Keough Faces Young Challenger For Senate Tanner Raises Family Values Issue; They Agree On Natural Resources

Two Republican advocates of the natural resource industry in North Idaho are facing off in the District 1 Senate race.

Lisa Tanner, a 20-year-old from Boundary County, is taking on two-term incumbent Shawn Keough, 40.

While Keough touts her seniority as one of her strengths, Tanner weighs in with family values that she believes Keough has failed to uphold.

“Sen. Keough’s voting record is disappointing,” Tanner said, referring to Keough’s vote earlier this year against a bill requiring a minor to get parental permission before getting an abortion.

Keough said she researched the bill and was satisfied that Idaho’s existing parental notification law was adequate to protect parental rights - and protect rape and incest victims at the same time.

“In the real world, I support family values, but there are times when government can’t provide the answers,” Keough said. The governor recently signed the parental consent bill into law.

Tanner, the eldest of eight home-schooled siblings, got her political training under Dennis Mansfield of the Idaho Family Forum and Rep. Helen Chenoweth-Hage, R-Idaho.

In the fall of 1997, Tanner interned for Chenoweth-Hage in Washington, D.C., and lived with the congresswoman, too. While there, she helped research tax laws, particularly the marriage penalty tax, which she opposes.

She also did some work for Chenoweth-Hage’s subcommittee on forests and forest health and shares the congresswoman’s disdain for federal control of the forests - particularly the administration’s roadless plan.

“We have to harvest our forest in order to maintain a healthy forest,” said Tanner, who does some part-time work in log home construction. “The state has a better handle on how to manage those lands.”

While an intern for Idaho Family Forum in 1998, Tanner researched a variety of topics, she said. The organization at the time was pushing for the parental consent bill.

After returning to Boundary County and enrolling in a correspondence law school course, Tanner also spent some time on the county’s planning and zoning commission.

Tanner will turn 21 on June 29, making her eligible to serve as a state senator.

Keough shares Tanner’s concerns about the federal roadless initiative. Idaho needs to be a party to any legal challenges to the initiative, she said.

“We bear the brunt of the impacts of national policies,” she said. Although Keough doesn’t believe a judge should decide natural resource policy, if there is a suit, she said, “We need to be in the arena.”

But as a legislator, Keough has spent most of her energy pursuing state funds for school facilities and pushing other bills she’s carried at the request of local constituents.

Last legislative session, Keough sponsored two bills to establish a state fund to assist local school districts in building schools. Now, the entire financial burden for new schools rests on the property taxpayers.

She also sponsored a bill requiring annual health and safety inspections of schools and published results of those inspections, with the purpose of educating the public as to the need for improved facilities.

None of those bills was signed into law, but Keough sees progress in the Legislature’s attitude toward solving the school facilities issue; “I want to keep the momentum going.”

Sales tax distribution is another North Idaho issue that lawmakers have been battling for years. This year, they finally won a redistribution of sales tax that would benefit North Idaho communities - a bill that Keough strongly supported.

As for transportation, despite complaints that U.S. Highway 95 is a goat trail, “we have more money on Highway 95 than we’ve ever had,” she said, noting that 40 to 45 percent of the highway funds in the state are going to Highway 95.

“We’ve been able to put together a formidable coalition,” she said. Her position as vice chairwoman of the Senate Transportation Committee is key to keeping those highway projects on track, she said.

“The squeaky wheel gets the grease,” she said.