Vote by Ybarra isn’t only thing Idaho politics missing

Sherri Ybarra has a fascinating vision of civics to share with Idaho’s 280,000 schoolchildren.

It goes something like this: People who repeatedly fail to perform the simplest, most basic responsibility of the citizen – voting – should repay society by taking on leadership positions of vital importance in government.

Ybarra is running for the office of Idaho’s superintendent of schools, the top administrative position overseeing 116 school districts and 774 schools throughout Idaho. Even in a state where gubernatorial debates become fodder for “The Colbert Report,” Ybarra has distinguished herself as a puzzling phenomenon: Someone whose previous interest in politics was almost nil, asking citizens to put her in a position of major responsibility.

Ybarra has failed to vote in any statewide general election since moving to Idaho in 1996. She didn’t vote for, or against, Gov. Dirk Kempthorne in 1998.

She didn’t vote for Bush or Gore in 2000.

She didn’t vote for, or against, Sen. Larry Craig in 2002.

She didn’t vote for Bush or Kerry in 2004.

She didn’t vote for, or against, Gov. Butch Otter in 2006.

She didn’t vote for Obama or McCain in 2008.

She didn’t vote for, or against, Otter again in 2010.

She didn’t vote for Obama or Romney in 2012.

That’s a lot of not voting. When people first began to question her about her civic absenteeism, she described it this way: “We have all missed an election or two in our lifetime, and I am not exempt from that.”

Ybarra’s failures of involvement extend to the realm that she now wants to oversee: the state’s educational system. Among the candidates she didn’t vote for, or against, in 2006, was Tom Luna, the man she would like to replace. She also managed to not vote for, or against, Luna in 2010.

Luna’s tenure at the top of Idaho’s school system was controversial and much debated. He implemented a series of “reforms” aimed at shifting learning online, bringing more technology into classrooms, and eliminating job protections for teachers. In 2012, these “Luna laws” were placed on the ballot and voters threw them out.

Ybarra failed to take a side in that one.

Shouldn’t voters take this into consideration? Shouldn’t they expect candidates to clear some very low bar of giving-a-damn?

A debate moderator asked Ybarra a similar question Wednesday night in Boise.

“I’m so glad you asked me that because that is one of the reasons that I’m here tonight,” she said. “It is easy to complain about the past and get complacent. It is harder to step forward and say, you know what, that’s why I’m here, because I have not been very good at my civic duties and I want to repay Idaho. It will not happen again.”

Well. As someone who attended Idaho schools at every level – someone whose intellectual strengths and weaknesses are a product, in many ways, of the Gem State educational machine – let me just say: Huh?

Ybarra went on to exhibit a fundamental cluelessness about current proposals regarding school funding. Luna has proposed a funding increase of 6.9 percent – which nevertheless remains well below funding levels from the 2008-09 school year. Idaho, you may know, frequently ranks at the very bottom of school funding nationally. Still, it’s a political cliché there for candidates to suggest that the state is lavishly overspending.

Ybarra, running as a Republican, was asked if she supported Luna’s proposed funding increase. “Until I know exactly where every dime is going it makes no sense to ask for more,” she said, apparently unaware that she could already have educated herself about where the dimes are going.

Moments later, she reversed herself.

“The budget that is already being prepared is the one that if elected I will actually take on,” Ybarra said. “It is a step in the right direction.”

Ybarra was a teacher and an administrator for several years, and so she doesn’t have the excuse that so many know-nothings about schools have – there is so much they don’t know, they can’t even see how much they don’t know. The casual, long-standing disregard for educators and for education in Idaho politics – the attacks on teachers, the constant underfunding, the fundamental disservice to the state’s kids – can be breathtaking.

Recall that several years ago, when legislators were ignoring volumes of public testimony against the Luna laws, Coeur d’Alene’s state Sen. John Goedde noted that he was not heeding the testimony from one meeting because “without exception, every person that testified was either an educator or a former educator.” In other words, his reason for ignoring the testimony of these folks about important educational questions is that they were teachers.

Ybarra is correct that she has not been very good at her civic duties. But she’s got a very ambitious repayment plan in mind. Maybe she should start with something more manageable – like simply casting a vote this time around.