The race between Alan Wasserman and Jeff Alltus may offer voters the most clear-cut choice of any legislative campaign in North Idaho.
Democrat Wasserman is a longtime Legal Aid attorney with such traditional liberal causes as health care and environmental protection. He presents himself to voters as a moderate in contrast to the "extremist" he considers Alltus to be.
Alltus, an insurance broker, is finishing his first term in the House of Representatives. He's a staunch fiscal and social conservative, proud to be at the far right end of a conservative Legislature.
The two men are dueling to represent residents of northern Coeur d'Alene, Hayden and Dalton.
Wasserman lists the top campaign issues as education, population growth and access to health care.
"A fourth issue in this race has to be Mr. Alltus' record," he said. "The more I look into what he's done, I see he has taken very extreme positions on a wide range of issues."
He noted that Alltus has voted against funding Head Start, the Domestic Violence Council, the Idaho Council on Women's Programs, and Idaho Public Television. Most distressing, he said, was Alltus' 1995 vote to cut funding for the Human Rights Commission.
"I fail to see how anyone living up here and representing Hayden and Coeur d'Alene, given their reputation for intolerance, could do that," he said.
Alltus said he is shocked anyone would assault his integrity by suggesting he's racially intolerant.
His votes against such programs were not philosophical, but fiscal, he said. He was keeping a campaign pledge to cut government, he said, "and the way to reduce government is to reduce the budget."
Both philosophy and budget concerns are behind his votes against some Health and Welfare bills. He said government provides too many social programs.
"They've gone from being a safety net to being a hammock."
Medicaid, he said, "needs to be reformed. That's a better word than 'cut."'
Wasserman promises to fight any efforts to make "unwise" cuts in programs that help pay for the care of the disabled and elderly.
He points to Alltus' 1995 vote against funding medical care for low-income workers, and his vote to ban county payments for premature births, organ transplants and open-heart surgery for indigents.
Both men say they want to improve education, but their approaches are different.
Alltus wants income tax credits for people who send their children to private schools. Competition from those schools would make public education better, he said.
Wasserman objects to diverting state funds into private schools with either credits or vouchers.
"It will only dilute our efforts to strengthen our public schools. And who's going to decide what other schools are recipients of those vouchers? Are the people who teach intolerance and hatred also going to get (the benefits of) vouchers?"
The only issue on which the candidates seem to agree is property tax reduction.
Wasserman said he would like to increase the homeowners' tax exemption, which would target tax relief to individuals instead of businesses.
Alltus said he's willing to explore that idea.
