Otter, Brady face off in first TV debate

BOISE – Gubernatorial candidates Rep. C.L. “Butch” Otter, the Republican, and Democrat Jerry Brady met Thursday night in Idaho’s first televised debate between the two men vying to lead the state for the next four years.

Otter and Brady answered questions on topics ranging from this summer’s $260 million property tax cut and subsequent sales tax increase to wilderness proposals to a proposed constitutional ban on gay marriage on the Nov. 7 ballot.

The hour-long event in Lewiston was sponsored by the League of Women Voters and the Idaho Press Club. Their next debate will be Oct. 30 in Twin Falls.

Otter, 64, who has spent much of the last 30 years inside state and federal government while billing himself as an outsider, said more action to reduce property taxes would be needed once he’s in office. The three-term congressman said he supported outgoing Gov. Jim Risch’s successful proposal to shift school maintenance funding to the state from the property tax.

“I don’t see that as the ending,” Otter said. “I see an opportunity in the future for us to be able to secure people in their homes at the price that they bought them at, and then allow, after a period of time, a very slow increase in the property valuation and the subsequent taxes.”

Brady, 70, an Idaho Falls native and Notre Dame University-educated lawyer who worked for the late Sen. Frank Church in the 1960s and 70s, said the special legislative session on property tax relief was the one area where Risch has gone wrong after stepping into the governor’s office in June when Dirk Kempthorne was elevated to U.S. Interior secretary.

Instead of directing relief only to residents, Brady said, Risch aided businesses and second-home owners with millions in tax relief while raising the sales tax.

“What the Legislature did was saw a giant hole on this three-legged tax system,” Brady said, referring to Idaho’s sales, income and property taxes. “What they did was take $150 million and say – that money does not have to be paid by corporations and second homeowners and utilities – and instead, you’re going to pay it.”

Since early this year, Brady, who lost to Kempthorne in 2002, and Otter have sparred over whether to create new wilderness in Idaho, and Thursday was no different as they disagreed about two proposals – one sponsored by U.S. Rep. Mike Simpson, the other by U.S. Sen. Mike Crapo, both Idaho Republicans. Both proposals are now in the U.S. Senate.

Otter, a wealthy rancher from Star, said if the federal government is going to set aside thousands of acres for preservation, it should also set aside similar territory for development, including grazing.

Brady praised Simpson and Crapo, saying the agreements they reached in crafting proposed new preserves in the Boulder and White Cloud mountains and in Owyhee County should be held up as a model of compromise.