Batt May Put Back Into Second Term Governor Says Surgery To Relieve Pain May Increase His Chances Of Seeking Re-Election

Pain-free for the first time in six years, Gov. Phil Batt said Monday his back surgery 10 days earlier increases the likelihood he will seek a second four-year term next year.

With the Idaho Democratic Party in shambles, the popular Republican governor is considered all but unbeatable if he runs again.

“I’m more inclined to run, but that is not an announcement,” said the 70-year-old governor.

“If anything, it (the back surgery) will affect it in the positive because I don’t have the pain I had before.”

Batt was back in his office for the first time since surgeons removed two spinal cysts from his lower back on April 18. The cysts’ pressure on his spinal nerves had created constant pain in his back and legs.

“It was a great relief when I came out of the anesthesia - the pain was gone,” Batt said. “The doctor says I’m on a 99th percentile of recovery. He was amazed.”

The governor said he walked briefly within hours of the surgery and now is walking about three miles a day. He worked from his home while recuperating last week.

Batt said he would work mostly from his home for probably three more weeks, then be back to his normal routine.

After spending most of his first two years in office embroiled in controversy over nuclear waste storage, Batt emerged from the 1996 election with overwhelming voter ratification of two major policies.

Attempts to void his unprecedented nuclear waste deal with the federal government and dramatically slash property taxes over his opposition were defeated.

The GOP also held on to all the congressional seats and made the most Republican Legislature in the nation even more so.

But Batt had been circumspect about re-election until last November, only jokingly talking about a second term. The day after the votes were counted, he said he was inclined to run again but would not make a formal announcement until late this year or early next.

Then in early January, he accumulated $70,000 from the first fund-raiser of the 1998 campaign season and since has been conciliatory on a number of issues that he had taken strong stands on previously.

The most obvious was Indian gambling. His staunch opposition to electronic pull-tab machines in reservation casinos evolved over the winter into acknowledgment that gambling profits have bolstered depressed reservation economies. He conceded that public opinion sided with the tribes.

Batt said Monday he expects to name within the next few days the Indian Gaming Committee that will assess reservation casino operations. Perhaps, Batt said, there might be a way to make existing enterprises legal within state law.