CRAIG'S NON-CONSERVATION LEGACY
Resignation or Not, Craig’s Power Over West is Gone
By David Frey, 9-09-07
It was after a Congressional forest hearing, and Sen. Larry Craig found himself besieged by reporters and activists. He had tried to slip out the back door, but they caught him, and as he hopped into his car and motored away, a cycling activist grabbed his rear bumper and pedaled after him.
“Pimp! Pimp! Pimp!” the activist shouted.
That was 1996, and long before his Republican allies abandoned him amid allegations that Craig solicited sex from another man in an airport bathroom stall, the Idaho senator was cursed by environmentalists’ as an unflagging ally of timber, grazing and mining interests.
His recent fall from power brings an end of an era. Craig was so beholden to industry that if he resigns, few others could follow in his footsteps, environmentalists say. Even if Gov. Butch Otter, a fellow Republican, appoints a staunch conservative to take his place, they say, it would be hard to match Craig’s anti-conservation legacy. And even if Craig doesn’t resign, his tumble from influential positions on key committees like appropriations and energy and natural resources would leave him far weaker than the Western power broker he once was.
“I don’t know if there is anybody who is ideologically similar to Larry Craig,” says Idaho environmentalist Mark Solomon. “He really is the last of what I call the Servants of the Lords of Yesterday, who unblinkingly take the grazing industry, the forest industry and the mining industry line and just go with it.”
Mired in controversy over his guilty plea to disorderly conduct stemming from his June 11 arrest in a Minneapolis airport rest room, and by an ongoing ethics investigation, Craig said he would step down by Sept. 30. Then, he suggested he would stay in office, even though he has been stripped of his committee seats, if he reverses his guilty plea and fights the allegations.
By Thursday evening, a resignation seemed likely, his spokesman told the Idaho Statesman.
That would leave Otter picking a replacement. Among possible successors are Lt. Gov. Jim Risch and Attorney General Lawrence Wasden. Neither would likely make conservation groups’ short list, but both are being greeted with more optimism that Craig. As attorney general, Wasden is largely a “blank slate” on the environment, Solomon said. Risch’s petition to the federal government for roadless protections was welcomed, if not altogether loved by conservation groups.
Whoever takes his place, “I think they’re just going to take a little more of a through-the-windshield view than a through-the-rearview-mirror view,” says Rick Johnson, executive director of the Idaho Conservation League. “Larry Craig sort of came of age, and came of age politically, at a time when the resource industry really called the shots. Now Idaho’s a different place.”
As the senior in the Idaho delegation, Craig wielded influence over his colleagues, Johnson says. Without him, two wilderness bills proposed by Idaho Republicans stand a better chance. Craig hasn’t rallied behind either Rep. Mike Simpson’s Boulder-White Cloud bill or Sen. Mike Crapo’s Owyhee bill.
“He’s anti-wilderness. It’s as simple as that,” Johnson says.
Craig has used his power and influence to put his thumbprint on public lands across the West. He has stalled a bill to protect the Snake River in Wyoming, arguing along with the Idaho Water Users Association that it could threaten Idaho water. He de-funded a center to study the decline of salmon on the Columbia River. Over his tenure, he helped blaze logging roads in roadless areas and pushed forward a 1995 salvage logging rider that limited environmental restrictions on tree thinning projects.
He has used his sway to rally in Congress for political appointees he likes, and critics say he’s not been afraid to pick up the phone and directly pressure officials in field offices. When John Mumma, a Forest Service regional supervisor overseeing forests in Idaho and Montana, questioned the legality of the speed of timber cuts, Craig turned up the pressure on Forest Service Chief Dale Robertson, who pushed Mumma out.
“He’s a coward and a bully,” Solomon says. “As long as he’s had power, he’s been able to exert that strength over public lands. Even if he stays in office, which I don’t think he will, he will not have the power he had before.”
That’s bad news for his supporters, who counted on having Craig’s clout in the Senate. After Craig announced his plans to resign, the Idaho Water Users Association issued a statement in support of its old ally.
“This represents the loss of an extraordinarily effective and tireless supporter of sovereignty and state control over Idaho’s water,” executive director Norm Semanko wrote. “He has consistently defended Idaho’s natural resources against out of state interests and has effectively represented the interests of Idaho’s family farm and ranching community, thereby helping Idaho’s multi-billion dollar agricultural economy continue to flourish. Senator Craig’s lasting legacy in support of issues of importance to Idaho’s water user community will not be forgotten.”
Environmentalists won’t forget Craig’s legacy either.
Flashback to the 1996 Congressional hearings. Solomon, who was testifying, warned the reporters gathered at the Capitol that Craig would take a beating from environmentalists. Instead of walking out the front door, he told them, Craig would try to slip quietly out the back. That was indeed where they found him, Solomon says.
Eleven years later, facing a conviction, an ethics investigation and gay sex allegations; stripped of the powers he once wielded and abandoned by his GOP peers, Craig will likely step out the back door again, he says.
And the West won’t be the same without him.
This replaces an earlier version to correct the name of the Forest Service chief over John Mumma.
Dale Bosworth wasn't chief of the Forest Service when John Mumma lost his job. Bosworth didn't become chief until 2001. Mumma went down in the early 90s when Dale Robertson was chief and the first Bush was president. Check your facts!
Comment By oregon2008, 9-10-07Sen. Gordon Smith boasted to Oregon media that he will try to handle some of the work vacated by disgraced Republican U.S. Sen. Larry Craig of Idaho, now that Craig is on his way out.
Timber lobbyists and other anti-environment advocates have turned to Smith as their champion against regulations protecting forests, rivers, and wildlife.
We need you to be the voice and let your friends and family in Oregon know about Gordon Smith’s true record and the danger that he poses to the environment.
Help Stop Gordon Smith today!
http://stopgordonsmith.com
Boy, the need to incinerate the public forests must be great when you have to attack a moderate Republican Mormon for posing a danger to the environment. The real danger to the environment is public land managers, who are hard at firing 7 million acres of forests and rangeland this summer. That is 7 Willamette National Forests burned in their entirety. And celebrated as a good thing.
I haven't seen Smith setting fire to a forest. I haven't seen his supporting the wholesale cutting of timber. If Smith is a danger, then the Sierra Club, et al should be on the international terrorist lists for their support of government sponsored arson of billions of dollars worth of natural resources.
Smith has worded long and hard to bring about expansion of wilderness protection of lands surrounding Oregon's Mt. Hood. So your idea is to get rid of him, and replace him with a newby nobody, and you think the wilderness bill will go forward? Naive, stupid. Call it what you want. The Democrats controlled both legislative bodies in Congress all this year, and nothing happened. They did not bring home the bill, with minority support. You knee jerk leftys ought to do your homework, because the right does not think Smith is very conservative in his environmental politics and record. Just because someone does vote for every cockamaimy bill that purports to save the world, it is not a reason to say they don't support the environment.
I will have to remind my friends and family in Oregon not to embrace the environmental carpetbaggers who have yet to produce one favorable, tangible, measureable result in Oregon that has produced a cultural change, like say the Oregon Bottle Bill, championed by Republican Governor McCall.
Jack,
Thanks for that correction. It's been corrected and noted in the story.
Courtney
No offense, but if Craig was such a lord of yesterday, why did he keep getting elected? And why is Butch Otter the governor? And why is LaRocco seen as such a marginal candidate?
Reading the Statesman is not a good indicator of Idaho views.
And why do white supremacists, libertarians, and other right wing whackos gravitate to Idaho (and Montana)? I guess they DO vote, which is why Idaho has Larry Craig (and had Helen Chenowith)!
Also, states with a high percentage of public land are going to have a high percentage of people who work in the professions that exploit the resources on those lands. Of course they will vote to keep mining and logging or whatever it is they know how to do.
But the old economy is being replaced by a new economy that includes tourism and recreation by people who see more than lumber and minerals when they look at those public lands.
It's time for a new breed of elected official in Idaho. Montana has made progress on this front, hopefully Idaho is on the verge of evolving, too.
Kim, Public or not, states that have natural resources are going to produce those resources if it can be done responsibly. There's still a lot of logging and mining going on -- for example, on private land, Oregon logs a lot, and West Virginia mines a lot, because that's where the resources happen to be. Texas still does oil a lot, too, and Texas is about all private land.
As for the new economy, just last week some thing came out in the Casper paper about how women were being discriminated against because they tended to work in non-industrial jobs (the old west jobs) such as tourism and services (the new west jobs). Big wage disparity. So think it through a bit more, please.
As for Montana making "progress" -- I suppose if throwing back to 1920's populist anticorporatism and xenophobia is "progress" -- and that's what the "progressive" movement was like before it segued into overt red-diaper socialism in the Dirty Thirties -- I'll have to disagree that Montana is "evolving."
Devolving would be a better term, if it actually applied. But there hasn't really been that much of a shift. The GOP at the state legislative level actually won the popular vote total in Montana, it was an amazingly clever and mercenary redistricting effort by Democrats (along with help from our trial-lawyer Supreme Court), combined with some pretty stupid moves on the part of national-level Republicans, that put Democrats in "power."
I think it is temporary. You will see a new breed of elected official in Montana very soon, and I hope also in Idaho and Wyoming. After the next election, I'll be listening for your cries.
craig was overwhelming beholden to livestock in this state as well. the wilderness bills weren't passed because there weren't enough concessions to ranching ~ even as TNC and TWS rolled on the buy-out in CIEDRA and the OI took the issue off the table from the get-go ~ moving millions in public assets over to well-to-do ranchers in the state and opening WSAs to extractive grazing, privatizing public land to development, etc. crapo will be a bit better with timber, salmon, etc. ~ maybe ~ but the wilderness is quid pro quo and no one whose capitulation granted them access to discussion is recognizing that the current political organization in washington should prompt them to leverage for a cleaner wilderness designation process ~ no one except the over 80 local and regional conservation groups who who have asked congress to stop these irresponsible bills.
livestock put and kept craig in power ~ and livestock will demand the same policy of a continued gnawing the hide off of our public heritage and biodiversity from whomever replaces him.
When, not if Craig leaves office and B.O. replaces him with whatever the West will not be the same. Of course hypocrisy will still reign supreme in the GOP, but the wind of change is upon Idaho, hopefully.
The West is roo fragile to be ruined by burning off the forests, range fires, and pouring raw manure into the Snake River by irresponsible CAFOs.
The reason for so many environmental groups is that the State of Idaho is the biggest violater because there is no checks and balances, no oversight of the abuses, no voters strong enough, Republican nor Democratic to stop the raping of Mother Earth and vote the bums out of office that are part and parcel of the violations and and viertual murder of generations to come in my home state and the one I call home.
from Dave Skinner: <<states that have natural resources are going to produce those resources if it can be done responsibly>>
And even if not.
more from Dave: <<The GOP at the state legislative level actually won the popular vote total in Montana, it was an amazingly clever and mercenary redistricting effort by Democrats (along with help from our trial-lawyer Supreme Court), combined with some pretty stupid moves on the part of national-level Republicans, that put Democrats in "power.">>
And Al Gore won the popular vote in 2000 but "lost" the election with the help of the US Supreme Court. Which is the greater injustice?
And if you want to talk about "clever and mercenary redistricting", let's chat about Texas!
Sour grapes, methinks!
Larry Craig - get back under the bus so that Butch Otter can replace you with James Risch. The posters on this thread want an Al Gore type running Idaho and you are holding the door open for them.
Daryl L. Hunter