Activist Challenges 16-Year Legislator Kellogg Boasts Experience; Johnson Touts New Approach

Both candidates in the race for District 2 representative have invested time and energy in the area they wish to represent.

Incumbent Hilde Kellogg, R-Post Falls, has been a state representative for 16 years. At 82, she’s the oldest leader in the Legislature. She’s lived in Post Falls for nearly 50 years.

Kellogg’s opponent, Democrat Kristy Reed Johnson, has become a spokeswoman for the Rathdrum Prairie Citizen Advisory Group while representing the Kootenai Environmental Alliance.

Kellogg is vice chairwoman of the Revenue and Taxation Committee and she serves on the Business and Transportation/Defense committees.

“As a leader, I think that sometimes people look to people that have experience, that have been there,” Kellogg said. “I think that I’ve been effective.”

Kellogg sponsored legislation this year to give fast-growing areas such as Post Falls a fairer share of state sales tax proceeds.

It’s an effort that took eight years to get through the Legislature.

“It was really kind of neat to get some recognition,” Kellogg said. “How good is it? We don’t know. We need to monitor it. And we will.”

If re-elected, Kellogg said she wants to pass a resolution to form another study committee to look at new sales and property tax exemptions. Kellogg said she wants to set a policy outlining who should be exempt from paying the sales tax, and who should not.

Kellogg also wants to establish a statewide 911 system, something she began looking at in the 1980s. She said the state’s surplus should go to fund the Department of Commerce to concentrate on building infrastructure in rural areas. Other surplus money should provide tax cuts to residents, Kellogg said. She said she also wants to continue improvements on U.S. Highway 95.

“You have to have a certain amount of ego to be a politician,” Kellogg said. “It took a few years for me to understand that.”

Ideologically, Johnson said she and Kellogg take similar positions on topics, but their approaches vary.

“I think it’s more of a passion and energy and willingness to do the research,” Johnson said.

Johnson said growing up in Kansas was both luxurious and simple, but that after her parents divorced when she was young, the family riches disappeared. She said she has also seen poverty in North Idaho. It’s the kind of situation Johnson, 50, wants to change.

The state’s surplus should be used to pay debts, fix schools and for tax relief, she said. Taxpayers deserve property tax relief, and the federal government should provide more living-wage jobs for people to work in Idaho’s national forests, she said.

Johnson recently worked to bring interests invested in the Rathdrum Prairie to form the Prairie Advisory Group. She opposed the location of Burlington Northern and Santa Fe Railway’s refueling depot above the Spokane Valley-Rathdrum Prairie Aquifer, the drinking-water source for about 400,000 people. And she said she stood up for local prairie farmers and their field-burning rights with environmental regulators.

Johnson said she would have a chance to make a bigger impact than a Republican as a state representative because the few Democrats must sit on every committee.

Plus, the state shouldn’t be controlled by one party, she said.

“It is not good government because you lose that exchange of ideas,” Johnson said.

Johnson and her husband, Ron, have three children and two grandchildren.

“We love this country,” Johnson said, referring to North Idaho. “We’ve traveled this entire world, and this is where our hearts are.”

Jenny Slater can be reached at (208) 765-7147 or by e-mail at jennys@spokesman.com.