Lawmakers ‘Tackle’ Finance Problem With Study But Committee Seems To Lack Enthusiasm For Making Big Changes

It’s hard to fool old pros.

That’s why a special committee on campaign finance, lobbying and ethics in government - hurriedly created in the final days of the last legislative session - didn’t get very far at its opening session.

Former legislator Dean Haagenson, who owns one of the state’s largest construction companies and ran for lieutenant governor, noticed the panel was concocted by House leaders and then passed by both chambers in a matter of just a few days.

It brought back memories of Haagenson’s own time in the Legislature when passing a resolution calling for a study was a way lawmakers “tackled” a knotty problem without actually doing anything.

While the cost of state campaigns has been rising markedly in the past decade, the average for a race in Idaho remains relatively low.

But lawmakers somehow believed the controversy over congressional and presidential spending and finances that they have no control over demanded action by them on the state level.

Haagenson’s recollection was not lost on his equally politically astute colleagues.

Except for retired District Judge John Bengtson of Moscow, each has been around the political block.

Counting primaries, former Democratic Gov. Cecil Andrus was in 10 campaigns for governor and ran four successful state Senate races for a seat from Clearwater County.

Republican Jim Jones sandwiched two terms as attorney general between unsuccessful races for Congress and the U.S. Senate. Retired Supreme Court Chief Justice Charles McDevitt, an active Republican, served in the state House.

As the first meeting opened, members said they didn’t know what was “broke” in the political process that needed fixing. At the end of the session, they agreed to give lawmakers suggestions for changes in December, although there appeared to be little enthusiasm for dramatic change.

What little interest the five may have had in their assigned task evaporated when Deputy Secretary of State Ben Ysursa suggested giving a new campaign finance law a chance to work.

It imposes the first limits on contributions to state campaigns: $5,000 per election in statewide races and $1,000 per election for legislative candidates. In the 1994 campaign, the limits would have affected only a few dozen of the thousands of contributions.

It marked the first major change in state campaign laws since 1974 when the Sunshine Law was enacted, and that came through voter initiative, not the Legislature. That law imposed the original requirement for reporting campaign donations. It also required lobbyist registration.

If anything comes from the special committee, it might be a recommendation that more money be put into tracking and reporting campaign donations and spending.

But equally possible would be a decision to do nothing and see if the new campaign limitations have any impact.

IRS memories

The first witness at a hearing on Internal Revenue Service abuses sponsored by two Republican members of Congress last weekend was retired Supreme Court Justice Robert Huntley - who was a Democrat from Bannock County when he served in the Legislature.

“It’s gracious of you to invite an endangered Democrat to speak,” Huntley told Reps. Michael Crapo and Helen Chenoweth. “I don’t know whether you want to hear what I have to say - or just to see one.”

Actually, Chenoweth and Crapo knew what Huntley was going to talk about - his adventure with the IRS when he was ordered to pay a $123 penalty for being 39 cents short on nearly $75,000 in tax payments last year. Crapo took Huntley’s experience to a House GOP leadership meeting, and House Speaker Newt Gingrich has been using it in speeches around the country to support his call for changes in the way the national tax agency operates.