A hard campaign for lobby group

This week’s Idaho primary election was all about candidates, but one of the losers was a lobbying group, the Idaho Association of Commerce and Industry.

The business lobbying group had stepped directly into campaigning this year, mounting independent expenditure campaigns on behalf of three incumbent Idaho lawmakers and one Senate challenger in the GOP primary election.

The results: The Senate challenger lost, and so did one of IACI’s favored incumbents.

Sen. Tim Corder, R-Mountain Home, easily held his District 22 Senate seat with 62 percent of the vote, to challenger Clayton Cramer’s 38 percent. Corder will face Democrat G. Rustyn Casiano in November.

And freshman Rep. John Vander Woude, R-Nampa, lost to challenger Rich Jarvis, who took 51 percent to Vander Woude’s 49 percent. Jarvis will face Democrat Sharon Fisher in November.

The two other incumbents for whom IACI went to bat, Sen. Russ Fulcher, R-Meridian, and Rep. Cliff Bayer, R-Boise, held their seats, Fulcher with 52 percent to challenger Steven Ricks’ 48 percent, and Bayer with 58 percent to challenger Jefferson Hunt West’s 42 percent.

IACI reported spending $2,640 on a mailing and advertising on behalf of Cramer’s bid to unseat Corder in the primary; and $3,987 for a direct-mail piece and advertising supporting Fulcher, Bayer and Vander Woude, all through the newly renamed “IACI Business PAC.”

‘We’re not in disarray’

The morning after the election, Idaho Republican Party Chairman Kirk Sullivan said, “Everybody thinks that our party is in disarray. We’re not in disarray. We’re going to show in November that we’re still the reddest state in the country.”

The occasion was the party’s traditional morning-after “unity” gathering after the primary election, where candidates are supposed to set aside their intraparty disputes and come together behind the party’s standard bearers. Thus, U.S. Rep. Bill Sali’s primary opponent, Matt Salisbury, was there wearing a bright yellow “Sali” sticker on his lapel, and two of the losers in the eight-way GOP primary for Larry Craig’s Senate seat, Scott Syme and Neal Thompson, were there to congratulate winner Jim Risch.

Said Sullivan, “The leadership that we have received over the last umpteen years with the Republican Party has been great.” He said in the general election campaign that’s now kicked off, “We have to elect a U.S. senator to continue to represent us as our delegation has in the past.” Risch said, “Obviously there’s issues with the party nationally, but those issues don’t come here to Idaho.”

Democratic candidates, some of whom held their own campaign kickoff events the same day, disagreed. Larry LaRocco, Risch’s Democratic opponent for the Senate, said, “I’ll be a member of the majority party, which is very important. Nobody disputes the fact that the Democrats are going to maintain control of the Senate.”

Five legislative incumbents lose in primary

Incumbent Idaho legislators who lost their seats in this week’s primary election were Rep. Diana Thomas, R-Weiser, an Otter appointee who lost to Judy Boyle; Rep. Curtis Bowers, R-Caldwell, another Otter appointee who lost to Pat Takasugi; Sen. Stan Bastian, R-Eagle, who lost to Chuck Winder; Rep. Mark Snodgrass, R-Meridian, who gave up his House seat to challenge Sen. Shirley McKague, R-Meridian, but lost 53 percent to 47 percent; and Rep. John Vander Woude, R-Nampa, who lost to Rich Jarvis.

Former state Rep. Julie Ellsworth, R-Boise, defeated Gail Hartnett for a shot at challenging Democratic Rep. Branden Durst; Rep. Phil Hart, R-Athol, easily fought off a challenge from former Coeur d’Alene school Superintendent David Rawls 70 percent to 30 percent; Rep. Steven Thayn, R-Emmett, held his seat with 38 percent of the vote against challengers Gary Bauer and Matt Beebe, who each received 31 percent; and Rep. Tom Loertscher, R-Iona, survived a four-way primary to hold his seat with 44 percent of the vote.

The Risch tax shift

Idaho Lt. Gov. Jim Risch started something of a brouhaha by focusing his campaign for the U.S. Senate around the claim that as governor, he “delivered the largest tax cut in state history.” Risch is referring to his 2006 tax reform plan, which he successfully pushed through in a special session he called to reduce property taxes while raising the sales tax from 5 percent to 6 percent. The tax shift was a significant one, and gave the state Legislature more of the responsibility for funding schools, which previously drew more than $200 million a year of their basic operating funding from local property taxes.

“We cut taxes by over $200 million,” Risch claims in a TV ad. But his opponents note he’s not mentioning the offsetting sales tax increase of $200 million a year.

Back in August of 2006, I examined the effect of Risch’s tax reform plan on taxpayers in Idaho. The article opened:

“Run the numbers of Gov. Jim Risch’s tax reform plan, which would lower property tax and raise sales tax, and the big surprise is how little most Idaho families would be affected. ‘It’s pretty much not much,’ said Boise economist Don Reading. Virtually all property owners would see a tax cut from Risch’s plan to eliminate the basic school operations levy, which would take nearly $3 per $1,000 of taxable value off everyone’s property tax bill. But the net result, after paying an increased sales tax of 6 percent instead of 5 percent, would be small for most taxpayers. Only very large property owners who pay little sales tax – major manufacturers and utilities, for instance – would see big gains under the Risch plan.”