Otter Lets Conscience Be His Guide So Far, That’S Been Good Enough For Voters, Who Have Been Able To Forgive Some Indiscretions

Faced with picture-perfect weather for his announcement that he was running for Congress, C.L. “Butch” Otter marveled, “God must have a crush on Butch Otter.”

Otter has been “beat up” for that statement ever since.

“All I meant, it’s obvious to me that he’s fond of me,” Otter said. “I think he’s fond of everybody.”

Otter sees evidence of that in the miracles of everyday life. His younger brother recovered from injuries doctors thought would claim both his legs. Otter, a high school dropout, went back to school and became the first in his family to graduate from college.

Extraordinary events in Otter’s life didn’t stop there. The son of a blue-collar Democrat and union man with nine children grew up to be a free-market libertarian who married the daughter of one of the world’s richest men.

On the brink of a second run for governor, a drunkendriving conviction and a divorce halted his ambitions. But voters forgave Otter.

Now, the personable cowboy with “Butch” embroidered on the cuffs of his white shirts is hoping to turn his long-standing dislike for the federal government into a seat in its bastion - the U.S. Congress.

He figures his years of legislative experience, both as a state lawmaker and as lieutenant governor presiding over the state Senate, and his business experience as a top official at Simplot Corp. have prepared him to serve.

“I run on my record,” Otter said. “It’s black and white for everyone to see.”

From his first service in the Legislature back in 1972, Otter set up what he calls his “three C’s” to test legislation: “No. 1, Is it constitutional? No. 2, Can you live with it in your own conscience? And No. 3, will it help your constituency? Those are the orders of priority.”

Otter’s record shows he’s a maverick, not afraid to stand up for liberty even in unpopular contexts. When then-Gov. Cecil Andrus was out of state, Lt. Gov. Otter vetoed a bill that would have raised Idaho’s drinking age from 18 to 21 - even though the feds planned to pull $14 million in highway money unless the bill passed.

“Maybe we want to raise the drinking age to 24, but that oughta be the state of Idaho’s business, not the federal government’s,” Otter said. “We shouldn’t be blackmailed with our own money.”

Once Andrus returned, a new bill was passed and signed into law.

In the early 1970s, Otter voted not just no, but “hell no” on a bill to set state standards for pornography, because he said those decisions should be left to local communities - some of which already had stricter standards. The vote came back to haunt him twice - once when he ran for governor in 1978, and again this year, when an out-of-state group ran ads accusing him of being soft on the issue of pornography.

“I don’t believe the government can assume the moral responsibility for an individual’s action, nor should it,” Otter said.

He puts his faith in the private sector. “It’s the most humane and moral method of dividing up scarcity.”

In earlier years, Otter’s faith in markets didn’t sit well with his father, an electrician and union organizer. The two had long debates.

But it wasn’t until the 1964 presidential election - Otter’s first chance to vote - that he discovered what his views meant politically. In an effort to get educated, he picked up a bag of information about the Democratic candidates.

A friend’s aunt who was working at a Republican booth nearby insisted he take a bag from her, too.

“A guy by the name of Barry Goldwater was running for president of the United States. I started reading through that stuff, and I thought, boy, my dad’s not going to like this very well, but I don’t think I’m a Democrat. I feel more like a Barry Goldwater Republican.”

Otter figures the market has an answer for everything. Even such thorny issues as prescription drugs being too expensive for sick or elderly people to buy has a market answer: “As long as the market’s allowed to react, then somebody else will get into the business.”

Plenty of things were scarce when Otter was growing up in the Caldwell area, but his mom made him and his brothers shirts out of flour sacks, they worked hard milking cows and doing farm chores and the family got by. He dropped out of school to help his mother run the farm when both his dad and brother were injured. A year later, as the medical bills mounted, the family sold the farm, and Otter decided to go back to school.

“I’d never worked so hard for nothing,” he said.

But he’d been out of school a year, and none of the public schools would take him back. It was a month into the school year before a Catholic school agreed to take him. After graduation, he studied for the priesthood at an Olympia, Wash., monastery for two years before deciding he didn’t have the calling, and then returned to play football and finish up at Boise Junior College and the College of Idaho.

He was working on a road crew in McCall during a summer break from the monastery when he was introduced to Gay Simplot through a friend. When a group headed to a dance hall in New Meadows after a steak, potatoes and fireworks Fourth of July bash at the Simplot estate, he and she discovered they were both skilled at the jitterbug.

“We were pretty good right from the get-go,” he recalled.

Simplot’s father, J.R. Simplot, is the Idaho potato magnate whose business empire includes McDonald’s french fries, beef, fertilizer, and now computer microchips.

After dating for a time, the two were married at St. John’s Cathedral in Boise.

“It was quite a wedding - we had so many governors and senators and bankers, I was just in awe,” Otter recalled. “It was one of the most extraordinary social and economic changes I think one individual ever went through in their life. I was just a country bumpkin.”

But observers who’ve watched Otter with people say his move up the social and economic ranks wasn’t surprising.

“Butch strikes me as being the single most naturally gifted campaigner I have seen in the state,” said political historian Randy Stapilus. “You can’t walk into a room where Butch is and walk out not liking the guy. It’s a great natural gift.”

Otter worked for his father-in-law, and asked his advice when he started thinking about running for the Legislature.

Simplot told him if he wanted to get involved in politics in Canyon County, there were two people he needed to talk to, and one was Ralph Smeed.

“Ralph Smeed taught me, `Be for something, and get elected,’ ” Otter said. “He gave me my first $20.”

Smeed is an outspoken, often profane libertarian who abhors what he calls “statism” and helped shape the libertarian views of former Idaho Sen. Steve Symms and current U.S. Rep. Helen Chenoweth-Hage.

“Butch isn’t very much for Big Brother, and I think that’s his strength,” Smeed said last week.

“I think he’d tell you when the government gets bigger, the individual gets smaller. That was one of the things we talked about when he come up to my office in the early days, and I think that kinda got into his bloodstream.”

Otter found serving in the Legislature frustrating, because he couldn’t slice back government’s role the way he wanted. He tried unsuccessfully to push a plan to freeze taxes and state spending.

After two terms, he stepped aside, and two years later made his first run for governor. In a seven-way Republican primary, Otter came in third, carrying the 1st Congressional District in the north but losing in the southeast.

Otter then headed up a new effort to take the Simplot Corp. international, and traveled to 82 countries, negotiating deals and setting up plants.

He was elected lieutenant governor in 1986, and Andrus asked him to help build Idaho’s international business appeal, along the lines of his Simplot Corp. work. Idaho exports soared.

“I can’t take credit for all of it, but Andrus told me to lead, Batt told me to continue, I did, and we can see the results today.”

After his 1990 re-election, Otter was considered the front-runner for governor in 1994. But in 1993, he had a falling-out with the president and board at Simplot, and quit, taking early retirement. He and his wife were separated at the time, and a year later, they divorced. That was also when Otter was pulled over while driving a buddy home, and cited, and then convicted, for drunken driving.

“It wasn’t one of the high points of my life, I can tell you that,” he said. He dropped the plan to run for governor. “I decided to just stay as lieutenant governor if the people would let me.”

After a close three-way Republican primary and a bare majority in the general election, Otter held the office.

His marriage, which lasted 30 years and produced four children, left him a wealthy man. He has investments worth millions, including shares in ranches, businesses and something he likes because of its scarcity - riverfront land.

He’s now facing a June trial as a three-time violator of environmental laws for excavating wetlands on his home spread near Star, but he insists he’s done nothing wrong.

“I think the EPA is way out of control,” he said. “They’ve way overstepped their congressional mandate.”

Otter wants to limit such environmental regulation in favor of private property rights.

But even when he rails against federal agencies, Otter seems to do it in good spirits. His clear blue eyes twinkle. He seems playful, much younger than his 58 years. His light-brown hair is barely tinged with gray. Few lines mark his tanned face.

Former Gov. Phil Batt, who advised Otter to make his first legislative run back in 1972, thinks Otter will do well in Congress, because of both his experience and his personal style.

“They’ll like him,” Batt said. “Everyone likes Butch.”

This sidebar appeared with the story: THE CANDIDATES Race for Congress

Eight Republican candidates are vying for the District 1 Congressional seat. The winner of the May 23 primary faces a Democrat and two minor-party candidates in November’s general election:

Today, C.L. “Butch” Otter

Wednesday: Dennis Mansfield

Thursday: Ron McMurray

Friday: Craig Benjamin

A voter’s guide for Idaho’s contested primary races will appear in Thursday’s paper.