Nuclear Debate Consuming Batt’s First Term Governor Admits That Opposition To Waste Deal Has Thinned His Skin

In two years as chief executive, Phil Batt has put his conservative stamp on Idaho, tempered by a moderate approach to social issues.

Expansion of the state payroll has been checked.

The state government budget has been reined in.

There is a new department to get tough with juvenile thugs.

Beginning next month, child support deadbeats start losing their licenses to do just about anything.

Property taxes have been cut by tens of millions of dollars.

Batt campaigned on those issues and delivered.

But he also cajoled an agriculture-dominated Legislature into ending that industry’s 79-year exemption from providing farm laborers the worker’s compensation insurance coverage required of every other Idaho employer.

He launched an initiative to boost the economic and social status of Hispanics.

He opened communications with the state’s Indian tribes through regular personal meetings with their leaders.

Yet, in reviewing the first half of his term as Idaho’s first Republican governor in 24 years, Batt seems consumed by the often rancorous nuclear waste debate.

“It was not only unexpected,” Batt said during an interview. “It has been all-pervasive in occupying my time and energy in this administration.”

And even after nearly two-thirds of the voters rebuffed his vocal critics and ratified his nuclear waste deal by defeating Proposition 3, Batt does not believe the attack is over.

He took that initiative as an assault on his personal integrity, calling the day it qualified for the Nov. 5 ballot the lowest point of his term to date. He blames “the implacable political enemies of my party and me.”

“The same people tried to recall me. They tried to discredit me with Proposition 3,” the governor said. “It hasn’t worked, but I think they will continue to try that.”

“I think basically they are of a different political philosophy. They don’t want to see a Republican governor.”

The day before, Batt surprised many when he publicly scolded the Idaho Conservation League during a Land Board meeting for some of its members’ involvement in the initiative campaign.

His comments, like those in the interview, suggested he was a sore winner. Editorial criticism was quick. One called him Gov. Phil Grump.

A week later, apparently having had a chance to think about it, the governor admitted he probably had been too consumed by the waste issue and possibly a little extreme in assessing at least some initiative supporters.

He was especially peeved at the league’s state issues coordinator, Mike Medberry, who discussed the initiative with a top Batt aide and still decided to appear at a pro-initiative rally three weeks before the election.

“I’ve had a good working relationship with ICL,” the governor said. But “if we’re to cooperate on a day-by-day basis, those folks shouldn’t be involved in a movement which is nothing more than an attempt to discredit the governor of the state of Idaho.”

Aware that Batt would hold a grudge, Medberry insisted any involvement he had with the initiative was peripheral. But he said he has been unable so far to meet with Batt to bury the hatchet and repair a relationship he believes has offered environmentalists a fair hearing on key issues.

He plans to keep trying.

“It doesn’t matter that I wasn’t involved in it in a significant manner,” said Medberry, who recalls being vilified by Batt when the two met briefly after Thanksgiving in the Boise airport.

“The governor perceives that I was, and we’ve got to get past that,” he said. “There’s real business to do and this is getting in the way of it.”

Medberry fears Batt may be more vindictive than his predecessor, Democrat Cecil Andrus, who was legendary for remembering - and dealing with - his enemies as well as his friends. Medberry said the governor’s pique has already been felt in the Land Board’s refusal to seriously consider the league’s mining reform proposals. The resolution of that and other environmental issues now seems to be hanging on Batt’s temper, he said.

The governor admitted being thin-skinned about the nuclear waste issue the day after his outburst at the Land Board. His record so far shows it has not affected his ability to deal with other major state issues, although waste may have overshadowed them.

But on reflection, he now seems to want to make it clear he holds no grudges.

“I intend to cooperate fully with all groups, including environmentalists. I think they’re a very important part of the equation,” the governor said. “I’ve been a little intemperate in some of my critiques of those who opposed the agreement, and certainly I should move on from here, and I am.”