N-Waste Lights Up Democrats Nuke Pact One Of Few Issues Disputed By Minority Party

After nine weeks, Idaho’s downtrodden Democratic legislative minority finally found some political vitality, closing out the election-year session with impassioned, albeit futile, pleas against nuclear dumping and for higher wages for working people and health care for the poor.

The assaults on actions by the leaders of the most Republican Legislature in the nation marked the first time this winter that the minority played the role of the loyal opposition.

In fact, Republican Senate President Pro Tem Jerry Twiggs noted the lack of partisan tension the past three months in his farewell remarks on Friday.

“When you look back at all the votes we’ve taken, the actual number of party-line votes is very few,” Twiggs said.

One of those came in the waning hours of the session when Sen. Clint Stennett of Ketchum tried to force a floor vote on the Democratic bill to put GOP Gov. Phil Batt’s nuclear waste deal with the federal government to a public referendum.

Stennett has been an outspoken critic of the agreement that trades resumption of limited nuclear dumping at the Idaho National Engineering Laboratory for promises that most waste will be removed from INEL by 2035. He doubts the waste will ever leave.

“Before our government enters into agreements of such importance, the voice of the people must be heard,” he said. “If it’s a good deal, the people will vote for it. If it’s not, they will turn it down.”

But Republicans, who have rallied around their governor after sitting out the waste debate during Democratic Gov. Cecil Andrus’ tenure and at times subtly undermining him, remained united. Only the other seven Democrats supported Stennett.

As Twiggs said, it was a rare moment in an election year that Democrats hope will begin the rebuilding of their party after 1994’s election left them with the fewest legislative seats in two generations.

The Republican stands on issues like state aid to public schools and special interests tax breaks, that Democrats vigorously disputed in the past, just rolled through the Capitol this winter, at times without any vocal dissent and often with Democratic support.

Rep. James Stoicheff, D-Sandpoint, floor leader of the 13 House Democrats, said there was little his party could do, especially when it was obvious there was no more money to put into the governor’s tight schools budget.

“We couldn’t quarrel with it. You didn’t see any of us making speeches that we should do more here or there,” Stoicheff said.

Leaders concede the loss of the governor’s office, which their party held for 24 years, is the major difference. Without that leverage, they seem to have had the wind knocked out of them.

“That was the one place we had a chance of making a difference, and that isn’t there any more,” Senate Floor Leader Bruce Sweeney of Lewiston said. “We knew the caucus positions would not be successful. So you have your personal agenda, and you risk losing that if you are unreasonable, given the numbers.”

Aggravating their diminished ranks - eight of 35 Senate seats and 13 of 70 House seats - was the expansion in the ranks of conservative Republicans. Even in the mid1980s when Democrats also had less than a third of the seats in either house, there were moderate Republicans they at times coalesced with.

“There isn’t a moderate vote any more,” Sen. Marguerite McLaughlin of Orofino said. “It’s frustrating when you’ve tried everything, and you can’t get anything done.”

That was obvious on Feb. 6 when Democrats formed up with moderate Republicans behind legislation prohibiting school districts from dropping their kindergarten programs in the future if they experience money problems. The bill was defeated 18-17.

But while clear, solid Republican control of the Legislature made for an efficient election-year session, even GOP leaders admit privately that the state would be better served if there were a more political balance providing opposing views and alternative approaches.

Democrats will spend the next three weeks looking for candidates that can help them regain some of the ground they have lost since 1992 when the party held half the seats in the Senate. The filing deadline is April 5.

But while they may have some viable challengers lined up, the prospects were that all too many GOP-held seats will go unchallenged as they did two years ago. And that will leave Republicans able to focus even more of their considerable resources and organization on the ones that are.