column: idaho legislature

Three-Party System Fractures Idaho Legislature

By Sharon Fisher, 4-10-09

The conventional wisdom is that the Idaho legislature has a Republican supermajority, voting together in a monolithic juggernaut over the vastly outnumbered Democrats, largely fulfilling the desires of the Republican governor.

This year, however, it hasn’t happened that way. Increasingly, there is a schism in the Legislature’s Republicans that is preventing them from accomplishing much of anything—and that is giving the Democrats a new role as spoilers, depending on with which Republican faction they choose to vote.

Whether it’s because Speaker of the House Lawerence Denney, R-Midvale, lacks the ability to keep his people in line like former Speaker Bruce Newcomb did, or whether the split in Idaho’s Republicans mirrors the split in Republicans nationwide between the Chairman Michael Steele and Rush Limbaugh camps is unclear. But the is increasingly a split along ideological lines as a group of hard-line “no new taxes” Republicans is making its displeasure at the economic situation felt. And neither Republican faction is large enough on its own to win.

This was most recently demonstrated at this week’s failed attempt to raise the gas tax by two cents per gallon, after a series of failed attempts to raise it more than that. House leadership and a number of what could be called more moderate, more pragmatic Republicans voted for it, while Democrats appeared to make an unlikely alliance with the more conservative Republicans in voting it down. The same thing happened with a local option registration bill earlier in the session.

In comparison, House Democrats paired with more moderate Republicans to defeat HB263, a bill to set up a searchable database of how the state spends its money. In that particular case, House leadership was in favor of the bill, but it went down to a tie vote, 32-32, perhaps because six legislators—including the reliably conservative Representative Thomas Loertscher, R-Iona, and Representative Janice McGeachin, R-Idaho Falls—were absent.

In some bills, such as the pharmacist conscience bill, Republicans are still voting largely as a bloc. But on financial issues, there have been many split votes.

It’s not unusual in states where one party has a lopsided majority for the majority to split in this way, making for themselves a “two-party” system where the second party does not constitute enough of an opposition. It’s as though the two-party system is so ingrained in the American psyche that the members of the majority party find themselves filling that ecological niche, in a “if we don’t have an enemy we have to invent one” way.

The development is giving House Democrats new relevance. Even Governor C.L. “Butch” Otter said earlier in the session that he was counting on Democratic support to help pass his transportation bills—support which has not been forthcoming.

Thus far it appears that Democrats are using their votes primarily to defeat legislation, rather than enact it. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but it is not clear whether they intend to move to the next level, beyond that of spoilers.

(It is true that some causes Democrats have supported for years, such as finance reporting requirements and day-care licensing requirements, are having more success than in previous years, but it does not appear that it is because Democrats are using their leverage on other bills to get these bills passed.)

There had been some discussion, in fact, that Otter would support Democratic views on public education in return for their support in transportation, but that doesn’t appear to have happened thus far. Whether it’s because Otter hasn’t suggested it or Democratic House leadership—new this year, with the move of Representative Wendy Jaquet, R-Ketchum, to the Joint Finance-Appropriations Committee—hasn’t is unclear.

But some legislative observers believe that Minority Leader John Rusche, D-Lewiston—who, along with Assistant Minority Leader James Ruchti, D-Pocatello (who has his own Facebook fan club), has shown an increased willingness to work the procedural system to fight legislation, such as with HB262 and HB256, on cutting education funding—is more likely to push for that sort of quid pro quo.

With some Republican legislators such as Representative Bob Nonini, R-Coeur d’Alene, being so against Otter’s wishes that they’re being chided about it on the House floor, Otter needs all the friends he can get, even if they’re from the other side of the aisle.

In any event, the result has been one of the least productive Legislative sessions in recent memory. It’s said about candidates that “Democrats fall in love, Republicans fall in line,” but a number of Republicans are not falling in line this year, and both House leadership and Otter seem unable to make them.

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