When he wasn't busy torturing Richard Nixon, political prankster Dick Tuck ran for the California Legislature. He lost, but not before coining the quintessential concession line: “The people have spoken. The bastards.” Tuck was joking. Some Idaho legislators are not. They seem to think Idaho voters don't know what's good for them. Case in point: Just 10 weeks ago, Idaho voters went to the polls and repealed the three signature acts of the 2011-2012 legislative term. Known as the Luna laws for their chief advocate, states schools Superintendent Tom Luna, these measures gutted teacher collective bargaining rights, imposed a rickety merit pay system and transferred assets from the classroom to purveyors of laptop computers and online instruction/Marty Trillhaase, Lewiston Tribune. More here.
Question: Which lobbyist-inspired proposal do you think is worse — this one, which would make the citizen initiative process harder? Or the attempt by former legislator Jim Clark to allow more telemarketing in Idaho?
D.F. Oliveria is a columnist and blogger for The Spokesman-Review. Huckleberries Online was judged the best 2008 Idaho newspaper blog by the Idaho Press Club. And the best 2007 news blog in the Pacific Northwest by the Society for Professional Journalist. Print Huckleberries is a past winner of the Herb Caen Memorial Column contest by the National Association of Newspaper Columnists. The Readership Institute of Northwestern University cited this blog as a good example of online community journalism.
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