Election 2008: Idaho's First CD

Idaho First CD Update

By Jill Kuraitis, 11-01-08

The House race between Walt Minnick and Bill Sali has entered a final, typical phase of many campaigns, with each accusing the other of transgressions.

Last week, the Idaho Democratic Party sent out a piece of campaign literature in North Idaho which had Sali and his wife’s Social Security numbers on a public document which was printed on the flier which shows that Sali has not paid taxes or campaign finance reports on time.

Democratic Party Executive Director Jim Hansen initially responded by telling Betsy Russell of the Spokane Spokesman-Review, “Frankly, I didn’t think about it. We just published a piece of public information. Anybody can go and get a public document.”

The Idaho Republican Party literally made a federal case of the incident when they faxed a letter to U.S. Attorney Tom Moss, asking him to look into whether any laws were broken.

“A rough-and-tumble campaign is one thing,” said chair Norm Semanko in a prepared statement.  “But sending out Bill’s personal info, and thereby opening him up to identity theft, is way out of bounds.”

“It took days before Hansen even acknowledged he had done something wrong, and even then, all he offered was finger-pointing and a grudging half-apology.  All the while, Minnick looks the other way.  Where’s the accountability?”

Thursday, Hansen had clarified his position on the Dems’ website.

“We are in an economic crisis and Bill Sali is asking the public to trust him with our tax dollars, yet he has not paid his taxes on time in the past and continues to fail to file his campaign finance reports on time.”

“The documents depicted in a photograph in a flier paid for by the Idaho Democratic Party regarding Bill Sali’s tax and campaign finance delinquencies accurately show public documents we obtained from the Idaho Tax Commission and the Federal Elections Commission. They are exactly as they were released by these public agencies. They were not altered.”

Hansen also wrote, “As Executive Director, I take personal responsibility for the oversight. We agree that it would have been better to black out parts of the document even though the public agency that released them did not. Of course, if Bill Sali did not want public documents of his tax delinquencies and his campaign finance delinquencies to be made public by a public agency, he should have paid his taxes on time and filed his reports on time.”

Saturday, the Republicans announced via press release that they will look at legislation next year that would create financial liabilities for publishing or distributing another person’s Social Security numbers obtained from public documents.

“If you obtain personal information such as a Social Security number, you bear responsibility for how that information is used. Making thousands of copies of a Social Security number and distributing it across the state is not only irresponsible, it’s dangerous,” said House Speaker Lawerence Denney. “If you publish a person’s Social Security number, you should have some obligation for resulting costs to the victims, whether that cost comes from fraud or from the purchase of services to prevent fraud.”

In a second incident, local ABC affiliate KIVl reported on a family who say Sali still owes them thousands in unpaid debts from a land lease:  “In a contract signed by Sali himself, he agreed to pay DeShazo more than $15,000 to lease the land and some farming equipment in the spring of 1977.  But it’s money the DeShazo family says they never received. Instead, the DeShazos received checks, one for $10,000 and one for $5,500.  Both bounced.  ‘My parents kept on trying to get those checks to clear and they just wouldn’t,’ said Marianne DeShazo, estate executor.”

“If Sali didn’t pay, he was to hand over his crops, but Marianne DeShazo says a bank took them over to pay off Sali’s other debts.  Marianne says Sali didn’t maintain the farming equipment or pay for the utilities he used, both things also required in the contract.”

“Marianne says she’s tired of hearing Sali talk about his support of Idaho’s farming families, and feels taken advantage of.  ‘This is one farm family he did not support,’ she said.”

Sali spokesman Wayne Hoffman told Channel 6 that Sali was simply a 23-year-old farm hand at Triticale Breeders, owned by his father, even though Bill Sali is the only name on both the contract and the checks.

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