Trib: Otter Shoots From Hip … Again

Idaho Gov. C. L. (Butch) Otter can lose his bid for a second term. All that’s required is for the Republican incumbent to make mistakes. Just like the error he committed last month. On the eve of a Senate hearing on Congressman Mike Simpson’s Boulder-White Cloud wilderness bill, Otter announced his strong opposition to it. The governor has never liked wilderness, but he remained silent when Sen. Mike Crapo passed a bill preserving southwest Idaho’s Owyhee Canyonlands. Not now. This time, the governor was strident, provoking Sen. Jim Risch to back away from the Simpson bill. Without Risch, the bill may be doomed. With it goes 10 years of building ground-level support among ranchers, conservationists and local government leaders behind a bill to protect a crown jewel of central Idaho/ Marty Trillhaase , Lewiston Tribune. More here . (SR file photo by Dan Pelle, of Otter at Spokane Tea Party event this spring)

Question: What do you make of Gov. Butch Otter waiting until the last minute to oppose a bill that had consensus support and been in the making for 10 years?