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Main Street Idaho Podcast Episode 6: Congressman Mike Simpson
We've got some money in this appropriation bill to help them rebuild their fire station and expand it. And that's a good thing. We've also worked with the Fort Hall reservation on a road project that they need. That's a highly traveled road that needs to be redone.
““If you reduce the pay of wildfire fighters back to $15 an hour, would you do that job for 15 bucks?” ”
Navigating Congress, Budgets, and Idaho's Future with Congressman Mike Simpson
There’s only one way to say it — this week’s Main Street Idaho podcast is a must-listen. It was an honor to have Congressman Mike Simpson as a guest, and hear the inner workings of Congress, the intricacies of budgeting, and the critical issues facing Idaho. His unique journey from being a dentist to serving in Congress has equipped him with a perspective that blends real-world experience with a deep commitment to public service.
In this episode, we discuss:
1. Community Project Financing:
The importance of directing federal funds to specific projects in Idaho through what is now called "community project financing." This process allows members of Congress to address the unique needs of their districts, dispelling the misconception that it leads to wasteful spending.
2. Balancing the Budget:
Simpson highlighted the challenge of balancing the budget while ensuring essential programs including defense, veterans affairs, and Homeland Security receive adequate funding. He emphasized the need for fiscal responsibility and reducing spending where possible.
"We're not going to reduce spending on defense. That would mean our military people don't get a pay increase."
3. Wildfire Fighter Pay:
Rep. Simpson’s concern about the impending cut to wildfire fighter pay, stressing the importance of adequately compensating these brave individuals who risk their lives to protect communities from wildfires.
4. Ag Immigration Reform:
Congressman Simpson remains committed to passing agricultural immigration reform to address the labor needs of the agriculture industry. He views this as a top priority for both Idaho and the nation.
Follow Along With The Transcript
Brennan Summers (00:00):
Welcome to Main Street Podcast, an opportunity to talk to Idaho's elected leaders about the issues that matter to you. Welcome to Idaho Main Street, Congressman Simpson. I appreciate being here.
Congressman Mike Simpson (00:15):
Good to be here.
Brennan Summers (00:16):
Brennan. Look, so it's recess for Congress. So you're in Idaho.
Congressman Mike Simpson (00:19):
It's district work, period.
Brennan Summers (00:21):
Yeah, that's a better way to put it. Recess makes you think playgrounds and swing sets. That's right. But you're not exactly on a beach in Mexico, are you? No,
Congressman Mike Simpson (00:28):
It's actually, it is the district work period. You spend a lot of time with your constituents, talking to them about what's going on and also telling them what you're doing in Congress and how Congress is working or not working and that kind of stuff. So it's good to get out and tell people what's going on. This has been going on, the August recesses it's called, has been going on since the beginning of Congress when they moved to Washington DC because it was such a swamp there, and it's so hot and humid in August that they just said, let's go home. We can't do anything in August. And that's just a tradition that's continued ever since then. We got a lot of work to do. Some people talked about canceling, not entirely, but about half of the August recess, but people have made plans and they've got commitments and that kind of stuff, so we didn't do it.
Brennan Summers (01:19):
Sure. So in theory, you're supposed to get back, meet with your constituents, see the projects that you've been working on, and new projects you probably need to bring to DC in actuality. How's that worked? What kind of things have you seen while you've been here in Idaho the last few
Congressman Mike Simpson (01:30):
Weeks? Well, it's been interesting to talk to constituents about Congress because right now it's kind of a mess of what's going on and we're not sure what's going to happen when we get back. So I've been explaining to them what's happening in Congress, and we've also gone around and looked at the projects that we've got in our appropriation bills that affect Idaho that we've been able to put in there. They used to be called earmarks. Now they're called community project financing. For some reason, earmarks got a bad name and stuff, and people sometimes think that earmarks are a bad thing. I think it's members of Congress knowing what's going on in their districts and saying, no, we're going to put some of this funding for this project or that project. And we do that throughout Idaho First's Fire station burned down, and they've been operating out of a potato cellar, a fire department operating out of a potato cellar.
(02:22):
So we've got some money in this appropriation bill to help them rebuild their fire station and expand it. And that's a good thing. We've also worked with the Fort Hall reservation on a road project that they need. That's a highly traveled road that needs to be redone. And we've worked with the city of Rexburg on their wastewater treatment facility and Island Park that has some real water problems. I tell people all the time, if you think that this is wasteful spending, and remember, it's not additional spending, it comes out of the appropriation that's made. So it's not additional spending, it's just us directing how some of the money is going to be spent. And I think it's vitally important, and I tell people, if you think we've done any wasteful spending, look at our homepage and look at the projects that we've done. If you think that's wasteful, let me know.
Brennan Summers (03:14):
Right. Not a lot of pork barrel funding. No, there's not. So these mayors that you've been out meeting with, you're in hotel, you expert, you've been traveling around, what have they been telling you about these projects? Well,
Congressman Mike Simpson (03:25):
How vitally important it is to their communities and stuff. And when you look at this, should we just appropriate money to a fund and then have to go ask the administration to fund these projects that are important in Idaho, or can members of Congress direct some of that funding to projects in their state? Because I know the second district of Idaho better than anybody in Washington DC does. So I shouldn't have to go beg them to do a project, especially in administration that is of the opposite party. I don't want them to be able to say at some point in time, well, we'd like to do that project, but we sure need your vote on this or that bill. And believe me, that would happen because when we didn't do finance, it didn't do community project financing. That did happen. So I think it's important, and it's important for us to know exactly what we're getting money for and how that's going to affect communities and stuff. But the mayors think is very important.
Brennan Summers (04:22):
It sounds like it's actually pretty conservative principle when you look at it. You're removing a lot of bureaucracy from the process and you're letting the government closest to the people actually determine where this fund
Congressman Mike Simpson (04:32):
Goes. Well, there was a conservative member of Congress was actually a presidential candidate for the libertarian party. Ron Paul Rand, Paul's father, and he still does a lot of stuff in Texas. He's a great guy. He told me one time, we ought to earmark every single dollar the federal government spends. We ought to tell them where they can spend it and where they can't spend it. And when you look at the constitution, there's some merit to what he says, but I am just opposed to giving all this money to the federal bureaucracy and then hoping they spend it in the right way. And if they don't next year punishing them and that kind of stuff, I want to do it effectively and make sure that we're not wasting money. There have been earmarked projects in the past that you just shake your head at and we have put in some rules and stuff that I think address that.
(05:29):
It used to be that, or let me put it this way, the rules we put in, you cannot earmark more than 1% of the total spending just 1% is all, and we're much below the 1%, and it has to be to a other, another governmental entity or a nonprofit or something like that, a college or university, something like that. It can't be for a business or something. And in the past it could be. So we've a lot of what, and we don't earmark every account, just some accounts are susceptible to having earmarks. It's like the way the, what are called the stag grants State and Tribal assistance grants for wastewater and water projects and stuff that's in the interior bill that I chair. And there's an awful lot of members that want to earmark projects in their district for that. So that's okay. And we go through 'em and we vet 'em very good to make sure that they're legitimate and everything else. But some people continue to say, it's just wasteful spending. It's not
Brennan Summers (06:34):
Right. And the idea of removing politics out of this, I mean, when you talk about the opposing party saying, well, we're not going to fund that. We're not going to fund that. We've seen even in Idaho, there are maybe some prisons that are debilitated that absolutely need an update, and in all account they would be funded. But you have these defund, the police members of Congress, the squad who will say, well, we're not voting for any money that goes to any prisons. And it's absurd, but it's politics.
Congressman Mike Simpson (07:00):
Some of that's last year when the Democrats were in control, we were trying to help chalice that has a courthouse in a prison that is, or jail that is really, really bad and they can't seem to pass a bond to do that. And I understand that people don't want to increase their property taxes for a jail, but last year the Democrats said, we're not going to put any money for earmarks into jails and that kind of stuff because of the squad and stuff. It's crazy. So yeah, it's crazy.
Brennan Summers (07:32):
So I think, oh, the average Idahoan might look at Congress and they think that all 400 plus if you get in a room and then you just kind of vote on everything. But that's not really how it works. No. A lot of your legislative accomplishments and these projects we're talking about now they come through your work on the appropriations committee. So coming up, this appropriations committee is going to be really important when we talk about funding some of these projects, things like there's a windmill project in the works Lava Ridge that there's talk about that you're trying to stop. Maybe talk us through some of the projects you've got upcoming and then the challenge that comes with, we're going to see a government shutdown over this. What happens?
Congressman Mike Simpson (08:06):
It's hard to say what's going to happen. There's talk of a government shutdown. Some of our Republican friends and members believe that a government shutdown is a legitimate policy. I don't believe it is. I've been through, I don't know, four or five of these over the years. Sometimes from just a couple days to I think up to the longest one was up to three weeks and stuff. But I've never seen it be good policy or good politics. And no matter what happens, regardless of whose fault it is, republicans are going to be blamed for it. We always do, and that's going to be a challenge coming up. But we've got to get these appropriation bills done when we were in October, November after the election when we had our conference meeting and stuff and then voted on Kevin McCarthy to become speaker. Part of the deal was is we would go back to 2022 level spending.
(09:01):
You look at that and you go, okay, we can do that. That's not huge cuts, but we can make these cuts and it'll head the government budget in the right direction. We need to reduce spending. The problem with that is there are 12 appropriation bills. We're not going to reduce spending on defense. That would mean our military people don't get a pay increase. 40% of the military's budget is for personnel. So we're not going to reduce spending on defense. We're not going to reduce spending on veterans affairs. We have an obligation to our veterans that we need to take care of. We're not going to reduce spending on Homeland Security because I don't want the administration to come in and say, well, we would've secured the border but the Republicans took the money and wouldn't fund it and that kind of stuff. And we're going to put some language in there that will hopefully make them do their job at the southern border.
(09:53):
But that's 70% of the discretionary budget. That means the rest of the budgets, the other nine are going to take all the hits and reduce spending substantially in the interior budget. It's reduced like 38%, which is pretty dramatic. And you oversee that budget. Yeah, and now we've used some rescissions by pulling money back that they had appropriated before for the Green New Deal and that kind of stuff. We've pulled that money back into our budget, so the cuts aren't nearly as bad as they would, but it's still a reduction in spending substantially. And that's what we need to do is head in that direction. But there are members of our conference that believe you can't use the rescissions and stuff that you just have to reduce spending. I don't know if any of them would vote for an interior budget that reduces spending by 38% because in my budget, in the interior budget, I've got Indian Health Services.
(10:47):
Well, we're not going to reduce spending for Medicare or Medicaid or Veterans Affairs. I'm not going to balance this budget on the back of Indians, and that's a large part of our budget is Indian Health Services. The other one is wildfires. And I'm not going to reduce the funding for wildfires, particularly during wildfire season here in the west. So that's a huge part of our budget. That means the rest of that budget is going to see dramatic cuts. I think the E P A is reduced in the bill that I wrote close to 50%. And some members say, well cut at all. We don't need. Well, we do need an E P A. I am sometimes upset with the decisions they make. We've got to get 'em back on track doing their job and do it within the boundaries of what I think the law allows and stuff.
(11:36):
And that's what we're trying to do with the E P A. But if you are a business out there and you need a water quality permit or you need an air permit or something like that to operate, it would be nice when you call the E P A if somebody was there to answer the phone. So we are making changes not fast enough for some people, but I've always said, it doesn't matter where you stand, what matters is which direction you're headed and we're headed in the right direction. We're going to reduce spending. Even though in the Senate with their markups, they've increased spending. Republicans and Democrats in the Senate have got together on the appropriations committee and increased spending, which is just bizarre to me. So we're going to have negotiations with them. Ultimately, the bills will be somewhere between the house and the Senate marks and it will reduce overall spending and head us in the right direction. Next year we'll do the same thing. So Lucia goes, I'm
Brennan Summers (12:30):
Hardened to hear the optimism. It sounds like it's a balancing act between cutting the fat that Democrats in years past had kind of been putting into some of these bills, but not cutting an artery. Right. The bleed out. I'm glad you brought up within the interior bill wildfire. So there's been a challenge recently and you're kind of turned into the wildfire expert when it comes to Congress. I've been there when other members of Congress come to you and say, well, how are we going to handle this? And there's been a lot of different ways, whether it's forest service budgets, whether it's a wildfire fix and how we fund this thing. Right now, it seems the challenge of the day is actually paying our wildfire fighters. Yeah,
Congressman Mike Simpson (13:06):
It is. Well, first of all, we changed the way we treat wildfires in the budget. It used to be that we treated them differently than we did every other natural disaster, whether it was a hurricane or tornadoes or whatever, wildfires were treated differently. And so when the budget came out, the Department of Interior would tell all of their agencies, I mean everybody under saved 10% out because we're going to have to borrow it to fight wildfires. And we in the appropriations committee, our obligation is to fund them at a certain level, the level we did last year and stuff and increase it periodically.
(13:46):
That works well so that they don't have to do fire, they don't have to borrow because if they go above that limit, then it comes out of supplemental and that's the way it should be. It's the same way we treat hurricanes and everything else. So we've done that. The problem right now is last year in the infrastructure bill, they put a provision in there to increase wildfire fighters pay. Everybody agreed we needed to increase it. They get paid much less than what they should for the dangerous job that they do. And so nobody had a problem with that, but it wasn't authorized as the problem. And so when we did our budget this year, the administration requested funding to continue this pay increase. Our resources committee had a problem with that because they hadn't authorized it and they wanted to take it up. So we don't try not to do anything in our bills that is authorizing and goes over the authorizing committee's head.
(14:49):
So now we don't have the increase in wildfire fighting pay in our budget. I suspect it will be in a final budget, but on September 30th, the wildfire fighter pay is going to be cut probably in some cases up to 50%. We've got 20,000 wildfire fighters out there whose pay is going to be cut on October 1st by 50%. How many of 'em are going to stay on the job? How many are going to walk off? I know if I was one of 'em, I'd walk off. So that's going to be a challenge. But the supplemental that the administration requested had a lot of Ukraine funding and some other things and all of that I haven't scrubbed yet, but the appropriations committee will. But it had 60 million in it to continue the wildfire fighting pay for the next three months, October through December, which needs to be done. I've talked to our resources committee, they're going to look at it and stuff, but it's a challenge that we need to do. You can't have wildfire fighters walking off the job in the middle of fire season. Absolutely
Brennan Summers (15:51):
Not. No. And we've seen some of the issues that come when we don't have the proper resources and these fires blow up. And particularly with the inflation we're seeing with the choices of this administration, the pay increase is probably really a necessity. It is for all of us to survive in this day
Congressman Mike Simpson (16:06):
And age. But I am telling you, I mean, if you reduce the pay of wildfire fighters back to $15 an hour, would you do that job for 15 bucks?
Brennan Summers (16:15):
No. Especially when you can flip burgers at Walmart for 25 an hour. Yeah,
Congressman Mike Simpson (16:19):
It is just crazy. And we have a lot of these wildfire fighters. We have some that are wildfire fighters, and we have others that are firefighters in communities like Los Angeles or other places, and they get a two or three week vacation, they take their two or three week vacation and come up and fight wildfires for us, and they make some pretty good money with the pay as it is now cut the payback. Will they come up and do that? I doubt it. Right.
Brennan Summers (16:50):
Well, and if you're not talking about it, it's tough to think that there are a lot of other members of Congress that this is in the front of their mind. So
Congressman Mike Simpson (16:56):
As I said on our conference call the other day when I was explaining this to people, those of us in the west, this is a big deal. It might not be a big deal if you're from Georgia or where they don't really have wildfires the way we do. So it'll be a challenge to get that funded as we go back and try to decide how we're going to end this year's appropriation process. We'll have to do a continuing resolution to get us through for at least a month and hopefully the House and Senate can work the differences out in our bills and bring them to the floor. And to be real honest, it will take Republican and Democrat support to get some of these done. That's the way it always is. That's the way our forefathers intended it to do, is that you'd work together and come to a compromise and get things done. But we have some members that it's their way or the highway. And when we have a four vote majority, you can only lose four votes. And there's about two or three dozen of these people who would just soon shut the government down than doing what the hard work that's necessary to get our approach done.
Brennan Summers (18:02):
And I mean, it seems like since the first day in Congress, you've been tackling these type of issues. I know you went out and actually went and was on a wildfire, right? In your three days. And the Forest Service people, they were shocked because you didn't bring cameras with you. They thought it was the first time they've had a politician that didn't come and use it as like a press stunt.
Congressman Mike Simpson (18:20):
And that's what they usually do. I understand that. But I guess it was my second year here, the fire up in Salmon, clear Creek Fire, I think it was called. But it was a huge fire. And I called my chief of staff that was coming back from the site and I said, Hey, let's go fight a wildfire. And he said, you're crazy. So what we did is we called the four superintendent and said, Hey, we want to come up, treat us as if we were a wildfire fighter, and we want to see what it takes to fight one of these fires. Why does it take 5,000 people? I mean, it's a community that they set up. And so we went up and we were there and we'd be at the meetings the night before when they would be doing the logistics, making sure the wildfire fighters were in the right place the next morning when it blew up that they had food and water and et cetera. And it was an enlightening experience to me how complicated it is, the logistics of what of these large wildfire fighters. It used to be if you read the book, the Big Burn, it used to be that they'd go to the bars and grab everybody and say, come on boys, we're going to go fight a wildfire and grab your shovels. And it's not that way anymore.
Brennan Summers (19:36):
Right. Well, while we're going back in time, let's go back a little bit further. I think there's a lot of people that might wonder how a dentist born in Burleigh, living in Blackfoot somehow ends up in Congress and it went through the Blackfoot City Council, right? Yeah. So help us understand why you could have played more golf and all your other hobbies going on. What made you think, I'm going to jump on the Blackfoot City Council?
Congressman Mike Simpson (19:59):
Well, I've always been interested in politics. I was a political science major in college for a while
Brennan Summers (20:03):
At Utah State. At Utah
Congressman Mike Simpson (20:04):
State Go Aggies.
Brennan Summers (20:05):
But
Congressman Mike Simpson (20:06):
I was sitting there going, what do you do with the political science degree? I didn't want to go work for the government as a bureaucrat. I don't mean that in a negative term, but I didn't. I liked the policy aspect of it that I'm doing now, but I would never run for public office because that meant you had to get up and give speeches and you had to go to debates and all that kind of stuff one day. So I went into dentistry with my father and my uncle, and we practiced in Blackfoot. And one day I was reading the Blackfoot Morning News and it was a Thursday and there were two seats open on the Blackfoot City Council, and only one person had filed, and the filing deadline was the next day. So I said, Hey, this is how I get on the city council.
(20:47):
So I filed for the city council, and in the meantime six other people did too. So then I had to go to all these debates and stuff, the League of Women Voters Debate, and I can remember getting dressed. I mean, public speaking is the scariest thing for majority of people in this country. And I said to my wife, do you think they'd notice if I just didn't show up? You're the one who filed for this seat. Get your rear end down there and stuff. So we went down to the debate and I won by six votes. It was the two top vote getters. And we knew the one, the guy who had filed earlier would be the top. He was a popular old guy that everybody loved. So we were all running for the second seat, and I won by six votes. And so I was serving on the city council, and about the third year on the city council seat opened in the state legislature and they came and asked me to run for that.
(21:37):
So I did won that seat. And then I was in the legislature for 14 years, and the last six years I was speaker of the house and I was either going to retire or I was going to run for governor. And Dirk Kempthorne came back and decided to run for Governor Mike Rao moved over to the Senate and it opened up second cd. So I said to my wife one day when I came home, I said, all of that time that you spent putting me through dental school and all the work you did, and we've been in practice for a number of years and we've got a practice that gives us good living, and if we wanted to go on a vacation next week, we could do it and stuff. And I said, how'd you like to give all that up for a job that pays about half of what we make now?
(22:21):
And you have to go out and give all these speeches and you have to have to every two years ask people to rehire you. And she said to me, I've watched you the three months that you're in Boise, when you come home and work on weekends, and then you're back in Boise during the week, you're busier than heck those three months. And then I've lost you just the nine months that you're just practicing dentistry. She said, you're happier those three months. And I said, well, let's do it then. So we ran for Congress and won, and I've been there ever since.
Brennan Summers (22:50):
Wow. And you're in the middle right now of asking people to rehire you, your constituents. Why running it? Why not retire Mike and go on those vacations and play golf every weekend and run around with the dog? Why stay?
Congressman Mike Simpson (23:04):
Because I love this job and I love the institution that was created by our forefathers. I'm worried about it and where it's headed and I have things I want to do. I still, the ag immigration reform bill is still one of my top priorities that we've got to get done. I'm working on trying to save Idaho water and salmon and those types of things. You don't do those things in a year. It takes some time. We've been working on the ag immigration reform bill, which seems like it ought to go through. We've passed it in the house twice, almost got it through the Senate last time. But it's something that needs to, it's the number one issue for agriculture across the country, but particularly in Idaho. So I'm going to continue to work on that and other issues that come along. And I like being chairman of the interior committee.
(23:49):
I was either chairman or ranking member of the Energy and Water Committee for nine and a half years, which they wouldn't give me another waiver this year. So I took interior again, which I've been chairman of interior in the past. But the energy and water bill is obviously very important to the I N L and their budget and what they can do out here. This lab is the work they do out there. Anybody that thinks that we're not moving into the future, these guys do incredible work out there and it's something that we need to make sure we continue to do. So those are the kinds of things that I'll be working on while I'm in Congress and then all the other things that happen to come up during the meantime.
Brennan Summers (24:26):
Well, it's interesting you talk about the ag immigration, that's not something you just thought up one day. And a lot of these ideas, they come from your constituents, the ag producers, our farmers treasures, they come to you and say, this is our problem. When it comes to the wildfire issues, people don't want to see their favorite hunting spot or their favorite dirt biking place burned to the ground. So you like the job, you think you're good at the job and you want to keep doing the job.
Congressman Mike Simpson (24:48):
Exactly.
Brennan Summers (24:49):
Now, we have a lot of legislators, current ones come on the podcast and talk about the work they're doing, the challenges in Boise, as somebody who's spent 14 years in the Capitol over in Boise and speaker for about half of that, what advice would you have of what makes a good legislator? How can they be more effective? What should they be focusing on?
Congressman Mike Simpson (25:08):
Everybody is elected with a philosophy. Either they're conservative, they're liberal. In Idaho, they're pretty conservative. Even Democrats are fairly conservative in Idaho. But it's listening to people is the main thing that they can do and talk to other people because other people have different opinions. Sometimes you wake up in the morning and you talk to somebody. I hadn't thought about that. And that's what makes a good legislator, is being able to work across the aisle and with people within your own conference who might have a different opinion and listening to your constituents. It's surprising how little contact you get if you don't reach out to your constituents. If you get 50 letters on an issue, that's pretty, that's quite a bit. But that's 50 letters out of how many people that you represent. So you have to make decisions, then you have to stand by those decisions.
(26:03):
But there are too many people elected, both in Washington and probably in Idaho too, that believe that everything they vote on is a matter of principle. It's not only about 10% of the votes that you make are matters of principle. If you're voting on an abortion issue, that's a matter of principle. You're either pro-life or if you're deciding what the speed limit's going to be and you want to go 90 and I want to go 70, and we go, Hey, let's compromise at 80. That's not a matter of principle. That's just a matter of trying to make things work. So you got to decide what are matters of principle and which are just matters of making the system and the society work
Brennan Summers (26:45):
When anybody that knows you knows you wouldn't choose 70 over 90. We know you have a lead foot mic. Well,
Congressman Mike Simpson (26:50):
Yeah. You get out on some of these highways in Idaho and you're going, why are we going this? When I drove through Oregon the last time when their speed limit was like 65, it's kind of like, I could walk this fast, but they've increased their speed limit.
Brennan Summers (27:03):
You talk about wanting to listen to your constituents wanting more access to them. I think it's important for the average Idahoan to see the man behind the office in Idaho. Our elected leaders don't have to be these distant figures. We can have some access. So what are some ways that people listening right now, if they've got an idea or they've got an opinion on something, how can they better share it with you?
Congressman Mike Simpson (27:25):
We get a lot of that from constituents. We get phone calls all the time. We have interns that take the phone calls all the time, because I'm not always in the office. I'm sometimes in hearings, other things and stuff, but their input is vitally important. They also have our district offices here around the state in I, Idaho Falls and Twin Falls in Boise. They come in and talk to our employees in the district offices, which is vitally important because then they communicate that to me about what they're hearing on this or that subject. And I get a lot of emails and so forth in our office, and there's a multitude of ways for them to connect with us. If they're in Washington, call ahead when they come, if they want to have a meeting or something like that. And we'll usually set it up. One of the frustrating things is someone will be back in Washington, say in October, and they'll want a meeting to come in and they'll call our scheduler.
(28:26):
And my schedule in October is fine. Yeah, okay, we'll meet you come in at 11 o'clock on October 12th, and then on October 12th, I look at my schedule and I've got a hearing. I've got votes on the floor. I've got all this other stuff. So sometimes they have to meet with staff. And that is frustrating as heck to me because these people have traveled 2,400 miles to talk to their legislator. And sometimes that's difficult to do because I'm going to, one year I'm going to put down what my schedule was and then what we actually did turned into, because it gets jam packed at some points in time and things that I have to do. So, and
Brennan Summers (29:08):
The question always falls when I call in an intern answers or I send a letter in. I think a lot of people think, well, Congressman Simpson will never see this, but that's not actually the case, is
Congressman Mike Simpson (29:16):
It? No, I see those things. They come
Brennan Summers (29:18):
In and you review.
Congressman Mike Simpson (29:19):
Yeah, they tell me what my constituents are saying, what the phone calls are saying, if they're upset about some vote or they'd want me to vote a certain way on something. We hear that
Brennan Summers (29:29):
Well, an attempt to kind of humanize the man behind the office. We're going to throw some hard hitting questions at you ready for it. Okay. Yep. So the goal here is things people might not know about Mike Simpson. Avid painter. Right? Really good with
Congressman Mike Simpson (29:42):
Watercolors. I used to do a lot of watercolor, so I don't do 'em a lot anymore. Don't have time because when you do painting, you need a place you can leave as a mess. My wife doesn't like messes in my house, and otherwise I would have to leave messes in my place in dc. So it's more difficult. I haven't done it lately, but I love to paint.
Brennan Summers (30:01):
What are a couple books that you think everybody every American should read in their lifetime?
Congressman Mike Simpson (30:06):
Oh, that's a tough question. One of the latest ones that I've just read is called Fever in the Heartland. You read it also. It's a fascinating book about history that I didn't really know about, and that had to do with the K K K. In Indiana, we always think of the K K K as being in the south and stuff, but it was in Indiana and they controlled essentially the Indiana government at the state and local level. And it's just a fascinating book. It's a book written by Tim Egan who wrote The Big Burn that we talked about earlier. He's from Portland, great author, and he wrote The Immortal Irishman. That's a great book also. So that's one that I would recommend. I've been reading a lot of books about Eisenhower because I was on the Eisenhower Commission that did his memorial in Washington DC and took us, I don't know, 10 or 15 years to get that done.
(31:05):
So every book on Eisenhower that came out, they would send me a copy of it. So I've been reading a lot of books on Eisenhower, another one that was given to me by Dirk Kemler, a political book that's very interesting called The Accidental President. And it's about Harry Truman when he took over after Roosevelt died and how, I don't know the right word, unprepared he was, because Roosevelt didn't really keep him in the loop about what was going on in the war. And his first 40 days were amazing, and he did a great job in retrospect. So those are a couple books that I would encourage people to pick
Brennan Summers (31:45):
Up. The many suggestions you would have. We need to do a Simpson book list. Yeah,
Congressman Mike Simpson (31:49):
Pick I I'm on Good reads. Okay. Yeah, so we try to put all that stuff on good reads.
Brennan Summers (31:53):
That's a good plug. You've mentioned two presidents now. If you had to pick who you think your favorite president is, who might it be? I
Congressman Mike Simpson (32:01):
Think Lincoln was the ideal president in the most difficult times this nation has ever faced. And he kept the nation together. Other presidents, we might have a southern United States and a northern United States, but Lincoln's goal was to keep the union together and he did in, as I said, we killed 700,000 Americans during that battle, during that civil war. Can you imagine being president during that time? And he was criticized by both the north and the South, and they were tired of the Civil War and they it in. But he did a great job.
Brennan Summers (32:42):
Now you have on your bookshelf, speaking of your library, a number of awards that you've been given over the years. You go and you get invited to speak at an event and they give you an award. My Hope day is we're going to give you something to thank you for coming on, and it's going to be an award that you've never received before. Are you excited?
Congressman Mike Simpson (32:57):
I'm excited. All
Brennan Summers (32:58):
Right. It is my understanding that Congressman Simpson has never in his lifetime tried Nutella, Nutella. So we're going to gift him a jar of Nutella. You
Congressman Mike Simpson (33:09):
Heard me the other night.
Brennan Summers (33:10):
So you're gifted that with a charge to try it and okay, we have no corporate sponsors here, so if you hate it or love it, it doesn't matter. But now you get a chance to try it. Alright, I'll try it. Congress, we really appreciate coming on. Any last words you'd like to say to those who are listening that really maybe they're new to the state or just figuring out this congressman or they're new to the political scene. What would you like to say to the constituents out there?
Congressman Mike Simpson (33:30):
I would like to say to them that it is important that they vote and it is important that they vote in primaries. We only have about a 30% turnout in primaries in Idaho, which is amazing. It needs to be up around 60 or 70% as it used to be before we close the Republican primary. I think that was a mistake, but take the time to evaluate the candidates, listen to 'em what they have to say and stuff, and then go vote.
Brennan Summers (34:02):
That's fantastic. Appreciate you being on as these issues we've talked about, kind of evolve more. We'll hopefully have you back. You bet. Thanks so much. Anytime, man. Appreciate it. Thanks for
Congressman Mike Simpson (34:10):
Having you.
Main Street Idaho Podcast Episode 5: Representative Britt Raybould
We are a model of good government for other states in the nation, and frankly, other states should be looking to us for guidance about how to be fiscally responsible, and yet at the same time ensuring that we're not ignoring our obligations.
“We are a model of good government for other states in the nation, and frankly, other states should be looking to us for guidance about how to be fiscally responsible, and yet at the same time ensuring that we’re not ignoring our obligations.”
“The Big tent Republican approach is very much needed in this state. And it’s okay to be different. It’s okay to have different perspectives, but at the end of the day, we’re all conservative Republicans.”
Brendan Summers (00:00):
Welcome to mainstream podcast, an opportunity to talk to Idaho's elected leaders about the issues that matter to you. Welcome representative Ray Bold. It's it's great to have you here.
Representative Britt Raybould (00:16):
Thanks, Brennan. Thanks. Pleasure to join you.
Brendan Summers (00:17):
Thank you. Thank you. You represent district 34 up in Madison County. Yes. And everyone's gearing up for harvest, right?
Representative Britt Raybould (00:23):
Yeah. In fact, just last week we killed our first circle of potatoes. if all goes well, we will actually start harvest on August 21st. That's the
Brendan Summers (00:32):
Plan. Oh, fantastic. How's that, what's the outlook this year? We don't have to worry about like, some of the smoke issues we've had in the past.
Representative Britt Raybould (00:39):
Yeah, no, the, the weather's been relatively quiet. All things considered for us. You know, unlike our east coast friends that have been dealing with smoke from Canada we've had a pretty good growing season. what's gonna get us potentially is whether or not the temperatures can come down enough for us to be able to actually go out and harvest. We can't dig the potatoes when they're too hot. So we've gotta have that temperature start coming down in order for us to get 'em out of the field.
Brendan Summers (01:01):
Sure. So we've got temperature. We always have issues with workforce. Get enough people,
Representative Britt Raybould (01:06):
No question. workforce continues to be something that's a challenge for us. we're in a little bit different situation than some of the other operations because we go to early market, and so that means that we're out digging. We dig for half a day. We aren't digging full days 'cause we're basically just going to fill particular orders for that day. you think it'd be a little easier to get folks who just wanna come in and do part-time, but the struggle is that most people, if they're willing to work, are looking for full-time. And so trying to find that balance between getting a crew on staff early enough to get us through the entire harvest season when we start going into storage.
Brendan Summers (01:37):
Yeah. We could spend our whole time talking about spots and maybe we'll get back and talk a little bit about water later, but I wanted to kick off and talk about, you know, how you entered the political scene. Like where your history brought you to the point where you decided, you know what, I'm gonna end up in the Idaho legislature.
Representative Britt Raybould (01:52):
So I've been surrounded by politics for pretty much my entire life. my grandfather served on a number of state commissions before. He eventually ran for and served in the legislature for 18 years. My father currently serves as the chair of the Water resource board. public service is something I've been around for as long as I can remember, and it was always drilled into me that we had a lot of good things going our way, you know, for our family. But a part of that is because of the community that we were in. And if we wanted there to continue to be good things, we needed to be willing to give back and giving back meant making sure that there were other opportunities for people to come along and potentially have similar success to what we've done. And so for that, it, it really just does boil down to that. If you want things to continue to be good, you've gotta be prepared to step in there and do the work. And that's what this is for me, is continuing the work of my family.
Brendan Summers (02:41):
Yeah. And, and I know your grandfather left a just a fantastic legacy and the legislature and we miss him. A lot of people doing his voice, but yeah. You've, you've filled the shoes well, so we're happy to have you serving. Most people don't know who their legislator is or even what the Idaho legislature does. They hear House and Senate, and they might think DC I'm gonna give you a hard task here. Do you think you can sum up in just a couple sentences, what does an Idaho legislator do?
Representative Britt Raybould (03:07):
An Idaho legislator ensures that you have good roads to drive on safe schools for your kids to attend, and that you are not taxed beyond what is a reasonable for a fiscal conservative. the idea is that you should be able to live in Idaho to live your life freely, to be able to pursue the things that you want to do, whether it's starting your own business, going out onto the public lands on the weekend, to to hike and to fish and to hunt or to just raise your family in a safe community. It's my job to make sure that you can continue to do those things in Idaho freely.
Brendan Summers (03:39):
And much like the federal structure, the Idaho legislature is divided into committees. You wanna walk us through some of your work on what committees you're involved in?
Representative Britt Raybould (03:48):
So, Idaho has what's referred to as standing committees in both the House and the Senate and those standing committees you get assigned to every two years. I currently serve on the joint finance and appropriation committee. That's the committee where we do all of the budget work for the state every year. Idaho's constitution requires that we pass a balanced budget every year, unlike the federal government, we're required to live within our means. I also serve on the Resource and Conservation Committee, which deals with a lot of our land use and water issues. And then the Environment Energy and Technology Committee, which deals with things like our department, environmental quality potentially issues that involve the I N L, and just pretty much anything else that wouldn't necessarily fall under that resources umbrella.
Brendan Summers (04:26):
And they say parents aren't supposed to pick favorite kids. Do you have a favorite committee?
Representative Britt Raybould (04:31):
I do. JAC is by far and away my favorite committee. it's a committee where you have to be prepared to go in and do a lot more work than other committees because you meet every single day for most of the legislature, for upwards of three hours each day. and it's because you are looking and reviewing it over a hundred different budgets. For the state of Idaho, you're looking at everything from the entire budget for the Department of Transportation down to the Commission of Arts. It's a wide ranging assignment that requires you to take in a lot of information in a short amount of time and make really big decisions while also balancing the responsibility to ensure that we're using tax dollars wisely.
Brendan Summers (05:09):
So, appropriations budgets, it can sound a little boring. Let's bring it to life with specifics. What are some of the budgets you've worked on that you're really proud of, what you've been able to fund and what you've been able to provide the citizens of Idaho?
Representative Britt Raybould (05:22):
So I take a slightly different approach to working on budgets in the state. as I said, there's probably, you know, just over a hundred individual budgets. I work on roughly half of them. some committee members just choose to specialize in particular areas. So you'll see some that work specifically on transportation budgets or corrections or education. I work on everything from education to the judicial branch to department of Juvenile Corrections to anything that involves natural resources. And so, as I'm looking at sort of like the practical day-to-day I would say that, you know, for instance, this last session we had enough additional funds that we could make an investment into water infrastructure. We put in another $150 million. So what does that mean to someone who's, you know, living in the state? Well, in addition to that 150 million, we did another 92 million that was specifically for water projects and communities. So if you happen to live in a community that needs to have its water system redone, so your ability to have clean drinking water, your community can come in and submit a grant to the state to get assistance to help complete those projects. And those projects are often big enough that it's really hard for some of our smaller communities to be able to come up with the financing to get that done. So we're helping make sure that your community's got clean water,
Brendan Summers (06:35):
And that's a big problem. And like you mentioned, a lot of these small communities, they're operating on shoestring budgets and all their money is spent. And then when a big problem comes with like water infrastructure without a funding mechanism, they end up
Representative Britt Raybould (06:49):
It can be a strug. Yeah. Right. And, and a lot of these water systems, you go back and you look at the dates when some of these systems were put in place, we're talking 50, 60, 70 years back to the original founding of the communities themselves. And they blasted a long time and they've done the job they were intended to do, but they weren't intended to last forever. And so, as a state, we have a responsibility to ensure that these communities these communities continue to have access to something that is so critical, like water, so that, you know, when they go to turn on the faucet, the kids have got water to drink and they've got water to do their laundry and to bathe their kids. I mean, it just, it's one of those sort of integral things that I think a lot of us take for granted until we flip on the faucet and no water comes out. and so, you know, if I look at something like that and knowing what a big investment we've been making, not only this last year, but in prior years, those are the kinds of things that I'm most proud of because it makes such a difference in most people's day-to-day lives.
Brendan Summers (07:39):
Yeah, that's a, a problem addressed, a problem solved. Love that. any other projects that you're working on or that have, have seen, funded that you're really proud of?
Representative Britt Raybould (07:47):
some of the other things that we looked at, like for example the launch program that came through during the during the session this last time, I know there's been a lot of debate about whether or not the state should be involved in a project like that. And for those who aren't familiar with it, what launch does is it provides what amounts to an education grant to students who are Idaho High School graduates to go on and pursue careers for in demand employment. So we have a lot of open, a lot of openings in Idaho for different jobs, and we don't necessarily have enough people with the skill sets to fill those particular jobs. So we're looking to be a self a self-supply in terms of making sure that we've got Idaho students who are, who are capable and equipped to go in and, and do these jobs.
(08:26):
It's, it's, it's everything from your plumber and electrician to your high-end cybersecurity piece. it ranges all across the board. But the long and short of it is, is that we don't have enough highly trained people to do some of these jobs. And what launch does is it helps fill that gap for students who are going into what you think of is maybe a more non-traditional career that doesn't require a college degree, but does require some level of certification or additional training beyond high school. And so I look at something like that and that kind of commitment that we're making, that's about keeping Idaho students in Idaho, that's about filling Idaho jobs, that's about growing Idaho's economy.
Brendan Summers (08:59):
So if I'm a student up at, you know, sugar Salem and I'm graduating high school mm-hmm. <affirmative>, what does that look like for me? If my choices previously were either no additional training or leave the state for training, right?
Representative Britt Raybould (09:14):
Well, it could potentially be the difference between you being able to build a life here as opposed to having to go somewhere else to create something similar. And what I mean by that is when you're a student who's looking to make an investment in yourself in terms of your education, some of these programs didn't receive what we think of as sort of like traditional financial aid for students pursuing education. So, you know, some of people received Pell grants for, for doing college education. A Pell grant wasn't something that was available for a for a student who wanted to go and get his C D L so that he could do long-haul truck driving. there wasn't many available to a Pell Grant for someone to become a journeyman with an electrician. You know, there's just, there's some of these careers that our traditional financial system for ongoing education beyond high school just was not particularly supportive of.
(09:58):
It wasn't flexible, it didn't adapt to the needs that we have. Launch is about adapting to the needs of students today in a world that is demanding more of them and requires that additional training. We need more than high school diplomas for a lot of these positions. And a lack of access to financial support to help them get there is gonna make a difference in a lot of these students' lives. And I will note the launch program will not pay for a hundred percent of any student's particular program. At most, it will pay a percentage of that. And most programs are five figures. So the $8,000 that we're committing to students for their program is simply a down payment to help those students get started and get going, and so that they can be successful and build strong families for Idaho.
Brendan Summers (10:38):
Right. So they're gonna have a little bit of skin in the game. Yeah. And it's also some accountability and making sure that we can get 'em across the finish line.
Representative Britt Raybould (10:45):
Yes. In fact, they're working as part of the implementation for launch. They're gonna require or explore what, what they can do to essentially hold the institutions accountable who are receiving funds. And so if a student were to quit or to fail to graduate or something along those lines, there's the potential opportunity to claw back those dollars. We're holding the institutions in the organizations responsible for ensuring that students actually get through a program once state dollars have been committed to it.
Brendan Summers (11:08):
So J F A C has given you the opportunity to support and fund these programs that are solving some very serious problems in Idaho. But how have you taken your philosophy on government spending in general to not just fund programs, but also identify maybe things that are wasteful in Idaho?
Representative Britt Raybould (11:25):
So there is a question of accountability. Anytime you're spending taxpayer dollars, it's not just how much is being spent, but how is it being spent? And so that becomes a case of are we asking the right questions of the agencies who are doing the job? I think there's very few people that you would think of as, as being like malicious actors who are intentionally wasting money. But sometimes people get into habits, and if they've been doing things a certain way for a long time, it can be really hard to break that habit. And so when we're serving on J fac and we're asking these questions, when these budgets come before us, our questions are not intended to call people out or to, you know, put people in a tight spot, but instead just to say, help me understand what your thinking is. And if we don't get back the information, so like when we request data or when we ask those questions, it provides an opening for us to say, I think there's an opportunity to do this differently or potentially save money in the process.
(12:11):
the challenge that I think most people overlook is that given how fast Idaho's growing, given how many people are coming into our state, there's just that many more people that need services, right? There's just that many more people that have kids who are in classrooms. There's just that many more people who are on the roads. I mean, even something as as straightforward as, you know, going to the D M V to get your driver's license, if there are more people coming to the state, there needs to be more people to provide the services that are expected from us. And so we have to take that into account as part of how we evaluate spending. It's not just necessarily about the idea of, well, should we or shouldn't we be doing this? It's a question of are we actually meeting the needs that are being set forward by people who've chosen to call Idaho home now? And we've gotta make sure that we are fulfilling their expectations because that's a responsibility that we have when we swear that oath of office to meet the needs of the state to uphold our constitution and to ensure that we are being responsible with how we're spending taxpayer dollars.
Brendan Summers (13:07):
And how, how would you rate the legislature, particularly the appropriations committee, in terms of fiscal conservatism? It's Republican led, there's always critics that say, you're not doing enough. We need to return more tax dollars. Maybe highlight where you think we have returned more tax dollars back to the citizens.
Representative Britt Raybould (13:23):
So if I remember right, I think it was governor, but chatter that said you know, failing to make investments for things in the future when you've got those savings, that's the equivalent of deficit spending. Right? Right. And so I would point to the record over the last two to three years where significant one-time investments have been made in a range of projects, from transportation projects to water projects to education, there were a range of things where we took monies that people would look at and say, well, you took in more than you needed. And instead we said, there's an opportunity here to do several things. We've flattened our tax rate, right? So we're now below 6% in the state for our income tax. We did significant property tax relief during this last session, and it's gonna be ongoing property tax relief. And at the same time, we made these really big investments in areas of the state that are gonna pay dividends for future generations. And so if I'm looking at what fiscal conservatism looks like, it's the benefit of being able to say, because of our growth, because of our success, we can return dollars to taxpayers. And yet at the same time, not ignoring the responsibility that we have to maintain the systems and services that our citizens expect to have as being an an idahoan.
Brendan Summers (14:31):
Right. So, I mean, the comparison would be like, on the farm, you gotta buy new tractors every now and then. Yeah. And, and it's, it's essential to business.
Representative Britt Raybould (14:38):
No question. I mean, if, if you fail to invest in what you have already spent money on, you're basically going to be throwing that money away down the road. You know, it's, it's kind of like the person who who buys a house. And if you decide that you're just gonna live in that house and you're not gonna do any repairs, you're you're not gonna fix the roof. You're not going to, you know, plug that hole where the mouse got in. you're not gonna make sure that you have the right insulation installed to keep your heating bill down if, if you aren't doing sort of like this basic ongoing maintenance to ensure that your home stays safe and tight, that investment that you made when you purchased the house is gonna go down the drain. Because when it's all said and done and you go to say, sell that house, people are going around and go, why would I buy this house? You've done nothing to keep it up. And that's how I think about state government. If we've made an investment in something, we have an obligation to ensure that we don't lose the value of that investment going forward.
Brendan Summers (15:30):
So representative Vrabel to the critics who are saying Cut, cut, cut. You're saying sometimes it's time to invest.
Representative Britt Raybould (15:36):
I think there is a difference between cutting because there is waste mm-hmm. <affirmative> and cutting for the sake of cutting. Sure. And in this instance, I would say point to me the investments that we have made, and tell me where you wouldn't have wanted the benefit of that investment. Tell me how that doesn't benefit the state of Idaho in the long term. Tell me how that doesn't ensure that Idaho continues to be a successful growing region for, and frankly, an example for other states in the nation. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, I mean, we have a ballast budget. We have a really strong system in terms of our state employee pension. We are a model of good government for other states in the nation, and frankly, other states should be looking to us for guidance about how to be fiscally responsible, and yet at the same time ensuring that we're not ignoring our obligations.
Brendan Summers (16:20):
Yeah. And I know Governor Little, when he goes and meets with the other governors is often pointing to the legislature and the work that you guys have done as this example right. To them, you've highlighted a few projects, you're proud of some things that you're able to check off the to-do list. Let's look forward a little bit, what are the issues that you're gearing up for? What are some problems even whether we're looking at security issues or energy issues, what's coming up that you're thinking these are things that the legislature needs to make a priority in the coming sessions?
Representative Britt Raybould (16:46):
So during the last session, I proposed some legislation that would have increased the penalty associated with trespassing or damage of critical infrastructure. Okay. some people may be familiar with at the end of last year, there were two attacks on two different power installations. So in North Carolina and then one up in Washington the outages affected tens of thousands of people. Most recently last month, there was a gentleman who opened Fire on the Hells Canyon Complex over on the other side of the state. these are individuals who are intentionally trying to disrupt our energy supply for whatever reason they might have, but are attempting to do so in a way that I think undermines the safety and security of our state. And so I will be bringing back legislation that does propose to increase both the penalties for trespass and for damage of anything that falls under an umbrella that will be defined for critical infrastructure.
(17:38):
So things like dams power distribution pipelines wells, all of those things where we just sort of, again, it's one of those things of of we are taking for granted because it's always just kind of been there. And I've been asked, well, you know, why can't we just say you've gotta harden your physical security? Why, you know, why is it that we're saying that just the posting of a sign or doing some other things? Well, would you like to run the fence that would have to go around a pipeline? Right. Right. How, how do we fence off our transmission lines for power? How, how do we physically secure some of these really large and frankly kind of awkward physical arrangements that we have for some of this critical infrastructure? And so what's left to us is the ability to increase the, the pers at least the, the understanding that should you choose to attempt to trespass or damage these properties, that there will be se serious consequences for that behavior. And that's one of the things that's available to us that is reasonable in that context of, you know, we can't fence off everything.
Brendan Summers (18:37):
Yeah. And hopefully a deterrent to keep people from wanting more. That's great. An issue that most of us have never thought about or would want to think
Representative Britt Raybould (18:44):
About. Nope. But I'm guessing when the lights go off in the middle of, you know, winter and there's no heat because somebody decided it'd be fun to just go and shoot up that energy transformer, you're gonna be thinking about a little
Brendan Summers (18:54):
More. Absolutely. Absolutely. Now, you've been in the legislation for how many sessions
Representative Britt Raybould (18:58):
Now? So I'm in my second term. Okay,
Brendan Summers (19:01):
Fantastic. How would you, like, how would you describe the changes that have happened in the legislature? is does it look different in the years? You, you've watched it for many years, you've participated in it for a few years. How has it changed and how do you hope it continues to change?
Representative Britt Raybould (19:15):
I think the biggest changes are just the fact that the state itself has changed, and you're seeing that reflected in the legislature. So as more people have come into the state, you've seen different sets of viewpoints appear in the legislature. you've seen that individuals who have, who have moved from, from other states have decided to, you know, put their name on the ballot and run. So you have the perspectives of, of people who, who didn't grow up here and who are coming in and are making their voices heard, you know, through that legislative process. I think that if I'm looking at sort of like the, the biggest sort of like obvious change is there seems to be within a minority a desire to be more confrontational, to be more conflict oriented in a way that I did not associate with the legislature in, in prior years.
(20:02):
the, the desire for us to, you know, from my perspective, to collaborate to try to find solutions for whatever reason that's, that's been looked down on and that's been viewed as a negative. it's very much an attitude of, you know, if I can't get a hundred percent of what I want, then I will walk away with nothing, which makes absolutely no sense to me. if, if you have an opportunity to make some progress on an issue at a particular point in time, you take that progress and then you come back and you move the, you know, you keep moving the ball down the field to, you know, use a football metaphor. you, you do not give up on an opportunity to make an improvement simply because you can't get a hundred percent of what you want at any given time.
(20:39):
And I've heard that, you know, called a bunch of different things that, that are probably not polite enough for this particular podcast. But, you know, you people saying, well, compromise is a dirty word, right? I'd love to know what relationships these people have where they think they get to have a hundred percent of what they want all the time. And why, when it comes to politics is compromise the dirty word. You compromise with your spouse, you compromise with your kids, you compromise with your coworkers to get through the day because they're humans too. And they have the right to their opinions and their perspectives, and everybody's just doing their best to try to get along. But when it comes to politics, we're told that if we dare say, you know what? The person who disagrees with me might have a point, even if I don't agree with everything, somehow that's a bad thing.
(21:20):
Right? Instead, that's the reality of every other aspect of life. But we've made it into something that I don't think it is when it comes to politics. And frankly, I think it works against us. It works against making some of these long-term investments we've been talking about. Because again, I didn't get a hundred percent of everything I wanted during the last session. I got quite a bit of it. And I will take those wins and I will go home and be happy about it. And then I will suit up and I'll come back out and I'll do it all over again, and I'll try to get a little bit more than I did the last time to improve that process for the next go around. That's what it should be, not all or nothing. Yeah. And,
Brendan Summers (21:52):
And I think this makes you, this is very different than politics on the national stage, and it's becoming more and more rare in Idaho. As you talk about, as people kind of gravitate towards the confrontational and this tribalistic mentality of me versus you, you're known by the voters of Madison County as being very data-driven, results focused. You've kind of avoided the, like salacious headlines of trying to entice conflict, and you're more focused of, I'm gonna go to Boise and I'm gonna work on issues that are important to my constituents. Why is that the better way to do it? And how are you finding others are joining your cause? Or are we finding less people are able, like legislators?
Representative Britt Raybould (22:34):
I think maybe the better way to think about it is in terms of where can I accomplish the most good? Right? And if you start dealing with issues that are out on the fringes of things, then your ability to be effective I think gets limited. You know, if, if I'm focusing on issues from a, from a data perspective or frankly just even from a pragmatic what can actually get done in this window that we have with the resources that we have, that's my opportunity to have the greatest impact on the largest number of people within my district. And that's my obligation, right? Is, is to ensure that what I'm doing has results. And I'll grant you that, you know, I've had one or two individuals who had specific problems. You know, for instance there was someone who had difficulty getting access to someone at c p s to help them work through a particular issue related to the, the services they were receiving.
(23:18):
So, you know, there's those opportunities to have those one-off interactions to help people get resolution to their problems. But ultimately, I need to have my eye focused on that bigger goal of how do I solve, you know, how how do I serve the, the larger population within my district and going out and cherry picking these one-off issues isn't gonna get the job done, right? It's, it's my responsibility to make sure that my time is used to the best of my ability. And that does require that you filter through some of the noise to, on the things that actually are gonna lead to measurable results that will matter in people's day-to-day lives, in terms of where everybody else is at. You know what, the only person I get to control is me at the end of the day. That's it. Mm-hmm. And so everybody, when they're representing their district, they've gotta make that choice for themselves.
(24:01):
And when it comes time to go into the ballot box and to make that decision as to who to vote for, I hope people are looking at how individual legislators are representing them and are not necessarily looking to third parties or others to give them the, the, the wink and the nod as to, as to who the candidate should be. Take the time to get to know who your legislator is, ask the questions. They should be able to give you answers. And if they can't give you answers, that would be cause for concern. Because people should be able to explain why they voted the way that they did, why they took the positions that they did. And at the end of the day, you may not necessarily disagree with them, but you should hopefully understand why your legislator did what they did.
Brendan Summers (24:36):
Yeah, I like that a lot. And I'm gonna put you on the spot. I won't ask who the legislators you think are doing it completely wrong, but I'm gonna ask you, who are the ones you could shout out as saying this is a legislator, this is a policymaker that their constituents should be proud of, or somebody that you enjoy collaborating with?
Representative Britt Raybould (24:53):
Well, I'm gonna do a little bit of a, an easy one here and I'll give you a couple others from the other side of the state. So my seatmate, John Weber mm-hmm. <affirmative> he worked with a wide group of people in a collaborative effort to redo how we handle public defense in the state of Idaho. And when I say redo, it was a literal, from the ground up rebuilding of what that process looks like. It removed the burden from counties and placed it back in the state's lap in terms of responsibility for ensuring that there is an adequate public defense that is provided. And he did that by working with a bunch of other people around the state. He did it quietly. He wasn't out there, you know, beating his chest over it. And he did a really great job. And as a result, the last when the bill actually came through, it passed with an overwhelming majority of support in both the House and the Senate.
(25:39):
And that's just reflective of how good he was at helping work through that process with all of the other collaborators. in terms of other representatives around the state, I think James Petsky who came into it was his first session this last time and he is a really thoughtful legislator from over in the Treasure Valley area who came onto Jfa. It was his first time on Jfa, and it's one of those committees where you sink or swim, he swam really, really well and did a good job. you know, if, if I'm looking around in, in others areas of the state, you know, Chanel Dixon, she serves one of her main committees is the health and Welfare committee, and she's doing really great work there in terms of looking at things like how do we deal with the fentanyl issue? Mm-hmm. How do we deal with other, you know, issues about healthcare access?
(26:23):
What does that look like for our state to ensure that people have got access to doctors and physicians, you know, in rural areas, for example. you know, there's a long list and I could give you many more, but just to give you a, a sense of there are good legislators who I believe are there attempting to do the work of representing their district and serving the state from all across, you know, from every, I could go and find somebody. And so it makes it a pleasure to go and serve when you know you've got like-minded people who are equally committed to serving that are gonna be in the building with you.
Brendan Summers (26:52):
Well, I think this exercise highlights the way you operate and that not only are you able to communicate your pet projects and the things that are important to you, but you're also able to point out these are people that I work with and these are the issues that are important to them and what they're working on, and we're working together to all make sure all of our priorities get taken care of. I think that's fantastic.
Representative Britt Raybould (27:10):
So I remember it's a, it's a simple, I don't think it's technically a pneumonic 'cause it involves numbers, but essentially it's, it's, there's three numbers that I keep in my head at all times. It's 36 18 in
Brendan Summers (27:20):
1 36, 18 in one.
Representative Britt Raybould (27:22):
Okay, I gotta have 36 votes in the house. I gotta have 18 votes in the Senate, and I gotta have the governor's signature. I have an obligation that if I actually wanna get something done to be able to work with others and to find those other votes in the house and to get those other votes in the Senate, and then to get the governor on board to support it. I don't have the luxury of staking out a position that's just about me and what I want. I have to figure out how to bring others along with me in order to actually accomplish the objectives that matter to my district.
Brendan Summers (27:50):
Yeah, that's, that's wonderful. And we're getting a little too optimistic here. If we're talking politics, we gotta bring it down a little. So you operate in a system. Let's talk about the political system, whether it's federal or, or statewide. What are some things that you feel like if you were made in charge for the day, you would want to fix? What are, what's not going well in the system as a whole?
Representative Britt Raybould (28:09):
Man, you know, if I could weave a wand, I think there's a disconnect about what the different roles are for each of the branches. Okay. Right. So if I'm looking at the legislature or Congress, as the case may be, we have a particular responsibility that we're supposed to be fulfilling. You know, the same goes for the executive branch and for the judicial branch. And I think in our current atmosphere, we sometimes forget what those roles are and where, you know, where we should be playing ball. And there is a reason why the legislature serves the role that it does. Same thing with our judicial branch, and the same thing with our executive branch. And I think when we start trying to assume that we can play better or no more than neither one of the other branches that we, you know, that happens to, happens to be at the table, we're again sort of missing that opportunity to figure out how to make things work better as a whole.
(28:57):
that doesn't remove the need for there to be, you know, oversight and checks and balances between the different branches. But I don't assume that I can run the state better than governor little can, and I would hope that governor Little wouldn't assume that he could do the job better than the legislature can. And the same thing goes with the courts. And I, I think that we get too caught up sometimes in, in hoping to prove that we're right, as opposed to figuring out how do we actually make this this work better and to actually get the job done. if I'm looking at some of the other things that are going on, I would say it, it's alarming to me that most people's default opening position is so negative. You know, that when it comes to politics, that their assumption is, is that it has to be a negative process in order to get anything done. I think that the more you start from a position of assuming that everything has to be about subtraction rather than addition you've set yourself up for a, an a process that had, that ends up being uglier than it needs to be.
Brendan Summers (29:54):
Well, representative Vrabel, we've taken a lot of time today to talk about everything. We started with potatoes, we finish with a great civic lesson on separation of powers. This has been fantastic. any last words you'd like to share, particularly to those in Madison County that see your name on the ballot to those on the other side of the state that may not know anything about you, but you're helping fund projects that matter, their community departing words for us?
Representative Britt Raybould (30:14):
You know, all in this matters, I get that everybody's got their obligations and their responsibilities, you know, from their jobs to their families, to everything else. And, and understand that given the, the less than congenial environment that politics currently is offering to people, that you're, you may feel like I can just stay away from that. I'll just avoid it. I can, I can step away from that. And I would tell you, that's the last thing you should do, right? You should make your voice heard. You know, if you care about what's going on in your community, if there's something that's happening that you know you're unhappy about, or if there's something you think is positive, you know, speak up. Make sure that your voice is heard. Because the only way all of this continues to work is if people continue to participate. So that would be my message, you know, whether you're in my district or somewhere else around the state, what matters is that you show up, show up on election day and show up through the rest of the year, call, email, text, do whatever you can to make sure that people know what you are thinking, because otherwise, how do you expect anything to change if you aren't actually telling people what you're thinking?
Brendan Summers (31:13):
Perfect, perfect message. And so, representative Britt Rabel, district 34, thank you for your service to Idaho and your time on the podcast today. Again, we're with Main Street Caucus today, and we appreciate your time and being with us.
Representative Britt Raybould (31:24):
Thanks, Brendan.
Brendan Summers (31:25):
Thank you.
Main Street Idaho Podcast Episode 4: Representative Josh Wheeler & Senator Treg Bernt
Main Street Idaho Podcast Episode 4 with Representative Josh Wheeler & Senator Treg Bernt.
“The more prosperous business community you have in the state, the better off the state is then the better off the citizens are.”
“The Big tent Republican approach is very much needed in this state. And it’s okay to be different. It’s okay to have different perspectives, but at the end of the day, we’re all conservative Republicans.”
Brennan Summers (00:00):
Welcome to Main Street Podcast, an opportunity to talk to I Idaho's elected leaders about the issues that matter to you. Hello, we are here with Senator Treg Bernt and Representative Josh Wheeler of the Main Street Caucus. Gentlemen, I just watched for the first time the movie twins and so Arnold Schwartzenegger, Danny DeVito and who's who. Neither of you look like Danny
Senator Treg Bernt (00:26):
DeVito, Arnold Schwartzeneger.
Brennan Summers (00:28):
But in essence, we have a senator from the west side of the state, certainly not a Meridian, and we have somebody legislator on the house side from Eastern Idaho. Right. So on appearance, you guys are pretty different, but just like in the movie, I think as we dig in a little bit more, we'll find there's a lot of commonalities here. So Senator, why don't we start with you and give you a shot to explain. First off, who are you, what are you doing here?
Senator Treg Bernt (00:49):
That's a great question. Well, I'm actually from Pocatello. I'm an east Idaho and I moved over to the Treasure Valley in 2003, got heavily involved with community, got elected to the Meridian City Council. From there I got reelected and got elected to the Senate. I'm a small business owner. I have three kiddos. We just dropped two of them off to at Boise State this past weekend and we're empty nesters. And I got to tell you, that's a weird feeling, but public service has always ran deep in our family and so it's been a true honor to be able to serve in the Senate.
Brennan Summers (01:23):
And not to steal any of your thunder, but just recap. Former city councilman, right? Small business owner,
Senator Treg Bernt (01:29):
Family. Love to coming out. Let's,
Brennan Summers (01:30):
All right. Alright, Josh, now we really let you in here. Why don't you tell us a little bit about you?
Representative Josh Wheeler (01:35):
Well, I'm an Idaho boy, born and raised here in Eastern Idaho. Graduated from Hillcrest High School back in 95, go Knights and married my high school sweetheart. We went away to go to school and came back as quick as we could. My wife did a residency program in Poel, the Portos family Medicine program. And then I came back to work with my family business. So I'm a third generation small business owner, which is its own unique set of challenges and story. And we raised six beautiful kiddos here in Eastern Idaho. And I got involved in local politics strangely enough after we lost a 10 year old son to cancer.
(02:19):
And people who live here or people who come here, they see it, they sense it. There is such a community, any shadow is such a group of good people that will rally around you in your dark times. And I really felt like I had to find a way to give back after that. And I had a friend who pointed out to me that there was an open seat on Ammond city council and that I ought to get involved in that way. And that felt like the right thing. Of course, then it wasn't an open seat. There were two other candidates that chose to run for, but we won that election. And then I really just felt a similar calling frankly, when this election came up, but I felt like needed to be an option to represent district 35 here in eastern Idaho. And so we put ourselves out there and had a very hard fought, interesting campaign and won. And here we are. And so honestly, it's been an incredible way for me to give back. You learn so much more about your community, about your state that you would never learn any other way,
Brennan Summers (03:21):
And both freshmen in the legislature. But we're here on a platform of the Main Street caucus and this was your guys' brainchild, right?
Representative Josh Wheeler (03:29):
I'm a bad politician when it comes to taking credit for everything. I give a lot of credit to a lot of people who've brought this together. And I mean, maybe I'll just tell my sort of version, my perspective of how we got to this point. One of the things that formed very early on in my first legislative session and a little before that is something called the East Idaho Coalition. And that's just a group of more than a dozen of our Eastern Ad O legislators who just wanted to find a good space to come together, talk like adults in the room about policy, wonky stuff sometimes, and just be able to bounce ideas off each other and know that that was a trusted space, that we'd be able to ask hard questions and frankly have better legislation come out of it. And that was just a huge boon to me as a freshman legislator to know that I had these experienced legislators, both senators and representatives that were mentoring me. And then as I met Reg and we hit things off and I think without actually actively recognizing how many commonalities we had, a lot of our conversation was how do we take that statewide? How do we give that same kind of opportunity to all of as many legislators as we can throughout the state? And so that's kind of where we started to build the model off of Eastern Idaho Coalition.
Senator Treg Bernt (04:53):
I would agree a lot with what Representative Wheeler said at the end of the day where there's strength in numbers and the vast majority of Idahoans expect Idaho's solutions. And right now you see a lot of vitriol, you see a lot of divisiveness in our party and we wanted to put together a group of reasonable conservative Republicans that care a lot about Idaho and want to serve and want to get it right.
Brennan Summers (05:21):
It seems simple, but to those who have just tuned in that we need to take this back a little bit to Schoolhouse Rock. Government 1 0 1. Let's start with this is a Main Street caucus. Some people, their understanding of caucus is the Iowa Caucus exists and we elect presidents or from parties. Let's go back. First off, why don't we start with what is the caucus and then let's get into how this actually functions in Boise. Senator, do you want to start? Sure.
Senator Treg Bernt (05:47):
So a caucus is a group of like-minded individuals, in this case, legislators that get together and we discuss policy. In this case we discuss and we are together as one. That doesn't mean that we always disagree. I believe the disagreement leads to big ideas and I think at the end of the day that's the most important thing. But a caucus, this caucus is we're not trying to take anything away from a Republican caucus that currently exists. This is just a group of, again, like-minded individuals who care a lot and want to see reasonable policies supported and put forward in the out of state legislature.
Brennan Summers (06:28):
Give us an example of some other caucuses that might be existing over in the legislature right now. You mentioned the Republican caucus as a whole. We got Main Street Caucus. Where else do like-minded people group up over
Senator Treg Bernt (06:36):
There? I'm part of another caucus. I'm part of the Sportsman's caucus. Okay. We discuss a lot of issues related to hunting and out the outdoors and conservation, et cetera. And so we meet once a month and we discuss those policy issues as well. So very similar in how we operate.
Brennan Summers (06:55):
And so with these caucuses, you talked about like-minded Main Street, it evokes this feeling of I'm walking down Main Street chamber business and both of you being small business owners yourselves, is that kind of one of the focuses that you were hoping this caucus would achieve is economic growth?
Representative Josh Wheeler (07:10):
I don't understand. Yeah. I mean one of the things that we believe in strongly is that the least regulated amount of business that you can have is the more prosperous business. The more prosperous business community you have in the state, the better off the state is then the better off the citizens are. And we believe in responsible growth. One of the things that I recently heard, governor little comment is that change is inevitable. But adapting to and adjusting to that change is a choice. And we believe that we've got to make those choices and that means having some of these hard conversations that Senator Burt referred to. It means some disagreement without being disagreeable, without bullying one another into trying to look at it one way or the other. So those are a couple of the big ones. And then some of those just frankly, old Republican principles. We believe in the rule of law. We believe in supporting our first responders, law enforcement. We believe in finding the smart solutions for healthcare throughout the state. Those are some of the principles that we really stand for. And again, I think most importantly to me is just having a trusted space where legislators can work with one another and know that in the very next moment they're not going to be thrown under the bus on whatever the social media sight of the day is. I think it's acts these days, I can't remember the name,
Senator Treg Bernt (08:38):
But that doesn't mean where we play Patty Ke and smile at each other and everything's great. We disagree. I don't agree with my wife 100% of the time, let alone fellow legislators. And so I think that's a reasonable approach. Now,
Brennan Summers (08:55):
You talked a little bit about strength in numbers as you guys group up in this caucus, what are some of the goals you're hoping to accomplish in the upcoming session? And maybe, well, let's start with, let's look back. What are you proud of that the caucus was able to do this last session then let's forward of what are you hoping the Caucus canoe in the coming session?
Senator Treg Bernt (09:11):
Number one, I think first and foremost, one of the first things that came out of the gate was, and I think that this has been discussed in past podcasts, is Launch Launch. That was a great initiative that obviously provides scholarships for in-demand careers for students that are coming out of high school, graduating that maybe aren't fully interested in a four-year degree, but have something to give and something to give to community. And they want to maybe go to a community college, et cetera, to study and to get a certificate of such. And I think that those jobs are very much needed. Career technical education as well is another great example.
Representative Josh Wheeler (09:53):
Yeah, I mean, I'll piggyback right off of Senator Burn said one of my favorite words was career technical education. I mean, one of the things that you saw, our Main Street Idaho caucus members help get put together as the Career ready students program, which is kind of the part of the pipeline before launch where we get students pointed at these career technical opportunities while they're still in middle school and high school. I think launch is a great example. I mean, the other one I think you'll find that probably all of our main Street Idaho Cox members are proud of is the property tax relief bills and sector. And that's one that you can see the caucus worked with the whole Republican caucus to get that done and give credit where credit was due. Everybody worked hard to make that one happen. And then you'll see some that we had members that are on different sides of votes, but they had some real serious discussions before they got to that point. And in the end of the day, a lot of what our members recognize is we represent our constituents. And a constituent in District 35 a lot of times has some different ways they want to see things done than a constituent in, I mean, district 21 or maybe even in district one. I mean, we have to keep that in mind. And that's one of the things that's really important to us as members of Main Street Sierra Caucus. Sure,
Senator Treg Bernt (11:13):
The Big tent Republican approach is very much needed in this state. And it's okay to be different. It's okay to have different perspectives, but at the end of the day, we're all conservative Republicans. Again, a Kune County Republican maybe is a little bit different than a Bandit County Republican, but at the end of the day, we're all playing for the same team, and I think that's what's most important.
Brennan Summers (11:35):
Yeah, let's elaborate on that because we've heard the idea that the worst thing you can do is speak ill of another conservative that's come out Reagan rule, that's the Reagan rule. But in Idaho, that's definitely not the case. And you gentlemen have had targets on your back from the left for some of your votes as being far too conservative. But also from the right at times they will paint you with the Republican in name alone. How do you find this meeting where you're able to say, I'm a conservative Republican? Well, you got people to the right of you that say no and people left of you that's saying, well, that's not where you should be either.
Senator Treg Bernt (12:06):
No, that's a great question. I just recently read a book, it's Love Your Enemies by Arthur C. Brooks. And if you guys haven't read it, I would highly recommend it. It provides great perspective on what we're coming from as a caucus. But inside the book there's a quote and it says, when elephants fight the grass, it's the grass that suffers. And so at the end of the day, I approach it as I listen to my constituents, we pass legislation and we debate regarding what is coming from our different districts and from our constituents. And ultimately it's our constituents that we listen to and who are most important. But at the end of the day, if we don't do that, it's the grass that suffers, right? It's the constituents who suffer the most and they're the ones that need reasonable policy lawmaking more than anyone.
Brennan Summers (12:59):
And the average constituent out there, maybe not even the average voter, just the average constituent, they might not know your name, they might not know what a legislator does, let alone a caucus. Aaron
Senator Treg Bernt (13:09):
Wheeler's pretty popular guy.
Brennan Summers (13:11):
He's a very popular guy, especially over here. They know he
Senator Treg Bernt (13:13):
Walks down this street, everyone waves.
Brennan Summers (13:15):
That's true. He signs autograph regularly, which unless
Representative Josh Wheeler (13:18):
You need somebody for pickup basket,
Brennan Summers (13:20):
It's not that good. How do you take an approach to informing your constituents of some of these very complicated issues? We talk about launch, talk about some of the water issues representative, why don't you come in and say, and help us see, how do you go about helping the people in your district understand some of these difficult things going on in Boise?
Representative Josh Wheeler (13:37):
Yeah, I'm glad you're asking that, Brennan, because the truth is that is one of our goals as the main Street Idaho caucus. One of the things we've heard from most of our members is help us tell the story. Tell the good story. Because it's so easy to get buried of the noise. And I'll tell you honestly for me, Brennan, so freshman legislators, this is my first time over there, honestly, the first year, do you feel like a freshman? Depends on the, that's why I grew the beard. So I feel less like a crasher. But the honest truth is for me, I haven't been that far away from my family, from my wife and kids in a long time. And so to be that far apart every day and then to call home and try to explain to my wife, to my sweetheart of 25 years, Hey, here's going on here was the good things.
(14:24):
And it actually took me a while. Honestly, it took me probably about four weeks into the session to realize I better tell her the good stories over here. Just marinating in some of that nastiness. And it's so easy to find the junk. It's so easy to pick up the trash, especially if you get out there on the social media or what have you. But then to be able to tell her the good stories, the property tax relief that was coming, the stuff that we did for education, the stuff that we're doing for infrastructure, the way that we're empowering local government to make decisions that are going to be best for, whether it's the people in Montpelier, Idaho or whether it's the people over Meridian. I mean, those are different solutions. And so telling that story to her, to me, that's why I want Main Street to do to as many of our constituents as they can is tell that story of all the legislators who have chosen to be involved in mainstream, because there are so many of 'em, and I know you've interviewed some of 'em already, some of the work they're doing is fantastic.
(15:21):
Whether it's finding Medicaid cost relief or program improvements, whether it's school facility funding. I mean, that's stuff that my sweetheart cares about. And so to me that means I know many of my constituents are going to care about it too. And
Brennan Summers (15:35):
Most things in life, it seems like the negative is just easier to find and it's easier to explain. And you too, I've seen it, you've had Z, the mailers could come out campaign season. It's so much easier to explain how awful of a job you've done in a couple sentences versus explaining some of the good stuff you've done. So Senator, if I'm sitting in Meridian and I'm thinking, where can I find what actually my senator in Boise is doing? Where might I look to get some of the stuff that you're actually up to?
Senator Treg Bernt (15:59):
So I mean, as a legislator, it's really tough to hide and not saying that I would ever want to, but I have social media platforms from Twitter to Facebook to Instagram, and we have a great team that we all do, I believe a good job messaging what's going on during session and out of session who we're talking to, the meetings that we're having at Main Street with Main Street businesses, with Main Street people at our individual cities. And for example, in my district this next week, they're having a Medicaid town hall talking about Medicaid and what that looks like, managed care, et cetera. And so you can find those messages on my social media platform. I think that same thing with Josh and other main Streeters as well.
Representative Josh Wheeler (16:50):
Yeah, absolutely. And then as much as we can, if you go to the Main Street Idaho website, we will amplify those messages as much as we can. One of the things we've done is we've made connections with a lot of the local papers. And so you're seeing op-eds come out from either from individual Main Street, Iddo caucus members, or from as much of the caucus as can. And one that, I'll give you example of that, most recently came out Chanel Dixon and incredible representative from over in the Twin Falls area. She is doing her homework and working hard to better understand the fentanyl issue and how mandatory minimums could better serve all the citizens of Idaho, help our kids be safer. And I'm here to tell you, that's some work. She's doing some homework. I don't think people realize that. We want people to realize that we won't tell that story and say, so when that shows up in committee, when it gets to the floor, people understand, Hey, look, here's the work that main legislators have been doing to make that happen.
Senator Treg Bernt (17:52):
Right? It is just important to stay above the fray. That's what people want. They're sick of the divisiveness. They're sick of the fighting, they're sick of the name calling people. Our constituents want legislators to get together to come up with solutions for Idaho. It's, that's simple. It's not rocket science. It's the legislators. Sometimes we complicate it and we're here to simplify it and to get stuff done. And that's what we aim to do.
Brennan Summers (18:17):
Yeah, they say Christmas dinner, Thanksgiving, don't talk religion or politics. I think it's doing it wrong. Right. I agree. And I know you two have, you've mentioned already on this podcast that talking like adults in the room of coming together and disagreeing better, let's have a little conversation about what's the state of civility of Idaho politics, where are we struggling, and what are some action points that your listeners here on the podcast can do? And then maybe what some other legislators could do. To your point, Senator rise above the frame, disagree better.
Senator Treg Bernt (18:48):
Yeah, I mean, one thing that comes to mind, one thing that we need to realize is that when you disagree, that doesn't mean, I think big ideas come from disagreement. I expect disagreement. I think that competitiveness comes from disagreement. We're always better with this agreement. That's fine. We're not asking for perfection, we're just asking for us to be more respectful. Civility is an interesting word. I think it's important, but I think that we need to be respectful and we need to really not draw a hard line in the sand and say either you're 100% with us or we're going to throw you out in the water. That's not what constituents want. Ultimately, it's okay to navigate those gray areas. And I'm not saying that we shouldn't stand up for our core values. That's not what we're seeing at all. We need to stand up for who we are and what we represent, but we need to be able to be open-minded in those discussions as well, because there might be something there that we're missing.
Representative Josh Wheeler (19:55):
What I'll say, Brennan is just one. And here's what I mean by that. Again, I've had Thanksgiving dinners and Christmas dinners. I got four beautiful daughters. I got two wonderful sons. I got a raft of different opinions. When I get those people all to G. And what I will say is just one more question. Just ask one more question. That person, when they bring that view that is frankly insane, that seems crazy to you, you can ask just one more question. Well, why do you feel that way? Well, where did you hear that? And well, what do you think that means that we need to do A, B, C, whether it's policy or how we treat each other. I mean, being willing to ask a question rather than just a past judgment, I think is one of the ways that we can, let's just call it save Thanksgiving dinner. And all I'll say is I've tried to live that way in my family. I've tried to respect my kids whatever age they were, and give them opportunity to explain to me why that's the way they feel. Even when I disagree with 'em. I think that we can disagree and not demonize. And that's what's happened is especially on the national scene, demonization has become the way to operate. And Idaho doesn't need that. That's not how Idaho built the incredible state that we built.
Senator Treg Bernt (21:16):
Are we able to give standing ovations?
Brennan Summers (21:19):
That's it, right? A podcast. That was an ain man. Hey, was to drop the mic. We want to give this guy a hug right now. That's exactly
Representative Josh Wheeler (21:27):
What we're talking about.
Brennan Summers (21:29):
Print work. He's a good one, right? That's why nobody loves
Senator Treg Bernt (21:31):
Him. I'm screaming, oh yeah, you could sense that passion, but absolutely well done. That's exactly how we feel,
Brennan Summers (21:37):
Right? And we look at our documents, our founding documents. To your point, Senator Disagreement brought us the constitution, but so in compromise, and it required none of our founders to actually get rid of their core beliefs. So I love this idea that you just taught us, we can ask more questions, we can disagree better and still stand under ground. This is fantastic. Did
Senator Treg Bernt (21:55):
Jefferson and Adams get along the second act of their lives? I mean, they were together. They were considered the north and south pole of the Declaration of Independence. They became moral enemies when they were running against each other and they got political. They found a way to become friends again.
Representative Josh Wheeler (22:18):
And let me add to that, Benjamin Rush helped bring him together as friends. There's a founding father. We don't talk about that much, and that's okay. He didn't do that much, but he did help those two old war horses come together.
Senator Treg Bernt (22:33):
I think it's impossible.
Brennan Summers (22:34):
So the moral of the story of this is more Adams and Jeffersons, less Hamiltons and burs, right? Yes. We don't need to be shooting each other over in Boise. We can disagree. We can come together. Now, Jim, let's talk about some things we're excited about. When you look at the next session coming up, what gets you excited? What gets you ready to make that trip back over to Boise to spend those long days in the Capitol? What are you looking forward to, Senator?
Senator Treg Bernt (23:01):
One thing that I'm working on, I have a friend who is and myself, we're going to do some legislation regarding drunk driving, mandatory minimums, maybe create some more tax policy regarding maybe giving breaks to Idaho citizens during certain times of the year. Those are some things without getting into some details, but those are some things that I'm going to work on that I'm really excited about this next upcoming. That's
Brennan Summers (23:29):
A great teaser. Now remind us what committees you've been sitting on.
Senator Treg Bernt (23:32):
So I'm the vice chair of state affairs, and I also sit on a local government and taxation.
Brennan Summers (23:37):
Fantastic. And both in the Senate, you with US representative, what are you looking forward to?
Representative Josh Wheeler (23:41):
So I'm on the house side. I'm on health and welfare, then energy environment, technology and commerce and hr. And actually what I'm working on, one that's commerce and HR related is, and it's also related to career technical education again, but I want to make sure that we can do some skills-based hiring and not just have degree required hiring. Because a lot of times, even in our state employment, we have jobs and job descriptions, and it says a four year degree or minimum required. And you might have a guy that's got 20 years experience in the industry that didn't get that particular degree or didn't get a degree, and he is absolutely the right person to take the state to the next level, and we're leaving him out in the cold. Or we're going to get these kids that will go through the IHA launch program and they will come out with incredible skills, certifications and experience, and they might be the right solution. So that's one that I'm working on. We mentioned a couple others already, I think that I'm excited about to support other members. The fentanyl thing, there is a Medicaid conversation going on with pretty much all of our Main Street Idaho members that I think is really valuable. That is a complicated issue, but I think we're going to have some solutions. We're going to see some solutions. And those are a few, there's more. But
Brennan Summers (24:54):
Yeah, all I'm sure, I
Representative Josh Wheeler (24:55):
Know you're lip on top.
Brennan Summers (24:56):
We are in touch and we got to know, what are you eating? What restaurant do you recommend? What are you reading? What book do you recommend? And then what are you watching? What movie can you recommend, Senator?
Senator Treg Bernt (25:05):
Great question. So since Top Gun, I think that the latest movie that I watched, sound of Freedom, great movie. Every Republican in the entire nation is seen that movie awesome. Highly recommend it. Reading a book right now called The Courage to Be Disliked, great philosophical approach to interpersonal relationships, pretty fascinating. And anyone that knows me, I'm a reading guy, and without a shadow of a doubt, the best place to eat in downtown meridian of Main Street, mainstream Meridian cahoots.
Brennan Summers (25:41):
Cahoots. You got to love cahoots. And this isn't endorsed. They're not paying you for this. They're not free endorsement by
Senator Treg Bernt (25:46):
You. If you are Meridian, I, you know exactly where you'll find me at noon on a Tuesday.
Brennan Summers (25:50):
That's what a good time. I love it. Great Recommendations.
Representative Josh Wheeler (25:53):
That's amazing,
Brennan Summers (25:54):
Josh.
Representative Josh Wheeler (25:55):
Let's see. Well, let me start with, I'll start with the book. The one I would recommend, frankly, because I feel like it changed my life just a few years ago, and it's nice to go back and revisit it, but it's The Happiness Advantage. I mean, it's just an incredible kind of deep dive into positive psychology and the Body Keeps Score and why that's important. People are funny because you think of my district, you think of District 35 and you're thinking agriculture and small towns. You don't know the restaurants unless you get out.
Brennan Summers (26:28):
He's get up at somebody, let
Representative Josh Wheeler (26:29):
You get out there. I don't,
Brennan Summers (26:30):
He should be able to.
Representative Josh Wheeler (26:32):
I'll just tell you the one that comes to my mind first of mind, because it's one that my family will literally say, we should drive up there and get a burger, right? Like the best burger you'll ever have. And that's the American brakeman in Victor.
Brennan Summers (26:43):
Oh, fantastic. It's like
Representative Josh Wheeler (26:44):
Right as you come into Victor, it is the most incredible burger you'll ever have. Make sure you check their hours. The one thing that's a little wonky about 'em, it's like tax policy. You're not quite sure when it's going to be Incredible Burger though, and gosh, the movie. Well, I mean, TR Stole the obvious one, but I mean, honestly,
(27:03):
Barbie, no. If you got kids, you got kids, you go take him to see the new Spiderman cartoon baby across the spider spider. Awesome.
(27:13):
Well, that's the fun one.
Brennan Summers (27:15):
Well, I appreciate indulging me on that. I've now got a couple new places to eat and a couple new movies to watch,
Senator Treg Bernt (27:20):
Meet when you come to
Brennan Summers (27:21):
Meridian. Appreciate it. That's everybody listening. Do you hear that? Absolutely. Trey will pay for all of our food down there. Codes. All right, gentlemen, we've covered a lot Today. We talked about why we put together Main Street Caucus, the goals of, we talked about how we may be able to disagree better. We looked at our founding Fathers, might be an example of how we in Boise can come together and solve more problems as we depart, I think of the young families you have relative, and as you're in this position of influence, what are you hoping they're watching and learning from you? Is it okay if we start with you, Senator? Yeah,
Senator Treg Bernt (27:50):
So Idaho has given me a ton. I've been super blessed in my life to enjoy all things Idaho, and if there's one thing that I truly want for my kiddos is to have the same type of Idaho that I grew up in. And so huge blessing. It choked up a little bit, but huge blessing in my life to be able to walk down those halls at the Capitol and to really do great things for Idaho. Hopefully my kiddos have an opportunity to enjoy the things that I've been blessed with as well.
Brennan Summers (28:21):
Matt's wonderful.
Representative Josh Wheeler (28:23):
Josh. I think mine's pretty similar because what I want, and the reason I'm so glad that the Main Street Caucus exists, and we're going to tell this positive story, is I want my kids to hear the good stories of Iddo, right? It's real easy to find the new story that something wacky happened, right? No, I mean, I want my kids, I got two daughters that are going to end up in the healthcare industry. I got one that's going to be an incredible educator. I got one that I don't know what she'll do with her life, honestly, but she'll be the greatest politician or business owner of all of us. And my son's still little. He's 10 years old, but I just want them to understand and see and be grateful for the Idaho that gave them the life that they have, that gave them the life that I have. And to be reminded, like I said, the reason I got popped in, this is the community that lifted me up, and I want them to always remember that and see that over and over again in the good stories.
Brennan Summers (29:20):
Well, gentlemen, we're grateful. We're grateful that you've cut aside the time for us. We're not in favor of carve outs, but you carved out some time for us, which we appreciate Senator coming over, representative you came across the street, but we still appreciate it just as much. Thanks. This has been a wonderful time. It's been optimistic and positive, and we'll hope to have you back soon. All right. For sure. Okay, we're here with Senator Trig, burnt representative Josh Wheeler, and we'll see you next time.
Main Street Idaho Podcast Episode 3: Representative Stephanie Mickelsen on Education and Opportunities
“Anytime we can invest in future generations and if they’ll make their contribution, it’s a win-win for everybody.
”
Brennan Summers (00:00):
Welcome to Main Street Podcast, an opportunity to talk to I Idaho's elected leaders about the issues that matter to you. Hello everybody. And welcome. I'm Brennan Summers and I'm here with Representative Stephanie Mickelson of the Main Street Caucus. Representative Kelson serves legislative district 32 seat A, correct?
Representative Stephanie Mickelsen (00:25):
That's correct. Brennan,
Brennan Summers (00:26):
Thanks so much for being here, Stephanie. We appreciate it.
Representative Stephanie Mickelsen (00:29):
Well, thanks for having me. You wondered what I was doing this summer, so I, I like to tell people I've gone back to my real life. I have a full-time job that I do, so I've been doing that and I have a full-time job with my 14 grandkids and our farm during the summer. So that has kept me exceptionally busy. Yeah.
Brennan Summers (00:45):
So far. The farmer's town's coming along nice. It is
Representative Stephanie Mickelsen (00:46):
Coming along very nicely. Yes.
Brennan Summers (00:48):
So you are representative Stephanie Mickelson. You just finished up your first session in the Idaho House, correct?
Representative Stephanie Mickelsen (00:54):
Correct. I just finished the first session and hope a couple more to go. You survived it. I survived it. Yeah, that's true. I often told people I was running through the gauntlet on some of the bills that you had to vote on. It felt like running through a gauntlet to see if you could still live another day.
Brennan Summers (01:08):
Well, I'm excited to talk about what some of those bills are, some of the challenges, some of the successes. But first there's some people out there who unfortunately don't know who you are. So let's get into who is Stephanie Mickelson? What makes you tick? What have you been involved in? You told us you're chasing grandkids. You told us you got a farm to run. What else is going on?
Representative Stephanie Mickelsen (01:25):
So I've, I've been involved in the water world and the water world's kind of been for groundwater in this area for quite some time. So that keeps me busy. We've had some real hard challenges so far this year. I also am C F O for Mickelson Farms which is my full-time job, my real life, as I like to say. I also like to do a lot of gardening and reading and some of those kind of things that I didn't get to do during the session. So that's what I've been doing. Mike.
Brennan Summers (01:49):
Oh, fantastic. Married to Mark.
Representative Stephanie Mickelsen (01:51):
Married to Mark. Yep. You're better. 35 years. Whoa.
Brennan Summers (01:55):
35 years. How many grandkids? 14. So the big cutting edge question is, which is more difficult serving in Idaho legislature or chasing 13 grandkids?
Representative Stephanie Mickelsen (02:04):
14. 14. I think sometimes chasing the 14 grandkids. I had my daughter here for two and a half weeks, and I was like, I needed a break by the time she left home and left my house. 'cause It was making me tired. Yeah. I still love my little grandkids, my little, as I call them.
Brennan Summers (02:18):
So you'll let Speaker Mole know your job is way more difficult than his when it comes to getting everyone in line. That's
Representative Stephanie Mickelsen (02:23):
Exactly right. Especially when you're talking 14 kids, seven and under.
Brennan Summers (02:27):
So why does somebody who's out running a farm chasing grandkids decide? You know what? I think I'm gonna go spend a few months of the year in Boise and deal with all of the drama that comes with that.
Representative Stephanie Mickelsen (02:38):
You know, mark and I talked, and it was in December before we had a fi I had a file in March, and one of the things that we really talked about was how blessed we'd been by this community that had been around us, and that it was our part, it was our time to kind of give back and to do our part to make a difference because, you know, we've sat on the, the constituent side, but it was time for us. And when I say us, because it, it's sacrifice for both of us to go do that. And so we decided that I would run and give back some time to our community. That's been so good to
Brennan Summers (03:10):
Us. Right, right. So you, you didn't just wake up one morning though and decide because you, you and Mark have been involved in the community for a while. Farm Bureau. Maybe walk through what, what type of things you've been doing with the Farm
Representative Stephanie Mickelsen (03:20):
Bureau? So in Farm Bureau I'd served as a, a women's chair, then a county president. Then I'd served on the state board. I'd also served as a Republican women's president for a couple of years. I've also been a A P C O. I've worked on multiple campaigns. My first campaign I ever worked on was Butch Otters when I was in high school, and he was running for Lieutenant Governor. Whoa. And then I worked on Brad Littles when he was Lieutenant Governor for the first time. So I've been involved in campaigns and in the community for quite some time.
Brennan Summers (03:49):
So, you know, the political world. Yeah, I do education world. Tell us about your role with the community college.
Representative Stephanie Mickelsen (03:57):
Well, I gotta back up. First off, I started as an art mom for all my first graders when they were first grade. And then I would sit on some community you know, the district would have like planning committees, things like that, and, and strategic planning. And I, and I, I did those. But then when I had an opportunity to support the community college, when it came out, it was really important to me because so many kids, you know, they need a skillset and aren't necessarily wanting to go to a four year college. Can't afford to go to a four year college. So I came out early and upfront about my support for the community college and I continue to support that. And so as a result, I was one of the first five inaugural trustees and the vice chair of the board for the five years that I served on the community college board. So education is highly important to me.
Brennan Summers (04:41):
For some the community college is a no brainer. Right. Makes sense. A lot of people have gone through it, have been success stories from it, but there were some opposition to it. What was the leading cause of why people did not want to see the College of East Schneider come about?
Representative Stephanie Mickelsen (04:55):
I think there were those people in the community that felt like the cost was too much, which I don't think you can do enough to invest in the future generations, because those people, if you'll make an investment in them, eventually they, that investment paints back a lot more over time because they become contributing members of society with a good tax, you know, with a, with a job. So then they can become taxpayers and they can, you know, then pay it forward for the next generation.
Brennan Summers (05:21):
You sound like a Republican, teach man to fish, don't give 'em the fish, right? Yeah,
Representative Stephanie Mickelsen (05:24):
That's exactly right. And you know, I think the community college and how far it's come, some people the detractors will say, well, they haven't met all their goals, or they don't have quite as high of, of, of, you know, enrollment as they plan. But in many ways they have met all of their, their goals and, and they're continuing to work on that that the different types of degrees that they have within that college meet, the career, the demand that's for careers in our area. And more than ever, as the site continues to grow, we need to have that feeder from the community college to the jobs that fit the site out here.
Brennan Summers (05:57):
That is a perfect segue into maybe, and I don't wanna put words in your mouth, but maybe one of your bigger legislative accomplishments, Idaho launch.
Representative Stephanie Mickelsen (06:04):
Oh, yeah. Idaho Launch was fantastic. It gives $8,000 for students that are gonna go into in demand fields. There's gonna have to be some skin in the game where they, they're paying for a portion of it, and they're gonna have to have some oversight, and they're gonna have to make sure that they're, you know, getting good grades and doing the right things. But anytime we can invest in future generations and if they'll make their contribution, it's a win-win for everybody.
Brennan Summers (06:32):
So walk us through what your role was in launch. I mean, start to finish, somebody came to you and said, I mean, the governor was, this was one of his big priorities. How, how did this come to be? Because it was close at the end, right?
Representative Stephanie Mickelsen (06:43):
Right. I, it was, well, what came to be is I, the governor just asked for, for a, a meeting, so I didn't have any idea what the meeting was about, but I went in there and he explains, you know, that he wanted to start this program. And it, this program can always end if it doesn't work correctly, it can just not be funded by Ja, you know, by the legislature if we find that it's not, you know, working the way that we had hoped. But he pulled me and asked me, you know, how it was going and then proceeded to ask for my support on launch. So that's, that's where I came down. And once I make a commitment, I tend to follow up with my, i I do follow up with my commitments. Other people had made commitments and then they turned on those commitments. But I like to be a person that when I say I'll do something, that I do it. So my word is my bond.
Brennan Summers (07:28):
And were you surprised as a freshman legislature legislator coming in that you had so much opportunity to contribute? I mean, I know when we talked sometimes it was, you know, you wanna come in, you wanna learn and you wanna make sure you understand how things are going and be mentored by those that you've looked up to. But you kind of jumped in and I'm sure you had lots of opportunities to learn, but you also had lots of opportunities to contribute.
Representative Stephanie Mickelsen (07:50):
I did. I was surprised in some ways I kind of felt like it was a little slow at the front, and I kept saying, holy cow, I'm missing work for this. I hadn't, but, but then it did pick up and it was, it was great to work with people, like-minded legislators to kind of form coalitions on the bills and the different areas that we knew we needed support on. And so I did jump in and, and worked really well with, with my fellow legislators. It was really the freshman class this year. We, they called it the freshman farm or the freshmen, you know, we were all trying to come up with different names for it, but ultimately this group of freshmen legislators really made a difference because they came in more thoughtful, probably than prior generations of legislators coming in. And we tend to try to work together for a solution, not necessarily a partisan solution, but a solution that made sense for our constituents across our districts.
Brennan Summers (08:41):
That's, I I love the way you're looking at it, particularly not what's the party gonna think what are our donors gonna think, but it's okay. Who the people that actually, you know, checked our name on the box, how are they gonna feel about this? And launch is a beautiful example of that, right? Right. Hey, you're, you're a student graduating from, you know Bonneville High School, and you've gotta decide, what am I gonna do with my life? Launch provides an opportunity where you don't have to leave the state to get educated. You don't have to leave the state to get employed,
Representative Stephanie Mickelsen (09:05):
And you don't even have to leave the, the, the, the community to leave to get, to get the, the training and then the job. And so for, you know, when you think at the community college, they actually have some great degrees over there that pay a very nice living wage if you can get through those programs. And so that's why it's just really critical that we think about future generations and make investments in future generations, not thinking, oh gee, we just have to save every penny, which we need to be very careful with those pennies, don't get me wrong. But you have to make investments. Just like on the farm, I have to decide if my main line's bad or if my you know, if, if I need a new pivot. Because if I don't invest in that, and then my crop gets ruined because of it, it's been a poor decision. Just in the same way that we have to make investments in this state with our tax dollars that will pay dividends in future generations and in future years.
Brennan Summers (09:58):
Yeah. That politicians love to say Idaho's greatest resource are youth, but the problem is all we've done is export that resource. Right. And we need to figure out a way to keep 'em. I know that's been important to the governor, and clearly it's supporting you to keep all those 14 grandkids in Idaho.
Representative Stephanie Mickelsen (10:11):
Yeah. And the other thing I think people forget is we have a demand for employees across this state, across this nation. So we're going to have to get a lot more laser focused on how we get those people to, you know, get educated and then stay here.
Brennan Summers (10:27):
Fantastic. You talk about the word invest, right? Right. Beautiful analogy with if you don't invest in the farm crop, don't grow. Right. We also have to find opportunities to cut waste. Right, right. We're spending way too much on this. Where did you find fiscal conservative Stephanie Mickelson? Where did you find opportunities in the legislature? You said, you know what that's money we can return back title homes. That's money we don't need to spend or invest.
Representative Stephanie Mickelsen (10:50):
So part of that came in the property tax bill, and I would've liked to have seen that a little bit cleaner than it ended up. But, you know, we were really only given one choice. And so you take the chance that you get rather than saying, oh, no, no, the the perfect bill has to come along because if you wait for perfect, you may never get it. Sure. I would've liked to have seen the state when we, we did pass the property tax relief Bill. I would've liked to have seen all of that go towards the state's responsibility in building buildings in for public schools rather than kind of all property tax classes. It would've been better to just have come from, you know, what the state's obligation was for public schools.
Brennan Summers (11:27):
So for people who may not understand or follow the legislature, give us the, the absolute basic version of what, what did this property tax bill do? Because people are gonna talk a lot about cutting taxes and property taxes have been a thorn in the side of so many Idahoans who are struggling to, you know, get by. It's pretty good with like home prices. They, then they get this property tax bill. It's a nightmare. What did the legislature do? And the very basics of ensuring that this is not the problem it used to be. And how does a school building play into the role of a property tax?
Representative Stephanie Mickelsen (11:57):
Well, first off, I, I think we need to remember that Idaho's property tax load is one of the lowest in the country. People don't like to point out that, but it is what the property tax bill did was it took a certain pot of money, and that goes against your just homeowners property tax bill. So they got, I believe it was like two thirds of the pot at that point. And then there's this other pot which will eventually grow that's responsible for the, the building, the buildings within school districts. And so our, our local school districts, they, their property tax goes to pay for their, for their buildings and for their you know, any excess above what the state gives them. But this specifically only goes towards buildings for those communities. So if you have a community a district that needs to eventually build a building, if they don't have any bonds or levies out there that relate to buildings, they can actually bank this money and then use it for, for buildings in the future.
Brennan Summers (12:56):
So they don't have to run the bond to ask for more money in those situations.
Representative Stephanie Mickelsen (13:00):
In those situations. Yeah. So there are some districts, there's one or two districts across the state that don't have any, any bonds for buildings right now. I know District 91 here has a very minimal amount, and they're about paid off. So they could start banking that money too, you know, for, for our new high school, which they need or they can use it against when they go to bond. To have this pot of money helps, helps with their, their rating to get their body to
Brennan Summers (13:28):
Right. A complicated issue, make it easy.
Representative Stephanie Mickelsen (13:31):
It looked like a spaghetti bowl. When you looked at all the parts and pieces on that, on the property tax relief bill, it looked like a spaghetti bowl.
Brennan Summers (13:37):
Do you think in the coming session there'll be opportunities to address it further? Is that kind of an issue that everyone's put to bed?
Representative Stephanie Mickelsen (13:43):
I think that there will be opportunities. I know Senator Lint has been working on some different ideas about, you would have a cookie cutter kind of plan, and the state would pay for the basics, and then if communities wanted to add on fancy gyms or auditoriums, things like that, then they could do that. And they're looking at how they can make a difference moving into the future, because we all know those buildings are getting more and more expensive and getting harder and harder for communities to pass those bonds.
Brennan Summers (14:08):
Yeah. Well, and so speaking of education, let's jump into a topic that you might feel a little passionate about. Everyone's gonna watch your, your blood pressure rise when I say the two words school choice. Right, right. So let's, this was a big issue in this session, and it's been an issue across the country, right. In Virginia, Glenn Youngin ran and won on the idea of, you know, parents need a say in their kids' education, and you're supportive of parents being involved in students' education. Right?
Representative Stephanie Mickelsen (14:35):
Absolutely. And we actually passed a bill this session, I believe it was sponsored by Representative Poorman, where parents can choose to send their child to any public school in the state that they have that opportunity to send 'em to whatever public school that there is, whether it's a charter, whether it's a, you know, like a career technical, high school, whatever those are that the parents have the opportunity to
Brennan Summers (14:56):
Do that. So your grandkids, in theory can go to any high school, and I hope they chose
Representative Stephanie Mickelsen (15:02):
To, if they chose to, they could go to any public high school.
Brennan Summers (15:05):
So what's the problem then? What's been the big fight in the legislature about educational freedom?
Representative Stephanie Mickelsen (15:11):
Well, the, the fight is, is they think we don't have educational choice, but we have educational choice. We just don't have the choice that the taxpayers are gonna pay all those bills. And so when you talk about educational choice, people are thinking, oh, I, I, I want my child, you know, the money to follow the child. Well, it can, within the public education system, it can absolutely follow your child. But what we forget and what our constitution says is it's a free, thorough public education. It doesn't say private education. And so when educational choice comes up, everybody's like, you know, as a catchphrase, they think that's fantastic. But then when I say, oh, well, do you want to, as a taxpayer subsidize a say the School of the Satanic cult? And people are like, what? No, no, I don't wanna do that. And you're like, well, what happens is, is if you open that door, the Supreme Court has said, if you open the door for private schools, parochial schools, and every other school, can they, the the money has to go to them as well.
(16:06):
So in other states, for example, Indiana the biggest beneficiary of this school choice, and this vouchers if you will, it's, it's actually vouchers, is the Catholic Archdiocese. And in like Florida, they started a program, the first year it was 130 million. Within three years it was $1.3 billion. And so what happens is, is then it boomerangs back to the county or to the district level, and then counties and districts are having to go back out and levy to even be able to meet payroll. Because what you're happening is the cream of the crops coming off the top, and then the public school system has to have the hotel load for any kid that might wanna come into their system. They have the, the children with great needs that need to be educated, and they're left with, with you know, not enough budget to handle those demands that they have. So we have choice. We have choice for people to homeschool, we have choice for people to take their children to public education or to private education. And we have a choice for 'em to be in the public school system. We just don't have the needs whereby the taxpayer's gonna be on the hook for somebody to take their child. And do we want to, as, as taxpayers pay a parent 8,000, $10,000 a kid to homeschool 'em and not have any requirements? I don't think. So.
Brennan Summers (17:26):
This is an issue that people have strong opinions about. Right. Right. So what, what do you see on the other side of this? The people who were very supportive of a voucher like system? What were the arguments they were making to you as to why this was so necessary that you support this legislation?
Representative Stephanie Mickelsen (17:41):
I think their thing was is, well, I should get to have a choice. And, and I think that they do. I just don't think that they get to have the taxpayers pay for those choices. I I think we've come into a world where, you know, I wanna do whatever I wanna do and I want somebody else to pay for it. Well, that doesn't really work. And it, and the public education system won't work if we do that.
Brennan Summers (18:02):
Some concerns that I'd heard from parents about this was, yeah, we like the idea of people choosing where they get to go to school. But the concern was, if the money is going with the student to a private institution, where's the regulation? How comfortable are we with the government coming into private schools and saying, well, did you teach the student these types of standards? Did that come up in, in, you know, are they, is the money actually going to make it to the schools? Our homeschool parents? How do we check that they're actually spending this type of money on the student? Is there opportunities for a lot of waste and fraud here?
Representative Stephanie Mickelsen (18:37):
I I think that's the biggest problem is I think you have a lot of waste and fraud if you're going to take money out of the public education system. Because currently within the public education system, we have testing. So we, we have an idea about where the, you know, where the deficits are, those kind of things. If you just hand money to private homeschooling right now in our state, we do not have any, if you homeschool your kid, we don't have any requirements. They don't have to pass any tests, they don't have to have any certain curriculum, nothing. Right. So the homeschool organizations have actually said, we don't want this because they don't want to start being regulated just in the same way that a private school does not want to be regulated by the state. And I think that if you're going to spend state taxpayer dollars, you're going to have to have the very same requirements, including the, the attendance requirements and also them having to take everybody that that wants to be there. Yeah. Isn't that the most fair way? Right. That's what I would
Brennan Summers (19:39):
Think. So you voted against any kind of voucher program, correct?
Representative Stephanie Mickelsen (19:44):
Well, I didn't have to vote against any of it because the education committee did not allow any of those bills through because they felt like that they all had significant flaws. And that was very frustrating for some people that were putting forth those bills. There was one bill that came to me in the Redmond Tax, and that was to have a tax credit for, for parents that homeschool their children or private school. But the question I had was is how much is this gonna cost this? And where, where are the standards that they have to meet? Right. And so and it was at the very end, Gerald representative Raymond said, I'd like to, 'cause the guy said, well, I think I can jump through all the hoops and get this through. And it was like within a couple days of us getting outta session, and we were specifically told all bills had had to come to us prior to that. So I voted no, just, and Gerald Representative Raymond voted yes, just because he said, I wanna save it can make it through all these hoops. Yeah.
Brennan Summers (20:38):
It's interesting how it could have turned into such an expensive price tag for the taxpayers, but the people who are supporting it are the same ones are criticizing launch for its price tag. Right, right. That's funny. That way. Let's talk about, so you mentioned kind of slow getting started, but then it got going and yet everything thrown at you. Now you've got a little bit of a break in terms of this, this session. What are you working on now and what are you getting ready to address in the upcoming session?
Representative Stephanie Mickelsen (21:06):
So, a couple of things that I'm thinking about addressing, one of them I know for sure I'm going to address is I want the transparency in election donations and inputting of money, dark money from out of state. So currently there's a line in code that specifically says that if you're out of state, then you just have to do it by like, I think the end of the year or something. Well, the problem is, is if you're running for office and all of a sudden you have all this trash mail coming into you, right. Or, you know, into your race and somebody's trashing your reputation, it would be nice to know where those dollars are coming from and who's doing that. So you can address those, you know, those negative flyers and that negative input that's coming into a, to a campaign. But right now they get a, it's a free for all for them as long as they're an out-of-state group.
(21:58):
So what would stop me from going across state lines into Wyoming, forming some sort of a pack thing, and then funneling money through there to trash my opponent, there's nothing. Right. So I think that if we wanna have good, fair elections, it starts with, with knowing where the money's coming from in, in those campaigns on both sides. Because it, it's like the educational freedom money. Nobody's known where that money's coming from. Who's fund funneling that? Who's paying for that? I had a billboard that came up against me just in the last couple weeks, and it was, it was, you know, who's funneling this? Who's paying for it? I couldn't find out anything.
Brennan Summers (22:35):
Right. Right. So, as Idahoans, we should be concerned that, you know, billionaires out of Silicon Valley are pouring money into our state trying to get their views kind of pressed into our legislature. Right. To get through that money. Absolutely. Yeah. I love that. Water's been an interesting issue. What do you, do you see, sounds like an, a big announcement's been made recently. Do you see water issues coming up in the next session?
Representative Stephanie Mickelsen (22:57):
I absolutely see water coming up in the next election, and I don't think most people have been engaged enough to realize that there's been a big water problem. So you have the lower canal companies from the Lower Valley. When I say Lower Valley, I mean outta the Ma Magic Valley, which is Twin Falls in that area. And they felt like that they had been, you know, shorted on their water. So they have made calls against the groundwater users, clear from Twin Falls clear to the Montana, Idaho line. And that has caused a lot of problems. In fact, the director issued an order in April that he was going to shut off 700 to 900,000 acres so that those, those canals could get 75,000 acre feet of water. Well, then yesterday he came out and said, oh, oops, I made a mistake. Really, it, it, there is no shortage, but you had to have everything in place in April or otherwise everybody was gonna get shut off.
(23:53):
So we need to really start probably taking a look at what is beneficial use. And when you're, you're talking about shutting down 900,000 acres of, of irrigated farm ground, when we have food shortages across this country and across this planet, I think we've gotta figure out how to be more efficient. We have to recognize and target that every drop of water in the state has to be well used and used correctly. And currently, there's no incentive in the first in time, first in Right. Priority system to make sure that the senior is using their water appropriately before they make a call on the junior. We also have some problems with the department itself. Instead of having going through the promulgated rules process, which is what every agency's supposed to do, they just have internal memos. So as, as a water person, water user, and you go in and you wanna, you know, file to change some things, you're never sure what the playing field is. 'cause It's constantly shifting. And so we need to look at some of that. We also need to look at making sure that everybody has to have efficiencies in their system to make sure that Idaho doesn't have a race to the bottom, like the Colorado
Brennan Summers (25:03):
River. Sure, sure. Well, I think there's two types of people in the world. There's the people that when you say water issues, they tone out and fall asleep. And then there's the people who jump outta their chair. And so may maybe there's room here for, for you to be able to maybe there's an op-ed in the works for you to kind of communicate public the importance. This is a complicated issue, but it's so important. Right.
Representative Stephanie Mickelsen (25:21):
Well, I think everybody thinks it's a farming issue, but what most people didn't realize was that it's actually affects every single city around the Twin Falls area. Clear up. Sure. So you have the city Vital Falls, the city of Pocatello, you have all these different groups that are, that are going to be affected. It's going to affect the ability of the site to grow. It's going to affect the ability of the city of idle falls to grow. Right. So if we don't figure out and solve this problem, somehow, we are basically shutting down the economic activity of the entire Upper Valley region. And that could bankrupt the state. I mean, you think about having that much, you know, that much injury. There's no way that the state can survive if they lose all the economic impact because it's not just farmers then it then it's equipment dealers, it's, you know, the car dealers, then it's this fast food places. And so it's a, it's a rippling effect.
Brennan Summers (26:12):
Yeah. Agriculture just touches everything in Idaho. Idaho. It's not just the guy with dirt on his boots. It affects all of us. My grandpa would always say Whiskey's for drinking, water's for fighting. And we're seeing that right now in the state. So,
Representative Stephanie Mickelsen (26:23):
Right. And I think we, you know, we need to come together and figure out a solution. Because what they did in the Colorado River system is they didn't, when they had times of plenty, they didn't, they didn't, you know, masterfully use that. And so then it, it ultimately has, has created a massive problem. And we wanna make sure that we have water for future generations. I wanna make sure we have a healthy aquifer because my sons and my grandchildren and, and my grandsons and granddaughters and those people, they may, they wanna farm someday. Yeah. So we have to have a healthy ecosystem for those, for water. And if we don't, we lose
Brennan Summers (26:58):
Water. Big issue, not just a farming issue. Love that. When it comes to a farming issue, you wrote an op-ed recently kind of criticizing the federal government allowing foreign entities coming in and purchasing a farmland. That's something I don't think most Idahoans knew was happening, that you've got other countries coming in and buying farmland. What's the motive behind there and why is that something that you want to get your hands on?
Representative Stephanie Mickelsen (27:23):
Well, it's really important because you, when you think about it, if, if we end up in war with China, or you know, some of the Russia and some of those places, if they own farm ground in this country, think about what that does for our food security. Now, we will have a food problem, a food insecurity problem if we don't make sure that the land is owned by, by Americans.
Brennan Summers (27:49):
Are the, are China, for example, they, they're bought quite a bit of land in the us.
Representative Stephanie Mickelsen (27:54):
China's been going across the planet, buying a natural resource things all across
Brennan Summers (27:58):
The planet Yeah. And buying it just 'cause it's a good investment, much like stocks or is there maybe some other motives on why they might be purchasing the land they're purchasing?
Representative Stephanie Mickelsen (28:06):
Well, in some places where they have been purchasing ground, it's actually next to very sensitive intelligence like operations of the United States government or our military bases, those kind of things. And we know we can't trust China. So why in the world would we allow them to buy land in this
Brennan Summers (28:26):
Country? Sure, sure. Especially when they're taking their balloon tours across our country and Right,
Representative Stephanie Mickelsen (28:31):
Absolutely. And Russia the same way. I mean, and what's to stop them if they own the farm ground? If we got into a wharf with them of coming in and saying, well, the prop's off that ground, they come to China. Yeah. Or they come to Russia.
Brennan Summers (28:43):
Yeah. It's, it's something that I think the federal government's looking at working on. It looks like the administration hasn't made it a priority. And try and kind of move into that topic. How, how do you, would you rate the current administration? Are you as an idahoan, as a small business owner, as a conservative legislator? Where do you, where are you frustrated with the president right now?
Representative Stephanie Mickelsen (29:02):
Well, I'm really frustrated because for one thing, I think the amount of regulation that's coming out of this administration is just phenomenal. And ESS was a great which was Waters of the United States, a great ruling that came out of the Supreme Court that basically said the federal government cannot control everything, every drop of water across this country. And so the Biden administration has done a very poor job. They've done a poor job on figuring out this immigration issue. We all want safe borders, but we can't have safe borders if we have executive orders to bypass legislation passed by the, by Congress. And we need to figure out a guest worker program that makes sense for people in this country. Because if you've eaten food a last day or so, you've probably had food that's been touched by a, by a foreign worker. Mm-Hmm.
(29:52):
<affirmative>, no question. So the H two A wage program, they're supposed to set the, the wage like in December, well, they came out in February or March. It was during the legislative session. And the wages that farm workers were gonna be paid in Idaho, if they drove any kind of truck, over 26,000 pounds went from $16 to $26. So, needless to say, I talked to our congressional delegation, they're working on it. I know Senator Repo was working on it specific situation where they're going to have to go through Congress before they do those kind of things because they're basically bypassing Congress by their, all their regulations through agencies.
Brennan Summers (30:27):
Right. And, and it's just been a pile of things that the Biden administration seems to be throwing at us. And the question I always get is, you know, who's running this office? 'cause Biden seems to be so asleep at the wheel. Hopefully we can get a Republican elected in the next cycle. But here at home, there seems to be some challenges with the Idaho Republican Party. You as an Idaho Republican, you've kind of expressed some, some things that you're disappointed in with the party in ways that we may be able to improve to elect more conservatives throughout the state and the country. What are some things right now that we need to improve on as an Idaho Republican party? Well,
Representative Stephanie Mickelsen (31:01):
I think first off, the Republican Party is supposed to help and assist. I don't think they're supposed to control. And so I think that they've lost, kind of lost their direction as to where they are supposed to actually, what their role is. And if all they're going to do is tell legislators how to vote, they just will have robots in our seats rather than making us go move to Boise for, for, you know, three, four months of the year. We, we forget too that voters vote for candidates and they choose those candidates. And if this, if our Republican party gets to be this purity party, they're going to have less and less Republicans in the state. They're going to have less and less people want to be engaged in the process. And the Republican Party right now in the state of Idaho is trying to, to usurp the power and of democracy with the voters and letting the voters choose and letting the voters decide. They're trying to go to a a Republican caucus, and they're gonna blame that on the legislature when in fact, it was Dorothy Moon who came in and killed the bill that could have fixed that problem. And so she wants to go to a caucus system because ultimately they want a very small group deciding who we support for a presidential candidate. They want to, to remove the voters at every turn in the road. And that's wrong.
Brennan Summers (32:16):
Yeah. So a lot of things coming out of the Republican party right now in Idaho that you're finding you know frustrating. I mean, guess for lack of a better term,
Representative Stephanie Mickelsen (32:24):
They're, they're censoring me on a bill that I didn't even know that they were taking a position on. Right. And that bill, if you read the bill, there were significant problems with that bill. So am I supposed to vote the way the party tells me, or am I supposed to vote the way my constituents
Brennan Summers (32:40):
Don't? And, and so answer that, when you're there voting, what's the, what's the first thing that comes to your mind when you are hearing legislation? Is it I need to call the party? Or do you go to your voters?
Representative Stephanie Mickelsen (32:50):
My first consideration is for my voters. I actually will call people within the community that are, you know, my constituents. I get lots of emails and I read those emails and then, you know, then I take a look at what's in the bill and I say, is this, you know, is this constitutional mm-hmm. <Affirmative>, is this gonna work for you know, the people in my community? And one of my guiding principles has always been the government closest to the people is best. And so specifically on the bill that they are, you know, coming after me for, it's a local control issue. Local boards, local people pay for those libraries. Local people are the ones that should con, you know, contact the, the library boards and have them do something different if they don't like what's going on. Instead of it being a top heavy, top down decision, it needed to be at the community level.
Brennan Summers (33:40):
We, yeah. Like, that's one issue that next time we'll have to get much more in detail on. As we're running short on time here, I kind of want to give you an opportunity to talk next session. Any priorities on your list? What are, what are some things that are keeping you up at night as a legislator as a representative that you're thinking, you know, we gotta do something about
Representative Stephanie Mickelsen (33:58):
This. We've gotta do some stuff about mandatory minimums for fentanyl dealers. We have to do some, some work on, on people that abuse children. Right? Right now it's very discretionary towards the judges. So either we've gotta start, you know, outing the judges that are handing, you know, these, these sentences that are, you know, basically slapping somebody on the wrist. But we've gotta make sure that people that are hurting children have some minimums so that they stop doing it. And we know that the damage that they do to these children doesn't just stop with that child. It's generational. So we've got to get this. We've gotta, we've gotta do something to, to protect our children in the state.
Brennan Summers (34:35):
Sure, sure. Well, anyone that knows you, knows that you're not scared to take on a fight, you're always gonna speak your mind. And we're glad that you're able to come here and talk to us today. Any last words you wanna share with the, the voters out there?
Representative Stephanie Mickelsen (34:47):
No, I just think that I, I appreciate the voters. I appreciate their contacting me. I appreciate the dialogue that we have and I appreciate that every dialogue or discourse that I've had that we've, although we may not always agree, it's been awesome to see how respectful people can be in having and communicating what their needs are as a voter.
Brennan Summers (35:09):
Sure. Sure, sure. Well, thank you so much for being on. We're gonna let you get back to the farm and the 14 grandkids to chase around. Stephanie Mickelson, Idaho State Representative 32 A thank you for joining us today. We'll have Stephanie back undoubtedly to talk about more of these issues. Thanks. Thanks,
Representative Stephanie Mickelsen (35:24):
Stephanie. Thanks Brendan.
Main Street Idaho Podcast Episode 2: Tax Relief and Economic Growth with Senator Dave Lent
“These are precious sacred tax dollars that people give to our state. And I have a responsibility to ensure that those are spent wisely.”
Brennan Summers (00:00):
<Silence> Welcome to Main Street Podcast, an opportunity to talk to I Idaho's elected leaders about the issues that matter to you.
(00:12):
All right, everybody. Welcome. I'm here with Senator Dave Lent, we're excited to have you here today. He's on the Main Street Caucus, and he's gonna talk to us today about some things he's been working on. But, you know, Dave, you've been around the community for a while. Most people know you to those that don't, why don't you give us a little introduction. Give us a little behind the scenes of who is Senator L. It's kind of funny 'cause a lot of times people say, oh, you're Terry TVA's husband. I'm, yeah, that's how I know you. Yeah. 'cause my wife, of course, is taught for like 30 years, and now she's teaching kids of kids who she taught. So he asked, does a great job, and it, it's been a great run with that. I was raised in Shelly. Okay. pretty much a typical southeastern Idaho kind of guy.
(00:53):
Served a mission, came back, went to, I was at Utah State before. Came back, went up to B Y U Idaho, Rick's College, then met my wife and kind of followed that pattern that a lot of folks from this area do. It's interesting though, that I then went to the College of Eastern Idaho now, which then was E I T C. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> picked up a, a one year certificate, went out to the site, got a job, and started going back to school with the site, paying for it. And in doing so, then I was able to pick up my bachelor's degree and do some other things. And it, it's been really good. I really enjoyed it. I then have retired. I served on the id, Idaho Falls School Board District. I, one for 12 years was the chair there.
(01:34):
That's when we brought in compass Academy. We wanted to brought, to provide more flexibility and options for students and parents, and that's proved out to be very well. We built the four new, or we didn't build them, but during that period of time, the four new elementary schools were built as well. And then my career at the site was health physics, which is radiation protection stuff. Then when I went back to school, I got a degree in adult education, moved into training, and I retired from the site as the director of training for one of the contractors. So that has kind of led me into this dual role in my career of both the nuclear side and also the workforce side in education. And that's really what I've tried to focus on in my tenure in serving the people of our community.
(02:21):
That's fantastic. And so you, you've had the experience in the background that really prepared you for the legislature, but, you know, at what point in time did you decide, you know, I've got happy family, a great wife, and got a wonderful job. You know what I'm gonna do, I'm gonna go and run for the state Senate. How, how did that process come and and do you regret it? I don't regret it. It is a tremendous commitment. Much more than I imagined going in. I was on a school board at the time getting ready to retire from the site was approached by some people from our community saying, you know, we'd like to see you continue with your knowledge and expertise at the legislature level. And so I did and ran. And I'm in my third term, I'll be in my sixth year next year.
(03:04):
I serve as the chairman of Senate education. And I also serve on the Joint Finance Committee. And in addition, I've had several roles, and I have some appointments from the governor that I've served as well, both at the state and national level. Right. So those are, those are big jobs for people out there that might not be familiar with the process of, of how the legislature works. Let's start with J fac, the Joint Finance Appropriations Committee. Right. Let's talk about what that looks like to you, what your roles are, and some things that you were able to do in the last few sessions that you're proud of and have helped out your voters. That's a great question because it gives us an opportunity to talk about promoting Republican ideals. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. And so J fac, if people aren't aware the legislature has a constitutional responsibility to balance the budget every year.
(03:55):
I mean, we cannot go home until that balance, that budget is balanced, which is a little different than what Congress does in DC right? Oh, yeah. We don't have a machine in the back room. Right. You're not printing cash. Got it. No. So we have to work through it, and we have to figure out where to put the money, how to handle the federal funds or state funds in cases like this, where we have excess revenue coming from. And you may have or be aware that, that we're about $300 million now in revenue that we're giving back to the citizens of Idaho in tax relief that will show up in their property taxes this fall. Wow. So that's a significant thing. So when we talk about Republican principles, we talk about things like lowering taxes. We talk about building our education, strengthening our education, talk about how are we doing economically?
(04:40):
Are we building our business and industry to, to, to create a strong economy? And then of course, you have national defense, which we don't have a lot to do with, but those are things that we work on. And so, when I spend my time and effort, I realize that there are moral issues out there that deserve some attention, but I don't think that should be all the attention we're doing, and that should suck the air out of the room. I think we have people in the legislature who really kind of make that their issue and they, they work it give it, its, I mean, there are things that we need to consider and do. At the same time, we need people who are willing every day to do the work, the daily work that it takes to run government mm-hmm. <Affirmative> and promote these ideals that we're talking about from our party about our economy or about education, those kind of things.
(05:32):
So I, I tend to spend my time really focusing on those. How can we build our economy? And even things like I passed, I didn't pass. I worked was a co-sponsor of a bill called Clean Slate last year, which has to do with, if you're a convicted felon, this is a non-violent, low-level felony. After a period of years, if you're clean, you don't do anything and you've done all your restitution, you can have that basically concealed As far as from a legal perspective what we found, and I don't mean to get off this, this track, but what we found is, in fact, I was at the women's prison last week in Poco Town. Okay. Yeah. Talking to the warden, she said 37% of of convicted felons in Idaho are back in, within three years. Wow. So my approach to that is, that's a significant tax burden.
(06:22):
Yeah. What are we doing to address that to reduce the cost of that? And are we really spending our money in the right way when she says, you know, 60 plus percent of those people are in there because of drug related issues, you know, are we really spending the money in the right way? So that's my, my concern in that area. So really, for me, it comes back to the cost and the cost of government and the cost of incarceration and how ineffective we're being and keeping people out. I love that. And I love seeing conservatives be tough on crime, but also welcome to criminal justice reform. We saw that with our previous administration where they said, look, why are we spending money? Why are we wasting tax dollars on programs and processes that aren't working? So clean slate. Great example of way that you can have a conservative solution to, to problems like this.
(07:12):
Let's talk a little bit about what's going on in the education committee, the Senate Education Committee. Anything big happened this last session over there? Oh, we had a number of things. In fact, this last week I was in Boise the Idaho Business for Education. Ask myself and the house chair of their education committee to come and present to them and talk about legislation last year and what we're looking at this year. I had a meet another meeting with one of the legislators talking about, we're really trying to come up with a solution. Again, it goes back to tax relief. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>, most of our citizens, really, when they think about taxes, they're looking at property taxes primarily associated with schools. Sure. And the, the short history on that is that issue has come before the Supreme Court in Idaho five times.
(07:59):
It's gone all the way to the Supreme Court and what the Supreme Court said this last time. And it's pretty clear that the state is depending too much on local money from property taxes to support our public education system. And so what we're trying to do is figure out a way and utilize some of these this revenue that we're getting and turn it in and reuse it and give it back in the form of tax relief and property tax relief. So an example is 2 92, this last, this bill this last year. We're starting to target money towards facilities. And facilities is really the key. 'cause That's really where most of this expense is coming from. And if you're at Idaho, you know that bond elections are a big deal. Yes. And what we've seen since about 2006 is that historically two things changed.
(08:55):
In 2006, they, we lost the ability to bond for some maintenance and operation. Now we just have plant facilities. We lost that. And that was supposed to be supplemented with an, with an increase in sales tax. Unfortunately, we went right into the recession that kind of got lost in the mix. And so you see this, I think that that one year the school budgets were down 19% overall. However, I will add that because of the money we put back in, in the last five years, the net is still a positive all the way through, even with inflation. So we've tried to recover education as much as we can. The issue is the starting point. Yeah. Did we start low to begin with? And Yes, we did. And we're trying to make some changes. So back to facilities we have a number of issues.
(09:46):
The lieutenant governor, there was a small group of stakeholders were, we meet on a semi-regular basis trying to come up with legislation that would provide a way for us to bring some equity. I also serve on the public building advisory board. It's public, public building facilities advisory board. And that particular council, there's one from the house and one from the Senate, and then there's three or four others from throughout the state that's responsible. That committee is responsible for all the buildings that are state owned, with the exception of K 12, because they're primarily district owned. Sure. So what I've been able to learn from that committee, and that's, that includes higher ed. So everything from the new dormitory at at B SS U to the new police i s p station here at Out of Falls, that all goes through that committee.
(10:36):
And I've learned a lot about their preventative maintenance, how they prioritize projects. And I think we can bring some of that to our our school facilities and do it in a way that we bring some of this money that's coming in, in excess revenues and targeted towards facilities for the specific purpose of tax relief. So there's some best practices you can pick up that we can then transfer and maybe help out some of our school districts. Yeah. I think we could learn and maybe even leverage off what they're doing. Yeah. And minimize the impact of anything we'll do. Yeah. More collaboration, the better. Yeah. I think that's fantastic. What are some things happening in education that you get in Idaho education policy that you get excited about? Well, yesterday I spent most of the day in Boise I'm on a committee that we're looking to redesign the funding formula that's used for school districts.
(11:28):
So this is the way school districts get, get funded for each student that's there. And I had the opportunity in that meeting to say a few words. And, and what I really wanted to do was start to say, let's, let's set back and look at where education is today. So I, I like to use those who've been around me a little bit, hear me talk about the Model A in in 1906, the first version of the Model A rolled out, that's about the first time they rolled out what is now what we now understand and see as public education. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>, we had it before, but Carnegie and others put it together in a package. And, for example, credit hours, semester hours, that all came outta that thing. So primarily the model we used today was created about the same year, the Model A rolled out.
(12:14):
Wow. So my, my challenge was we have a, a, a process built on a model, a industrial model, and we're limited in Tesla age. Sure. So I invited them to think in terms of Tesla. I mean, education is education, but the way we go about it, the technology we have today, what we know about education today, we can be much more efficient and much more effective than just riding the same old model a that we've had forever. So as we think about the way we fund education, my challenge to them was funding is a primary driver. Build performance into this model so that we can have performance. That doesn't matter where it is, but you have performance and accountability built into the model of education that's gonna change the change the game. So, as I hear you speak about your, you know, philosophy and political leadership, I'm, I'm hearing you say, you know, pick your analogy, whether it's the long game in golf or you're out playing chess, you're thinking ahead, you're thinking two steps ahead rather than the next primary election or the next election, all when it comes to policy.
(13:20):
Am I correct to say you're looking on the horizon and saying, where does Idaho need to be in 5, 10, 15, 20 years? Right, that's true. And, and one challenge we see in school districts is you have a turnover of school board members. We also have a pretty significant turnover of superintendents. Sure. So that tends to drive a more shorter game. And what we need to do at the state level, let's say, how can we incentivize and drive the long game? An example is China, the long game in China is we have American citizens teaching through the internet, English to Chinese kids. That's a long game. Yeah. So you have colleagues though that as you mentioned before, might grasp on in more short-term issue, maybe have some knee-jerk reactions that they might make their pet projects. How have you managed to, you know, work your way through the legislature and get policy done when you have a different approach than some of your colleagues?
(14:17):
Well, an example of school choice. Great. I believe in school choice. And I believe in Idaho we have tremendous school choice. Compass Academy, project-based high school, we have Altura just in Idaho Falls, we have like nine different options for parents, high quality. I have had the opportunity to having my kids. We lived in, in seven different states when I was doing some co consulting at one point in my career, different school systems all over the country. Idaho schools are really pretty good. And we have school choice. The problem I had with the Senate Bill 10 38 last year was it specifically said no accountability to the state. And I just can't swallow the fact that we're gonna spend millions and millions of dollars of, of the my neighbor lady down the street who's a widow on a fixed income of no accountability to her for those tax dollars that's going out.
(15:13):
So while I support school choice, I have to have some kind of accountability back. And the promoters of the bill last year, I met with them several times and said, you know, you, you need to put some things in here that make, that'll make this, it'll even have a chance. And they were, would not, I think that's an important thing to note is sometimes we as constituents or voters, we sit back and we hear the policy stance of our elected officials, but we don't see all the work that went into it. So I think it's a unique thing for you to point out. Look, I talked to everybody on both sides of this issue, and this was something that you as chairman, presumably studied out quite a bit. Oh, absolutely. Spent a lot of time on it. And I supported my committee in letting it come through the committee.
(15:55):
But I told them it wouldn't pass. And I told 'em I wouldn't support it. And here's why. It has to have accountability. Really these are precious sacred tax dollars that people give right to our state. And I have a responsibility to ensure that those are spent wisely. Was it difficult for you to see your conservative colleagues who were normally safeguards of public trust and tax dollars support a system that didn't have the accountability that other systems would? It it boggles my mind. Yeah. The same people who vote no, no, no, no. In the j fac finance committee, just because it's gonna spend money and we're, we're, we're adamant about how this was the right bill to go. So it, it's just a, to me, it's a, it's a contradiction in principle. And that's why when I go back to Republican principles show me how this is going to better education, how it's gonna build our economy, those are the things that I'm really focused on.
(16:55):
And that short term, no answer. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>, sometimes it really does take a dollar to save two or $3. Sure. Yeah. Investments are what Yeah. We're looking at and incentives. We, I find that a lot in, in governance is that there's incentives there to help drive that, that principle. Let's talk about the future. You're gonna stick around a little bit longer, Idaho Senate. As you look forward to sessions to come, what are the projects that you still have on your to-do list? Well, I'm a believer that we have hammered teachers. And I, I don't mean to be disrespectful, but we have pushed teachers, teachers, teachers, teachers all these years, and we're not seeing any kind of a change in the, in the outcomes. Sure. I'm a believer that we need to move from our industrial model of education to a, to a, a knowledge-based economy, which means we're gonna move from checking boxes to, I'm more concerned about outcomes than I am.
(17:50):
Did I do the teacher evaluation? I'm concerned about how did the students do, you know, at the end of the day and there'll be people who say, well, we already do that. But in reality, our process is really, it's a check the box kind of thing, because it's easier. We tend to do that. So I think as we move forward in education, primarily we have to be brave. Yeah. We have to understand that there's some risk involved, but if we're gonna move from A to B and we're gonna stop just complaining, I see a lot of people in legislature, they can tell you what's wrong with anything that you bring up. Yeah. And they're willing to tear it down. And you say, okay, but what's the solution? Where do we go? How do we make it better? That's a whole different perspective.
(18:32):
And it, it's a higher skillset to do that than it is to say what's wrong with something. Yeah. So if you're fearful of innovation, don't get on the Dave blunt train, is what you're saying. I if, if we wanna move, if we wanna move the needle on education in Idaho, we're gonna have to do it differently. And we're, and where that comes in in policy is we're going to have to let provide that freedom and incentive to our school districts, our superintendents, our school boards, and help them understand that, have the vision of make the change. So the point I was gonna make is I really feel strongly that superintendents and school boards are the key to change because teachers, as we were talking about, they operate in a system. Yeah. the ones who can change the culture of the school and the district are those two positions.
(19:21):
So I, I'm all about last year I had a bill to require school boards to be trained school boards, spend over half the money in our budget. Yeah. And we have no training. And I can tell you one of my responsibilities as a site was to, to teach the leadership training to management. We would never, in a corporate setting, put a person in a seat with that kind of responsibility, that kind of budget, without some kind of training. Right. And ensuring to help build their capacity. And I honestly think that's why a lot of people get dissatisfied with their services school boards, is they don't ever feel like they can really jump in and contribute because they haven't been. And, and it, it's, it's kind of ironic that in a education setting, we have people who push back about being trained. Right. The right kind of school board members would welcome that.
(20:12):
And so what we see across the state is those school boards and superintendents that participate in training professional development, they tend to be the ones that are performing. All right. So there's some good things coming on the policy front. Let's talk the political front. What are you finding exciting about being a part of the Idaho Republican Party, and where are you frustrated and where the political scene in our culture in Idaho is headed? But what I think about the political scene, and again, I go back to my Republican principles. We look at what we've done in the last four years in this state, we're talking about 300 million back to our taxpayers. We're talking about historical investments in infrastructure. We're talking about historical investments in education. We're doing all the right things to help our economy grow. And we're managing it in a situation where if we're not the fastest, we're one of the fastest growing states in the country.
(21:09):
So I think we're doing a tremendous job. What I am concerned about are the voices, which I believe are the minority in the party who are making issues and tend to suck our attention away and our time away from these very important issues to other issues. And it seems like every session there's something, there's some, these, some of these issues, the library issue, they, again, they're important issues, but they shouldn't take up a whole session. Right. we had the library. We, we've had teachers all these things we should go in, come, come together, sit down in a room. I was listening to the radio recently. They were talking about civility. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. And in reality, the only way we have true good governance is when people sit down and they learn how to compromise and come up with a solution that fits all.
(22:00):
When people go into a room and they stamp their feet and go to their corner and say, it's my way or No way, government comes to us, stand still. And that's not what we need in Idaho. In Idaho, we need governance that people get in, they roll up their sleeves, and they say, okay, what do they start with? What do we have in common? Where are our differences? How can we work this out? Because it's for the best, for the betterment of the people we serve. So you, Senator, you're the man in the arena. You're the one that has to wrestle with these issues every day. You're in committee, you've gotta vote. If things fail, if things pass, some of that responsibility falls onto you. But you're telling me that you don't see the word compromise as a weakness or civility as a, as something that, you know, would prevent you from being able to achieve or be reelected.
(22:49):
Well, I think those actually are strengths. And if you think about it, they are higher order actions or skills, because it's easy to say no. Anybody can say no. Sure. But not anyone can work with somebody who they don't get along with or has said derogatory things about them. So it, it takes a different kind of person. And what I'm seeing in the legislature, there are people who come in there and they have one thing on their mind, and that's to say no. And that's how they get their you know, they're looking for a score or something. In reality, we need the kind of people in the legislature who have the skillset to go in and compromise, to work together, to collaborate, because we represent all the people in our district. I don't represent just a board or this or that.
(23:41):
I represent all the people in my district, but I bring my Republican values to that game. So that's what I hope to do. And, and, and in my service I, I, like I say, I serve at the will of the people. And I'm more than happy to do that. I certainly have other things I could do. But I love the opportunity to change and have an effect for good in the people that I love and serve in this community. I'm, I'm young in terms of Idaho politics, but I grew up watching the Senator Bart Davis and Senator Brent Hills. And those were people I always looked at as states. And I think, yes, you keep continuing, you, you're gonna fall in that category that young people look at and say, oh, that's somebody who went to the I Idaho legislature to make a difference and not to make a name for himself. So we appreciate you coming on today. Thank you so much. There's a lot more issues we need to get into. Our time's running short. But Senator, any last words you'd like to leave to any voters or skeptics out there watching?
(24:41):
Well, I would say as we need, as we know the, we live in this digital age where information comes from so many places and it's so easy to be distracted. A lot of times I think you have to go back and rely on the things that, you know, rely on the people that, you know, rely on the principles that, you know there'll always be people trying to distract us to pull our attention to demand our time. But when it comes to who you vote for I would say go with people, you know, and go with people with a record. I've tried, I've tried to serve this community for, it'll be 16 years now. Wow. And you know, you don't serve in the legislature to make money. I can tell you that. But you serve because you wanna make a difference. And that's what I'm here to do. And as long as I can do that, I'm happy to serve. We appreciate the difference you're making. Thanks so much for coming on, and we will definitely have to have you back up for it. Yeah. Fantastic. Thank you so much.
Main Street Idaho Podcast Episode 1: Senator Kevin Cook's Fight for Efficient Spending
“Idaho is an incredible state. It it is. We’ve got lots and lots of good things going for us, and we just need to keep them going.”
Brennan Summers (00:00):
Welcome to Street Podcast, an opportunity to talk to I Idaho's elected leaders about the issues that matter to you. All right. Welcome. Welcome. We are here with Senator Kevin Cook part of the Main Street caucus. Been serving in the I Idaho Center for a couple terms now. Has a few sessions under his belt, which the turnover, you're now one of the senior guys. You're Top dog.
Senator Kevin Cook (00:28):
I, they gave me a chairman position this last last session. So I am the chairman over the converse and the Human Resource. So that was a shocker to me. And I have never served on that committee, so to never serve on it and then go to Chairman Wow. Has been a real huge learning curve. Had to
Brennan Summers (00:46):
Learn a lot. So, do you expect me to call you chairman throughout this whole thing, <laugh>? No. No. Okay. Good. Good. I know you as Kevin, but I'll slip in as senator every day.
Senator Kevin Cook (00:53):
Kevin is
Brennan Summers (00:54):
Fine. Just so I know my place. Yeah. Kevin, thanks so much for being on. Appreciate it. This is an opportunity for you to chat about some of the things you've been working on, but there's a lot of people out there new people to the community, people that maybe are just getting tuned into the political scene. They don't know you. So do you wanna take a minute and just kinda introduce yourself? Sure. Who is Kevin Cook?
Senator Kevin Cook (01:13):
Alright. well, I, I grew up in Spanish Fork, Utah in a little farming community, Spanish Park for those that like to make fun of that, but in a farming community called Lake Shore. And our farm went right out into Utah Lake. Okay. So we would haul hay when it was nice and hot. We would just wait out in the Utah lake and would fish and make rafts and, and swam. And, and in the winter we would ice skate graduated from public high school, went to Weber State University graduated in software engineering. And I'm a computer geek and I really enjoy it. I love what I do. I then met my lovely wife Sherry at Weber State University met her and then we came up to Idaho Falls to visit my brother on a 4th of July. It was during a parade and it snowed, and I said, nobody knew like mine would ever live in Idaho Falls. It, it snows on the 4th of July, and then three years later we came back and fell in love with it. And we moved here and we raised all our kids. We moved here in 99 and we raised all our kids through the public schools here and, and our last one just graduated from college yesterday. And so it's been pretty exciting time in the Cook
Brennan Summers (02:29):
Household. Fantastic. Yeah. And, and those that know Sherry, I mean, you may be chairman, but she's the real boss, right?
Senator Kevin Cook (02:34):
<Laugh>? Absolutely.
Brennan Summers (02:35):
Yeah. So we love Sherry.
Senator Kevin Cook (02:36):
Yeah. She is wonderful.
Brennan Summers (02:37):
Yeah. Five grandkids.
Senator Kevin Cook (02:38):
Yes. We got five grandkids and they're all in Idaho Falls.
Brennan Summers (02:43):
Yeah. Well, and those of us who were here on the 4th of July this year we, we thought it was gonna snow during the fireworks. Everyone was bundled up. It was cold. It was a cold 4th of July. So you you've had some experience working in eastern Idaho. You spent some time at the lab, is that right? Yes.
Senator Kevin Cook (03:00):
So I I work at, currently work at the Idaho National Laboratory as a software engineer. Originally came here to interview for a job in 99, didn't get the job, but went off on my own and did my own consulting business. And have done that off and on. Hired on an I N L for a few years, quit, went back to my own thing, back at I N L and so forth, back and forth. But currently, I, I work at the Idaho National Laboratory and, and they are wonderful to work with me as I'm serving as a senator.
Brennan Summers (03:32):
It, a lot of people, sometimes they'll look and they'll see their elected officials, and the first question is, how does one become a senator? Right. And as I've talked to some of your colleagues, some of 'em, you know, they spent a long time on school boards where others, you know, were serving in different routes. Your path, I think is really impactful of, of kind of how you got started. And particularly, why don't you walk us through where you saw some vulnerabilities in our public school system as you were spending time there. Okay.
Senator Kevin Cook (03:58):
Yeah. For the last I think probably eight or nine years well, I had a, I had a, a teacher at school at, at, at church, and she came up to me and, and said, Kevin, I asked her how school was going and how teacher, 'cause I, I, I mean, I enjoy education. I think that's the important part. My kids were, were in the school, and I just asked her how she was doing. She says, oh, you know what I really need? I really need somebody to just come in and just volunteer just one day a week or maybe one day a month. And I says, I'll do that. And she laughed. She says, all right. I says, no, I would love to do that. So for eight years on my day off at I n l I go in and, and read with a bunch of eighth graders.
(04:45):
And it has been awesome experience. Now she gives me the worst of the worst are those that are struggling. Not all the time, but the ones that are struggling. And so I get to see how our education system is doing, but I also get to see how awesome our teachers are. Yeah. And we got some incredible teachers that, that love These kids. Not only love, but they stretch 'em, they push 'em to, to get 'em to be better. But I saw some things that we could improve in, in education as over the last eight years as I've read with those kids. And just a lot of fun. If you're looking for something rewarding, go volunteer at one of our schools. They, they need you and they'll put you to work.
Brennan Summers (05:26):
And, and presumably that played a role, and when you decided there was a Senate seat you should run for?
Senator Kevin Cook (05:31):
Well, yeah, I, I was definitely in interested education, but I had, I had 13 acres at the time, and we irrigated flood irrigated and the ditch, I shared the ditch with the Senator Dean Warburg, and, and we're still friends, even though we shared water, it's just uhoh. But we'd stand at all in the ditch bank and we'd talk about politics, and I was always interested in politics. But, you know, it comes to a point where you, you keep complaining, so you either need to shut up or go do something about it. There you go. And Dean mentioned in passing that he was retiring. And I says, I wanna do that. So I, I went home, talked to the wife and the kids, and says, what do you think? And he says, I won't affect this. You do whatever you want. I says, oh, no, no, and it will affect you. Yeah. So we had a kind of a family council and we decided, yeah, let's go for it. So it's, it's been a, there's been days, I wonder why, why did I do this? But for the most part it's, it's been a great experience.
Brennan Summers (06:35):
What are some of the things you've been most proud of that you've been able to accomplish as a senator?
Senator Kevin Cook (06:39):
Oh, I think one of the big thing that, that that I've helped since coming there is, is my career in software, software engineering. You got all these agencies that come. So I serve on jac, which is the Joint Finance Appropriations Committee. So I see all the budgets from all the agencies, and I sit in there and these agencies will come and say, well, I need this software. I need this software package. And, and we're gonna write it, or we're gonna go purchase it, and for millions and millions of dollars. And I say, well, do you have a project plan? Well, no. I says, well, let's get a plan. Let's, let's make a plan before we just go out and appropriate money. So I've really worked hard to bring some of the expertise that I have learned in college and in the workforce of how to do a, a project in software and to cut the cost where we can, or cut the risk to, to help our agencies and, and make sure we're not buying the same thing for one agency and another agency instead of going after an enterprise license, which saves the state millions of dollars.
Brennan Summers (07:48):
Yeah. I mean, it's a wild concept. 'cause When we picture like a, an effective senator, you're thinking he's gotta be a constitutional scholar and an attorney and all that. And here we have a computer nerd, self-described, computer geek who's been able to come in and save taxpayer dollars by understanding the issue and asking the right questions.
Senator Kevin Cook (08:07):
Yeah. Yeah. And it's, it's, it's just that asking the right questions you don't have to have any special training. We all come from different walks of life, and we all have our expertise, and we just need to learn to open our mouths and shine in the expertise that we bring. Now, I'm, I'm not a, a doctor, I'm not a engineer, so I, I don't help there. But the software I, I do know.
Brennan Summers (08:29):
Yeah. This last session was a bit of a wrestle at times. What are some of the things that came out of this last session that maybe frustrated you and then some of the things that you were proud to see that the conservative led Idaho Senate did?
Senator Kevin Cook (08:44):
I think one of the things that was really frustrating was my mobile device bill.
Brennan Summers (08:49):
This is an important thing that most people probably aren't aware of. Let's talk a little bit about
Senator Kevin Cook (08:52):
That. Okay. So this is, I, i, it, the parental rights protection act. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>, in other words, it was to give parents some rights. That pendulum is swaying, swung so far. The other way that sometimes we forgot about the parents, you know, that they're the ones that are raising the children, not the government and, and not the businesses. It's the children. And so this one was basically, there's really a simple thing to this bill. It was if your mobile device was activated within the state of Idaho, then turn on the parental software filtering software that filters out pornography, adult content. And, and that was basically it. Now got a lot of pushback. First of all, I had a bunch of providers, Verizon T-Mobile, some of those come in with all their hands up there, and you can't do this, Senator.
(09:50):
And I says, well, wait a minute. Lemme explain this. This doesn't affect you at all. Has nothing to do with the provider. Provider doesn't do anything, has nothing to do with the retailer. So if you go into Verizon and buy your, your phone or, or was it frog or tot or wherever it is, you go in there and and buy that they could care less. They're just selling you a phone. They don't have anything to set up for you. Nothing different. What we were asking was the manufacturer, the one that creates the software, the operating system, we're saying when they activate the phone, and if it's activated within the state of Idaho, then by default turn on that filtering software and then ask. So, so we didn't specify how to do that. You know, we want, we didn't wanna do that. We wanted to do their own thing, but we, here's what the way I thought it should ask.
(10:44):
I activated my phone and it comes up and says, oh, the parental filtering device has been activated. Do you want to have it continue to activate it? Yes or no? No. But it turns off and I, there's no filtering easy enough. Or I can say, yes, I want it activated, and it will provide a passcode for me. Okay. And so I've got a passcode that I can use that passcode to turn it off when I want to, but I can then take that phone and give that to Junior and say, here's, here's your phone. Go, go do what you want with it. But the filtering software's on there. So it's, it is just a way to say, parents, we're gonna help you out. It's, it's a simple bill. It's a good bill, except we didn't get it passed. And there's a little bit of opposition about a very loud group that went off.
(11:39):
What was the concerns of the bill that's just supposed to help keep kids safe? Well they, they, they said, well, first of all, you're forcing, you're forcing these manufacturers to like iPhone. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> forcing iPhone to put on software on their phone. I says, no, it's already there. Whether you have a a, a Droid or a iPhone, the parental software is already there. Right. The other thing is, is well, you're going to force all these other manufacturers that are, that are creating filtering software, they're gonna go, by the way, 'cause they can't compete. I says, no, the software is already there.
Brennan Summers (12:17):
Right. So the concern from this group is that it's just too much government.
Senator Kevin Cook (12:22):
That's the only thing I can think of. But you look at their, their points, I, I sat down with them point by point by point. In fact, I even brought up each of those points on the on the floor. Yeah. In the, in the debate. And argued another one that says, you're gonna force 'em to index the whole internet so that they know which is bad. Which is good. I says, no.
Brennan Summers (12:45):
Right. It already exists.
Senator Kevin Cook (12:46):
It's already on. Yeah,
Brennan Summers (12:47):
Absolutely.
Senator Kevin Cook (12:47):
We're just not doing it.
Brennan Summers (12:48):
But what the, and the question may come, like, is there a need for this? Do pa have parents reached out to you? Or are you, are you hearing from your constituents, look, we gotta do something about this. Absolutely. Epidemic, the new drug is, is it's often called.
Senator Kevin Cook (13:00):
Absolutely. There, there is, this really sounds weird, but there is medical proof that a child with a developing mind, developing brain that gets involved with pornography at a young age, it affects the way the brain develops. And, and that's, that's a fact. You can go out and, and, and Google that if you want. It's also a fact that pornography is a gateway to greater crimes against children. Yeah. And, and women. And you know, there's a great show that's being shown at the the movie theaters right now about sex trafficking. Well, this, this plays a part of that. It's not all of it, but it does certainly play a part of it. So yes, this is a important bill, it needs to happen. You know, go ask your kids. Go, go ask your kids tonight. Do, do, where do you get your pornography?
(13:53):
And they are like, what are you talking about? I says, well, ask them, did you get it, the library or did you get it on your phone? And well, they, they get it on their phone. You know, pornography is pornography. We've had a, you know, growing up, pornography had to be behind the clerk's station. The cash register, right. Had to be in a sealed cell phone package, and it had to have a cardboard paper in front of the the cover page. And it had to be up outta the reach of, of kids who couldn't do it. And all we're doing is, Hey, let's do the same thing. But we're not even forcing it. We're just saying, give passage opportunity. And if you still want it, we're not taking those rights away from you. If you want your kid to see pornography, great. Or if you wanna see pornography, great. We're just saying by default, turn it on.
Brennan Summers (14:44):
So, so I know a lot of people come away from the movie Operation Freedom. Is that what they're calling? Yeah. Yeah. They come away from that, that film, and they say, I gotta do something. Want to help these kids. I wanna help stop human traffick. What can I do? Who do they need to call to help get your bill back in, in play?
Senator Kevin Cook (14:59):
Your representatives, your senators. Yeah. Get 'em all. Call 'em all to tell 'em. And, but, but don't, don't be mean about it, because I've got lots of meeting texts and, and stuff that just say, Hey, this is a concern. I believe pornography doesn't have a place for children. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. And in fact, the state of Idaho in, in our, in our Idaho code states that it's harmful for children. And so we're just trying to live up to what it's, but call your representative. Call your senator. Call your legislators. Call your call the mayor. Call any of the associations around here and say, Hey, would you get on board with Senator Cook's mobile device bill? We need firemen. We need policemen. We need the mayor, we need engineering. We need doctors. All of them get on those associations and ask 'em to help out.
Brennan Summers (15:48):
Fantastic. That, that's a heavy, real topic that needs to be addressed. Let's lighten it up a little bit and talk dinosaurs.
Senator Kevin Cook (15:55):
Dinosaurs,
Brennan Summers (15:55):
Dinosaurs. So we've heard a lot about this dinosaur thing, and I think you played an active role in it, but I'm, I a lot of people might not be aware of what's going on there. Why don't you walk us through the process of our, our new dinosaur. First of
Senator Kevin Cook (16:06):
All, you gotta see my dinosaur socks. I don't know, can you bring, can you show that <laugh>? You gotta see the dinosaur socks
Brennan Summers (16:13):
Very on. Brand sadder. Very unbrand <laugh>.
Senator Kevin Cook (16:16):
But anyway, so what happened it's been a, probably a year ago, we had Mr. Walton from Pine White, pine Elementary School. We had representative Poorman and myself, we got a big old package that had probably about 50 letters, handwritten letters from each of the kid. A and they were good handwritten, very best handwriting they had. And they focused on this subject that says, Idaho does not have a dinosaur. State dinosaur.
Brennan Summers (16:49):
State dinosaur. Okay.
Senator Kevin Cook (16:49):
And we need one. And we believe it should be the ROMs dinosaur. And this is why. And they spelled out the reasons why they believed it, and it was in their own language. So it wasn't something that Mr. Walton put up on the board and said, copy this. It was there. Did it. So we got all those letters, and then we read through those, and the next thing we heard, we got a phone call from Mr. Walton says, we'd like you to come to the school. So Representative Corman and myself shows up to the school, and they show up at the front door, and these kids of wind the hallways and are cheering, I mean, just screaming. And, and they walk us down to their classroom. We get in their classroom, they have dinosaur punch, dinosaur eggs, dinosaur solid, I mean, everything that, just incredible. They had doctor, I'm gonna say Dr. K 'cause I can't say his lap. That's
Brennan Summers (17:39):
Okay.
Senator Kevin Cook (17:40):
Dr. K was there from I S U, and he had a replica of the erectile dinosaur there. And and they es escort us up the front of the class, and the kids talked to us about it. They told us about the dinosaur. And then we had actually had, in preparation for this, we actually had the bill written up. And so it hadn't been passed yet. No, we had seen it. They still an rs We had it written up in this three foot by six foot thing, and we put her on the board and we read through it. And, and they, it just, I have never been lobbied like a bunch of fourth graders in my life. Yeah. These were incredible. But then we got that and I was real excited about it and represented Horman was, wasn't quite as excited about. I couldn't figure that out until the session started.
(18:26):
And they were talking about property taxes and all these important things. I wanna run a bill for a dinosaur <laugh>. Right. And then I understand why Representative Warren wasn't too excited. So I was like, okay, I think we can just put it under the carpet and forget about it until it was halfway through the session. One of the tincture showed up at my office and said Senator Cook, I'm, I'm so and so. I was in the classroom. When you come, you and a representative, hoer team, and talked about the dinosaur said, do you, where's the bill at? And
Brennan Summers (19:01):
Busted <laugh>.
Senator Kevin Cook (19:02):
So we ran and Bill, we got kids all across Idaho though. It just went like wildfire. Yeah. We had kids from Boise and Coeur d'Alene Caldwell, and here that testified of it. And we now have a state dinosaur. And
Brennan Summers (19:19):
Say the name one more time.
Senator Kevin Cook (19:20):
It's a Rick Domus. It's about the size of a golden lamp. Oh. It's a, and and here's some things why they said the, the kids taught us this. Why it's a good dinosaur. It is, it is unique to Idaho. Only a very, very small corner of Montana is it found, but it's unique to Idaho. It burls on the ground. So on on the debate for this bill, one of the senators says do you think a bur on the ground to eat potatoes <laugh>? And he says, I think there's a marketing point. And we should have the commissioner of potatoes outta potatoes with the er drones them do that. It's a family dinosaur. So families are huge in Idaho. It's a huge priority and it's a family dinosaur. But there's a lot of attributes that, that make it unique to Idaho and why we should do it. So
Brennan Summers (20:14):
It's, it's interesting because you're wrestling with these complicated J fac bills and you've got your chairmanship and you got all these things going on. And it may not have been the most important issue at the time, but it was important to those fourth graders.
Senator Kevin Cook (20:26):
Right. It, it was. And, and, you know, you get out on the floor and they get in some debates, and sometimes they get a little bit heated up. And we had that particular week we had done that, we had some caucus meetings where, you know, things were brought up. And, and so there was, there was some lines being drawn and to bring up that dinosaur. Everybody had just fun, fun fourth grade level questions. I mean, if, if, and, and we had people watching it, schools watching it. They had zoomed in to watch this thing. But it just brought everybody back together and reminded us that we're, you know, we can still have fun and enjoy it and enjoy what we do and, and do something for our fourth graders who, you know, we always talk about how do we get our youth engaged in the political process. And, and here we got a bunch of fourth graders across the state engaged with the political process. Yeah. It, it was awesome experience. It really was.
Brennan Summers (21:26):
Well, it's a case study in democracy, right. The idea that those fourth graders didn't have to write fat campaign donations to get you to come and say hi to 'em. It's how, it's how government's supposed to work. Yeah,
Senator Kevin Cook (21:36):
Right. We, we sl the governor came down, Uhhuh <affirmative> signed the bill in front of the, the fourth graders. They had the, they had their whole school show up. So this was at Yukon. He had since switched to Yukon. So we had the kindergartner first all the way through fifth or sixth graders in this thing. And governor shows up and signs it, talks to the kids and did a wonderful job. It was good.
Brennan Summers (21:58):
Fantastic. So we're talking cell phones. We're talking dinosaurs. As you get leading up to this next session, dinosaur one's done. We're gonna fight for the cell phone bill again. What else is on your to-do list?
Senator Kevin Cook (22:10):
Oh, well one of the budgets that I did carry is the Medicaid budget. Okay. And it is $4.5 billion. Oh,
Brennan Summers (22:20):
It's a big
Senator Kevin Cook (22:21):
One. It's huge. Yeah. Now, the very biggest percent of that, huge percent of that is federal. It's not, not the state. But still, how do we do, how do we cost, contain that? Well, there was a, a house concurrence resolution passed that said, we're gonna have a task force. And so I was a member of that task force committee, and we've been meeting a couple times a month. And, and that, that bill was, or <inaudible> was, was to study managed care organization. And managed care basically says you've got department of Health and Welfare here, and then you've got all your providers and you've got Medicaid patients going to the providers, the providers bill the department, the department pays them. 'cause Medicaid is a, is a state, basically social insurance. So they wanted to do look at a M C O, a managed care organization that would fit right smack in the middle of it.
(23:18):
So you got a middleman, a third man. And we were, the thing was to look and see, can we save some money by having the M C O in there? And so we've had had a lot of people come and talk. In fact, I, I had two meetings here in Idaho Falls where we providers come in the first night, I think there was 50 the next night, I think there were 25. We talked for about two and a half hours nonstop. Wow. And they were just full of information. And, and then plus the committee meeting at the in Boise, we were there for all an all day meeting from 10 to, I think three 30. We had people coming in and presenting why we should do M C O, why we shouldn't do M C O. And, and so I don't think M C L is the golden egg that's gonna save Medicaid.
(24:09):
I really believe it's, it's the little bites we're gonna take around the edges. And, and, and these providers, these doctors that are, they're the experts. You know, a lot of times we think we get voted in and I'm a legislator and by George, I am now the expert. I can, I can fix everything. And, and that's just not the case. And so it was important to get with these providers. In fact, I have a, another meeting next week in Pocatello with a bunch of physicians to go over the same kind of stuff and gather information. But they're the ones that are giving us information about MCOs. We also have a V C O, which is a valued care organization. Took 10 years to set it up. We've only been running it for one year. So we don't have a lot of data on it yet. Sure. But the data that I'm hearing that's coming back from the providers, the V Cs are saying, we're going to save you millions of dollars. So, wow. I, I don't, I don't know if it's really good to say, oh, bag V C O and go to M C O, let's give it some while. But my thought is give it some while. Yeah. Let's see what's gonna do. Right now it's looking really good.
Brennan Summers (25:19):
So that, that data, those budgets, not the sexiest item. I'm not gonna pull any headlines, but it's important 'cause it's expensive and it is. It's how we, we can save some taxpayer dollars if we do it the right way. Yeah. So you're doing the hard work of attending those multiple hour meetings, digging into this stuff so that somebody can know, all right, what's the worst policy moving forward?
Senator Kevin Cook (25:39):
Yeah. You, you know, you're going back to Senator Dean Morman when he told me he really should go do this. He says, it's just three months. I said, oh, okay. I think financially I can swing it three months, I'll lose some money, but I can do it for three months. Well, I haven't been in Boise two, three times every month. Yeah. And then meetings at home. And, and so it, it is very busy trying to figure out Medicaid. And Medicaid is humongous. It's, it's like onion. You pour one, pull one level back and you've got, you know, 60 more to go through. So it's, it's big. There's a lots of little pieces I think we can do to, to help fix Medicaid around the edges. There's a lot of people say, well just get rid of Medicaid. Well, that's not our option. Right. Medicaid is demanded, is, is, is required. It's a federal required insurance, social insurance plan. So we might not like it and we might want to get rid of it, but it can't be done at our level. It's gotta be done in Washington DC Yeah.
Brennan Summers (26:41):
And what we can control is, let's see how conservative, fiscally conservative we can. Yeah, sure. Well, whether somebody votes for you or votes against you, one thing they cant anize you do do your homework and you do listen to the experts and constituents. You know, there are some of your constituents who think you're far too conservative and some that think you're far too liberal. Right. <laugh>.
Senator Kevin Cook (27:00):
Yeah.
Brennan Summers (27:00):
Well, what's your message out there to those who don't agree with your stance on certain issues?
Senator Kevin Cook (27:07):
You know what? I don't think there's anybody that's gonna, I'll bet there's a lot of differences between us. There's no way it's gonna be a hundred percent. But come and talk to me. Yeah. Tell me, tell me why you're against it. Just don't yell and scream and tell everybody how terrible I am. And maybe I am terrible, but come and communicate. I am open. I do not have all the answers. And that's why I've met with these doctors on this this Medicaid stuff. I really, really do try to reach out to people to figure out what is best, how do we, what's the best answer? How do we move forward? And so if you disagree with me, then come and talk to me. Educate me. I, I don't have all the answers.
Brennan Summers (27:51):
Yeah. No, I think your openness has been a reason why you've been elected and reelected. And we're hoping that that trend continues as you dig into some of these issues. Final words as we're closing up. As you think of your five grandkids now, right?
Senator Kevin Cook (28:06):
Yes.
Brennan Summers (28:07):
What are the issues that you're saying? Okay, as I think about my grandkids this is where Idaho needs to be so that they can have what I had.
Senator Kevin Cook (28:15):
You need to have education. I, we gotta have the best education out there. And there, there's problems education across the nation. And, and we have some problems here. But be very, very careful to paint. Use a very broad brush and paint all educators that way. So get it, get your information. Don't just take one person's word for it. I don't I, I, many times I'm guilty of asking questions and then I like, you know what? I gotta go see for my own eyes. And I, I did that with the library bill. I wanted to see for my own eyes what, what books were in the library. I want to hear from providers what's happening with, with Medicaid. I want to hear from Dennis. And, and, and so go get your information. Idaho is an incredible state. It it is. We've got lots and lots of good things going for us, and we just need to keep them going.
(29:16):
And it's gonna take all of us to, to do that. It's not just one person. It's not just your legislators. And, you know, I was they had a, an Idaho prayer Idaho State prayer meeting. It was January, I think. And, and Dean Mor invited me to it, and I wouldn't have went to it. But Dean says, oh, come on and go. They had a guy there that used to play for he was an executive with Chick-fil-A and he, he was a, a professional football player. Guy was Ong. But he stood up and he just left me with a message. He says, how do we change America? Or how do we change Idaho? Or how do we change Bonneville County? And he says, it starts within three feet of you. Change three feet within you. First, make the changes that you have control over and, and then start working out from there. And so I think that's what we often
Brennan Summers (30:16):
Do. And what a great thought. So from Frozen on the 4th of July to computer geek to digging in these medicating budgets chairman and senator, thank you so much for joining us. You keep making that change. We hope you come back on 'cause we got a lot more issues to talk about. We appreciate your time today.
Senator Kevin Cook (30:32):
Love too. Thank you
Brennan Summers (30:33):
So much. Thanks. Have a fun. Appreciate it.