West of the Rotunda

It’s always something when Idaho makes the national news. But these pinko slanted reporters just seem to cherry pick the awards we get. So, when I read about our Lieutenant Governor getting the coveted “Black Hole” award, I had to look further beyond just the Fake News.

Janice McGeachin did indeed get this ignominious press award for hiding public information from the us, the public, and then losing her lawsuit, and trying to get us taxpayers to pay for her shenanigans. But I was sure there was more going on in this backwater state, so I Googled my hind end off and tried to find what else might be going on.

It turns out there’s more awards you should know about.

The Sheepherders Association has a small offshoot that deals with domestic feline custodial practices, and it turns out our Governor, Brad Little, got awarded the Cat Herder of the Year award for 2021. He was recognized for his ability to deal with craziness, crapitude, and criticism in public office. Brad was well known to the Sheepherders Association, so I wondered if this award was kind of an inside joke, but he didn’t miss an opportunity for public pleas. His acceptance speech was brief at the Elko, Nevada convention. “Thank you for this.” He said. “Now I need to get you all to register for the Republican Primary in Idaho.”

Why didn’t this make the news? It’s just another example of the “Fake News” we all have to deal with.

I had to get to the third page of Google searching for “Idaho Awards” to find the Anadromous Award. It’s pretty obscure. They say they want to acknowledge the efforts of individuals who exemplify the upstream work of salmon and steelhead, battling against predators and dams, current and gill nets, fishermen and waterfalls, to return to their spawning grounds to lay their eggs, have them fertilized to create offspring who can then face such obstacles. Can you imagine the award ceremony? Tears were dropping from the ten people in the room before the winner was announced.

No wonder the Fake News didn’t cover this. Representative Mike Simpson got the award last year, so they had to look elsewhere. Their glance didn’t stray far.

They awarded the 2021 Anadromous Award to Lawrence Wasden, Idaho Attorney General. They recognized that he hadn’t specifically done anything for steelhead or salmon in this land-locked state, but that he had exemplified the nature of their struggle. He had tried, unceasingly to tell the truth to people who did not want to hear it. How more upstream can you fight? The applause was strong, though he was not present to accept the award. It seems he had other engagements.

A corollary to the Black Hole Award came from the Conservative Political Action Convention. They acknowledge folks who successfully hide their funding but accomplish significant change. This was the coveted Dark Money Award, given in the past to such notables as Paul Manafort. He got it while serving his foreshortened federal sentence, right before he was pardoned by our former President. They recognized the Idaho Freedom Foundation this year for their unprecedented success here in Idaho. Kudos to the Freedom Index.

But lest you think only Republicans win awards in Idaho, the National Association for Dramatic Public Mistakes found an Idaho Democrat (well, maybe) to recognize in our small state. They gave their Bonehead Award to Idaho Democratic Gubernatorial Candidate, Shelby Rognstad. When he announced and started raising money to run against whoever the Republicans chose, he didn’t realize he was a registered Republican. The Idaho Secretary of State pointed this faux pas out to him, but since he had waited to the last minute to file, he had no time to change his registration. He now will run as a write-in. The last Democrat in Idaho has to learn to spell “Rognstad”.

Fake news be damned.

The Idaho legislature wants to make Idaho medical students whose education is supported by taxpayer dollars serve some time in Idaho when they grow up and become practicing physicians. Seems like a win-win, doesn’t it? Idaho needs doctors, the students want to become doctors. Why not require them to spend some time helping out this beautiful state in return for the taxpayer support they receive?

You need to know I have some history here. I was supported in my medical education by Idaho taxpayers some 40 years ago. I was an Idaho WAMI. It had just one “W” back then, before Wyoming joined Washington, Alaska, Montana, and Idaho in the medical school collaboration.

It’s not the first time Idaho has tried to incentivize WWAMI students to return to our dear state. The first attempt was a carrot, not a stick. WWAMI students who returned to Idaho and practiced in an underserved area could be eligible for support to repay medical school loan debt. This was from a fund garnered from assessments on students in the program, and later, taxpayer funds were added.

But the current law is a stick. If you are a WWAMI student and don’t come back to Idaho to practice within a year of finishing your residency or getting a license, and then stay for four years, you owe the state of Idaho the full amount of what the taxpayers doled out to support you: about $160,000.

Alaska, Wyoming, and Montana have all instituted such requirements of their state supported students in the last few years. None of these states has seen a dramatic drop in applicants for their programs.

The University of Washington School of Medicine and the WWAMI multistate collaborative program are recognized for their excellence in training and preparation of medical students to serve both primary care and rural populations.

I’ve watched the UW/ University of Idaho WWAMI faculty try to avoid this for the last ten years and I really haven’t understood their reluctance. Taxpayers deserve some return for their investment. But carrots and sticks? Why not make Idaho a place doctors want to work and where people want to be well?

One of the most critical decisions a young highly trained professional in any field faces is where to locate and put their services to use. Market forces often focus on the quantifiable salary, but for many, there are greater considerations.

Where can my spouse be happy?

Will my children thrive in this town?

Will I continue to learn and grow in my profession?

Can we find a place to live that will suit us?

Will our family feel welcome?

I know these are their questions because I had them myself, and I addressed them in the colleagues I recruited.

The best way to serve our state in its health care professional needs may not be with carrots or sticks but instead to look at the bigger picture. We need to make our state sustainably desirable to live in, to work in, to serve in.

I moved from Hells Canyon to Council, Idaho to McCall, to Moscow where I started my family. We walked the streets before the Farmers Market and looked at the big old homes. We fell in love with the Palouse.

Each of our little towns, and even the big ones need to be supported as they struggle to serve their needs. Carrots and sticks are the tools of petty tyrants. We need vision and wisdom in the leaders we elect.

I cannot oppose this requirement that medical students return to the state that supported their wonderful education. They should have a deep sense of service to the health of their community. Idaho leaders need to build strong communities for them to serve.

We held our Idaho State Democratic convention at Mingles Pool Hall on ladies’ night, thinking it wouldn’t be too crowded. There were just three of us left in this vast state; two in the North End of Boise and me up in Moscow. They agreed to come the 300 miles north for the beautiful drive.

I checked with the bouncer, and he said we could use a corner booth if we didn’t get too loud. “Why don’t you get a pool table? Number two is open. That’s your favorite.” He knew my habits.

Thinking a couple games of cutthroat might pass the time while we approved the minutes of our last meeting, I got the rack of balls and picked out a cue. The other two Idaho Democrats came through the swinging doors right on time. Matt had his Idaho State sweatshirt on, and Priscilla was wearing her Paulette Jordan sweatshirt. We always try to fit in.

They ambled my way reluctantly. Matt grinned and nodded toward the rack of balls. “Are we going to play for who gets to be the last?”

You see, we had to decide who amongst us was going to keep the banner, since there was such a strong desire to register Republican to participate in the closed Republican Primary election this May.

“You know how to play cutthroat?” I asked them. Their headshakes got me started on the explanation of the rules, but they got distracted.

Priscilla asked the waitress is they had organic herbal tea. Matt wanted an artisanal IPA. They settled for whatever and I got Jim Beam on the rocks.

“Cutthroat, huh?” Matt asked. “Sounds like an appropriate game for Democrats.”

Priscila frowned. “Just because you didn’t vote for Paulette, I wouldn’t cut your throat.” She chalked her cue fiercely.

“So, the rules are, the last one of us with any balls on the table gets to be the last Democrat in Idaho.”

“That’s sure sexist.” Priscilla frowned again. “How do I know which are my balls and which are yours?” She grinned and glared with her emphasis.

“Whatever balls you don’t sink, that’s what you are.”

Matt grimaced. “Another Democrat rule if I’ve ever heard one.”

“So, I’ll break. If I drop the One Ball and the Fifteen Ball, I’m the middles, six through ten. We each have five balls and you want to drop the other guys. Make a shot, even your own ball, and you get to keep shooting. Winner is the last one with their balls up.”

Matt racked. “Move to approve the minutes.”

“Second,” Priscilla offered, “and I’ll go next.”

Sure enough, I dropped a couple on the break, the ten and the twelve, so that meant I was the low balls. I made a couple more, then missed.

Priscilla dropped the fifteen. “So now you are the middles, six through ten.” I explained. She lined up on the nine-ball. “You know that’s yours.” I offered. She sank it in the corner, looked at me and smiled. “Now you only have two left.” She smiled again and kept shooting. She dropped one of Matt’s and one of mine, then another of hers, then missed.

Matt studied the table and I spoke to Priscilla as she chalked her cue softly. “You only have one left. Why’re you doing that?”

She whispered, “I’m moving to Portland. I can’t be the last Democrat in Idaho.”

Matt sank two of his, leaving him with just one also, then he missed. “Are you moving too?” I asked him.

He was honest. “I need to vote for Brad in the primary. I have the paperwork in the car.

I dropped their remaining balls, leaving me, the last Democrat in Idaho with three balls on the table.

Bill Spence wrote an article about a property tax relief plan in the works. It’s so lame brained I’ve got to wonder if it’s just smoke.

Senator Jim Rice, chair of the Senate Tax Committee and Representative Mike Moyle, House Majority leader want to hike the Idaho sales tax to the highest in the nation, almost 8 cents on every dollar spent, then drop all property tax on owner occupied property.

When I showed up in the Idaho Legislature, without much of a clue about how the state moved money around, I was introduced to the three-legged stool. Seasoned legislators proudly told me about Idaho’s balanced taxation formula. Sales tax and income tax go into the legislature controlled general fund. The biggest general fund expenditure is to education, K-12 and higher Ed. I like stability. I became a fan of the three-legged stool.

Property taxes stay local but mainly support their local schools. The pride of the seasoned legislators was that this balance in revenue supported stability, thus school funding would be stable. Isn’t that what any proud parent would want for their kids, stability?

I was aware of the shift that then Governor Jim Risch had rammed through in a special session in 2006. He’d agreed to raise sales tax to 6% but capped what local property taxes could be raised.

I began my years in the state house in 2011, right after the Bear Stearns financial collapse in 2008, driven by the mortgage derivative bundling that got so many people into homes they couldn’t afford. Many saw this collapse coming. Nobody did anything, and the responses were weak. May I suggest listening to the “Meltdown” podcast.

I doubt Jim Risch knew the meltdown was coming. But when the economy tanked in 2008 and Idaho’s tax revenues tanked in 2009, and we burned through the biggest reserves we ever imagined having by 2010, we cut funding for schools for the first time in Idaho’s history. We still have not recovered.

The Jim Risch 2006 move that shaved the property tax leg off the once stable three-legged stool made locals decide to raise their local property taxes with supplemental levies to save their schools. We now have a record $218M in supplemental levies. Believe it or not, this was almost the exact amount Risch promised from the sales tax increase. The 6% sales tax increase had to fund prisons and roads and got eaten away as the legislature managed the budget.

It’s unwise, unbalanced thinking like this that has driven Idaho schools into our dismal bottom dwelling funding position. And now the Rice/ Moyle “property tax relief” proposal wants to do it all again. Shave off the property tax leg, grow the sales tax leg, and we’ll have to try to balance our schools on this leaning structure.

The idea they suggest will make the three-legged stool really with just one and a half legs, all dependent on the legislature’s largesse. Next downturn and we’ll be so dependent on Boise legislators we all might as well move to the Treasure Valley and camp on their lawn.

Senator Rice is a seasoned and proud law maker. But both he and Representative Moyle can’t admit they made a mistake. When they voted, with the Republican majority in 2016 to cap the homeowners exemption, they started this cascade. All Democrats voted against it. But maybe stability and reasonable public-school funding isn’t their goal. Maybe they have listened to Wayne Hoffman and believe the Idaho Constitutions mandate for uniform public education and the requirement that the legislature fund it is hooey.

There are many reasonable and moderate proposals to fix this problem. We don’t need a wobbly stool to stand on. Give us stability. Give our kids stability.

I’ve been pulling wires and connecting circuits in this garage/ apartment I’m building, so I’ve had to learn some things. Such endeavors keep me going, even when the knees hurt on the ladders and the hip aches with heavy loads.

Building inspectors are good guys generally, even when they criticize. They teach. I’m open to learning. I don’t like silly regulations any more than the next guy, but a lot of the work I’m doing will be covered up and now’s the time to do it right.

I had to learn about arc fault circuit breakers, AFCI’s. They are the new item in electrical panels. “New” means in the last twenty years. The National Electrical Code added the requirement in 1999. I remember, ten years or more ago, when the legislature reviewed the new State electrical codes and approved the requirement. Idaho only mandated them in new or updated construction in rooms where folks would be living or sleeping.

Old fashioned breakers detect excessive current. Arc fault breakers detect when there a loose connection and an arc occurs. This can be a source of fires. About 25,000 fires a year, with hundreds of deaths and billions of dollars in damage are attributed to bad wiring. But that number is declining, thanks to building codes and inspectors.

We remodeled a house ten years back and had a new subpanel installed. The electricians testifying before our Senate committee had talked about “nuisance tripping”. So, when the renters’ vacuum cleaner kept stopping and starting, I knew the problem. The testifying electricians said the AFCI’s were getting better and there was less of this happening.

But that brings me to the story a good friend told me about her classroom. She’s a schoolteacher. She told me about a student coming up to her complaining of the sound coming from an outlet near his desk. She checked it out. The faceplate was a bit blackened, and there was a distinct “Bzzzzt” sound coming from the socket. No smoke or flame, just that annoying sound. She called maintenance, put some orange tape over the socket and moved the kid’s desk.

I’ll bet none of our schools in this district, old as they are, have AFCI’s.

In my last session in the legislature, I got an update from the State Building inspector about a school in my district. They had found a dangerous problem. Seems a generous citizen had offered to put some extra lights in a hallway where it was pretty dim. Trouble was that the mounting screws had pierced the roof membrane and snow melt was dripping into the fluorescent fixtures. The problem got fixed, but it wasn’t cheap.

I’m trying hard to let my local inspectors help me do things right. I figure it will be cheaper in the long run.

We sure don’t do much for our school buildings in this state. We make any bond funding hard to pass with the 66% approval requirement. It’s not like some in the legislature are not aware of the problem. To their credit, they asked for a study. It told them, among other things, that to get 2/3rds of our public schools up to “good” condition, it will cost about $850M.

It’s pretty clear there’s no stomach to address this issue amongst our current legislators, or our governor. They just decided to cut taxes by $600M. But our conservative legislature did pass a law a few years back requiring schools to spend 2% of their budget on building maintenance. The national standard is 3% for maintenance, and 4% for upgrades.

Further, the Idaho House just passed a bill to limit how often schools can try to run a bond election to try to address their buildings with local funds.

Don’t expect much help from Boise on this issue. But check out the outlets in your kid’s school next time you visit. Listen for the “Bzzzt”.

It doesn’t come from poppies like good old heroin. It’s a synthetic narcotic that is now widely sold on the street after being cooked up in a dirty warehouse with no chemist overseeing the mixing, no quality control supervisor inspecting the pills. And it’s killing our neighbors and their children as fast as it’s getting them high.

The fact that, milligram for milligram, the synthetic narcotic is 100 times stronger than morphine raises the stakes. Some shoddy mixing before the pills gets stamped could make half the batch lethal and the other half impotent. Or a little too much solvent in the batch might make the usually short acting drug into a long-acting analog. The risks for the folks wanting to get high just shot up.

Last year Idaho saw a doubling of Fentanyl overdose deaths. Nationally, in 2020, all overdose deaths, not just Fentanyl climbed 30% in one year. Over 90,000 US citizens died from drug overdoses that year. One Idaho narcotic treatment company details that 42% of their new patients test positive for fentanyl, over a doubling from the year before.

So, it’s the new drug we need to deal with.

I remember when I first saw the Duragesic patch prescribed for chronic pain. Fentanyl was enclosed in a plastic stick-on patch. The side against the skin was semi-permeable, letting a fixed amount through every hour. It was formulated to last for three days. This product was developed in the 1980’s to treat chronic pain, especially cancer pain, in patients who had become tolerant to oral narcotics. But getting the right dose could be tricky. And many patients described suffering withdrawal symptoms from the high narcotic dose in the third day as the patch dose faded.

You’d think it was safe from abuse, wouldn’t you? Can’t roll up and smoke a plastic patch. But in the 1990’s back when I was a county coroner, I was called to a death scene. The deceased was slumped in the bathroom, the needle still in his arm. There on the washstand next to him was a patch with the corner cut off where he’s rinsed out the fentanyl into the syringe still in his arm. It’s a very fast acting and powerful drug.

But what’s available on the streets now are easier to consume pills for swallowing or smoking. The drug (if it’s fentanyl) quickly attaches to the opioid receptors in our body. If it’s too much, we stop breathing. That’s how we die.

Most people don’t understand that simple but necessary connection in our biology. The signal for pain, which many of us want to avoid at great costs, is closely linked to the signal to breathe.

Fentanyl was and is used regularly in the operating room to block pain. But the anesthetist can control the patients breathing mechanically. And the pharmaceutical grade fentanyl wears off very quickly so the IV drip can be slowed or shut off and the patient can start breathing on their own.

But the street pills being bought and sold, swallowed or smoked, might contain longer acting analogs. Remember, this is warehouse chemistry, no quality ensured. Even scarier, maybe there’s some of the derivative carfentanil in this batch, 100 times more sedating than fentanyl. That makes it 10,000 times as strong as morphine. It’s so strong it was considered for use as a bioweapon. It’s like letting grade school kids play with automatic weapons.

It’s a dangerous world we are in. But I hope you folks can all keep breathing. Take a deep breath and commit yourselves to a healthy life, a healthy community. May we all accept enough pain in our lives to keep us alive.

I remember finding this concept difficult in medical school training. We were supposed to look for delusions in patients as a sign of their mental health. Delusions were defined for us medical students, and for all of us, as “an unshakeable belief in something untrue”. I remember rolling my eyes as that was presented. I could think of quite a few fellow students and relatives who had unshakeable beliefs in things I thought were not true. Were they crazy, or me?

But then I had to spend some time with the folks living under the Alaska Way in Seattle that would be brought into the Harborview Emergency Room. The older Native American with the rotted foot, diabetic, who believed the drugs offered to control his blood sugars were poison. Or the young schizophrenic who just knew the truth was to be found in the Seattle Times horoscope, not in the medications we offered. I had lived a sheltered life and had not learned that delusions could be fatal.

But now I live in a time when the marketing, the promotion, and the power of selling delusions makes some billionaires and the rest of us crazy. Whose truth will you embrace? Do you know for a fact that our former president flushed documents down the White House toilet, or do you instead know for a fact that the FBI instilled informants in the January 6^th Capitol riot? Or are you both delusional and I need to find a safe retreat? We need to sort this out.

Many people with delusions do just fine in regular society. I remember a conversation at a Democratic county picnic. A man came up to me in a reasonable manner, engaging, but pretty soon he was talking about fluoride in the water and how it was poisoning people to believe in communism, and just what was I going to do about it as a State Senator. He was fine, I was okay for the moment, but I found myself concerned for his mental health. Are we all crazy?

I don’t think so. We mostly are pretty rational human beings. But what we all can agree on as the truth may be like a distant mirage in the desert. A distant hope, an illusion, a figment our imaginations provide. And the only truth will be in our pursuit.

There’s no good medicine for delusions. It’s not like there’s a simple brain chemistry explanation. The best treatment is to promote function. So, if you believe these medicines for your diabetes are poison, and your foot is stinking, rotten and dead, how can we help you? I have seen a lot of diabetic amputees.

Delusions are part of our everyday existence. How they affect us is the test. But will we learn and change?

Here’s the catch. And it’s Catch 23, because it’s powerful. Unhealthy people with delusions cannot be dissuaded. The schizophrenic who finds comfort in the horoscope, the diabetic who sees poison in pills will persist in their beliefs until they die from their disease, even as they lose limbs or jump from the bridge.

We are at this place in our civil discourse. Your truth is not mine. My truth is not yours. Does such a lack of shared truths mean opposing the delusions of others is our destiny? Is there a hope for representative democracy? Or is the middle ground the dismal position where we dismiss the unshared truths of others? I write this as an Idaho Democrat. You might be reading this as an Idaho Republican. Can we share some truths?

Our founders based the radical concept for this country on their belief in the rational, educated mind, that such communal wisdom would promote the common good.

I do not dismiss your delusions. I believe there is a truth we can share. Help me disabuse myself of mine.

Our legislature dislocated a couple shoulders this last week patting themselves on the back. I could give some cheap medical advice about getting them back in their sockets, but then I’d be as guilty as the docs giving the Ivermectin and Hydroxychloroquine prescriptions online, so I’ll pass on that one. I need a website.

Then our Governor has a campaign event, oops, a public relations event and signs the bill with a bunch of adoring teachers looking on. He didn’t dislocate his shoulder, but he was fawning for adulation. I don’t have a prescription for that one.

All these self-congratulatory contortions had to do with the Governor’s brilliant idea to let teachers get health insurance on the state health insurance policy. Despite what he says, it’s not a new idea. And the punchline is brutal. I’m no standup comedian, so I don’t know how to set this one up. All those twisted shoulders and bend overs had little meat or potatoes even. But I guess that’s what career politicians do. Make grandiose statements, whip up fervor, then go back to doing nothing.

Here’s the simple truth about all this ado. If you look at the big pot, taxpayer money, and decipher what this means for us in the long run, it’s just not much. It’s not worth even a little shoulder pain. But hey, it’s an election year. You’ll be seeing more of these shenanigans.

Teachers get health insurance, like any full-time worker should. Districts look around for the cheapest policies and best benefits and negotiate with insurers for the best deal.

The state has a health insurance program that they fund themselves but contract with Blue Cross of Idaho to administer. The State of Idaho is the largest employer in the state (sorry Wayne Hoffman) and self-funds the insurance, meaning they keep a pot of money for Blue Cross to draw from and then pay BCI a percentage for making those payments.

Where is the savings?

Well, if the local district is reimbursed from the state for health insurance that’s a big cost savings for them. If teachers get their health insurance paid for from general fund dollars (sales taxes and income taxes) and districts don’t have to pay from their resources (property taxes) then we have shifted a big cost from local taxes to statewide taxes. Savings? Not really, just a shift.

If you really believe having the biggest pool of patients will drive down costs (and it MIGHT) then you are talking single payer health insurance, and that’s talking communism in Idaho. I think there’s a law against that. At least there’s one about teachers talking about it.

So, these politicians are head over heels that they have saved small districts, maybe even big districts some money. You should be too since you will need to be voting soon. And I’m saying they haven’t, just shifted the costs. If they really believed heath insurance costs should come from general funds, the big bucket, instead of property taxes (local buckets) then they could have funded these costs years ago. Believe me, it was talked about.

But here’s the brutal punchline you voters need to know. What was the price tag for this magnanimous endeavor? Millions? Nope. Not a dollar was expended. This law that the legislature passed, and the Governor signed in front of a bunch of fawning teachers didn’t cost a dime. It only set up a fund, without a dollar in it.

But that is their intent they will scream.

Maybe. Time will tell.

They’ve done this before. The politicians you and I elect do this frequently. Just look at the Idaho Housing Trust Fund. It was established in 1992, back when there was some balance in the Idaho legislature. But it was never funded. It could never receive matching federal dollars to build affordable housing. (Smile Wayne).

So, you happy teachers and property taxpayers, your health insurance check is not in the mail. Don’t thank Brad or your legislator. Yet.

I felt a great sense of relief Thursday, January 27^th when the Idaho Supreme Court upheld the legislative redistricting map. I had worked very hard with my fellow commissioners, and I didn’t want to have to start over. There is still a pending lawsuit over the Congressional map. So maybe that one will require more work. I hope not.

It was a grueling process. And the legal requirements for drawing maps were layered and complex. But we got the map drawn and submitted ahead of our deadline, and it stood up to ISC scrutiny. That made me proud.

We traveled all over the state taking public testimony. That is a legal requirement of the commission to take public testimony. I believe it makes good sense.

The people of Idaho established the redistricting process through a Constitutional amendment back in 1994. Prior to that the legislature had done it. I heard there were fistfights amongst legislators back when they haggled over maps, so maybe they were glad to be rid of the task.

We were between COVID waves. Only one of us got sick, and he survived, thank the Lord. But I sure got tired from all the meetings and travel. I hope I didn’t get grumpy. Martha put up with me graciously.

Listening to hours of public testimony, in my opinion, though difficult, honored the public and important nature of the process. There were no fist fights, only a few uncivil words, no threats, but amazing participation. Folks had a genuine interest in how their legislative and congressional districts would be formed, as they should. We got good input about where the lines should be. It was incumbent on us commissioners to honor that public process and I believe we did.

The commission is also legally forbidden to consider incumbents or political influence in the map drawing. This is despite being political appointees. We were a Bipartisan Commission, not independent. Three were appointed by majority party, three by minority. Then after we were commissioned, we needed to take off those partisan hats and do work for the welfare of the state. I feel comfortable saying we did that very well.

Another instruction to the commission was to avoid “oddly shaped districts”. But when counties are odd and you can’t split them, some oddness is going to occur.

I can’t claim the map is pretty. Idaho is a beautiful state, but we are very oddly shaped. Further, the commission is instructed to avoid splitting counties. And some county’s shape is grotesque. So, I gave up on a pretty map early on.

Frequent public testimony expressed just who the testifier saw as part of their “community of interest”, since that is another instruction to the commission: respect communities of interest. Unfortunately, nowadays folks often see a community of interest as whoever thinks, and votes like them. “We don’t want to be tied to that county. We have nothing in common with them!” That county votes Democratic, and this county is deep Red. Both counties have cattle, have sagebrush and schools, raise their kids. But the fear that whatever district they might end up in might elect a representative of a different political party got lots of folks riled up.

But the law is pretty clear on how we commissioners should do our job: Counties shall not be divided to protect a particular political party or a particular incumbent. IC 72-1506(8)

The six of us commissioners with staff and laptops covered the state. We totaled 18 public hearings, over 30 hours of testimony from hundreds of people. We received hundreds of written or email comments and had over 80 maps submitted electronically for our consideration. I can’t know if such effort made us draw better maps, just like I can’t know if an immunization will save my life. But I am glad we made the effort. It was the right thing to do.

I’ve had a few friends recently lean into me and whisper, “I’m registering Republican.” They want to have a say in the upcoming May Republican primary. There are some significant races lining up on that ticket.

It’s a good thing these folks are making their decision now because the Republicans in the legislature are trying to make such a switch a bit harder for unaffiliated voters. Remember, if you have a party affiliation, under current Idaho law, you must declare your party affiliation by the end of the candidate filing period (mid March). But lots of Idahoans (about 35% of registered voters) don’t like being affiliated with a party, thus “unaffiliated”.

I don’t really know the partisan affiliations of the whisperers, but I know their politics, since they share them openly with me, usually over a beer. I warned them of the potential deadline, and they already knew about it.

Remember, the Idaho Republican Party sued the state in federal court to close their primary election and won back in 2011. Because of that lawsuit, Idaho law was changed to make all primaries closed unless a party specifically wants them open. When the law initially passed, you could go to the polls on primary election day in May and chose a ballot, but choosing a Republican ballot got you registered as a Republican. Idaho Democrats have always kept their primary open, not feeling the need to be selective, since party registration is 4:1 Republican: Democrat.

But Idaho Republicans thought voters should be surer of their affiliation, so the legislature passed a law requiring registered Democrats to switch in March, before the primary. Now they want to make unaffiliated voters decide then too. Next there will be a blood test.

All this makes me wonder why us taxpayers are even footing the bill for a primary election. Why shouldn’t the political parties pay for this selection process? Oh, that’s right, we used to do it that way. State conventions, smoke filled rooms, party “machines” used to be the how politics were done back in the 19^th century. Somebody decided having the taxpayer foot the bill would get the corruption out of party politics. What do you think?

Well, I hope my whispering friends are happy with their new affiliation. I thought I would see just what Idaho Republicans stand for, since my beer drinking buddies will be some of them. You can read their party platform on their website. It runs fourteen pages. Might want to keep it on your bedstand if you have trouble dropping off some night.

Some of it was old hat to me. The part about getting rid of the 17^th Amendment of the US Constitution was familiar. Idaho Republicans think we should go back to having state legislatures choose Senators, not by a popular vote.

And I knew about their desire to abolish the Federal Reserve and go back to the “gold and silver standard” for currency.

But I didn’t know the Idaho Republican Party didn’t endorse the Redistricting process that’s in the Idaho Constitution. I didn’t take it personally, but I was surprised to know that was in their platform.

But I’m a kind of health care nut so I was pleased to read this: We support freedom of choice and personal responsibility in all medical decisions, including providers and treatments.

But then that “freedom of choice” sentence was preceded by twenty sentences saying how all abortions should be illegal.

I think the Republican Party ranks may swell a bit for this coming primary election cycle. But I’ll bet there are some folks casting Republican ballots who won’t agree with those platform positions. Heck, there’s probably a few Republicans in the legislature and statewide office that don’t.

I’ll be voting in the Democratic primary. Then I’ll go have a beer with the other two or three of us. Maybe some Republicans will join us. They’re welcome.