Arrow-right Camera
The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Eye On Boise

Hill: No cause for concern in Guthrie travel audit results

Senate President Pro-Tem Brent Hill says he found no cause for concern in the results of an audit he and House Speaker Scott Bedke requested of the travel reimbursements of two state lawmakers who were accused of having an affair. “I don’t believe there’s any concern for misuse of public funds, and that was what we were looking at,” Hill said.

Though the audit found one unsupported reimbursement to Sen. Jim Guthrie, R-McCammon, for one night’s lodging in Boise, Hill said it was a trip the eastern Idaho senator made to Boise shortly before the legislative session, both for a legislative committee meeting and to prepare his legislative office for the upcoming session. The auditors found that Guthrie participated in an all-day committee meeting on the second day of the four-day trip, but found no evidence of another state business purpose to justify the final night’s lodging.

“We had talked to Sen. Guthrie about it, and he had come for the interim committee meeting, and he had spent that extra day,” Hill said. “It’s shortly before the legislative session began. He was going through, getting his files ready and his office ready and stuff like that. I have not required in the past that they provide additional documentation for that.” Hill said he might consider requiring that in the future.

“It’s something we all do,” he said. The audit was required to highlight it because no state business purpose could be documented through meeting minutes or the like. “But I don’t have any problem that he got reimbursed for the night, either,” Hill said.

Hill said this is likely not the end of the Legislature’s inquiry into the matter, as any member of the Legislature still could file an ethics complaint. Senate and House rules both forbid “conduct unbecoming” a state lawmaker. Any such complaint would remain confidential until an ethics committee found that “probable cause exists that a violation may have occurred.”

Guthrie has made no public statements since the affair allegations surfaced in reports from an eastern Idaho blogger and former unsuccessful Republican legislative candidate, Lance Earle. Earle’s graphic blog post was based on comments from Guthrie’s ex-wife after the two divorced, and suggested Guthrie and Rep. Christy Perry, R-Nampa, might have misused public funds while pursuing a liaison.

Perry said in a public statement that she made a “terrible mistake” two years ago while “experiencing a profound crisis in my life.” She and her husband filed for divorce this spring, but then reconciled and withdrew the filing. “Unfortunately, someone has decided to use the past situation to launch a disgustingly brutal attack,” Perry said.

Under Senate ethics rules, ethics complaint aren’t considered if they’re about conduct occurring two years or more before the complaint is filed.

Hill said, “One of our primary concerns was to safeguard the public funds. That’s something that we could measure, it’s something that we could look at, and something that we could review. When it comes to the actions of people, outside of that financial realm, that becomes a lot more subjective and a lot more difficult to evaluate.”



Betsy Z. Russell
Betsy Z. Russell joined The Spokesman-Review in 1991. She currently is a reporter in the Boise Bureau covering Idaho state government and politics, and other news from Idaho's state capital.

Follow Betsy online: