Legislators Had A Ball

By Sharon Fisher, 1-06-07

Idaho's gubernatorial inaugural ball is "the people's inaugural," and for twenty bucks anybody can come to the Capitol and rub shoulders with their elected officials. In fact, given how crowded it was, one could hardly avoid it. I couldn't pass up the opportunity.

I was a good girl. I didn't wear my Howard Dean t-shirt. I didn't wear my Idaho 2004 Democratic Convention t-shirt. I didn't wear the t-shirt that says "I'm sorry my president's an idiot. I didn't vote for him" in eight languages.

Hell, I even wore my pearls.

I interned with the Joint Finance Appropriations Committee during the last legislative session, which means that an awful lot of people looked vaguely familiar and I probably looked vaguely familiar to a lot of them, but we couldn't be sure because we were all gussied up. This, by the way, has some interesting ramifications for Idaho legislators, about whom it's said you can identify them because they're the ones in pinstripes and cowboy boots. For example, Mike Moyle was wearing a Western tie -- I couldn't tell whether he was wearing his fancy snakeskin boots -- and there were plenty of cowboy hats.

It's sort of a prom for politicians. The women had some incredible dresses, you could go up on the fourth floor and get your picture taken in your finery, and some of the women were even able to drag their husbands out onto the dance floor for a moment, though I heard one lament she hadn't gotten him onto a dance floor since their wedding. And some of those legislators can really cut a rug. Representative Frank Henderson, who was the oldest member of last year's legislature, was doing a nice job, unfortunately limited by how crowded it was at that point.

Needless to say, the composition of this year's JFAC came up a lot during the evening. Nine members -- almost half -- are new, which is causing concern on a number of levels. In fact, with Senator Gerry Sweet's departure to work for Congressman Bill Sali, there's still one member of the committee yet to be named -- and the committee is scheduled to start on Tuesday, though that may get put off til Wednesday.

The inaugural ball is pretty, actually (though the place pretty much cleared out by 9 pm, when the Republicans had scheduled their own party, leaving the Capitol to "the people"). Statewide elected officials and their spouses (as well as former Governor Dirk Kempthorne and Mrs. Kempthorne) started out on the fourth floor and had a procession around the rotunda, then went down to the third floor and, as they passed the Senate side, the senators and their partners joined the procession, followed by the House representatives and partners as the group passed by their vestibule. It was quite the parade, an impression that was helped by the music of the 25th Army National Guard Band, heavy on the tuba. In fact, it sounded like circus music. All we needed were the elephants -- and then, remembering the results of the last election, I realized we even had those. [End of article]