Governor Nurtures Next Generation

Poor Idaho. Outsiders think of it as last in childhood inoculations, last in child care and development, but first in the hearts of Adolf Hitler’s latter-day Nazis.

It’s hard to overcome a rap like that.

But new Gov. Dirk Kempthorne is giving it the old college try. Last week, the former University of Idaho student body president detailed a plan to focus on children’s needs that thrilled even the few Democrats of the 55th Legislature.

Now, all he has to do is find money to back his impressive rhetoric. That could be a problem in a tight budget year. Still, Kempthorne deserves credit for using his bully pulpit to draw attention to Idaho’s greatest natural resource - finally.

Rather than find fault with individual proposals, as Idaho’s grumpy lawmakers are inclined to do, legislators should search for ways to fund Kempthorne’s “Generation of the Child.”

For too long, the Legislature has fiddled while the state’s children crashed and burned. Idaho, after all, is the only state that requires a draconian two-thirds supermajority to pass school bonds, yet fails to provide a dime for school construction.

Kempthorne wants to lower that supermajority.

In fact, he wants to address a host of important children’s issues that have received far less legislative attention than such trivial fiascos as the slogans on Idaho license plates. The brilliant plan Kempthorne mapped out in his State of the State address calls for: a multimillion-dollar early childhood development and immunization program, one-time bonuses for college faculty, a $5.5 million reading program, full funding of a state-federal health insurance program for the children of Idaho’s working poor, and state interest payments on bonds for poorer school districts.

Equally impressive, Kempthorne named Jim Hawkins, former Commerce director and Coeur d’Alene resident, to spearhead the early childhood development and immunizations program. And he named his wife, First Lady Pat Kempthorne, to promote it.

The program is in good hands.

Not only did Hawkins provide a spark as Commerce director to get Idaho moving economically last decade, but he suffered polio as a child.

He knows firsthand that Idaho’s immunization rate of 70 percent, which is next to last in the nation, is endangering too many children needlessly. The goal is to push the rate to 90 percent in two years.

Kempthorne is following in the footsteps of two governors who made a difference. Democratic Gov. Cecil Andrus shook Idaho out of its doldrums by pushing progressive economic policies. Republican Gov. Phil Batt trimmed government fat and set a standard for human-rights advocacy. The next cause that needs attention is Idaho’s children.

That, and padlocking the Aryan Nations compound.