Abortion Fight Looms In Capitol

Dennis Mansfield has a message for Republicans who might be concerned about what happened the last time the Idaho Legislature took on the abortion issue.

“It is a lie that those who voted pro-life in 1990 were turned out of office,” says Mansfield, director of the Idaho Family Forum and the sponsor of new abortion legislation to be considered this year. “Eighty-seven point five percent of the incumbents regained their seats.”

While that sounds impressive, the election that followed the 1990 abortion-dominated legislative session was the one that saw the Idaho Senate split 21-21 between Republicans and Democrats. It only took a Republican loss of two seats to accomplish that.

And in the House, Republicans lost eight seats to the Democrats.

Back on the table

Idahoans are recalling 1990 because this year promises to be the first since then that the Legislature has addressed abortion.

Randy Stapilus, a Boise political historian who has watched the Idaho Legislature for more than 20 years, said, “I think there is some historical revisionism going on right now by people who want to bring the abortion debate back.”

Certainly, Stapilus said, backers of more debate on the issue could argue that 1998 will be different than 1990. The 1990 bill, House Bill 625, would have been the most restrictive abortion law in the nation, and could have been used to challenge the landmark Roe vs. Wade decision that legalized abortion in 1972.

It passed the Republican-dominated Legislature, but Democratic Gov. Cecil Andrus vetoed it. Throughout the emotional session, the national spotlight shone on Boise, and the capital city’s streets were filled with protests, marches, speeches and television trucks.

There was even a nationwide boycott of Idaho potatoes.

A ‘safe’ vote

Many legislators didn’t think their support for the bill was politically risky, Stapilus said. “The widespread presumption was that the Republicans who were backing the legislation were doing a politically safe thing.”

But chief sponsor Roger Madsen, a Republican who now heads the state Department of Labor, lost to a Democrat afterward in one of the safest Republican seats in the state, in southern Ada County.

Another high-profile backer, Ada County Sen. Rod Beck, also lost in a heavily Republican district. Beck now heads the Idaho Housing & Finance Association.

Gary Montgomery, the House majority leader at the time and another key sponsor of the bill, barely won re-election. “He had not had any serious problem before, but he almost lost that year,” Stapilus said.

“I don’t think there’s any reasonable argument against the notion that in 1990 abortion was a strong negative against the Republicans who were supporting HB 625,” Stapilus said. “The evidence is just too strong.”

Mansfield notes that both Beck and Madsen later regained their seats. “So the theory that voting prolife ended your legislative career in Idaho was a figment of the imagination of people searching for a reason that the Senate deadlocked 21-21,” he said.

However, Stapilus said, abortion no longer was an issue in the races that saw the two re-elected. In fact, it was avoided.

“I don’t think there’s any question but that HB 625 in 1990 was a political loser,” Stapilus said. “And the final evidence of that, I could add, is that the Republican leadership in this state has gone nowhere near it ever since.”

That’s despite the fact that the party took over the governorship in 1994, and presumably could have passed the bill again and gotten it signed.

More of the same?

Boiseans are flocking to a big new 21-screen movie theater, though the town already had more than half a dozen theaters. But the seemingly huge array of choices may be deceiving. On Friday, the 21-screen cinema was featuring only 10 different movies.

Less money, more spuds

Mike Yae was in line to head a prison industries program six times larger than Idaho’s, with a ton more staff, $28 million in annual sales and 1,650 inmates working.

But that was in Washington. Living in Olympia, Yae was the assistant director of the giant program and had been named acting director. He worked 50- to 60-hour weeks.

Now he has moved to Boise, along with his wife and new baby. And one $10,000 pay cut later, he’s the new chief of Idaho’s correctional industries program.

Idaho Correction Director Jim Spalding, who formerly worked in Washington, doesn’t disguise how pleased he was to nab Yae right when he was thinking about quality of life.

“My former colleagues weren’t too happy with me when I was up there recruiting,” Spalding said.

Yae said he wasn’t looking for a new job, but was impressed with Spalding’s pitch.

Prison industry programs put inmates to work in an on-site business, with the profits paying their wages and other prison costs. Idaho’s program mainly produces office furniture.

Yae said he sees a lot of potential, but any growth in prison jobs has to be designed carefully so it doesn’t displace regular private sector jobs.

“You say, ‘Should inmates be working?’ and everyone says ‘Yes,”’ Yae said. “But if you say, ‘Should they be working in your particular field?’ they say, ‘Oh, no.”’

, DataTimes MEMO: North-South Notes runs every other Saturday. To reach Betsy Z. Russell, call 336-2854, fax to 336-0021 or e-mail to bzrussell@rmci.net.