Trib: He who voted ‘hell no’ tired of ‘no’ votes

In his editorial this AM, Marty Trillhaase of the Lewiston Tribune comments on Gov. Butch Otter’s statement in Coeur d’Alene last week bemoaning state legislators who had glued their thumbs to the “no” button (including Reps. Vito Barbieri and Shannon McMillan):

No Idaho politician knows more about voting no than Gov. C.L. “Butch” Otter. It was Otter, of course, as a young libertarian legislator who in the 1970s expressed his opposition to an anti-pornography bill by stating: “I vote not just no but hell no.” The episode etched Otter firmly into the public’s imagination. And it was Otter who, as a newly minted U.S. congressman, was one of only three Republicans to oppose the Bush administration’s Patriot Act shortly after the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Widely admired at home, the stance eased Otter’s path into the governor’s office. But here was Otter in Coeur d’Alene last week, bemoaning state legislators who had glued their thumbs to the “no” button. More here.