Story Blogging Updates

Part Two of Stranded, Unknown Mission, and Origin of the Dim Knight have been posted.

Part Time Job Forever

The Idaho Statesman’s Dan Popkey has a piece on legislator’s plans being disrupted by the length of this session which will become the second longest on record as of this Friday.

One of the more ironic parts of the piece is that Dick Sagness who is only filling in for Senator Edward Malepeai (D-28). So did the fill-in Senator consider designating a fill-in for him?

Writes Chris at the Unequivocal Notion:

“Idaho’s part-time Legislature isn’t even capable of showing up for their part time work, but they sure don’t mind collecting their per diem when they bail on Idahoans and go on vacation mid-session. Unfortunately, Idaho Democrats are just as guilty as the Republicans.  Here’s an idea, if you can’t be there, then don’t run for office.”

I understand the sentiment and to a degree I share it. Certainly,  Idaho legislators shouldn’t go gallavanting off at will, but I think that to be fair, this is a part-time job that legislators legitimately expected to end two weeks ago. How much of their calendar should legislators have to clear? The whole month of April? In most years, that would be overkill.  I think no one expected that anyone would want to continue to meet in the Old Ada County Courthouse for this long. The accomodations are awful.

Most Legislators are making a huge sacrifice to be in session at all. They spend months campaigning for a job that pays $16,000 a year plus per Diem. They expect three month long sessions and then done so they can return home, relax, and earn money to support their legislating habit. Is there a solution? I think the ultimate answer is to require legislators to stay in session,  but have the law reimburse them for cancellation fees at hotels and on airlines for events that occur after April 8th. Of course, this type of solution won’t be implemented because it could be played to the political detriment of legislators and its not populist enough to make it a s a citizen’s initiative.

Why I’m Attending a Tea Party

My latest Pajamas Media piece is up and I have to say of all the pieces I’ve written, it is probably among those that I’m the most proud of:

I’ve taken time off from work on April 15 to be at my local tea party. As the tea parties occur, the media will offer their spin on why people are there.

Large events like this are remarkable. In some ways, they’re comparable to baseball games, where you’ll find some people with an agenda aside from the game. If the media applied the same coverage to baseball games that it applies to tea parties, it would assume that, if someone gets through security and streaks across the field nude, most of the crowd are closet nudists.

Of course, most just want to see the game and have no interest in the streaker. Similarly, the streaker has no interest in the baseball game. He simply wants to streak nude in front of a large audience.

Like our baseball streaker, some at the tea parties will have their own agendas that have little or nothing to do with the cause for which most people are going to attend. Most would rather not be defined by the proverbial streaker, and I’m no exception. I’m not going to the tea party to make the case that President Obama is a Muslim born in Indonesia, to advocate secession from the union, or to explain how America’s problems are the direct results of actions by members of the Council on Foreign Relations. I’m not going as a Republican; I’m going as an American.

My party has let the country down with its massive overspending, corrupt career politicians, and willingness to play business as usual when it’s not called for. As much as I’m not a fan of the Obama administration, if he’s replaced in 2012 by a feckless Republican president with a feckless Republican Congress that believes only its own re-election, our country will be no better for it.

Read the whole thing here.

Cheers and Boos: Late Edition

I’m a day and a half late, but with Easter and Google and Twitter turning on me, there’s reason for the delay.

Cheers…to Senator Nicole LeFavour (D-19) for getting her first “Conservative” vote on the Idaho Conservative scorecard in her entire legislative career. Right now she’s a 14% Conservative rating for the year, and a 5% Idaho Conservative rating for her career. This is the first “conservative” vote cast in the Senate from District 19 in the 3 years I’ve been doing the scorecard. The past 3 years, District 19 has a total 2.11% Conservative rating for its delegation.

Cheers…to Julie Fanselow of the Idaho Democratic Party. The Democrats are urging people to run for school board, reminding them the filing deadline is April 17. Julie’s doing her job. I’ll do mine and tell you that if you think having massive school agencies that negotiate with teacher’s unions being made up of people from the Party of Teacher’s Unions, or if you want to bring accountability to school systems, it may be time to consider a run, particularly with Democrats considering it.

BOOS to the Idaho Statesman for calling the legislature’s decision to vote for GARVEE “courageous.” The Statesman may agrees with the legislature’s decision. (I don’t.)  But does it really take courage to vote for a large debt the public doesn’t fully understand?

BOOS to Rep. Grant Burgoyne (D-16) for his hypocritical reader’s view calling for local option taxes. If Rep. Burgoyne truly believes in local control, then perhaps, he may wanto to support allowing all local voters to be able to have a fair chance vote on school board and tax issues. 

 Secondly, the issue is not local. The last State House approved a Constitutional Amendment on local option taxes. Thus the point of local control has been conceded. The remaining issues are whether the method and rules for local option should be written into the Constitution or subject to mission creep by allowing legislative revision; whether there should be taxpayer protections that requires a 2/3 majority when most citizens are voting or allows the occurrence of stealth elections where special interests favoring the passage of local option taxes can manipulate voter turnout while opponents are struggling to get an organization together; finally, whether this “local” control should have to be an actual locality like Ada County or Canyon County, or if we can start creating localities to excercise local control, letting large counties totally dominate smaller ones.

AdaCanyon County is an arbitrary district, and doesn’t feel like Local Option will preserve local control for Canyon County if it will allow Ada County to force Canyon County into a district that it doesn’t really want or benefit from.

These are the issues, let’s be honest about it.

Boos to Senator Mike Crapo (R-Idaho.) and other hard-working lawmakers who are working to bring back the Pioneer Train line. They may be nearing success. In the short-term, this is good news for the people of Boise and for me in particular. The presence of Amtrak would make it less expensive to travel the West, over to Portland, up to Montana, down to Utah.

Unfortunately, the effort is emblematic of what’s wrong with the country and it’s politics. Amtrak isn’t effecient. It’s not that great at being on time (the website used to boast of 67% on-time rating until someone figured out that wasn’t something to boast about.) It costs taxpayers billions of dollars of subsidies and as long as Uncle Sam subsidizes the thing it’s going to continue to be less competive. Rather than killing this Dinosaur Vampire, our politicians are feeding it.

Soon, I may be able to easily travel from Boise to Kalispell, but is it worth a bankrupt country? (Hat Tip: Ridenbaugh.)

Cheers to Senators Russ Fulcher (R-21) and John Goedde (R-4) for this nice piece of legislative handiwork:

Out of all the amendments proposed, just one set, sponsored by Sen. Russ Fulcher, R-Meridian, and John Goedde, R-Coeur d’Alene and developed by Jason Hancock of the state Department of Education, has passed the Senate to amend HB 256, the bill to cut state reimbursements to school districts for their student busing costs. The amendments change the permanent cut-off of funding for busing for school field trips to a two-year moratorium, ending July 1, 2010; and temporarily remove a $1.4 million hit to the Boise School District, but impose a requirement for a special transportation audit by the state Department of Education, and if any of the audit’s money-saving recommendations aren’t followed, the district would see its funding cut by that amount next year, up to the full $1.4 million it would’ve lost under the original bill. The Lewiston school district faces a similar requirement, though its potential loss is less, around $30,000.

The need for some cuts, particularly on field trips was necessary during these tough economic times, but field trips themselves can be a good learning experience. Cheers to the good Senators for adding an appropriate sunset.

Innovation Delayed

If you’ll recall, Rep. Marv Hagedorn (R-20) did something very rare in the annals of government. He proposed a real life genuine innovative idea that could raise tens of millions for transportation:

Hagedorn retired in 1994, after 20 years in the service. Now, during his second term in the Legislature, he’s hoping to turn Idaho into the U.S. Mint of commercial truck license plates.
Unlike personal vehicles, commercial trucks and tractor-trailers can be licensed and registered in any state, regardless of where a company is based. That, to Hagedorn, creates a marketing opportunity. He introduced a bill earlier this session that would encourage trucking firms to register their fleets here.
“I’ve been working on this for a few years,” he said. “My objective is to find a resource the state has that would help relieve the tax burden on citizens, without competing with private businesses – and this is a great opportunity.”

Idaho already offers a permanent plate that doesn’t require yearly registration renewals. For a company like Wal-Mart, which has more than 50,000 tractor-trailers, eliminating paperwork and the need to match specific trailers with specific renewal stickers represents a substantial cost-savings, Hagedorn said.

Idaho law, however, currently requires out-of-state truckers to pay sales tax on the price of the trailer before they can buy the permanent plate. That makes it cost-prohibitive.

Hagedorn’s bill would remove the sales tax requirement.

 Moreover, it authorizes the creation of special “business logo” license plates – meaning Wal-Mart or UPS or any other company could design their own plates, complete with corporate logo and marketing slogan.

“Everyone is looking to save a buck,” Hagedorn said. “We can make this simple for corporations and help save them money just by changing state law. It costs $3 to make a license plate, and we’d sell them for $112. There are 5.6 million semi-trailers in the United States. That’s a $627 million market.”

Add in Canadian trucks, he said, and the market potential climbs to $1 billion.

“Imagine if we get just 10 percent of that,” Hagedorn said. “In the past, we’ve looked at taxpayers within our border (to generate state revenue). This could bring in revenue from outside the state. There are opportunities out there. We just need to find them.”

Hagedorn’s bill was approved 64-0. Every member voting from Bob Nonini to Anna Pasley-Stuart said this was a good bill and sent it the Senate on March 23rd. That was 3 weeks ago.

Since then nothing has happened with this bill. Nada. Zip. Zero. While our state searches desperately for Transportation funds, Senator John McGee (R-10) the Chairman of the Senate Transportation Commitee sits on a bill that could bring tens of millions of dollars of revenue to Idaho roads with costing Idaho taxpayers anything.

When people are talking about raising our taxes, while sitting on funding that could raise funds without raising our taxes, it’s time for you and I to light a fire under our elected representatives.

I urge you to contact the members of the Senate Transportation Commitee and urge that a hearing be given on this vital bill. Call the Capitol Switchboard at 334-2222 or you can call the Transportation Committee at 332-1332 or you can use the Contact by Committee search on the Idaho Legislature website. 

Chair John McGee Vice Chair James C. Hammond Shawn Keough Tim Corder Leland G. Heinrich Joyce M. Broadsword Chuck Winder

Elliot Werk Diane Bilyeu

Off Like a Shot

In the House, two new bills have been added to the scorecard. SJM102 regarding the Employee Free Choice Act (i.e. Card Check) and H0287 which provides an immunity for employers when allowing employee firearm storage in personal vehicles on the employer’s business property.

One bill that is on the House Scorecard won’t be on the Senate. H0229 to forbid the taking of firearms if martial is declared passed 32-1. Apparently, only Senator Les Bock (D-16) thought that allowing the government to seize guns during a period of martial law should be on the table. Nine members of the House shared Bocks view.

The scorecard is about complete for both the House and Senate. The Senate may vote on a few House Items before it’s all said and done (though currently only one scorecard issue, H0262 is currently on the Senate agenda.

I’ve got 12 votes scored in the House, and 7 scored in the Senate. So far, we have eight representatives with 100% voting records and two Senators. With 0% Conservative voting records, we have eight representatives and three Senators.