrannical government if it ever came to that. I'll be there.
Congressman Walt Minnick's
Town Hall Meeting on the Second Amendment
2:30 P.M.
Council Chambers, Meridian City Hall (First Floor)
33 East Broadway
Meridian, Idaho 83642
Walt Minnick (D-ID) Keeps Surprising Me
First, he was one of a small number of Democrats who voted against Obama's porkulus bill, proposing a much smaller, much more realistic bill. Now he eschews earmarks. From the April 2, 2009 Idaho Statesman:
Now, it's true that Minnick's actions, alone, won't make any difference in the orgy of irrational spending going on up there, and earmarks are only a tiny part of the problem. But the earmarks are among the least justifiable part of our current budget process. I didn't vote for Minnick, and I am not likely to vote for him in 2010, but I can respect the courage that it takes to say "No" to the special interests that dominate American politics. It's unfortunate that the Republicans that represent Idaho in Congress don't show this same courage.
"We are in scrambling mode," said Marty Peterson, lobbyist for the University of Idaho, which like many public colleges has relied on the practice to pay for some projects and programs.
"In this tough economic time, we all need to cut back," he said. "I strongly support many of the projects submitted to my office, so I understand why this decision will not be popular with some and that it may meet criticism."
Minnick said he would not push for earmarks - specific spending authority placed in congressional bills - for at least one year. He said he would try to bring money to Idaho by helping businesses and agencies win competitive grants offered in the stimulus package.
What Is It About Lewiston, Idaho?
From the March 3, 2009 Idaho Statesman:
I remember some years ago watching a horrifying documentary about some guy from Washington State who was serving time for a murder committed in Lewiston a decade or two back. As the documentary portrayed it, this guy murdered a couple that had taken in his runaway daughter, raped her, then pimped her out. He took the law into his own hands because the Lewiston Police Department was supposedly compromised because the couple was closely related to someone important there.
Not Quite As Far As Montana
House Joint Memorial 3 has been introduced into the Idaho legislature, and would put the Idaho legislature on record as opposing HR 45, the bill before Congress to require a license (with written tests, fingerprinting, etc.) to own any handgun, or any semiautomatic detachable magazine weapon. (That includes plinkers like the Ruger 10/22, and hunting rifles like the Remington 7400.)
Idahoans Take Note
There is a bill before the Idaho Senate Health & Welfare Committee that makes a number of fairly minor revisions to the current daycare licensing system. (What? You didn't think Idaho licensed daycare? It certainly does.) One of the provisions which seems fairly uncontroversial was not well drafted--and NRA's input on the matter, to prevent it from being overbroad, was apparently ignored.
S.1112 adds a new provision to Idaho Code 39-1102:(f) Firearms or weapons which are on the premises of a daycare facility must be kept in a locked container that is inaccessible to children while daycare attendees are present?
Okay, we don't want toddlers (or even more dangerous, eight or nine year olds) digging around in one of the bedrooms while a harried daycare provider is busily resolving intrapersonal disputes between other clients, finding a handgun, and deciding, "Whoa! This is cool!" and then causing a tragedy. However: this measure, because it isn't carefully worded, prohibits the following situations:
1. Someone has been stalking you. You've taken out a restraining order; obtained a concealed handgun permit; and you carry your gun on you for protection of yourself and your child. You go into the daycare center to pick up your child. The daycare center has now violated this provision. Indeed, if a police officer entered the daycare facility without securing his gun, pepper spray, and baton in a locked container, the daycare center would be in violation of the law. It isn't likely that this would ever cause a problem for the daycare center. But this needs to be fixed.
2. Lots of Idahoans have a gun in their car, for self-protection, or during hunting season. If you pull into the parking lot of the daycare center, is the daycare center in violation of Idaho Code 39-1109? Other provisions of S.1112 with respect to water hazards and fences show that "premises" is not limited to the building itself, but includes the yard--and very likely the parking lot.
I'm going to write to State Senator Corder (who is the author of the bill, and my representative in the state senate) and suggest some more narrowly written language should be considered. Here's the full list of members of the committee that need to hear from that perhaps the language needs to be sharpened to refer specifically to firearms and weapons within the daycare center itself, and exempting otherwise lawful and temporary possession of a firearm by those dropping off or picking up from the daycare center.
Weapons is also inadequately defined. Does it include a broadsword? Sure. A hunting knife? Sure. A Swiss Army knife? A kitchen knife for cutting up vegetables? This needs a more precise definition. By the way, speaking of "weapons"--love the last name of one of the state senators: Broadsword.
State Senator Joyce Broadsword (R-2), Vice-Chair jbroadsw@senate.idaho.gov
State Senator Denton Darrington (R-27) ddarring@senate.idaho.gov
State Senator John McGee (R-10) jmcgee@senate.idaho.gov
State Senator Charles Coiner (R-24) ccoiner@senate.idaho.gov
State Senator James Hammond (R-5) jhammond@senate.idaho.gov
State Senator Melinda Smyser (R-11) msmyser@senate.idaho.gov
State Senator Nicole LeFayour (D-19) nlefavou@senate.idaho.gov
State Senator Les Bock (D-16) lbock@senate.idaho.gov
UPDATE: Senator Corder tells me that this was an oversight--the drafter neglected to include NRA's recommended language. We can stop ripping fresh orifices.
How To Make Yourself Very Unpopular Right Now
The February 2, 2009 Idaho Statesman reports on the consequences of bad timing:
Gee, U.S. citizens and legal residents are losing their jobs--and a group arguing for immigration reform to increase the number of workers gets some upset letters? I am so surprised.
Larry Craig, Loser
Senator Larry "Happy Feet" Craig just lost another appeal. From the Washington Post:
The "I didn't know I was doing pleading guilty" argument I might accept from some guy with a limited education. But Larry Craig, while foolish, isn't stupid, nor is uneducated. He could have argued that his arrest was a "misunderstanding," and doing the "Aw shucks, this doesn't happen in public restrooms in Idaho" might have worked. A Minneapolis jury might have given Craig the benefit of the doubt for such an argument; pleading guilty pretty well blows out that argument.
Breaching Dams
The Sali for Congress campaign claims that Walt Minnick (the Democrat whose TV ads won't ever say that he is a Democrat) supported breaching the dams on the Lower Snake River back in 2003:Minnick was quoted by the AP in 2003 as saying, �We only have hopefully one more lawsuit to say as a matter of law that if we�re going to recover the salmon that dams have to come down now.�
I can't find that quote anywhere online. I don't find it hard to believe--but I would like something a bit more authoritative than "quoted by the AP in 2003."
I understand the arguments about the dams. If we were deciding whether to build those dams today, the case for them might not be so strong. There is a strong argument that the land saved from flooding downstream isn't much more than the land flood upstream, and that if you look at the energy that went into building those dams, perhaps the total power output by hydroelectricity wouldn't be so compelling.
But we don't have the time machine option. The energy constructing those dams? It was spent. The power that comes out of them now is free. Breaching the dams won't get the energy that was spent back out.
There are environmental costs to having those dams. But not having them also has environmental costs, because we either start living in caves again, or we have to build some alternative power plants.
Right now, environmentalists want wind power (unless it interferes with their view of Cape Cod) and solar power. But I wouldn't count on that being their claim in ten or fifteen years, when they will come up with some new reason why today's "look the future" power sources are suddenly evil--and we have to go back to living in caves.
UPDATE: A reader handed me a AP article that appeared in the Twin Falls Times-News, August 20, 2003, p. B01, that discusses the efforts to breach the dams, and quotes Minnick:
That seems to settle the question. Minnick is part of the crowd that considers economic questions "trivial"--usually a sign that someone is so rich that they no longer understand that real people have to have real jobs.KETCHUM -- Ten years ago Bruce Babbitt got taken to the woodshed by Bill Clinton for impulsively saying he wanted to see a dam destroyed before he left the Department of Interior. Tuesday night, Babbitt, the former Secretary of Interior, glanced out at the Big Wood River in Ketchum and proclaimed that the dams were about to come down to save wild salmon. "They've got to come down," he said, adding that economic arguments are trivial. "The question is how.
...Steve Mashuda, attorney for Earthjustice, told those in attendance that his organization plans to bring litigation against Idaho Power Company and others to make them realize the cost of keeping dams in place. "We will have salmon recovery in the upper Snake River in the near future. And I don't just mean a few, but millions," added Walt Minnick, a salmon recovery advocate from Boise. "We only have hopefully one more lawsuit to say as a matter of law that if we're going to recover the salmon that dams have to come down now."
UPDATE 2: I mentioned that in 10-15 years, environmentalists will be opposing what they theoretically support today, to force the peasants back into living in caves. A reader points me to evidence that we don't need to wait that long:
A Friend Is Running For Idaho State Senate
T. Allen Hoover is running for Idaho State Senate district 17. He won the Republican nomination--but this is a Boise state senate district, so he could use some help. For those of you nearby, he could use some volunteers. For those at a distance: money helps! Hoover is strongly pro-gun, pro-life, and definitely a conservative.
Allen is an interesting character--not Mr. Polished and Hubba-Hubba politician. If it gives you some idea what kind of guy he is, he likes to tell the story of turning in a paper for a college class, and the professor marked him down for citing something to the first printing of Alexis de Tocqueville's Democracy in America--when clearly, he used a later edition. No, Allen was working from a first printing!
For those who helped me with my primary challenge to Senator Corder: thank you. Help put Mr. Hoover in office, and it's almost as wonderful as putting me there!
Where The Money Is Coming From
It is always interesting to see where the money is coming from in elections. To my surprise, Walt Minnick has raised quite a bit more money than Bill Sali (more than one million dollars vs. not quite $650,000 for Sali)--and when you look at where the money is coming from, it does suggest something about who wants Sali out.
If you go to OpenSecrets.org, they give a variety of ways to breaking out the data. The breakdown of in state vs. out of state money shows that, surprisingly enough for an incumbent, the majority of Sali's contributions are coming from Idahoans: 59%. Minnick's money is even more lopsidedly the other direction: 69% is coming from out of state.
The big individual contributors to Bill Sali are business PACs and the NRA. Minnick's big contributors seem to include a lot of labor unions--no surprise there. The breakdown by zipcode is quite interesting--and may not go over well with a lot of Idahoans.Top Metro Areas
Walter Clifford Minnick (D)
Metro Area Total BOISE CITY $137,848 NEW YORK $118,073 SEATTLE-BELLEVUE-EVERETT $44,100 PORTLAND-VANCOUVER, OR-WA $30,027 SAN FRANCISCO $20,200 William T. Sali (R)
Metro Area Total BOISE CITY $29,600 WASHINGTON, DC-MD-VA-WV $12,100 CHICAGO $4,500 PHILADELPHIA, PA-NJ $2,300 BOSTON, MA-NH $2,300 CINCINNATI, OH-KY-IN $2,300
Where Does Walt Minnick Stand On Illegal Aliens?
A recent survey by Rasmussen Reports shows that there is overwhelming support for stopping the influx of illegal aliens into the United States:
Where does his Democratic opponent, Walt Minnick, stand? Under "Issues," Minnick has a number of different pages--but not a word about illegal immigration that I can find. Nor was I able to find anything that Minnick has said in the news media on the subject.
I don't know about you, but I think it would be quite entertaining to try and get Minnick to say where he stands on this issue. Since he is a Democrat, I rather suspect that he is going to try and weasel word his response rather than admit that his objective is to keep cheap, easily exploited labor coming into the country for the benefit of business interests.
UPDATE: Here's a video where Minnick agrees that we need to control our borders for national security reasons. He agrees that something needs to be done on the demand side, such as prohibiting hiring of illegal aliens. (Well, it's a bit late to do that. That's already illegal.) Minnick does claim that we need more immigration to fill jobs that Americans won't do, at least when the economy is growing. Minnick says that it "doesn't make sense" to arrest and deport illegal aliens, and wants to give them an incentive to "come out of the shadows" by paying a penalty and getting at the back of line. But he also said that deporting them doesn't make sense. It appears that he supporting the McCain/Kennedy amnesty proposal.
UPDATE 2: Just to be clear about this: Minnick is correct that we don't have the resources to track down and deport all twelve million illegal aliens. But we do have the resources to deport those who come to our attention as a result of Social Security matching when someone starts work, or when an illegal alien is arrested. We do need to work on the demand side--by punishing employers who knowingly hire illegal aliens. We do need a better fence. But when city and county governments prohibit their police officers from informing ICE about illegal aliens that they have arrested--that's idiotic. It might take ten years to get this problem under control, using all of these methods. But it's better than rewarding those who have broken our immigration law, by giving them a path to citizenship.
Bill Sali (R-ID) Blog
I guess that it won't be a surprise that Bill Sali, who represents the 1st Congressional District here in Idaho, has a blog trying to get him re-elected. I'm not sure how many Idahoans even know what blogs are--much less read them--but like a lot of such innovations, it costs almost nothing to do, and I like to think that blog readers are such technologically sophisticated and thoughtful sorts simply because they read blogs that this will make a difference. I may be biased, of course, in favor of the idea that people who read blogs are especially clever and with it.
I will confess that backing Bill Sali isn't all that difficult a decision. The last thing I want is a bunch more puppets of billionaires up in Congress, which makes nearly any Democrat running for the seat a bit suspicious. One thing that I like about Bill Sali is that he says stuff that just infuriates left-wing newspapers like the Idaho Statesman--and when he makes clearly true statements such as that America was founded on Christian principles--it just drives the leftists crazy. That alone should be at least one argument in Sali's favor.
Even if I didn't support Sali, my only encounters with Walt Minnick, who ended up with the Democratic nomination, sure haven't impressed me. Back in March, I pointed out that a letter that Minnick wrote to a number of newspapers around Idaho about the real problem of the uninsured was just flat out wrong:I saw a letter to the March 26, 2008 Idaho World from Walt Minnick, the Democrat intent on unseating Bill Sali, attacking Sali for his approach to solving the problem of uninsured Idahoans. In that letter, Minnick complained about "the 40% of Idahoans who don't have insurance." That sounded high, but I just assumed that Minnick is as careful as I am when making factual claims. I guess not.
I also saw Minnick speak at a candidate's forum in which I participated, and I was not impressed. Minnick talked a lot about alternative energy, but it sounded far more like "Congress can spend money on stuff, and we'll get clean, renewable energy from it" than anything that suggested that he really had a clue about economics. These remarks on his web page seem to be more of the same mix of "the oil companies need to be taxed more" and the kind of subsidies to business that created the corn ethanol idiocy:
Here's a website sponsored by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, which wants everyone covered. It claims that the 2006 Current Population Survey data indicates that 14.7% of Idahoans are uninsured. That's actually better than the national average (although not by much).
Here's a report put together by Mathematica Policy Research for the Joint Legislative Oversight Committee last year. It estimates that 16-18% of the "non-elderly population" of Idaho is uninsured as of 2005. (People over 65 are covered by Medicare; hence the discrepancy with the 14.7% figure.)
I'm not quite sure what "special tax breaks and incentives" he's talking about. There is the depletion allowance:
In tax law, the deductions from gross income allowed investors in exhaustible commodities (such as minerals, oil, or gas) for the depletion of the deposits. The depletion allowance is intended as an incentive to stimulate investment in this high-risk industry, though critics argue that mineral deposits are valuable enough to justify high levels of investment even without tax incentives. See also depreciation.
Yes, I'm sure that there are ways to convert forest and agricultural waste to biofuel. But if the consequences of government subsidies of corn ethanol are instructive, it might be an argument against more such encouragement. As I have pointed out in the past, there is a rather fundamental difference between funding basic research and subsidizing energy waste:With respect to purely research activities, my sympathies with respect to alternative energy are a little stronger. (Of course, "alternative energy" includes nuclear power.) While some serious boondoggles definitely come out of such research projects, there is no question that some of the government promoted R&D has created some useful results. If we could get fusion power plants operating, petroleum would become just an interesting source of plastics--and oil exporting countries that have little to offer the world but overblown thuggish leaders would go back to the fourteenth century. No loss.
Maybe Minnick is smarter than he sounds and smarter than his website suggests. But so far, I am not persuaded.
That said, I think it is important to distinguish true R&D from actual production. Figuring out a way to efficiently produce ethanol from corn is an R&D activity; tax exemptions are not. Figuring out a way to produce photovoltaic cells at $1 per watt is an R&D activity; using tax exemptions to sell $5/watt cells for $1/watt may just hide that we're wasting energy making the cells.
All Larrys Are Alike, I Guess
Larry LaRocco is the Democratic nominee running after Senator Larry Craig's seat. So what happened when someone printed up campaign buttons for LaRocco, hoping that some of the Obamamessiah magic would rub off? They put a picture of Obama next to a picture of a Larry--Larry Craig! The amusing details can be found at the July 27, 2008 Idaho Statesman.
The Last Postmortem on the Campaign
I attended the Boise County Republican Central Committee's reorganization meeting. (They apparently had gone moribund some time back, as I discovered during the campaign.) I had a chance to talk to a number of those present--several of whom expressed great surprise that I lost the primary, especially since I was much more in tune with what they perceive as the political sympathies of most Boise County Republicans. I did hear a few interesting aspects which may partly explain my loss:
1. When Corder first got himself elected in 2004, he visited every business in the district, trying to drum up support. He has name recognition because of it.
2. Yes, the mailers from IACI PAC did come across as too slick, too professional for our district. As one person put it, "When I saw these, I said, big money from out of state." (And this is someone who still voted for me.) In fact, IACI PAC's funding, I think, is all from within Idaho. Corder's pathetic, amateurish mailers...were exactly right for this district.
3. Only some noticed that my campaign sent out mailers, and that the others were from IACI PAC. They were similar enough in graphic layout (although not in content) that many of those present assumed that they were all from the same organization. And these are considerably more politically aware voters than I would guess the average Republican in Boise County.
I have also concluded that while there were people who were genuinely upset about IACI PAC's inappropriate use of a picture of a soldier in uniform, there are others who I believe were just Corder supporters trying to stir up trouble.
Someone named Geoff commented over at IdaBlue attacking me for not doing enough about the IACI PAC mailing. At first I assumed that he was a genuinely upset veteran--who apparently went out and got Corder yard signs because of the IACI PAC's inappropriate use of that picture. But when I asked him why he would vote against me for something that I didn't do, didn't like, and had no control over, his response was this:"I didn't do it"... "It wasn't my fault"..."It was something I had no control over"..."I don't like it either".......as opposed to "I will put a stop to it immediately, and their apology is forthcoming"- which one sounds like a victim, and which one a leader? I will vote for a leader over someone who chooses to be a victim.
My response:Geoff, I was prepared to believe your claim that you weren't a Corder partisan using a legitimate complaint as a basis for attack. But no longer.
I'm no longer assuming that Geoff is what he claims.
You tell me that I should have said: "I will put a stop to it immediately, and their apology is forthcoming"
How do I stop it? In case you haven't noticed, there is this little thing called freedom of speech. I don't have the authority to stop someone else from mailing campaign materials. Even government officials don't have the authority to do that.
And how do I force a group that doesn't even want me to inform them of my campaign activities to apologize?
Idaho Statesman Reporter Called Me Up
He wanted to talk about the campaign and the Idaho Association of Commerce and Industry (IACI), whose PAC sent out mailings supporting me that I now know did me some damage--and may not have done me much good. I did my best to emphasize that the laws concerning independent election campaigns are the real problem, but I will be only slightly surprised to see an article in the Statesman shortly with the headline:IACI Wanted Me To Bear Their Alien Love Child!
Sign Removal & Surprising Encouragement
Yesterday afternoon and today afternoon were both spent retrieving "Cramer for State Senate" signs from roadsides. Nearly every sign I put up in Boise County was still there, so we got nearly all of them back.
In Elmore County, not a single one of my signs remained. At first, we thought that either city crews or public spirited sorts had just gone through and indiscriminately removed every campaign sign, but we found a few signs from other campaigns still in the places where our signs had been--so I suspect that every campaign did what it is supposed to do--and my volunteers over in Elmore County removed our signs.
My wife was out for a walk, and ran into the wife of one of the local real estate developers. The wife told my wife that I should try again. She was apparently quite impressed with my ideas--once she had read enough to understand what I was talking about. (Perhaps this isn't a good sign for the reading level of the campaign flyers I produced.)
More Reasons for the Very Bad Election Results
I found several additional reasons that individually contributed to the poor results, I suspect.
1. Jamie Anderson, who signed up to run for county commissioner as a Republican, sure didn't sound like one to me at one of the candidate forums--she sounded like a liberal to leftist Democrat. Sure enough, that's exactly what she is. But a lot of Democrats voted in the Republican primary here in Boise County to help her get the nomination--and while they were on the Republican ballot, they appear to have voted heavily for Tim Corder--who is something of a Democrat Lite. This may explain why I didn't even carry Boise County--and why there were only 182 votes for the Democrat running for state senator in the Democratic primary. Yet another argument for a closed primary. Since there are seldom contested Democratic primaries, the temptation for Democrats to play games like this are very strong--and they have a strong reason to protect Tim Corder from a Republican challenge.
2. A co-worker who lives north of Horseshoe Bend tells me that at school, his daughters are able to play with the children of other newcomers--but the children of the families that have been here for generations pretty much keep to themselves. I suspect that the same thing is at play at election time. My family hasn't been here for several generations. If this is a factor, I have no hope of ever getting elected, as long as Tim Corder or one of the other third generation Idahoan families decides to run.
3. I answered a number of questionnaires, including one from Idaho Chooses Life and the Cornerstone Institute. Both of them were asking very binary questions about complex issues. In particular, I did my best to articulate that concerning abortion, Idaho has gone about as far as it can under Roe v. Wade, and until the Supreme Court overturns it, there's not much that the state can do--but in the meantime, pro-life groups should be working hard to persuade pro-choice people over to the pro-life side--or at least neutralize them.
The reason is that passing laws to restrict abortion is unlikely to be successful at reducing abortions--and I gave the example of Oregon. Before Roe v. Wade, Oregon had a very restrictive abortion law--and yet it had 199 abortions per 1,000 live births. Pretty clearly, the law was not being followed, nor prosecuted. Much of the decline in abortions in the 1990s wasn't because of laws, but because pro-life groups successfully persuaded a lot of people that abortion was either murder, or a bad choice, or pragmatically a bad idea.
But all those subtle points were lost in the detailed statements that I attached to the questionnaires--only the simple yes and no answers went up on the web. I am inclined to think that the next time, I will simply not return questionnaires like this.
The Boise County Republican Central Committee is going to reform on Monday night. I think I will show up, and try to find out exactly what is going on here. In this primary, I emphasized several significant areas of difference with the incumbent: illegal immigration; sexual orientation as a protected class; and more alternatives to the public school system. It is possible that Republicans here are heavily in favor of illegal immigration, sexual orientation as a protected class, and maintaining the public school monopoly. If so, I am terribly, terribly confused by what is going on here.
Disappointing Results
All precincts are now in. Corder received 1956 votes; I received 1202 votes.
I am a little surprised. When talking to people in person and calling people on the phone, I found only a few people who supported Corder--and even his supporters disagreed with him on issues that I thought would be hot button issues, such as the sexual orientation bill that Corder introduced.
We were roughly even in the number of signs in the district--although his signs tended to be larger.
Between my efforts and the independent election campaign efforts, material supporting me far exceeded in quantity and professionalism that produced by the Corder campaign.
I did talk to people that were concerned that I had too much money behind me. And I talked to people that were concerned about voting for someone who was from California because of California's reputation for liberalism--so they voted for someone who was far more liberal. I talked to people who told me that in Idaho, it is really important that you be a third or fourth generation Idahoan--and perhaps that played a major part.
Incumbency is always an advantage, of course.
Lots of people here don't seem to much care who runs the government. They aren't conservative; they aren't even libertarian; it's more like, "Who cares?"
A late start didn't help.
I talked to a lot of really upset people as I worked my way down the phone lists. But not upset enough to vote Corder out.
UPDATE: Name recognition may be an issue. I'm told by an economist who has studied this subject that, "over a third of winning freshmen Congressional candidates had run unsuccessfully for Congress previously and the vast majority had run for some office previously." I'm being encouraged by prominent Republican Party officials to do this again in 2010. Maybe I'll just retrieve the signs, and hold them until I make a decision in two years.
UPDATE 2: Social conservatives apparently did quite well against liberal and moderate Republicans across Idaho. I am wondering if the problem was my district, or that I am outsider. I had people tell me that being from California originally was a problem, since Californians are all known to be raving liberals.
Don't Hold Your Breath Waiting For Election Results
Remember that my district includes two very rural, very sparsely populated counties, so it is at least an hour's drive from some precincts to the county seats--and that's in good weather. This being late May, we're having almost winter weather, with pouring rain, cold, and lightning storms. Adding to the delay is that the ballots (at least here in Boise County) are literally paper--and we mark the votes with an X.
I'm not expecting to see any results until morning. In the meantime, amuse yourself by refreshing the Idaho Secretary of State's web page.
I was slightly surprised when I went to vote that I didn't even need to tell the precinct officials what my name was--they knew me by sight!
UPDATE: It appears to be a resounding victory for Corder.
Ways To Annoy Voters
One of the political professionals that I spoke to encouraged me to use recorded phone calls to likely voters--and at about $0.10 to $0.11 per call, it was cheap enough that I could have had the robots call every likely voter in the district for less than $1000. But I decided not to do this, because I find these robocalls so annoying. If they annoy me, they probably annoy others.
More Conversations
I've been working my way down the list of likely voters (those who have voted in four of the last four elections), and I'm pretty encouraged. I have talked to only a couple of voters who were on Corder's side--quite a number who have already decided to vote against Corder because of his actions, or who have decided to vote for me because they were pleased with the literature that they have seen. Quite a number hadn't committed themselves yet--but I guess this is probably a good sign--when the incumbent hasn't generated enough good will to carry him through a partisan primary.
I did have one interesting conversation where the voter explained that she was a little worried that the sheer volume of campaign literature suggested that I was showing off how rich I am. I explained that my campaign hasn't spent terribly much--that the independent election campaign trying to unseat Corder has spent, as near as I can tell, more money than my campaign. I have spent an embarrassingly small amount of money out of my own pocket. Thanks to my loyal blog readers, who have contributed relatively small chunks each--but it all adds up!
