Otter to take oath in private

BOISE – Gov.-elect C.L. “Butch” Otter will take his oath of office on Jan. 1 in a ceremony closed to the public and press, breaking a tradition of public oaths perhaps for the first time in state history.

“I never heard of anything like that before,” Arthur Hart, former director of the Idaho State Historical Society, told the Lewiston Tribune. “If memory serves, some territorial governors might have been sworn-in in Washington, D.C., and some of them never even bothered coming back here.”

Jon Hanian, the governor-elect’s spokesman, said the closed-door oath is “procedural” and Otter will host a public ceremony later in the first week of January.

Idaho’s Constitution requires new governors to take their oath, “beginning on the first Monday in January” after the election.

This year, the first Monday of January falls on New Year’s Day, a government holiday. On Jan. 1, Otter will take the oath in a private, closed-door ceremony and hold a public swearing-in ceremony on the Capitol steps in Boise on Jan 5.

“It’s fair to say that on the first, for most people, that’s a holiday,” Hanian said. “We’re concentrating all of our effort on the fifth for the public swearing-in with all the pomp and circumstance and the speeches and the prayers.”

But several historians and political watchers in Idaho said they cannot recall another private oath ceremony.

Jim Weatherby, an emeritus professor of public policy at Boise State University recalled a similar private ceremony held by Gov. Dirk Kempthorne, but that private gathering – in the governor’s office at one minute after midnight on Jan. 3, 1999 – did not include the official oath.

Kempthorne and his wife said a prayer and toasted the occasion with a glass of water, but held the swearing-in ceremony on the Capitol steps later that day.

“Swearing in the governor, that should be public,” Weatherby said.

Elected officials must file oaths with the Idaho secretary of state’s office on Jan. 1, said Miren Artiach, a deputy in the office.

“All of them are concerned about having the proper paperwork in order,” said Artiach, who will work Jan. 1 to record the various oaths of office. “Some people think that ceremony on the steps is the actual swearing-in, but it’s just a public ceremony.”

Judy Austin, of Boise, who retired after 36 years as an editor and historian for the Idaho State Historical Society, said a private swearing-in is a little disquieting.

“I find it ever so slightly uncomfortable that there is no witness on behalf of the public is how I’d put it,” Austin said.