idaho legislature|column

Idaho’s Otter Succeeds in One Goal: Ticking Everyone Off

By Sharon Fisher, 4-20-09

If I tell a man to do what he does not want to do, I am no longer chief.
—The Emerald Forest

It’s hard to believe that a man who’s gotten as far in politics as Idaho Governor C.L. “Butch” Otter could have done so without learning to work with people better, but it’s difficult to see how he expects to get support for his policies when it appears that his goal this legislative session is to systematically antagonize every legislator.

It started from the first day, when Wayne Hammon, administrator of the Division of Financial Management, the Governor’s budgeting staff, said the Legislature had “sneaked” new laptops into the budget after Otter had vetoed them last year. (Otter later apologized.)

(Let it be known that after this incident, on January 13, I said, “Given that the Legislature has final approval on the budget, that Otter’s budget is just a proposal, and that historically the Legislature doesn’t like to be pushed around by the Governor even when they are all from the same party, this may not be a short session after all.")

It also became clear in press interviews that House Transportation Chair Representative JoAn Wood, R-Rigby, was still nursing a grudge from last session, when Otter rejected an offered amount for highway maintenance as being inadequate.

Combined with the economic situation and the increasingly ideological House, the result has been a huge stalemate.

Otter, having now realized he has failed to tick off some people, decided to fix that today. First—in a time when he could use and may even need Democratic support—he vetoes a Democratic-sponsored education bill, Parents as Teachers, an innocuous little bill that helps parents prepare their children for school. As if that weren’t enough, it was cosponsored by Representative Bob Nonini, R-Coeur d’Alene, chair of the education committee, but who has taken an increasingly larger role this session, attacking a number of Otter’s transportation proposals—to the extent that he was chided for it by Speaker of the House Lawerence Denney, R-Midvale.

Second—if he hadn’t ticked off the JFAC people enough by calling them “sneaks”—Otter threatened to veto the appropriations bills on his desk. And as a final bird-flip to the entire Legislature, he said he’d veto other appropriations bills until he got the transportation funding he wanted, holding both houses hostage in what is already the second-longest Legislative session on record.

Whether the Legislature could band together enough to override all those vetoes is unclear, but it’s amazing what having a common enemy will do to people.

Otter’s action didn’t win him any friends on the Democratic side of the aisle. “The governor vetoed two bills that had broad bipartisan support: one that recognizes the importance of parents as teachers and another that protects Idahoans against identity theft,” said House Minority Leader John Rusche, D-Lewiston, said in a statement. “We question whether killing important bills is the best way to achieve the cooperation and collaboration that Idahoans deserve from their elected officials.”

So now it comes down to whether the Legislature or Otter—who has made a point of creating a “manly” image, ranging from his victory in a tight-jeans contest to injuring his shoulder calf-roping this session, even to his nickname—is going to be a sissy and back down first.

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