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GOP presidential candidate Newt Gingrich will hold a town hall meeting in Coeur d'Alene on Thursday night, the Idaho Republican Party announced today. The event is set for 7:30pm at the Coeur d’Alene Inn, said Idaho GOP executive director Jonathan Parker. The former speaker of the U.S. House also will hold a private fundraiser at a Harrison home on Thursday afternoon at 4 p.m., Parker said. ...
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Idaho Gov. Butch Otter introduced GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney at Romney's Boise campaign rally this afternoon. "Folks, this election is about your and my liberty," Otter said. "We will turn out for that Idaho caucus. ... We will turn out for the man that has the executive experience, understands that we are a free market, not a socialist country, that has been there and done that."
Romney, who's come to Idaho to campaign for Otter in the past, told the crowd, "What a great state this is - you're lucky to live here." He recalled a summer he spent working on an Idaho ranch near King Hill when he was 15. ...
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Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum won applause at a campaign rally in Boise this week when he advocated transferring or selling off federal lands in the state, but the issue has been a loser for other politicians over the course of history, report Idaho Statesman reporters Dan Popkey and Rocky Barker today. Those include Gov. Butch Otter, who backed off and apologized after co-sponsoring a bill in Congress to sell off forest land to pay for Hurricane Katrina cleanup, and President Herbert Hoover, whose 1929 offer to transfer 190 million acres to the states, but not the minerals beneath, was rejected as westerners derided it as "skimmed milk" or "the lid without the bucket." You can read their full report here.
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BOISE – Idaho congressman Raul Labrador launched his re-election bid Monday, flanked by more than 30 state lawmakers and a bevy of the state’s top GOP elected officials, declaring, “Washington has not changed me.” Some evidence: The freshman congressman hasn’t rented a home in Washington, D.C. – he’s sleeping on his office couch and returning to Idaho and his family each weekend.
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Idaho Congressman Raul Labrador announced his bid for a second term on the Statehouse steps today, flanked by more than 30 state lawmakers who served with him when he was a state representative and a bevy of the state's top GOP elected officials.
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BOISE - Rep. Phil Hart, R-Athol, is proposing an “Idaho Farm Freedom Act” that would exempt from any licensing, certification or inspection requirement the sale of farm products at farmers markets, at roadside stands, or directly to consumers, including for a “traditional community social event” like weddings, church socials, school events or potlucks. The bill, HB 431, “seeks to encourage local farm and agriculture economies by allowing an unregulated and uninhibited relationship between the farmer and/or the farmer’s agent and the end consumer of the farm product,” according to its statement of purpose.
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Former Idaho Congressman Bill Sali, who popped up at the Statehouse today proposing a specialty license plate bill to raise funds for his new nonprofit organization, the "American Heritage Foundation," says he's considering running for the state Legislature again. "I am looking at this open seat out here," Sali told Eye on Boise. "We have not made a final decision yet, but I'm looking at it."
Sali served 16 years in the Idaho House before serving one term in Congress; he lost to Democrat Walt Minnick in 2008. ...
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The Idaho Republican Party has announced that five candidates have qualified for the ballot for its March 6 presidential caucus: Ron Paul, Mitt Romney, Rick Santorum, Newt Gingrich and Buddy Roemer. Roemer is the former governor of Louisiana and served four terms in Congress in the 1980s as a Democrat. Click below for the Idaho GOP's full announcement about its caucus ballot.
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BOISE – A St. Maries legislator raised fears about a “nanny state” when the Idaho House considered legislation this week to ban the sale of nicotine-containing e-cigarettes to children, but the measure ended up passing unanimously. State Rep. Dick Harwood, R-St. Maries, cast the only “no” vote on HB 405, but then, at the last minute, changed his vote to “yes.”
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A political website in the other Washington suggests a certain congresswoman from this Washington could get the No. 2 spot on the GOP presidential ticket this fall. The Daily Caller quotes Republican strategist Kellyanne Conway as saying Cathy McMorris Rodgers would fill the bill as a vice presidential selection that “needs to be a surprise, but not a shocker.”
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BOISE – Sen. Jim Hammond won’t seek a fourth term in the Idaho state Senate and instead will apply for the upcoming opening for president at North Idaho College, along with looking at other options that will keep him closer to home and family. “I never intended to set a record here,” Hammond, R-Coeur d’Alene, said Thursday. “It’s an opportunity for someone else.”
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Sen. Jim Hammond won't seek a fourth term in the state Senate, and instead will apply for the upcoming opening for president at North Idaho College, along with looking at other options that will keep him closer to home and family.
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Idaho Gov. Butch Otter raised $124,941 for his re-election campaign from July to December, Idaho Statesman reporter Dan Popkey reports today, and used $50,000 of it to pay himself back for loans he made to his 2010 gubernatorial campaign. Popkey reports that most of Otter's fundraising came from corporate contributors who do business with the state or lobby state officials; you can read his full post here.
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Rep. Marv Hagedorn, R-Meridian, says he decided that he'll run for the Senate next year because the new redistricting plan left his new district with three House incumbents and an open Senate seat. "There's three of us in the same district now, and we all three talked about it and who would be best to do what and what everybody's desires were," Hagedorn said. The other two lawmakers in his new district are House Majority Leader Mike Moyle, R-Star, who's in his seventh term, and first-term Rep. ...
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Twin Falls county commissioners have announced that they've decided not to file any further challenge to Idaho's new legislative redistricting plan, though they're not entirely happy with it. The county led an earlier challenge to the Idaho Supreme Court that overturned the previous plan submitted by the state's citizen redistricting commission.
County Prosecutor Grant Loebs said, “It’s not a good plan, but it’s an acceptable one. ...
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Four GOP presidential candidates have filed for Idaho's March 6 Republican presidential caucus, the Idaho Republican Party reports: Ron Paul, Mitt Romney, Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich. The party today issued a "final call" for others who want to participate, with Chairman Norm Semanko saying, “We welcome all Republican presidential candidates who are seriously campaigning to secure the Republican Party’s nomination in 2012 to visit our great state, to discuss issues important to Idahoans, and to campaign for Idaho’s 32 delegates to the Republican National Convention.” Click below for the Idaho GOP's full announcement.
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Idaho Gov. Butch Otter is recruiting candidates to replace Norm Semanko as Idaho's GOP party chairman, reports Idaho Statesman reporter Dan Popkey; Semanko defeated Otter's favored candidate, then-Chairman Kirk Sullivan, in 2008. "I was roundly criticized by all you guys that I couldn't control my own party and I was probably the only governor in the United States that didn't have his choice as party chairman," Otter told Popkey. ...
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Idaho's bipartisan citizen redistricting commission has submitted its new legislative district plan, approved on a unanimous 6-0 vote, to Idaho Secretary of State Ben Ysursa. Ysursa, joining the confab by phone from a meeting of the National Association of Secretaries of State, told the commissioners, "I sure want to thank you for all the work you've done." He quoted Commissioner Sheila Olsen about a "triumph of civility," and said in his view, that's what occurred in the commission. ...
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BOISE – Idaho Gov. Butch Otter told the Idaho Press Club last week that he’s all but given up on establishing a state-run health insurance exchange, unless the federal government gives Idaho more time. “Quite frankly, the clock is running – I don’t know that we’ve got time to put together a state exchange,” Otter said. The state needs “at a minimum a year,” he said, but “January of 2013 is our drop-dead date of getting acceptance of a state-based exchange design.”
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BOISE – After just two days of deliberations, Idaho’s citizen redistricting commission adopted a new legislative district plan late Friday – one that doesn’t land North Idaho Sens. Shawn Keough, R-Sandpoint, and Joyce Broadsword, R-Sagle, in the same district. The earlier plan, which was overturned by the Idaho Supreme Court for dividing too many counties between districts, would have forced the two to face off if they both wanted to remain in office. Broadsword announced earlier that she’d retire from the Senate rather than seek a fifth term next year by running against Keough, a close ally and eight-term senator.
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Sen. Joyce Broadsword, R-Sagle, says she's weighing her options, now that the new legislative redistricting plan shifts her into a different district, where she wouldn't have to face ally Sen. Shawn Keough, R-Sandpoint, if she ran for another term. "I haven't had a chance to look at what the size of the district is or what it looks like," Broadsword said. "I have to look at all my options. ...
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After just two days of deliberations, Idaho's citizen redistricting commission has adopted a new legislative district plan - and this one doesn't land North Idaho Sens. Shawn Keough, R-Sandpoint, and Joyce Broadsword, R-Sagle, in the same district.
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Under the new legislative district plan adopted on a unanimous vote today by Idaho's redistricting commission, there are some notable matchups created between incumbents, including some that already would have happened under the previous plan, and some changes.
Among the new contests: Senior Sens. Dean Cameron, R-Rupert, and Denton Darrington, R-Declo, both landed in the new District 27, which means they'd have to run against each other if both wanted to remain in the Senate. ...
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Sens. Shawn Keough, R-Sandpoint, and Joyce Broadsword, R-Sagle, are no longer in the same district in the new legislative redistricting plan, Plan. L-93. Keough lands in the new District 1, but Broadsword ends up in the new District 7, along with Sen. Sheryl Nuxoll, R-Cottonwood.
Broadsword had earlier said she'd retire from the Senate rather than seek a fifth term next year by running against Keough, a close ally and eight-term senator. ...
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Idaho's bipartisan citizen redistricting commission has agreed on a new legislative plan, dubbed L-93; it's now up online on the commission's website. The six-member commission voted unanimously in favor of the new plan. "What we did was we revised L-87 at the direction of the SupremeCourt," said commission Co-Chair Ron Beitelspacher.
He said, "Unfortunately, in my opinion, but at the direction of the Supreme Court, we combined a small part of Bonner County with Shoshone County." A chunk of southeastern Bonner County, with the dividing line running along Highway 95 and then turning east at Pend Oreille Lake, joins Shoshone County and points south in the new District 7. ...
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Idaho Republican Party Chairman Norm Semanko has sent out a guest opinion defending his attempt to try to fire GOP redistricting commissioner Randy Hansen, touting the party's Idaho electoral successes and announcing that he won't seek another term as party chairman. Semanko wrote that the "secret to our success" was that "the grassroots of our Party was motivated and energized to recruit candidates and support them because they were included, and we weren't shy about standing up for our core, conservative Republican principles." He wrote, "As I conclude my four year tenure as Chairman and hand the reins over to someone else at the Republican State Convention in Twin Falls this summer, this will be my proudest accomplishment." Click below to read his full guest opinion.
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Idaho's redistricting commission has convened again this afternoon after a lunch break, and plans to meet in open session all afternoon and work on its legislative district plan. "You will know exactly what we do," said Co-Chair Dolores Crow. The bipartisan commission has a working copy of its plan that's basically the previous plan, L-87, with revisions to it to try to limit it to no more than seven county splits, including splitting Ada and Kootenai counties internally only. ...
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Sitting with Ben Stuckart for coffee, I thought I heard The Who whispering in my ear: Meet the new boss. Same as the old boss? It doesn’t seem so. As president of the Spokane City Council, Stuckart is one of several new, or new-ish, faces at City Hall these days. He’s a first-timer in elected office, a young man who seems temperate and measured, a guy with “progressive tendencies,” as he puts it, who’s the legislative leader of a new conservative council. It’s an interesting time in city politics, with new people in the mayor’s office and on the council, with the good and bad that newness entails.
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Idaho's six citizen redistricting commissioners have been working straight through since 9 this morning, either in small working groups or as a full commission; they worked through lunch, while reviewing all seven of the plans that already have been submitted to the commission that have the minimum number of county splits - five. (The way the Idaho Supreme Court counted it, it's seven - five with external splits, and two, Ada and Kootenai, that must have internal splits due to their population, without any district lines crossing their borders.) The five that mathematically must be split are Bonner, Canyon, Twin, Bonneville and Bannock. ...
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Secretary of State Ben Ysursa told Idaho's citizen redistricting commission as it reconvened this morning, "This commission has a solemn duty to redistrict the state of Idaho, and I wish you well in your deliberations and will support you 100 percent."
Deputy Attorney General Brian Kane told the commission, "Based on what the Supreme Court has said, one-person, one-vote still has to be at the top of the list. ...
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The Idaho Republican Party has released this statement this morning from House Speaker Lawerence Denney and state party Chairman Norm Semanko:
“Unfortunately, the Idaho Supreme Court was unable to reach the merits of the case yesterday, opting instead to dismiss it on procedural grounds. As a result, the Court did not decide whether the Redistricting Commissioners can, in fact, be replaced. ...
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Idaho's bipartisan citizen redistricting commission meets at 9 this morning in room C110 of the Capitol; thanks to Idaho Public Television, you can listen live here. According to its agenda, from 9:05 to 10:30, it'll hear from Brian Kane of the Idaho Attorney General's office and discuss recent Supreme Court action. From 10:45 to noon, it'll review plans already submitted that have minimal county splits. ...
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BOISE – The Idaho Supreme Court stepped in Wednesday and halted two top GOP leaders’ power play over redistricting that was threatening to delay the state’s primary election. The court ruled that House Speaker Lawerence Denney and Idaho Republican Party Chairman Norm Semanko didn’t make their case to get the court to order Secretary of State Ben Ysursa to declare two vacancies on the state’s citizen redistricting commission and allow them to appoint new commissioners.
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Here's a link to our full story at spokesman.com on today's drama over redistricting, with the timing of the state's primary election hanging in the balance and the fracas dividing Idaho's supermajority Republican Party. The Idaho Supreme Court stepped in today, halting a move by House Speaker Lawerence Denney and Idaho GOP Chairman Norm Semanko to fire the two GOP redistricting commissioners they'd earlier appointed and replace them with new ones. ...
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The Idaho Supreme Court stepped in Wednesday and halted a power play over redistricting by two top GOP leaders that was threatening to delay the state's primary election.
