Gov. Phil Batt Alters Tone, Not Principles Spotlight’s In His E But His Feet Stay On The Earth

Gov. Phil Batt sits under a spotlight.

In the stately Idaho governor’s office, two large, graceful chandeliers softly light each end of the room. But over Batt’s desk, bright light streams down from a recessed fixture in the ceiling.

Batt, 68, says he likes the light for reading and working.

But even after decades of public service, including 16 years in the Legislature and a term as lieutenant governor, Batt wasn’t prepared for the public spotlight that shines on the governor’s office.

He values his privacy, seldom makes evening appearances and declined to allow a reporter to visit his home. He spends many weekends back in Wilder.

Six months into his term, the plain-spoken onion farmer says he’s learned some lessons. Criticism over his handling of two early political battles left him more careful and more concerned about his public image.

It doesn’t seem a natural approach for Batt, who’d prefer to rely on the logic and business sense that helped him build a successful and wellrespected family farming business.

Batt said he’s learned to be more sensitive to public opinion when he makes decisions. “That’s not to say I won’t stand up for what I believe in. But it’s ‘handle with care’ if it’s controversial.” That’s just “part of the growing process in the governor’s office,” he said.

Batt hasn’t noticeably changed his plain, what-you-see-is-what-you-get style. He still likes to hold informal question-and-answer sessions with state employees. He gives frequent speeches, improvising from index cards in his slightly nasal voice and ending abruptly, saying he wants to leave time for questions.

He plays clarinet with a jazz band for fun and performed at a free public concert in downtown Boise last month.

Between sets, Batt went into the crowd to shake hands and greet people. Children pestered him to autograph their balloons, a tricky job since the governor inadvertently could have popped one. A grandfather of five, Batt signed.

Each day, he arrives at work about 7:30 a.m., often works through lunch and leaves at 5, sometimes saying he’s going to go hoe his garden.

And he still likes to welcome regular folks into his office for proclamation-signings and picturetaking, although he jokes that the members of the press who show up just want to ask him tough questions about nuclear waste.

That’s the issue that Batt says has caused him “the most sleepless nights.”

Just eight days into his term, he agreed to allow eight shipments of nuclear waste into Idaho. The public uproar surprised and dismayed him. Now, he is fighting the federal government in court, just like his predecessor, Democrat Cecil Andrus, to keep waste out.

“My rational judgment regarding the eight shipments was probably correct, but my political judgment was not,” Batt says now. “I still think we’d have lost in court. But nearly 80 percent of the people wish I’d fight, whether I win or lose.”

He learned a similar lesson later in the first month of his term. Batt demanded the resignations of the entire state Fish & Game Commission, then later changed his mind.

“I was merely trying to make sure they knew that I meant business,” he said. “It wasn’t handled well from a PR standpoint. I think it was probably a mistake to do it that way.”

Batt doesn’t come across as image-conscious. Although he dresses in well-tailored suits and tasteful ties, he seldom minces words and he doesn’t mind parting with ceremonial tradition.

He used his line-item veto to turn down a $10,000 living allowance, preferring to pay his own expenses.

In a recent meeting with his department heads, Batt labeled a defunct state lottery game “a bad deal,” playfully asked his new state liquor chief, “The inventory’s gone down - have you been drinking it?” and described something he had seen at a governors conference in Utah as “the dangdest thing I’d ever seen.”

Batt has been spotted standing in line with state employees at the hot dog stand across the street from the Capitol, pushing his own grocery cart at Albertsons and pumping his own gas.

“He’s got his feet planted solidly on the earth,” said House Minority Leader Jim Stoicheff, D-Sandpoint.

Always frugal

It’s clear Batt thinks of himself as a businessman. The one-page biography distributed by his office says, “Gov. Batt believes the private sector can do nearly anything better than the government.”

Asked about the greatest difference between him and Democrat Andrus, Batt said, “I am much more inclined to frugal operation of the government.”

The governor’s penny-pinching tendencies are almost legendary. He considered swapping the $100-a-month leased Cadillac he had inherited from Andrus because it was too big and he worried he’d bump into the water heater when he pulled into his garage. So he and wife, Jacque, looked at an Infiniti, but Batt rejected it.

“He just couldn’t imagine paying that much for a car,” said Amy Kleiner, Batt’s press secretary.

During the campaign, a reporter spotted Batt and his wife waiting in line for a $49 Morris Air flight from Seattle to Boise. They had brought along food for the trip: two bags of peanuts.

Batt does other things that people might not expect of a governor.

Jim Weatherby, a Boise State University professor of political science, recalled Batt arriving at a taxpayers conference where he was the featured speaker. “There weren’t any seats open, so he just sat down on one of the steps, waited for his turn.”

Batt reads every letter written to his office. After referring them to staffers for responses, he personally approves each reply.

Critics say that’s a sign that the governor’s job may be too big for Batt. If he’s so busy reacting to what comes in and comes up, they say, he won’t have the time to plan Idaho’s future and lead the state.

But Batt has an agenda, and he methodically has been clicking off its mostly modest items: Cutting property taxes $40 million. Launching welfare reform. Trimming the number of state employees. Making the state bureaucracy more helpful to business. Reforming juvenile justice. Instituting zero-based budgeting. Watching every penny.

“I think what he presented in the campaign is more or less what we’ve gotten,” said political analyst and author Randy Stapilus.

Love of music

Batt and friend Jake Maxwell formed a band when they were in high school in Wilder, playing for dances and proms.

Batt also was an academic standout and football team quarterback. “That may seem a little unusual because of his size (5 feet 6), being a football player,” Maxwell said, but “it tells you something about him.”

Years after the high school band days, Batt started sitting in with renowned pianist Gene Harris at Boise’s Idanha Hotel jam sessions.

For a long time, he was mostly “over in the corner tootling away” on his clarinet, recalled Billy Mitchell, a trumpeter who has performed with Batt for years. “I’ll bet it was about a year before he got right in front of the piano and belted out a solo.”

Batt’s modesty about his jazz clarinet-playing continues. When Lionel Hampton invited him to play at the Moscow jazz festival, “he wrote back that he was flattered but thought that was over his head,” said Kleiner.

Mitchell, a banker when he’s not playing his trumpet, said Batt plays out of a love for music and as a way to express himself. “Some people don’t think that’s real dignified for the governor to get up and play. He was doing it long before Clinton. Phil Batt doesn’t do it for any media attention. Usually, he feels more comfortable if the camera’s not in his face.”

Said Weatherby, “Phil Batt is just comfortable being Phil Batt.”

These days, Batt takes a little more time with controversial decisions. He attributes the initial bumps in his administration partly to the need - as the first Republican in the post in 24 years - to bring on a full staff and get up to speed. Now he has time to start things such as welfare reform and to plan for zerobased budgeting, which he hopes will save the state money.

“He seems to be getting things going more now,” said John Freemuth, a political science professor at Boise State University. “He’s not the kind of activist governor Cecil Andrus was, not the public speaker Andrus was. But he’s still got a keen mind.”

“Andrus was a tough act to follow,” said Stapilus. “He was a natural handshaking politician. He had that extra level, extra presence. Not many people have that.”

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