Betsy Z. Russell

An open seat in Congress, as current Rep. Raul Labrador steps down to run for governor, has drawn a whopping 10 candidates to the primary election ballot – and poses a big challenge for Idaho voters to sort through as they prepare to make their picks on May 15.

When six GOP candidates for Idaho’s open 1st District congressional seat faced off in the “Idaho Debates” last week, much of the fireworks – and the humor – came at the end, in the closing statements.

Luke Mayville was a junior at Sandpoint High School when the 9/11 attacks happened in September of 2001, and his English teacher, Marianne Love, encouraged the quiet, high-performing student to read his essay on the attacks in front of a school assembly just a few days later.

After years of gathering annually at the National Interagency Fire Center in Boise to decry “fire borrowing” – the situation in which the Forest Service, each year, shifts millions from other programs when the costs to fight the West’s escalating wildfires balloons, thereby cutting prevention efforts meant to reduce that trend – a bipartisan group of congressmen and top agency officials had a different tone when they gathered at NIFC on Wednesday: celebration.

Former Idaho Rep. Kathy Sims is vowing to fight her removal from the ballot for failing to be a registered voter in her new district for a year before the election; but for now, she's off – unless she gets a judge to rule otherwise.

Tommy Ahlquist, a GOP candidate for governor of Idaho, was endorsed by two prominent millennial Trump supporters on Monday – Charlie Kirk, who was the millennial director of the Trump campaign, and Candace Owens, a conservative commentator and YouTube star who rails against the Black Lives Matter movement.

Former state Rep. Kathy Sims, R-Coeur d’Alene, is being removed from the ballot in her bid for a comeback in a Post Falls district, after the Idaho Secretary of State’s office determined that she had just registered in her new district in February.

Backers of the Medicaid expansion initiative announced Monday that they have more than enough signatures to get the measure on the November ballot in Idaho.

The stakes are huge – an open seat for governor of Idaho for the first time in 12 years. The competition is hot in both parties, with seven Republicans and three Democrats on the ballot, including big names who are duking it out for their party’s nominations. And the five front-runners – three Republicans and two Democrats – offer very different choices for Idahoans who will cast ballots on May 15.

How might crossover voting – people switching parties to vote in a different party’s primary election – affect Idaho’s upcoming high-stakes May 15 primary, with positions up for grabs including an open governor’s seat? There are some numbers available, but so far they don’t show a huge shift.

Tax-protesting state lawmaker Phil Hart’s comeback bid is in doubt, as the Idaho secretary of state’s office has ruled Hart ineligible for the ballot in his bid to challenge Rep. Paul Shepherd, R-Riggins, in District 7 in the May GOP primary.

Idaho Rep. Raul Labrador said Thursday that if the state’s voters both elect him governor and pass the initiative to expand Medicaid in Idaho, he’d consider working to overturn the voter-passed initiative.

Idaho’s state Board of Education has named five finalists to be the next president of Boise State University, and all are academics with Ph.D. degrees. That might seem like a given, but the board’s recent pick to be the new president of Idaho State University in Pocatello doesn’t fit that description – Kevin Satterlee is an attorney, a graduate of the University of Idaho College of Law, who most recently has been chief operating officer, vice president and special counsel at BSU. He previously served as deputy attorney general for the Office of the State Board of Education.

Candidates for governor of Idaho have been filling the airwaves with campaign commercials, and as the May 15 Idaho primary election approaches, many have gone on the attack.

Tuition and fees will jump 5 percent for resident students at the University of Idaho next year, and 8 percent for nonresident students.

The current Ada County treasurer – a county elected official who’s now running to be the state treasurer – was requested by the three county commissioners on Tuesday to surrender her county credit card amid allegations of misuse.

When the filing period for Idaho lieutenant governor arrived last month, five Republicans already were crowded into the race, and a sixth joined them as the filing period closed – current Ada County Highway District Commissioner Rebecca Arnold..

Idaho lawmakers have finished a jam-packed, 80-day legislative session that saw major tax cuts enacted and a $100 million boost to education funding, but also left unaddressed, for the sixth straight year, the state’s health coverage gap that’s leaving up to 62,000 Idahoans without options for care.

Fourth-term Rep. Vito Barbieri, R-Dalton Gardens, has tried to carry on a tradition passed down to him from former Rep. Jim Clark, R-Hayden Lake, of wearing a different tie each day of the legislative session, and never a repeat.

Some legislative proposals made a big splash early in this year’s Idaho legislative session, only to quietly fade away later, and never become law.

The longest-serving female state senator in Idaho history closed out her final legislative session with pride in an array of specific accomplishments, but also with a key disappointment.

Idaho Gov. Butch Otter on Thursday put education improvements at the top of his list of accomplishments of this year’s just-concluded legislative session, the last one of his three terms as the state’s governor.

The Idaho Legislature wrapped up an 80-day legislative session on Wednesday, opting at the end not to try to override a veto from Gov. Butch Otter, though lawmakers had remained in session for five extra days just for that purpose.

Idaho lawmakers failed to override Gov. Butch Otter’s first veto of the year on Tuesday, failing to even rally a majority of the House – let alone the required two-thirds – to overturn the governor’s veto of a teacher-evaluation bill.