Simpson welcoming all primary Republicans

BOISE – 2nd District Rep. Mike Simpson says he hasn’t endorsed a candidate in the Republican primary for Idaho’s 1st District congressional seat, though his name appears along with those of U.S. House GOP leaders on an invitation for a Dec. 8 fundraiser for candidate Vaughn Ward in Washington, D.C.

Simpson spokeswoman Nikki Watts said, “Mr. Ward asked Congressman Simpson if he could use his name on the event invitation for the event in D.C., and my boss said yes, and he would do the same for any other Republican running in the 1st CD.”

Watts said, “Primaries are very difficult, and so he just wants to support all of the Republicans. … We’re doing this and we’ll do it for anybody else.”

Ward, an Iraq war veteran, has been running hard for a chance to challenge freshman Democratic Rep. Walt Minnick. Earlier, state House GOP Caucus Chairman Ken Roberts, R-Donnelly, was in the race, but he dropped out. Rep. Raul Labrador, R-Eagle, says he’s planning to jump in, and former Congressman Bill Sali has been mulling a possible comeback.

The Hill newspaper in Washington, D.C., reported that an array of national GOP leaders, including House Minority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio, Whip Eric Cantor, R-Va., and Chief Deputy Whip Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., will headline the fundraiser for Ward in Washington, D.C., showing that “Republican leaders are asserting their preference in the primary.”

Sali says ‘stay tuned’

While strolling across downtown Boise in the crisp fall sunshine last week, I ran into none other than former Idaho Congressman Bill Sali. Of course, I had to ask him: Is he running again for his old seat in Idaho’s 1st District? “Stay tuned,” Sali responded. Asked how long I should stay tuned, Sali was noncommittal, saying until he decides one way or another.

As he tried to get in his car and drive away, I asked him why, if he’s still considering running, he raised no campaign funds in the last quarter. “If I don’t run, I don’t want to have to give it back to people and go through all that mess,” Sali responded. “When I’m running, I should raise money, and when I am not, I shouldn’t. That’s the honorable thing.”

When I asked him what he plans to do about his remaining campaign debt, which is over $100,000, Sali responded again, “Stay tuned.”

Why state banned severance

There’s nothing in the record that shows why lawmakers passed legislation in 1993, with only one dissenting vote in either house, to ban severance payments to state employees who leave voluntarily. There was little discussion in committee, where the bill passed near-unanimously.

But a look back at news clips from the time provides an answer: That year’s legislative session opened just as a big scandal was breaking over new U.S. Sen. Dirk Kempthorne’s payment of more than $38,000 in severance bonuses to two top aides who worked for him when he was mayor of Boise, when they left city employment to take higher-paid positions on his Senate staff. The severance bonuses were paid with city funds.

The move caused such a fuss that the office of the new senator, on his first day in D.C., was besieged with outraged calls from Idaho, particularly as he had campaigned on a reform platform and decried congressional perks and “midnight pay raises.”

Kempthorne initially said it was then-Boise City Council President Sara Baker who had approved the bonuses, but she said she’d done so only at his request. It turned out the city of Boise had a severance pay policy in effect since 1990 designed to give it a way to get rid of top executives without lawsuits, but it also was being used to pay a minimum of two months’ pay to top city officials who left for better jobs.

After a week of building outrage, both Kempthorne aides paid the money back to the city, and the City Council revoked the policy. In that year’s legislative session, two pieces of legislation were introduced to ban severance payments, one for state employees who leave voluntarily, the other for city or county employees. The city and county bill died on the Senate floor, but the state one passed both houses overwhelmingly, was signed into law by then-Gov. Cecil Andrus and took effect on July 1.

Then-Sen. John Peavey, D-Carey, sponsor of the successful bill, said, “It kinda takes a jolt to get something done in the Legislature with that kind of support. Obviously everybody was of a single mind over there.” He added, “Y’know, there’s that old barn-door story, it’s all well and good to close the door after the horses are gone. In this case, we had a warning, so we busily went around and shut doors before anything else happened.”

It’s moving days

It’s a milestone for the two-year renovation of the state Capitol: The project has been declared “substantially complete,” and the building is now back in the hands of the state, rather than the contractors. There’s still final work and move-in work going on, however; the first state agency to move back in to the renovated historic structure was Legislative Services, which arrived last Monday.

Over the next three weeks, state elected officials including the governor will be moving back in. Parts of the Capitol still will remain closed during the process; the whole thing will reopen to the public on Jan. 9, starting at noon. The legislative session will kick off the following Monday.