Dems win pocketbook vote
Here’s a surprising development: The Idaho Election Campaign Fund, for which Idahoans have checked boxes on their state tax returns since 1975 if they want to donate a dollar to a political party of their choice or to a general political campaign fund, this year is giving more money to the Democrats than the Republicans. The checks, which will be handed over to the parties in a ceremony tomorrow, total $35,540 for the Democrats and $30,891 for the Republicans. The Libertarian Party will collect $2,854 and the Constitution Party $2,144.
The way the checkoff works, taxpayers check a box to donate the $1 (spouses filing joint returns can make separate choices for their dollars), and the donation doesn’t increase their tax or decrease their refund. Not everyone donates; this year’s two-year distribution of $71,429 from the checkoff is way down from the 1982 record distribution of $154,600.
But of those who donated this time, clearly the majority favored the Democrats, who hold only a small minority of elective offices in Idaho. More than 30,000 taxpayers – 30,668 to be exact – designated their dollars to the Idaho Democratic Party. Another 25,438 designated theirs to the Idaho Republican Party. Another 10,373 Idaho taxpayers sent their dollars to the general campaign fund. By law, 90 percent of that general fund is divided among the parties in proportion to their votes received for governor in the last gubernatorial election, though no party can get more than 50 percent of that pot. The remaining 10 percent, plus any not distributed because of the 50 percent cutoff, then gets divided equally among all parties with qualified candidates for elective state office in the next general election.
That meant the Republicans, because of their 52.7 percent showing in the 2006 gubernatorial race, got $5,453 from the general campaign fund, while the Democrats got $4,852. But the Dems were still ahead in the totals. It was the first time since 1994 that the Democrats have collected more than the Republicans from the checkoff fund. Interestingly, the Democrats routinely collected more than the Republicans in the early years of the fund, but that turned around in 1982. The Democrats regained a slight edge in the late ‘80s and early ‘90s, but the Republicans took the lead from 1996 on, and in 2000 hit their widest margin when they collected $58,691 to the Democrats’ $43,068.
