House minority whip bucks up Idaho Demos

BOISE – The second-ranking Democrat in the U.S. House, Rep. Steny Hoyer of Maryland, visited Idaho on Wednesday to help energize the state’s struggling minority party.

Now serving his second term as House minority whip to Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., Hoyer told state Democrats to take advantage of an opportunity to win back an open seat in the 1st Congressional District next year.

The incumbent, Republican Butch Otter, has said he will run for the governor’s office in 2006.

“The Democratic Party is alive and well and committed to winning,” Hoyer told a roomful of about 50 party leaders. “We need to take this open seat in Idaho, period.”

The congressman was making a swing this week through four intermountain states, an area where Democrats hope to gain ground in the 2006 elections. He came to the Boise fund-raiser at the request of Democratic Party Chairman Richard Stallings, a friend and former congressman from Idaho’s 2nd District.

Stallings said he is mindful that the party’s success in Idaho has been marginal in recent years. Idaho has only one Democratic statewide elected official — Superintendent of Public Instruction Marilyn Howard — and the state Legislature is more than 80 percent controlled by the GOP.

But Stallings said he strongly believes Democrats can ride what he sees as a national Bush backlash to put more Democrats in office in the next few years.

Stallings’ hopes were buoyed last week as members of the Democratic National Committee visited Idaho. He said the organization may soon decide to pump more money into the state party operation.