Empowering Parents in Education with Debbie Critchfield

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Idaho's commitment to empowering parents is not just a promise, but a reality. Leading the charge is State Superintendent of Public Education, Debbie Critchfield.

One size doesn’t fit all when it comes to our kids, and that’s why Superintendent Critchfield is coming to the table with wise solutions to empower parents, strengthen local control and prepare our students for the workforce needs of a growing state.

Idaho stands at the forefront of a groundbreaking shift toward a parent-centric curriculum, acknowledging that parents are the architects of their children's success.  

• Idaho Career Ready Students Grant
A program to better prepare students for the workforce by providing funding for career technical education programs. The grant aims to support districts in developing skills and workforce abilities in students, allowing them to take advantage of opportunities in their local communities.

• Financial Literacy Graduation Requirement
Equips students with the tools they need to navigate the world of personal finance, including budgeting, saving, investing, and understanding credit. By making financial literacy a graduation requirement, the goal is to empower students to make sound financial choices and improve their overall financial well-being.

• Parental Bill of Rights
Reaffirms rights which are founded upon the principle that parents are their child's first and most important teacher and are the primary stakeholders for the upbringing of their children. Parents are responsible for the moral, emotional, and, if desired, religious development of their children and instill the qualities of good citizenship.

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Brennan Summers, Executive Director Main Street ID:

Welcome to Main Street Podcast, an opportunity to talk to Idaho's elected leaders about the issues that matter to you. Welcome to Main Street, Idaho. We're here on the podcast with a very, very special guest today. State Superintendent of public Instruction. Ms. Debbie Critchfield. How are you, Debbie?

Debbie Critchfield:

I'm doing fantastic.

Brennan Summers, Executive Director Main Street ID:

Merry Christmas. Is your house all decorated?

Debbie Critchfield:

It is. That was part of the Thanksgiving week was to get that done, so I joined the Early Bird Club.

Brennan Summers, Executive Director Main Street ID:

Hey, good job. How's the Christmas shopping coming along?

Debbie Critchfield:

I'm not in the early bird club now. We'll get there. Thank heavens for online shopping.

Brennan Summers, Executive Director Main Street ID:

Do you know what Dale wants this year and has he been good enough to get it?

Debbie Critchfield:

Yeah, to jump into this world that we're in now? Absolutely.

Brennan Summers, Executive Director Main Street ID:

I love it. So I've interviewed, we've had a congressman on here. We've had a lot of state senators, state representatives. This is the first time we've ever had somebody on here that has their own podcast. So I'm a little intimidated because it's host to host right now and out of the two of us, I clearly have no idea what I'm doing, but let's do a plug for the Super Intent Podcast. Talk us through that.

Debbie Critchfield:

Well, let me say that I had some experience when I was the communications director in Cashier County school district. I started a podcast, oh gosh, I don't know, four or five years ago, just as an experiment for myself because I enjoyed them, and that is one of the things I wanted to bring with me. It is an opportunity in 10 minutes snippets to learn something to explore, something to highlight, to showcase anything about education. And it's really designed for anyone that has an interest in education. It could be parents, it could be educators, policymakers, my neighbor. And so there's some things that are real informational, like we want you to know and understand something, and then other things are just to talk about exciting things happening.

Brennan Summers, Executive Director Main Street ID:

Yeah, I love it. I've listened to all of them. You can find 'em on, I watched 'em all on YouTube, but they're on Spotify anywhere you get your podcasts, so I'll do a big plug for those. Now, your official title is the State Superintendent of Public Instruction. I think that may feel self-explanatory times, but there's probably a lot of people out there that have no clue what that entails. So as you're out, what is it? So when you're out visiting the schools, how would you explain your job to an eighth grader?

Debbie Critchfield:

Well, I talk about the constitutional role of the state superintendent that it is in the constitution. It dates back from the very beginning of when I Idaho gained statehood. And so it is an important and critical job in a number of ways. One of the things that I do is I am the advocate for the public school's budget. That's one of the roles that I have. And so monies that are appropriated by the legislature start in a process where you go and propose a budget. And so that is one of the assignments that I have. Another very specific assignment that I have is to be a member of the state landlord. And many people overlook that and forget about that, and then wonder why is the superintendent on the landlord? Well, all of the state land lands have an endowment, and those endowment dollars come into education.

It's double digits in the millions. And so the people who put that together a long time ago said, let's have the state superintendent sit on that. I also sit as a member of the State Board of Education, which is the governing policy board for all of education, kindergarten through post medical graduation or graduate programs. And so I've got my fingers in a number of things, and I'm also the administrator for the Department of Education. And then we serve to support schools. We work through all of the federal requirements. We make sure that districts have what they need, and if they don't, we help them find it.

Brennan Summers, Executive Director Main Street ID:

Let's talk a little bit about the State Board of education. So you sat on it for seven years now there's eight members of that board. Seven of them are appointed by the governor, and then one of them defacto is the state superintendent who is elected. That's just me showing off how much I know. Look at that. I did my homework, Debbie. Good

Debbie Critchfield:

For you. Good for you.

Brennan Summers, Executive Director Main Street ID:

But you sat there on that board for seven years. Help us understand how that happened since it wasn't something that you ran for.

Debbie Critchfield:

Right. In 2013, I think it was 2014, actually, I was first appointed to the board by Governor Otter. The individual that had served from my region at the time had taken another position. And I had a friend who knew I had a deep interest and passion for good education policy, and Idaho suggested that I put my name into the hat, so to speak. And I went through a process and ultimately was able to be appointed by Governor Otter. And then I was later reappointed by Governor Little in his first term. And I did sit as a member of that board and that experience, and I was able to serve as president of the board. And my president tenure happened during covid. And so I had this unique experience of managing schools in a way that we really needed some leadership. There were a number of other needs that were happening that I don't think I need to get into, but it sparked in me this interest to have a different role on that same board. The things that I really cared about, the K 12 space, things that I wanted to lead out on, I wasn't able to do as an appointed volunteer. And I thought I need that elected position. And so in talking with my family, I said, I want to change hats. I want to change seats at that same table and get to work.

Brennan Summers, Executive Director Main Street ID:

So it's kind of a tall task to say, I'm going to not just run for elected office, but I'm going to run for a statewide office and I'm going to travel from up near the Canadian border all the way down to the Utah border and talk to Idahoans about some controversial issues and throw my hat in the ring. Maybe briefly explain what that experience was like going from an educator, going from somebody who was known in the community, serving the state in the education, but not somebody who was campaigning statewide.

Debbie Critchfield:

I have toyed kind of jokingly, but at times I thought I need to write a book about that experience because it was incredible in every sense of that word. I put 55,000 miles on my car. I drove everywhere twice. I jokingly said, Hey, if I don't get elected, I'm going to hire out as a tour guide of this incredible state that we live in. I knew where every small town was. I knew all of the things, and that's how I wanted to approach this. I wanted people to hear from me in this day and age of social media where people can put out literally anything that they want and say things and create these narratives around candidates. I wanted to speak for myself. And at one point, one of my kids said, do you think you have to speak to every single person? And I said, no, but it sure felt like it. And so it was incredible in the fact that the personal connections that I made listening to people understanding what their concerns were, and even in cases where politically I may not have on paper aligned with people, I was able to create conversations and find those similarities where again, on paper, I had people support and vote for me that shouldn't have as you looked at things. But when you connect with people and share that you're coming from the same place, it's amazing how you can find common ground.

Brennan Summers, Executive Director Main Street ID:

Yeah, and I think the first time I met you was at a campaign event, and I was surprised to hear where I would typically at a campaign event, hear a lot of political platitudes and just kind of talking points quickly turn into, you had policy solutions for what you want to do if elected. And I was kind of taken back like, well, this isn't normal. We talk in generalized terms, not in specifically how are we going to solve this. So I want to go into a few of the policy solutions that you suggested you were going to take on in your campaign. We're only in year one of cracking away at this, but let's talk about how it's going. So first you talk a lot about outcomes. A lot of your lens that you view success by is outcomes. How is this actually going to affect what we're trying to get it to affect A big outcome or a big key indicator on outcomes for student success is parental involvement. Why is that?

Debbie Critchfield:

Well, hopefully people, as you ask that question, your listeners are already filling in the answers themselves. This is how I thought about, it's a three-legged stool, and you have the student who has to be engaged. I mean, learning isn't something that just happens through osmosis or just drops in. You've got to have an engaged student that wants to participate in their own learning. There is that student responsibility piece. And then you have the teacher, they're the expert in the classroom. They're the ones that have gone through the training. They have a professional license. It is their job to take the information and communicate that in a way that there's understanding that there's knowledge. And then you have the parent who's the expert on the child. And when you combine those three things, that's the perfect recipe or the formula for success. I personally had four children that went through the public school system, and I know that when I sat down with the teacher and I approached it in a respectful way, that they have the professional skills and tools to get the things done in the classroom that I would expect when I layer in the things that I know about my child.

And you combine those two very important pieces of information. You've created an environment where the teacher understands what your child needs or the learning style that your child has, and then you want to work with the teacher so that then they can take the skills that they have and help your child be successful.

Brennan Summers, Executive Director Main Street ID:

So you promised that you were going to better foster parental involvement where possible, and you introduced a parental bill of rights of sorts. What was the thought process behind that?

Debbie Critchfield:

It was to codify really what parents are already doing should be doing. One of the things that I've heard a lot about, I've been involved in education through being a substitute teacher to be on a local board, state board and now this for more than 20 years. And it was surprising to me when I would talk to parents who were frustrated that they didn't recognize or feel empowered. I know that word gets overused, but it really is a good word. They didn't feel empowered about their own child. And in having conversations with the teacher, they felt like it was a system happening to them where I want to create the feeling that no, you are an active participant in what's happening. And so we took my team, and really before I was even elected, I put out what I call a parent bill of rights. And it was not a copy paste. It was things that I had heard from parents, my own experiences, here are the things that you have a right to know to do to talk about. And it made parents feel like, oh, okay, even though they could already do those things, I'm not giving parents their rights. They have those. But it was a reminder to do that, and we were successful in getting that through the legislature.

Brennan Summers, Executive Director Main Street ID:

And so speaking of empowerment, you spent quite a few years serving on a school board in Kshe County. And how did that experience as a school board member kind of translate into Debbie candidate for state superintendent who was campaigning on a encouraging and strengthening local control?

Debbie Critchfield:

So I had this unique experience in Caja. It's a consolidated district that makes up really five unique major communities. And so countywide, you have a school board that comes together that's represented in different zones by different board members. But as someone coming from Oakley, I then had a perspective of how we had to work together to satisfy the needs and interests of all of the communities as a countywide school board. That experience served me very well going up to the state level because that was the same job and role that I had as president of the Board of Education are now as superintendent. We have unique characteristics that are specific to special needs in different communities, but we also need to look at it as a whole, how does one thing help or hurt individual districts? And so that was a great training ground for me in a small contained way to be able to get to the state level to understand the interests at a large scale. And really individually,

Brennan Summers, Executive Director Main Street ID:

Debbie, doesn't it seem counterintuitive for an elected leader to disseminate power away from their office? Doesn't that seem opposite of what a typical politician would do, is you're trying to push power more towards the school board to make those decisions rather than consolidating? It

Debbie Critchfield:

Might, but that's my approach on this, that my role and job is to advocate for the resources and then support informed decision-making at the local level, believe it or not, at the capital city, they don't have a clue of what it's like to be in Ledor on that school board and to know what those unique challenges are. And if you get into the north part of our state, Boise might as well be a million miles away. And so to me that the success that we have happens at that local level. And so we don't want the state to get in the way of that. There are standards and things that we expect. So parental rights as an example, you shouldn't have to feel like, well, I guess I'm lucky enough to be in this district to be supported as a parent. There are things that we want to have consistently around the state beyond some of those standards. We need the flexibility. Our local boards need that flexibility to use those resources and reflect the interests and the priorities of their local community. And I believe, and I'll get, I don't know how to do everything perfectly. I'll get better at this, but because of the experiences that I have, I feel that I am in a unique position to be able to do those things.

Brennan Summers, Executive Director Main Street ID:

Yeah, no, you definitely come with an interesting resume that allows you to touch so many different facets of education. One thing that I think the legislature kind of through your direction and the governor's direction has really taken up is this idea of better preparing our students for the workforce. That was something that was important to you as you were running for this. Talk us through what your office is doing to kind of better meet the demands of this state's economy.

Debbie Critchfield:

Well, we need to have measures. It's not just a test that a student takes in the spring, but to me, we want measures and evidence that we've been successful in the schooling process, that our high school diplomas need to mean something. And to me, that meaning is I can take care of myself. I can financially take care of myself. I'm prepared in ways that I can take advantage of the options that are in my own backyard. And so one of the three things that I harped on consistently during the campaign, but really even before that, was more attention to developing skills to workforce abilities and how we prepare our students. They want a jumpstart in high school. And so we were able to be successful again in the legislature in getting a $45 million one-time appropriation for what we're calling the Idaho Career Ready Students grant.

And we've been able to award dollars to districts. The whole point of it was to find something in your own backyard that fed a program, an employer, an industry that the state wasn't giving you money for. And of the $45 million, we have awarded 36 million already. The money just became available. July one, we've had $111 million worth of requests. So you want to talk about highlighting and showcasing. We knew there was a need. I've been talking about this for years. We have this need in the career technical education arena, $111 million in requests. We still have money to award. We're going to get more. My hope is that I'll be able to go back to the legislature in a year or two and say, look what we did with the investment that you gave us, we're now creating more pathways and more opportunities for our students in St. Mary's or our students in Amon, and this is how we're doing it, and this is where we want our dollars to go.

Brennan Summers, Executive Director Main Street ID:

Oh, that's fantastic. I'm going to be excited to see what those programs look like and how each district tailors 'em to their own needs. So I think that's fantastic.

Debbie Critchfield:

This will sound really greedy, but that could be another podcast. We could really talk about what we've awarded and the programs that are being created from forestry to fish hatchery to meat cutting, and how we're preparing our students. It's been so exciting and just so satisfying for me.

Brennan Summers, Executive Director Main Street ID:

Well, I'm going to get you on the record here saying you're going to come back to talk about that with us.

Debbie Critchfield:

I would love it.

Brennan Summers, Executive Director Main Street ID:

Okay. Two important things we definitely have to cover, and you knew they were coming. You talk about students graduating with skills. We hear over and over again, and we see the memes on Facebook that show I know what osmosis means, or I know that the mitochondria is a powerhouse of the sale, but I have no idea what a credit score is, or I don't even know if a 401k is a marathon or what. That means you campaigned and delivered on making financial literacy a graduation requirement in Idaho. Talk to us about that.

Debbie Critchfield:

I'm so proud of the effort and you were a part of the support. Listen, when a candidate or just anyone who wants to serve, and that's really how I see myself. I've got an opportunity to serve. When you can find that one issue that no one disagrees with and everyone supports, you run with it like crazy. And financial literacy, personal management skills was that thing. There wasn't anybody of any political flavor or color that disagreed that our students need to have that ability. And what was so cool to me was parents saying to me, not only does my kid need it, I wish I could go back and take that class. And as I got into this and learned that Idaho is now among one of the first states in the country to require this as a graduation requirement, it gives me just that. It gives me power in thinking Idaho can be a leader in so many other things.

And I had a mom at the beginning of the school year, right around registration. So August time, she had gone to register her senior, and we made it so, and we were so happy to have this be successful in the legislature in both of our houses, it had 105 yes votes, and of course signed by the governor. You don't find legislation like that ever. And so I had this mom who had been tracking that she was excited that her child would have to take the class, and she called me on the phone and she said, Hey, I took my son to register, and I did not see that on the schedule. What is happening in the school district? I thought this was a requirement. And it turned out that it was there. It wasn't called out in a way that she recognized it. I loved that parents were paying attention to that. And so as we see students become just more knowledgeable about not only future decisions, but we have so many students that are already making important financial decisions in high school. We have students that support themselves, that help support their families. The financial wellbeing of an individual or of a state starts with an individual, and we want them to feel good about that.

Brennan Summers, Executive Director Main Street ID:

Not to mention the moment they graduate, the first mail that will come to their mailbox will be credit card applications. And we live in a country where you can destroy your credit long before you even know what it means. But another thing we have, go ahead.

Debbie Critchfield:

Oh, I was just going to say one of the things that I learned from you and from others that are in the financial industry, that there are dozens upon dozens of people in departments that all they do is manage debt for people and manage poor financial decisions. And I have a son that's in the financial world. And when I hear some of the crazy things that people do, and it does come back to this training and preparation and really our emotional relationship with money, and I, I'm so excited that we're at the place where we are with it.

Brennan Summers, Executive Director Main Street ID:

Yeah, I love it. Briefly, we're also seeing you and the governor rolled out the Story of America curriculum. Quickly tell us what that looks like.

Debbie Critchfield:

This is a supplementary curriculum. And again, supplement districts have got their curriculum, but it's something that without any money expended, teachers that teach social studies in eighth grade and 11th grade can go to as a vetted quality addition to subjects that they're teaching in US History. We hear a lot of talk, sometimes it's controversial, but I think this is another area that we all agree that we want our students to have more exposure to factual, accurate, historical content. And we had an opportunity with expiring COVID dollars at the state level to invest in something that would be a benefit for all of our students. And so as the governor and I visited on what could we do, we believed that this was one of the most important ways that we can support good learning. It takes pressure off of teachers who are already supplementing their curriculum, but it puts in a teacher's hand a very modern, interactive, free online resources that I believe match where we are in Idaho on how we want to talk about history.

Brennan Summers, Executive Director Main Street ID:

Well, superintendent Kold, we love the optimism that's coming out of your office. You've surrounded yourself with some brilliant people. We didn't talk about funding formulas. We didn't talk about facilities, we didn't talk about. There's so many things we didn't get to cover. But I think it's a testament how busy you are that all of these different facets of education touch your job. As we wrap up today, why don't you tell us what you look forward to when it comes to Idaho? Being an educational leader,

Debbie Critchfield:

Educational leader, I want other states in our country to see the success that we have, the achievement, the growth, the way that we are aligning what our needs are in our state and what our needs are in our communities and with our students in a way that we're satisfying. We're checking all those boxes. And then they look at Idaho and they say, wait, what are they doing over there that's working? We want to do that here. How have they made their students so successful? We want to do that here. And it's not really about showing off in that way, but when you're a leader and you're out front, you are thinking differently. You're taking some thought out risks. And then the other part I think of being a leader is when you try something and it's not successful, you say, you know what? We thought that that would work.

It didn't work. We're going to pull back on that. And one of the things I think has happened over time is there's been a lot of great new ideas, and some of them are hamstringing us now because they don't match up with the context that we're living in. But it's maybe a line item and a budget from 10 years ago, and districts can't utilize that money the way they need to because it worked then, but it doesn't work now. And so the hope and the excitement that I have about education in Idaho, I hope that that will spread to other people and that they'll see that this is an exciting time to be a part of education. Yeah, there's a lot of things that we can fix, but gosh, the future is bright and I'm happy to be in the front lines.

Brennan Summers, Executive Director Main Street ID:

The Future is Bright State Superintendent Debbie Cri, thank you so much for joining us. We're going to have you back and cover a few of the things we didn't, I hope.

Debbie Critchfield:

I hope so. You'll get sick of me probably.

Brennan Summers, Executive Director Main Street ID:

And maybe just one day you'll invite me on your podcast.

Debbie Critchfield:

Consider that done,

Brennan Summers, Executive Director Main Street ID:

Debbie, Merry Christmas. Thanks so much for joining us.

Debbie Critchfield:

Thank you so much.

Building Idaho's Tomorrow: Business, Growth, and Opportunity • Senator Abby Lee

As a lifelong Republican and a conservative force for positive change, Senator Abby Lee stands as a beacon of integrity, guided by the principles instilled in her by her parents—a Marine Corps Captain Vietnam veteran and a first-grade teacher. Her parents valued hard work and education, and Abby experienced firsthand the profound impact those values can have on one's economic opportunities.

In the pursuit of economic prosperity and sustainable growth, Senator Lee champions the notion that businesses, not the government, create jobs. Attracting new business to our state – expanding the tax base not increasing taxes – is the way to increase investments in education to secure the future for our children.

In today’s NEW podcast episode with Senator Abby Lee, we discuss:

• Core principles that drive sustainable economic growth.
•  The importance of strategic infrastructure investment as a driver of economic development, creating opportunities for businesses and communities alike.
• Education's transformative power on individuals and entire communities.
• Why the Idaho Launch program is a game-changer for students and the economy alike.
• The pivotal role that community colleges play in unlocking diverse education and training opportunities.

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Brennan Summers, Executive Director:

Welcome to Main Street Podcast, an opportunity to talk to Idaho's elected leaders about the issues that matter to you. Welcome, welcome. We're lucky enough today to be joined by Senator Lee Abby, not Mike, coming out of District nine. Senator, how are you?

Senator Abby Lee:

I'm great. Thanks for having me this morning. It's good to be here.

Brennan Summers, Executive Director:

Well, we appreciate you joining us. We were talking before how this is our first time actually meeting, and so I have this long, long list of all these questions about you and we're going to try to get through as many as we can today.

Senator Abby Lee:

Great. I'm excited.

Brennan Summers, Executive Director:

So typically they say that people are a byproduct of the home they were raised in. And I want to start by talking about the home you were raised in. Your father was a Marine Corps captain that served in Vietnam and Mother was an educator, first grade school teacher, I believe.

Senator Abby Lee:

Yeah, she was a kindergarten teacher, first grade teacher. And she also, when I was in high school, taught home ec and family living classes at my high school. So she's done a variety of things and has a PhD and is just an incredible human being.

Brennan Summers, Executive Director:

So why don't you talk a little bit about what it was like being raised in the balance between war hero and educator?

Senator Abby Lee:

Yeah. My dad is who also is amazing. I think I come from a lot of blessings and privilege and I think that that creates a lot of responsibility and something that my parents really instilled in all of us. There's four kids in my family, this responsibility to make things better wherever we go. And my dad was a vice president at a large corporation and my mom was a teacher and has always been a teacher before she was even a credentialed educator. And so I think that, as you say, really shapes your upbringing and your view of the world. Both my parents are first generation college students and I've spent the bulk of my career as we'll talk about working in education. And so that really forms my outlook and how education is the great equalizer and it changes lives.

Brennan Summers, Executive Director:

So your mother was a first generation college student and went on to get a PhD.

Senator Abby Lee:

My mom was a first generation college student. She's one of 13 kids. My grandpa was a coal miner in West Virginia. She was the first to finish high school. She was number six in the family and she was the first to go off to college and she had a scholarship to go up to college. And so that was a big leap for her to leave a tiny town in West Virginia and to go to college. And then she has since went to get a master's degree and she completed her PhD. So she's a great, great role model and my dad was the first in his family to also go to college.

Brennan Summers, Executive Director:

Wow, that's an incredible story. So you come from a rich history of people that just figure out how to get it done.

Senator Abby Lee:

Yeah, really people who had other people cheering them on, obviously people who were supporting my mom and encouraging her to make a difference and to change her future. And I am the product of someone of people. I'm the product of people who really just chose to make their life better. And I can see dramatically the difference between what could have been my life and what is my life just because of the choices that my parents made specifically in getting more education and getting good jobs.

Brennan Summers, Executive Director:

So in England they have a coin that their form of currency is the pound and they have a two pound coin. It's kind of a bigger coin if you've been to the uk seen it and inscribed on the outside of it, it says standing on the shoulders of giants. And so as you're telling me this, I'm thinking of you had the opportunity to stand really on the shoulders of giants who were pioneers in the world to be able to get into education to and to get these great jobs.

Senator Abby Lee:

Absolutely. And I can see the disparity between what my life has been able to be because of my parents' choices and the opportunities that they created for their family and certainly some of my family members who have great lives, but just different. And again, I really speak from a place of blessings and recognizing that because my parents made hard choices and did hard things, my life was better and I have an opportunity, I had opportunities to do things that otherwise wouldn't have been able to. And I'm incredibly grateful. And I think that really through that lens creates an opportunity and a responsibility for me to create opportunities for other people.

Brennan Summers, Executive Director:

Yeah. So you mentioned that kind of not, I shouldn't ascribe the family motto, but make things better is something that your family's focused on. You've spent nearly 10 years, right? It's been nearly a decade since you first got elected to the Idaho Senate trying to make things better. Do you feel like since you've got there, you've made things better for our state?

Senator Abby Lee:

Oh gosh, that's a big question, but I do, as I look back, I think one of the areas that I'm incredibly proud of is the work that I've done in child welfare, the work that I've done in foster care reform in giving a voice to often the most voiceless and vulnerable in our state. I'm incredibly proud of the Republican platform where we really value families. That's something that obviously was instilled in me, and I think that my work to expand foster care resources for the most vulnerable in our state really embodies those values of our Republican party.

Brennan Summers, Executive Director:

Let's talk a little bit about the foster care work you've been doing. There's so many issues that an elected leader in Boise can get their hands on. It's impossible to prioritize everything. What was it about foster care that attracted you to the policy issue and got you involved?

Senator Abby Lee:

So as we say, we're all shaped by our experiences and our family had the opportunity to be foster parents for some family members for a couple of years. And so I came to the legislature with that experience and with some of the, I think, difficulties in navigating that and just walked into a policy window as we call it, working with then Representative Moyle and representative Christie Perry to really address I think some major concerns with transparency in that system. And so bringing my personal experience along with I think some gaps in the policy, the time was right. And so we really, I think brought transparency, accountability, and at the same time I brought additional resources to address those things. And I think I'm really proud that this legislature, we were able to pass some pretty significant reform and support that had fiscal notes as a fiscal note is a bill that has dollars attached to it.

We were able to expand foster care to age 21 unanimously through the Senate and the House after about six years of working on this, which is transformative to get folks concerned about a policy issue that typically doesn't get you reelected as you say, these are big issues, these are not really attractive issues like tax reform or some of those other things that people are buying for. And so I really saw an opportunity to work on an issue that other people weren't focused on and something that was going to really make a difference for Idaho. Idaho.

Brennan Summers, Executive Director:

And I think you bring out a point here that Congressman Simpson and I speak about extensively where sometimes voters and the public, we think it's absurd that an elective leader should spend more than a few years in any position, right? Go in and do your job and just get out. But to this point, for these vulnerable populations, for those in foster care, this would not have gotten solved if you said, okay, I'm going to do two terms in I Idaho Senate be done. Because the complexities, it's safe to say that it took a full six years and if you would've bailed out early, this might not have gotten done.

Senator Abby Lee:

And I think that's really the message that I tell constituents. And I also tell new legislators, let's take our small wins and move the ball down the field. We have that sports analogy all the time. It's not always a touchdown, but it's can we get that first down? Can we start having that conversation? And so we did have a lot of small wins along the way. So each year we would bring back a piece of policy and then we created a child welfare oversight committee that I co-chair with Representative Brandon Mitchell. And again, I'm about bringing accountability to our government agencies. I think that that's our responsibility, but at the same time, we've got to provide the support and resources to get the job done. And I think that that's been an important balance. And you've heard lots of, I'm sure policymakers talk about don't let the possible get in the way of the perfect, get in the way of the possible. Let's have some compromise. Let's have some discussions. But again, as you point out, I think it does take time to build credibility and to build trust. And I'm proud that when we have child welfare issues, whether it's adoption or foster care or other issues with the Department of Health and Welfare, that my colleagues see me as a real resource, as someone who's worked on these issues on the policy side as well as the budget side, as I served on the joint finance appropriation committee and really worked these issues from the resource side,

Brennan Summers, Executive Director:

And I mean your juggling issues. So it's not that your sole focus has been the foster care issues, education has been a big issue for you. We spoke last week, two weeks ago with Chair Yamamoto about the importance of education and she laid out the pretty clear argument for the constitutional case of public education and funding it and the role of the legislature in ensuring we have a successful education program in Idaho public education. But we often hear from our representatives about kind of the emotional cause or argument for education that this is the right thing to do, this is what these kids need. And I think a lot of the voters and public buy-in into, yes, this is the right thing. You agree to that I'm sure. But you also have talked a lot about the economic argument, which is one that I'm really excited to talk to you about. Walk us through your perspective on education and how you connect it, not just to the feel good kid in the classroom learning how to read, but to the community, to taxes, to jobs, and to everything else that goes on in society.

Senator Abby Lee:

Yeah, I love that you start with our constitution, right? That's the oath that we take when we become elected leaders in Idaho. And so we should be able to go back to that. That is our responsibility, but more than just being the right thing to do, it really is this economic driver. And as I said at the beginning, I can see that my life opportunities economically were dramatically changed by my parents' access to education and skills. And I think that's the exciting thing about the launch program. It's been interesting to have it be so heavily criticized that we are investing in opportunities for education in our state that we know translates to better jobs, to jobs that help take care of families and jobs that keep people in Idaho helping to grow the economy, spread that tax base, all the things that we talk about that we want.

And yet, somehow this investment in these opportunities has been really derided. I look at what is the proper role of government. We talk about what is the proper role of government all the time and the proper role of government is to do the things that the market cannot and will not do. And so you probably, I've seen some of the criticism of let the market do this, let the businesses take care of these things. I've spent my life's work in education. I'm an administrator at Treasure Valley Community College. I'm incredibly proud of the work that I've done there. And clearly the market isn't fixing this. We have students who are not going on to college, not going on to jobs, not going on to skills or leaving our state. And so I think it's a really innovative way to invest in the things that, the outcomes that we want to see. We do it across tax policy all the time. We provide tax rebates or tax credits or we tax things more to get the kinds of behaviors and to incentivize and reward or to disincentivize actions. And I think that we can look at our investment education in a similar way. We know it changes lives and we know it changes communities. And so I think we should do more of this.

Brennan Summers, Executive Director:

Yeah, great line there about the proper role of government is to do that, which the market can't or won't do. So you brought up Launch. We hear a lot about launch the ball, moving down the field, take the little, this was a big win that happened this last session for a lot of those who supported it, and a big priority for our governor. For those that are hearing about launch, they're hearing the criticism that it's wasteful tax dollars or they're hearing the support that it's helping out kids. Let's dig in a little bit more. What is it that Launch does that isn't already happening? Why is this such a need in Idaho?

Senator Abby Lee:

Well, I think some people are seeing this as a grand experiment of giving students dollars to incentivize them to go to college by really filling in that gap For students who don't qualify for Pell Grants, I mean, let's be real, if you are a very, very low income student, you have a lot of opportunities for financial aid and that's incredible. But if you are a middle income family, where do you get those additional dollars, especially in this economy to go to school? And so I think that it fills that need. It also fills the need for programs that don't qualify for financial aid. So as we look at commercial truck driving or we look at cosmetology or some of those other jobs that really are good wage earning jobs and create entrepreneurs, I think investing on that in the front end is going to pay huge dividends when these are individuals who are going to be able to pay taxes and invest in their community.

So I think it seems very innovative, and yet we're not ahead of the curve on this. There are a lot of states that have already done this Utah, and we have a little bit of a fun thing going in the Senate where every time we say Utah, we have to put a dollar in a swear draw. But Utah is an example of a state that not only has done huge investments in the dual credit, which is college credit in high school, where you already have a little bit of an opportunity to help students, but if you get your associate's degree in high school, then you can go on and complete your degree at any university in the state. So what does that do? That gets students staying in state, they're marrying people in state, they're getting apprenticeships in states, and they're investing in that state and staying in the state of Utah.

And I want to see some of those things happen in Idaho. Idaho is an incredible place to be. It's an incredible place to raise our families. It has been an incredible place for generations. So I appreciate new people coming here, but we've built a pretty robust economy and I think that we can look at other states as models, and again, we're not ahead of the curve on investing in higher education. And so we have the opportunity to learn from other states, and I think launch is an example of what we've learned from other states, and we've seen that it really does make an economic difference in the state.

Brennan Summers, Executive Director:

Yeah, I'm thinking back to my experience. So I went to Bonneville High School in OT Falls graduated, and there were two dual credit classes offered. So there was a history class offered that you could get credit through I Idaho State University, and then there was a math class offered where you could get college algebra credit through I think Northwest Nazarene. When I graduated high school and went to school, I went to Utah State and my cohorts in my classes that had been attending Utah High schools in 2012, most of them had their associates. They had a number of opportunities that I didn't have in high school. Idaho's kind of caught up to that in regards to dual credit classes. Now, if you walked into Bon Bonneville High School, there's a lot more than two dual credit classes and a lot of these kids can now graduates or associates.

So it feels like we have been a little behind and then this launch is an opportunity to catch up. So I think it's fantastic. The governor has said that his focus of everything he does is how does he keep Idaho and his kids and grandkids to want to stay here? So you bring up number one launches for those that don't qualify for federal aid, either due to the program or due to Pell Grant, their own status. Number two, this is supposed to fill jobs that the market is telling you that aren't happening. What are you hearing from businesses in your district and around the state about the need to fill some of these jobs?

Senator Abby Lee:

So I'm hearing a lot from plumbing and HVAC and some of those manufacturing jobs where again, if I go back to the criticism of the market should do this, if you own a small plumbing company, it's really difficult to get new workers and how do you spend the time training them when you're also trying to go out and finish jobs so that you can pay your own bills? I also come from an education background, and I think education and training is a profession and there is a way to educate and train people, and it's not necessarily just on the job by seeing and doing. There's an under respected profession, so let's let the educators, those who are trained and those who have been able to develop curriculum to specifically help broad education, not just put a widget in or peg in a hole kind of a thing.

We talk about the need for holistic education, and I think that's the piece that we really need to look at the professionals who are helping to train individuals. And it's not just on the job training, and that's what my companies are saying is we need people who can read. We need people who can do math. We need people who can communicate well. And they also, oh, by the way, need to help develop these skills and we need credentials and we need testing to make sure before they go out and produce whatever's work product there is that there is kind of a vetting of that. And I think our community colleges especially skilled in being able to provide that resource.

Brennan Summers, Executive Director:

Yeah, that's exactly where I want to go is community colleges. So excuse me, Idaho's go on rate has been abysmal and I think we're realizing more and more four year degrees not for everybody. The worst thing somebody can do is get into college without really having a path, and then they end up burdened with student loans and then they bail without the degree. And we're seeing that throughout the country. The pendulum has kind of swung all over the place of everybody needs to go to college too, maybe nobody needs to go to college and back and forth. That I think Idaho's trying to find a sweet spot. You mentioned your career has been spent at a community college. Talk us through your unique perspective of what the community colleges are doing to provide kind of a fix for this.

Senator Abby Lee:

So I'm a fan of all of our universities also, and I think they absolutely have a role. I'm completing my PhD and so I clearly am invested in education, but I think our community colleges were really born out of a need for open access and open door. And so helping every student who comes, I like to say that our community colleges are kind of the Ellis Island of higher education where whoever comes with whatever goal, we're going to help them meet that. I also am one that doesn't believe that every student should go to college, but I do believe that every student who graduates from a high school and I think people should graduate from high school. That's kind of our base constitutional requirement that you should graduate from high school, either job and career ready or college ready. And I think there's a mix of that.

So we can do a lot with apprenticeships in high school. We can do a lot with apprenticeships those first two years of college, and then if you want to go on to medical school or you want to go on to become a teacher with a bachelor's degree, we should scaffold all of that. But I definitely think that education, as I said, is that great opportunity provider and we know that there is an exponential return on our investment for every dollar that we spend in education. I've had debates with people about should we take federal dollars for education and what should we do and what is our responsibility? And I can tell you that we're investing a lot in other social services that could be solved when we have I think whole healthy educated families. I serve on the Judiciary rules committee, and so I look at a lot of those, as I said, from foster care to juvenile corrections to the Department of Corrections. And every dollar that we put in education I think is an incredible investment in reducing some of those risks or other social issues.

Brennan Summers, Executive Director:

Yeah, I'm thinking I had a conversation with some individuals that run the local jail here and that very similar conversations, it's triggered. But Senator, our conversations today have all been centered around policy and you mentioned following your mother's footsteps, you're completing a PhD. We talked before about, we just got the dissertations, all that's left, and then you're going to be not just senator, but Dr. Abby Lee, your PhD is in policy and administration. When people think of elected leaders and they think of their senator, oftentimes it's not policy that comes to mind, it's politics. So I was hoping we could have a little discussion about the difference between statutes and yard signs, right, of campaign buttons and laws and how you kind of balance the two of politics is kind of how you get elected policies, how you govern. But in the Idaho Senate and the Idaho legislature as a whole, sometimes politics is the order of the day and it's not policy. How do you balance the two?

Senator Abby Lee:

I love that question and I think those who know me would probably agree. I think I'm a really good policy maker. I really am someone who studies the details and I wrestle with those. I don't know that I'm a great politician because I don't do well with looking for headlines or looking for taking credit for things. And yet there is a balance. And I often say that we run the risk of applying reason and logic to a political process, which simply the two are very separate. And so for me, I try to understand and respect what my constituents want me to do. And when I think I disagree with kind of a headline position, it's my job to go back home at either town halls or community meetings or through newsletters and explain my position to constituents about as we launch is a great example about really looking at how this is an economic investment just as I'm using tax dollars for other things, whether it's roads and bridges, or whether I'm giving tax breaks for homeowners or those types of things, that this really is an investment that I think is going to be good policy for Idaho.

But it's tough and it's getting tougher, as you know with social media and memes and kind of the vitriol that is growing of your either good or evil, and yet reasonable minds can disagree. We can disagree on policy solutions and we can both be right. And that's what our founders wanted is this system that is fraught with tension and it's slow and it's deliberative, and we can have disagreements without being angry and disagreeable. And that doesn't necessarily mean that you have to be Pollyanna nice. But I do think that you have to be civil, and I think that that is kind of an ethical position that people are missing

Brennan Summers, Executive Director:

Reasonable minds can disagree. I think that's an important thing for all of us to remember. Senator Lent was here and taught us that. Well, he says he refuses to accept compromises a weakness, he views it as a strength in his political career and in his personal life, and he will always stand by that. But we live in a world where today, this whole episode could have just been, we could have boiled it down to the talking points of the day and to get real dark red about things that really can wind up the lowest common denominator of political issues. Why do you continually choose policy issues over political issues that might make your reelection easier?

Senator Abby Lee:

Because I think having that seat at the table, the reason that I wanted to run for the legislature is because I didn't feel like I was being represented. I was one of those naive individuals who I'd never run for office before, but I knew that the individual who was serving in the seat at the time that I actually was running against had voted against almost every education bill, most of the transportation funding. And what I always say is these are hard issues, right? And yes and no are simple answers to complex issues, and all we get in the legislature are complex issues. If they were simple issues, they'd be solved before they came to us. And so I really think we have to be thoughtful about what we do in Boise matters. It matters to the families, it matters to the businesses, it matters to our schools. It matters to the future of Idaho. And so I think that's why I care about policy because these aren't just simple. Yes and no. They're complex issues and I've got to vote on, but all I get to do is say yes and no. And I care deeply about the future. My girls are fifth generation Idahoans and I want them to live in Idaho, and I want them to have all the benefits and blessings that I think that I've enjoyed.

Brennan Summers, Executive Director:

I think it's obvious as you speak to the issues, it's clear your passion and love for the state, your passion and love for the district. I told you I wasn't going to ask too many difficult questions, but this is the part of the podcast where we always ask the toughest questions. Okay, the first one, we need a book recommendation from you. The one book. We always have to ask those on the podcast. If there was one book that you'd recommend everybody needs to read before they die, what would it be?

Senator Abby Lee:

I was just reading Democracy, and I'm stunned by, I don't have the author, so I'll have to get back with you on that. But also, another book that I think is fascinating for policymakers is Ken Meyers, the Politics of Sin. And it is a fascinating look at the rules and laws that we make around prohibition, around abortion, around murder, around all the things that we want to create for norms and morays and values in our community. It's a quick read, and he is a fascinating public policy scholar out of Texas a and m University. I grew up in Dallas, so Ken Meyers, politics of Sin. I don't know if it's the one book that everyone in their life should read, but I do think it's a great book for policymakers to read.

Brennan Summers, Executive Director:

Alright, democracy and the Policy of Sin. We'll put those both on the list. Now in your district, district nine, what is one place that you think, okay, this is a place everybody needs to eat?

Senator Abby Lee:

Oh my goodness, you're going to get me. I got tough questions, a lot of trouble, but I think everybody should go to Weezer Classic Candy. If you have not been out to Weezer, you've got to go out to Patrick. He's my candy man. He comes to the capitol every year when we do the buy Idaho, and he has the Velvet Mints that we sell on in the gift shop, and they have fantastic soups and sandwiches and res dairy, ice cream, and the best homemade chocolate. So come out to the Fiddle Festival and go to Weezer Classic Candy and see my friend Patrick.

Brennan Summers, Executive Director:

Yeah, you're speaking my language with Reeds dairy ice cream as a eastern Idaho boy. So okay, we'll put that on the list too. Senator, we started today talking about the unique family you grew up in, a war hero father, an educator mother, both of whom really have a compelling story of where they started and where they finished. Then we talked a little bit about the work you've done in the Senate in nearly 10 years with not just the foster care reform, but the work you've been doing with education. We got into launch, you explained how that's really paving the way for Idaho's youth. We talked about the proper role of government and that it can do what needs to do, what the market can't. We've got into all these different issues as we've come along. Senator, as we wrap up and run out of time here, what is the message you would like to leave to the listeners who might not be tuned into all the political issues of the day, who maybe vote here and there in presidential elections, but need to hear something from an elected leader?

Senator Abby Lee:

So I think get involved. Get involved and make sure that you vote and then get involved in your local elections. And if you don't want to run for office support, a candidate who is running for office, my best advice is you are your best candidate. You agree with yourself a hundred percent of the time, but unless you are running, unless you are that candidate, you've got to find a candidate who most closely aligns with your views and values. You're not going to find someone who agrees with you a hundred percent probably in your family, and certainly not in the legislature, but find somebody and then support that person financially or with a yard sign, or just send a kind note, Hey, I really appreciated your stand on that. It is a lonely proposition to be in these jobs, and I don't say that to get any sympathy, but I say that from a human perspective of if you see something that you support, send a note that buoys that individual incredibly. So again, you're your best candidate. If you're not running, find someone who is and support them.

Brennan Summers, Executive Director:

Oh, fantastic message. Fantastic. Well, reasonable minds can disagree as you taught us today, but on that we agree. Senator Lee, thank you so much for joining us. We're going to have you back. Okay,

Senator Abby Lee:

Thank you. Thanks for your time today. I appreciate it.

Brennan Summers, Executive Director:

Thank you so much.

The level headed legislator talks private property rights, the future of family farm and public service - Senator Mark Harris

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In the vast expanse of Eight Mile, where the average is four people per square mile, you can find Senator Mark Harris. A rancher himself, he understands the rhythm of the land, where hard work is not just a phrase but a way of life.

In the spirit of sweat and dedication, Senator Harris is steadfast in serving Idaho. He recognizes that agriculture, the lifeblood of Idaho’s economy, thrives on secure private property rights, and Idaho's Constitution guarantees the right to possess and protect property.

Harris is resolute in preserving this foundation for generations of Idahoans to come.

We hope you enjoy this NEW episode of the Main Street Idaho podcast with Senator Harris  and Brennan Summers, the Executive Director of the Main Street Idaho podcast.

Mark doesn't just stand for Idaho; he walks the fields, herding the ideals that make us proud. In his words and actions, Senator Harris is a steward of our way of life, tending to the seeds of Idaho's future.

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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. It is the Idaho Main Street podcast. This is Brennan Summers here. I keep getting in trouble for not saying my name, but nobody caress who I am. It's always the guest we're here for, so we are lucky enough to be here with the good Senator at a district 35. Senator Mark Harris. Mark, how are you? I'm

Senator Mark Harris (00:29):

Good. I like to be here. Thank you. The

Brennan Summers (00:30):

Most important question we have to ask is, did you get the cows fed before you came in today?

Senator Mark Harris (00:35):

Didn't have to feed him. Not yet.

Brennan Summers (00:36):

You haven't fed 'em yet. You feed 'em later in the day.

Senator Mark Harris (00:38):

Well, the snow level hasn't come down quite to hit us yet, so they're

Brennan Summers (00:42):

All out.

Senator Mark Harris (00:42):

Just we're watching

Brennan Summers (00:43):

It. You're not throwing any hay down for 'em. They're

Senator Mark Harris (00:45):

Good. Not yet. Hay's too expensive. Well, not this year, but it's a cost that we don't want to blow right away.

Brennan Summers (00:52):

Sure, sure. You got to save that. Bruce, you have some pretty harsh winters where you're at.

Senator Mark Harris (00:55):

We do, yeah.

Brennan Summers (00:56):

Yeah. I'm excited. We're going to talk a little bit about where you're from and what you're doing, but we have a few things in common. We both went to Utah State and got political science. Oh, awesome. Yeah. Go Aggies. Are you a true Aggie?

Senator Mark Harris (01:06):

I

Brennan Summers (01:06):

Am not. You're not a true Aggie. I'm not,

Senator Mark Harris (01:08):

Are you?

Brennan Summers (01:09):

That's a very personal question. I do the questions

Senator Mark Harris (01:11):

Here, mark.

Brennan Summers (01:12):

Okay. You and Cheryl need to get down to Logan to become true Aggies. I

Senator Mark Harris (01:14):

Know. I keep telling her that she finds some excuse not to

Brennan Summers (01:18):

Go. We've got a lot of people right now that are Googling. Utah State owes us for that one, but when I was little, my dad was on the city council in Yukon, which is in New District, and so I would go to city council meetings with him and I mean, I'd go to these Lincoln days and it opened me up to this whole different world. You had a similar experience that got you involved in public service and getting involved in your community. Maybe talk a little bit about what your grandparents and your parents did to help you get to be a senator now.

Senator Mark Harris (01:47):

Sure. So my great-grandpa was actually a representative, and when Idaho is just a newly formed state, and I kind of always knew that, but really didn't pay much attention to it. My dad is actually the one that got me involved in politics as I was a little kid, as he would spray weeds with his pickup and I would have to start the pickup going, driving it when I was real little, and so he could start the sprayer and get it going. Then he would run and jump in the cab and we'd take off. He would always listen to the radio and Paul Harvey and the news. The news was big to him, and I could always remember him griping about Jimmy Carter. He did not like Jimmy Carter. Then when Ronald Reagan became the president, that was the happiest day of his life really. That's when I started paying attention to what was going on, mostly on the national level, because that was what was sexy at the time. But yeah, that's kind of what got me going. Both him and mom were involved in the Bear Lake County Republican Party, and so I started going to Republican conventions at real early age.

Brennan Summers (03:06):

And you caught the bug.

Senator Mark Harris (03:06):

I caught the bug.

Brennan Summers (03:07):

Well, I'm sure dad didn't love filling up that truck during the Jimmy Carta era.

Senator Mark Harris (03:12):

He didn't. Right? He didn't.

Brennan Summers (03:13):

Oh, that's such a fun antidote. Now, what was great-grandfather's name?

Senator Mark Harris (03:18):

My great-grandfather's name was William McGee.

Brennan Summers (03:20):

William McGee, okay. William McGee Harris. So you've got a rich history of Berto. Do you know what kind of legislator he was? If he was a bomb thrower or if he was,

Senator Mark Harris (03:29):

He was known as the hardheaded gentleman from Bonneville County. Oh,

Brennan Summers (03:32):

Really? A title that you've managed to shake off? Yeah. Yeah. That's all right. Now you're not from Bonneville County. You're out near Soda Springs and you describe it as, it's an area called Eight Mile that's between Soda and Georgetown, which is funny. Most people hear Eight Mile, and I don't know if you're familiar with the Detroit, but eight miles a portion where the rapper Emine M grew up. Oh, no, I'm not. And it is notorious for the, I won't go into the details, but for crime and things like that, got to be very different than the eight mile you live

Senator Mark Harris (04:05):

In. Oh, yes. There's no crime in Eight Mile where I'm

Brennan Summers (04:08):

From. Yeah, what's it like out there?

Senator Mark Harris (04:11):

It's a good place to raise kids. That's where I grew up and was raised. The winters are harsh, as you've mentioned. The springs are beautiful but short and the summers are hot. Not as hot as other places, but the falls are beautiful,

Brennan Summers (04:32):

And so you're right there and Soda Springs, that's the closest city where you can stuff.

Senator Mark Harris (04:37):

Yeah, we're eight miles south of Soda Springs, coincidentally,

Brennan Summers (04:40):

That's the name. There we go. We're figuring this out. I'm a slow learner, but I'll get there. Now you've got an interesting district though, because there you are embedded in the heart of Eight Mile right there by soda, but your district runs all the way up to Teton along the Wyoming border comes down, you go through Driggs all the way through Swan Valley, Palisade, even over to Yukon, my old stomping grounds, and then it cuts all the way down straight to Bear Lake, bear Lake, Utah border,

Senator Mark Harris (05:09):

And then goes to McCammon and Ham.

Brennan Summers (05:11):

Yeah, that's got to be one of the most wild districts drawn

Senator Mark Harris (05:16):

Up. We kind of kid that was the district that was made up after all the other districts were formed. They just kind of hodgepodge that one together. But yeah, it, it's an interesting district, but it's full of good people.

Brennan Summers (05:32):

Different

Senator Mark Harris (05:32):

People, different people, but good people.

Brennan Summers (05:34):

So you've said before that as an elected leader, you're going to represent everybody whether they voted for you or not, whether they agree with you or

Senator Mark Harris (05:43):

Not. That's my job.

Brennan Summers (05:44):

That's your job, man. There's different people that exist in Yukon and different people that exist in Driggs and all over the place. How would you go and vote or how when you go and sit on your committees and write legislation, do you keep all those different views in mind?

Senator Mark Harris (06:03):

It's difficult. As you can imagine, the constituency in Driggs is quite a bit different than the constituency in Bear Lake County. I receive quite a few emails from Teton County. They're very politically inclined, very politically motivated. But as I sit down and get ready to vote on a certain bill, I have to rely on my principles, common sense, what I think will help the majority of the district, and then I vote that way and if that's what happens. Sure.

Brennan Summers (06:45):

Let's talk principles. You've been described as a levelheaded legislator, and I practiced all morning to make sure I got that right. Levelheaded legislator. How is it you've managed to also, you've been endorsed by some very conservative organizations for your way to stand up for Right to Life or your falling to the Constitution and that organization surrounding those type of endorsements. How do you keep this levelheaded mentality as a pragmatist and stay very conservative without losing your head over there?

Senator Mark Harris (07:24):

I dunno. It is something that it doesn't keep me up at night. I do what I think is best and let the consequences follow. Basically. Usually if someone disagrees with me or with the way I voted, I'll try to call 'em and walk 'em through why I voted the way I did, and usually that will suffice. If it doesn't, they'll say, well, we agree to disagree and we'll try the next time. But I do try sincerely try to follow what I think is right, what the Constitution, what I think the Constitution allows us to do and what will help my constituents, and that's the best I can do.

Brennan Summers (08:20):

And we try to humanize the politician on this podcast. We try to take away the power distance of the title. And one thing you've done that I think it's important for listeners to understand, it's your phone number's out there and you've encouraged people to call. We were talking before about how you'll receive a lot of calls on certain issues, and when they call, oftentimes if you're out and about your secretary in sir quotations or so they think you have a receptionist. It's actually shero your wife. It's wife for your employees that are taking the call. Right?

Senator Mark Harris (08:51):

Right.

Brennan Summers (08:52):

I mean, that's going to blow some people's mind that they could literally call up the home phone of their senator and get the wife or get the senator and leave a message about how they feel. That doesn't seem crazy to you.

Senator Mark Harris (09:05):

No, it doesn't. That seems Idaho to me. Idaho is a part-time has a part-time legislature. We all have our real jobs when we go home, and I think that is crucial to what Idaho is, is that we need to keep that part-time legislature mentality. We need to keep that connection with people at home. And I think that's important to be able to have my constituents call my house and say, Hey, I've got a problem, and be able to talk to 'em.

Brennan Summers (09:35):

That's fantastic.

Senator Mark Harris (09:37):

It's a necessity.

Brennan Summers (09:39):

Yeah. So you're still a firm believer. Part of your principles are your constituents and your voters need to be able to reach you even if they don't agree with you,

Senator Mark Harris (09:47):

Even if they don't agree.

Brennan Summers (09:48):

You've had some crazy calls in the past. I

Senator Mark Harris (09:50):

Have, and especially on the wolf issue that we had some wolf legislation a couple of years ago that went through, we had quite a few calls late at night, odd hours of the day from some very disgruntled people all across the country in the world in fact. And we finally had to tell the kids, don't answer the phone unless you recognized the number

Brennan Summers (10:17):

And he 2 0 8 on it.

Senator Mark Harris (10:18):

And we had to kind of calm down on that, but

Brennan Summers (10:22):

Let's talk about that wolf issue. Okay. So congratulations. You were quoted in the New York Times. That's the positive side of it. The negative side of it is they were pretty critical of you regarding this wolf issue. What was all the fuss about Senator?

Senator Mark Harris (10:37):

The fuss was an offhand comment that was made in committee about how the sponsors of the bill wanted to kill 90% of the wolves in Idaho. That was the furthest thing from the truth, because I mean, if we do that, the wolf will be listed again and we start the process all over again. I mean, we don't want to do that. But the fact remains, by the numbers of the fishing game gave us, the wolf population was growing and it was like 1,550 wolves, if I remember correctly. And our target was way below that. Even with the hunting season that we had, that the fish and game had implemented, the population was still growing. And so basically the legislation that we had was to allow year-round trapping on private land would allow other people beside it, well, contractors besides government guys to go out and kill the wolves. Anyway, those things were the triggers of the comment of you want to kill 90% of the world's in Idaho, and this was the furthest thing from the truth, but that's what riled everybody

Brennan Summers (11:51):

Up. But you led the, that was trying to control this population that was exploding, correct?

Senator Mark Harris (11:56):

Right. My name was on the bill.

Brennan Summers (11:57):

Yeah. There's some people that are new to our state might be listening who wolves are cute creatures to 'em. They see 'em from a distance, they read 'em about 'em in schools. What is it that they need to understand about this species when it comes to the Idaho way of life?

Senator Mark Harris (12:13):

It goes beyond just the wolf itself. The wolves have been killing cattle and livestock, sheep, horses, domestic dogs, several things around the state. And the livestock producers mostly are beside themselves. Their cattle come in way underweight. They come in open, not pregnant, which is a killer in the livestock industry. It's bad. So there's that aspect of it. But also on the wildlife side of it, we're finding the wolves are driving the elk herds down into the lower country, and when the elk come down, they destroy crops in the lower country, hay crops, corn crops, whatever the elk should be in the mountains. And so there's a compounded problem there with elk depredation where there shouldn't be, plus the added livestock depredation when the wolves will kill 'em.

Brennan Summers (13:14):

And you can speak to this issue because not only do you have a cattle operation that you run with your brothers down there, if we're talking about like a thousand head, I mean it's a significant operation, but all your friends and neighbors, that's their way of life as well.

Senator Mark Harris (13:28):

That's their way of life. They're growing

Brennan Summers (13:29):

Hay, they're raising cows. Your experience in ag is unique, right? So you started on the Farm Bureau and the Idaho cattle cattlemen. You served there and you brought your experience from the field into the policy realm. And then as you've been in the Senate, you've been able to lead out on a lot of these ag issues. Why is it so important that we have elected leaders in Idaho that not only understand agriculture, but their livelihood is agriculture?

Senator Mark Harris (14:03):

That's a good question. Agriculture is a critical part of the I economy. I think it's like 13% of the GDP, but it's just more than that. Agriculture, it's a way of life. It's a legacy for a lot of these families. And in my view, I need to do everything I can to protect that legacy in that way of life for future generations. And what we're seeing now during this time is a large population growth in the state of Idaho. We're seeing it in our infrastructure, our resources, and our ag land. And it's come to the point where a beginning farmer, a kid that wants to start a farm, cannot afford to buy land to start a farm. They have inherit that or have some kind of agreement with their parents to buy it. And so what we're seeing is the loss of the family farm, and that's a threat. Yeah,

Brennan Summers (15:20):

Funny. I had a college roommate down in Utah State who grew up in Bear Lake, went to Bear Lake High School, and he's in that situation right now. He's got a young family and he wants more than anything to raise cows, to grow crops and to get in that lifestyle. And culturally, it's more than just the finances that comes in Idaho from our big farms. It's the culture part of it that we've got to protect. So what are some of the issues, you listed some about the growth and the infrastructure and the challenge to keep the family farm. What are some of these big issues that agriculture's facing in Idaho right now that you've got help with in the Senate?

Senator Mark Harris (15:56):

Well, the big issues I think are a lot of the problems come from the federal, on the federal level. For example, waters of the United States, the wilds, and that was implemented or introduced in the Obama administration and kind of went away during the Trump years. And then it come back with the Biden administration, the several states, attorney generals have filed suit. And as far as I know, that's still pending. But the Sacket situation in northern Idaho with their win in the Supreme Court has kind of forced the EPA to go back and re-look at that, which is good. The other thing that's floating around out there hovering is what they call the 30 30 project, which has been introduced by the Biden administration. Again, it's a global initiative basically to put in reserve 30% of the land and 30% of the water by the year 2030. And that is also a threat to agriculture because as I said before, population's growing. We've got to eat and somebody's got to grow the food and we have to have places to do that. And so there's

Brennan Summers (17:15):

That issue. Yeah, regulation by the federal government's kind strangling you. And there's a lot of people in DC who they'll put out policy. It sounds like a good idea, but it's very different when it comes down to the guy whose boots are in the dirt.

Senator Mark Harris (17:25):

Yeah. When it hits the ground, it's a problem

Brennan Summers (17:27):

Now. So there are some things thrown down from the federal government that make it a real challenge. And there are some things that just kind of happen. So recently we saw an invasive mussel species pop up in some Idaho waters, the governor and the Idaho Department of Ag. They wasted no time to do the full core press, try to get rid of this thing again. What's the big concern about this invasive species and why should we all care about a mus that I can't even pronounce.

Senator Mark Harris (17:53):

The qua mussel. Yeah,

Brennan Summers (17:54):

Qua.

Senator Mark Harris (17:54):

There go. It come from Ukraine, I believe, and has infested the Great Lakes. In fact, the only states in the country that hasn't been touched by it are Idaho, Washington, Oregon, Montana maybe. So we've been trying our best to keep the quagga mussel out. And years ago, the Department of Ag implemented check stations and everybody's probably seen them on the border, boat check stations. The process kind of got stale. And so we revamped it in 2017, I believe, and added some more funds to the stations to add 'em so they could run longer hours. We've been crossing our fingers hoping we didn't ever get 'em. And lo and behold, we did in the Steak River. And Twin, as you mentioned, just popped

Brennan Summers (18:50):

Up, what, a couple months ago maybe it

Senator Mark Harris (18:52):

Popped up. And we don't know where they came from. And that's concerning. I

Brennan Summers (18:55):

Blame the Californians. It's the easiest thing to do, right?

Senator Mark Harris (18:58):

It's the easiest. But it could have come in and an inflatable raft, a rubber duck. I don't know. It could have come in anything. And the problem with those, they multiply so fast and they're so thick that they could potentially cause hundreds of millions of dollars of damage to IDs, infrastructure, the power generation, irrigation systems. We've seen pictures of them. Clogging center pivots so bad that the center pivots get heavy and collapse. They just constrict the water flow. They grow on rocks, on the beaches and make it so people don't want to go there. It's a bad creature.

Brennan Summers (19:47):

That's the bad news. What's the good news?

Senator Mark Harris (19:49):

The good news is, as you said, the governor and the Department of Ag, department of Transportation, fish and game, several state agencies, some federal agencies, it was a phenomenal response when it was discovered that we had it in Twin Falls and the river. The response was terrific, and I think it's something that we'll look back on and try to emulate if we ever get it again. But I have nothing but praise for the Department of Ag and how they reacted to this issue. And basically what they did is they put a copper compound in the river, chelated, I believe, chelated copper that will stick to stuff. And it was in the water for 90 some odd hours and killed the muscle that they did find. They did find one killed the villagers, the little mussels, and killed a few fish, which was a concern. But a lot of the fish that died were trash, fish, carp, and a few sturgeon. But we were basically a fish game said, we can replace those, it'll take a while, but we can replace 'em. But the muscle that they were watching that they did find was dead, which is a good sign. So we're crossing our fingers now because they'll go dormant during the winter basically. But we'll continue to monitor that. ISDA will and fishing game, and we'll see what happens next spring. So we're keeping our fingers crossed to make sure that we've got 'em cleaned out.

Brennan Summers (21:36):

So hats off to the governor, hats off to the agencies, but also hats off to those in the legislature who funded the organizations, the agencies, because if they were gutted and were operating on shoestring budgets, they probably wouldn't have been able to respond the way they did.

Senator Mark Harris (21:48):

And like I said, in 2017 or 2000, when I came into legislature, I think the budget for the invasive species program was 1,000,002 or something like that. It was getting its money from boat tags, boat registration. We upped it considerably in 2017. And with the help of several legislators, Sean Keel from North that Idaho was the chairman of J fac at the time. She was instrumental in that effort and the Governor Otter. And anyway, I think it's time for a refresh and I expect some legislation to come this session to further that fight against the qa. It's

Brennan Summers (22:34):

Got to be one of the most abnormal issues that matter so much. It's one of these things that why should we care? I think you explained it very well. This is an issue we really all should care

Senator Mark Harris (22:45):

About. We should, yeah.

Brennan Summers (22:46):

Another issue that we all should care about that not enough people talk about but plastered all over, whether it's your campaign websites, whether it's your speeches you give in Boise, you care a lot about personal property rights, and that's not typically a campaign talking point for a lot of people in Idaho. But that's kind of been something when we talk about you voted with your principals, it's almost really important to you. Help us understand what is it about personal property rights that it's so important to you?

Senator Mark Harris (23:14):

Private property rights and personal property rights are key to what makes this nation what it's, it's key to what makes Idaho, Idaho. And it's just, it goes back to the rugged individualism type and type mentality of this is mine, I can do with what I want, and I don't want anybody to come tell me what to do with it. It's private property is, like I said, a key to what makes the United States what it is for your

Brennan Summers (23:49):

Country and connect so closely with a lot of the other issues you work on with your deep understanding and fight for protecting agriculture and the things they're on. And we're going to have to have you back, just talk about ag issues. I know there's a long list of things we didn't cover from everything with the workforce shortage to protecting ag land and water's an issue for everyone. So we will get our time to get into that, but we make sure we ask. Everyone that comes on the podcast, they get a couple of questions. I don't know if they like 'em, but people listening tend to love 'em. So the first question, it's a book, a book you've read in your lifetime that anyone listening, you can say, look, before you die, if you never read anything else again, if you don't even know how to read and you just want to learn how to read, do it for this book and this book alone.

Senator Mark Harris (24:29):

That is a tough question. I am an avid Tom Clancy fan.

Brennan Summers (24:35):

Okay. Hey, that's good. We'll take that recommendation. Anything Tom Clancy you're saying?

Senator Mark Harris (24:39):

Anything? Tom Clancy. I read a lot of Tom Clancy books in college and after, and the words that he uses that he used, he's deceased now. But my vocabulary went crazy and I'd have to look up some of the words to see what he meant. But yeah, I'm an avid Tom Clancy fan.

Brennan Summers (25:03):

I love it. Now, do you have a place, now your seatmate representative Wheeler really struggled with this question because your district is so big. I'm going to hold you to it. Can you pick a place or maybe two, the best places to eat in your district if anyone's driving through that massive district of yours, where should they stop and eat?

Senator Mark Harris (25:22):

Home

Brennan Summers (25:23):

Cheryl's cooking. Yep.

Senator Mark Harris (25:24):

That's

Brennan Summers (25:25):

A great answer. What does your wife make that when we stop by? We should get

Senator Mark Harris (25:28):

Roast beef mashed potatoes.

Brennan Summers (25:30):

Man. Spoken like a true Idaho country boy. There we go. Senator, we started today talking about your grandparents, your parents, your great grandfather, representative McGee, the hardheaded guy from Bonneville County, and talked about how you got introduced into politics. We've covered a lot of issues today from invasive muscles, personal and private property rights to issues ags facing. We've talked a lot about your love of agriculture and how you're fighting to make sure Farms can stay in the community. I think everybody in their mind is now wanting to drive out and spend some time in eight mile and see what God's greeting the earth looks like out there. As we're wrapping up here, you've got four boys. These boys have watched you from a young age serve in the Senate. They've watched you feed cows in the winter. They've helped answer the phone When angry people about wolves call. What is it that you're hoping that legacy you're going to leave as Senator Harris for your boys?

Senator Mark Harris (26:24):

I hope that they see the value of public service. If not, if they can't serve in the public disservice in their church service, in their community service anywhere. We have some phenomenal people in this district. Cheryl and I, for example, to a Presbyterian bazaar last week and just great people. It was just fun to be there and intermingle with them and participate in their fundraiser. And that's what I like to do is do those kinds of things and see my people. That's why I do it, and I hope that they learn the value of that and following those footsteps

Brennan Summers (27:12):

Well to the level-headed legislator from District 35. We appreciate your service. We appreciate your time. We're going to have you back so we can get through all the other things we cover. Sounds good. Thanks so much. We'll let you get home to Cheryl and the cows. Okay, sounds good. Thanks so much.

Empowering Idaho Students - Representative Julie Yamamoto - Episode 13

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An educated citizenry is not only desirable, it is paramount to the wellbeing and continuance of our constitutional republic.

Education is the key that unlocks the door to freedom — It equips individuals with the ability to think critically, to question, to make informed decisions, and to safeguard their rights.

Ultimately, education is the catalyst that allows each of us to reach our fullest potential. It's the embodiment of the American Dream – the idea that with hard work and education, anyone can achieve greatness.
Today’s podcast guest, Representative Julie Yamamoto  currently serves as Idaho’s Chair of the House Education Committee. She received her Educational Specialist and Doctor of Education from the University of Idaho, and knew from an early age that she would be a teacher.

Rep. Yamamoto's commitment to guiding students towards becoming virtuous citizen leaders is  inspiring. In today’s episode, she emphasizes the need for teachers to guide students through their educational journey and raise virtuous citizen leaders.

Yamamoto aims to create a collaborative lawmaking environment and push forward  legislation to serve Idaho's students and families.

In this NEW episode, you’ll discover:

How Idaho plans to invest in its young minds through the new Launch program.
Current hot topics, from school choice to building maintenance to the library bill.
How faith plays a significant role in her approach to governance, and how she finds common ground with those who may not share her views.

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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. It is Main Street Idaho's podcast. And here we are with Representative Julie Yamamoto out of District 11. She had to correct me, right? I had 10 earlier, but we had a change in districts. But representative, you're coming out of Caldwell today, correct?

Representative Julie Yamamoto (00:26):

Correct.

Brennan Summers (00:28):

Well, we appreciate you joining us. Now, you chair the House Education Committee, so you can imagine we're going to talk a lot today about education.

Representative Julie Yamamoto (00:37):

I would expect that

Brennan Summers (00:41):

This will be a great experience for me who's followed your career for a while. A lot of issues came up. We had Senator Dave Lent earlier this year come and talk to us about some education issues. That was fantastic. So we're excited to get the house perspective on some of these issues. Now, you were a seventh grade school teacher, a first grade school teacher, and then you went on to become an administrator. You helped start a charter school. You're on the board of a charter school. You have a doctorate in education too, I believe. So first question, representative, what is it about education that you find so

Representative Julie Yamamoto (01:16):

Impactful? Well, I knew from a very early age that I was going to get to be a teacher. I knew it from before I was six years old and started school myself. And I knew that there is just something about when you are working with young people, whether it's teaching them to read, which is just an incredible experience, or if it's guiding them through middle school years, which are just when you ask them why they do things and they say they don't know, they mean it, they don't know. And then as they're working with them in their high school career and what is going to come beyond, you are not their parent, but you are with them with the better part of their waking hours. And so it's important for you to know that an educated electorate, Thomas Jefferson wasn't wrong when he said that's what the Republic, a constitutional republic is going to be dependent on people being educated and knowing what they stand to lose and what it's all about and how to be a part of that. So I always thought from the very beginning that we were raising virtuous citizen leaders. They were going to go forth and keep things moving in a good direction for not just Idaho, but the United States and really the world.

Brennan Summers (02:36):

It's safe to say that if you're one passion in life, you had to choose one is education.

Representative Julie Yamamoto (02:41):

Oh, yeah. It was given to me as not just a job, it was a vocation and an vocation. I felt like it was my joy for it to be my life's work.

Brennan Summers (02:53):

So maybe walk us through how it felt when you first found out that you'd be chair of the House Education Committee.

Representative Julie Yamamoto (03:00):

Well, that was overwhelming and actually went back to Speaker Mole before the announcement was made and asked him if he was sure that was what he wanted to do, because I recognized that we'd had such a turnover in the house and for somebody who was in their second term, there were a couple of us who were tapped to be chair of committees, and that's unusual. Usually somebody has been there quite a bit longer, and so it was overwhelming. But Dave Lent, who chairs the Senate ed, we had decided early on that we would work together and that presentations that we would have on Mondays in the house in the afternoon, we would have the same presentation in the Senate so that the two committees were working somewhat in tandem looking at what are the big issues, what are the things that are going well? How do we help move those things forward? So I felt like I had some good help along the way.

Brennan Summers (04:09):

Yeah, so we try to highlight on the podcast the importance of committees. So whatever I'm chatting with elected leaders, I try to lean into their role on the committee and the things they do. We are finding that our average listener understands what their elected leaders do in terms of voting for bills and proposing legislation, but the idea of committees is sometimes lost on the average Idahoan. Can you briefly walk us through what the process is like of chairing a committee and what that entails and why that matters?

Representative Julie Yamamoto (04:41):

Well, the most important thing is, is that somebody comes to you and says, here, this is a bill that we would like to have heard in your committee. And so the first thing I do is sit down with them and ask them, well, what is it about? Let them talk me through it. Then I read through the bill as well. If I have any questions or concerns, then I talk to that person about that. Ask them who else they've talked to on the committee and encourage them to let people know what's going on with their bill before it gets in front of the committee. A lot of the times you'll get some from personal experience, I have written some bills, and then when I put them out for people to give me feedback, they have caught some things that why not catch it before it gets in front of the committee and not have to go back and redo it and ask for a whole new number? Because that's what it requires is that if you get your RS and then it is actually heard and given a bill number, then if you need to amend it, sometimes you just have to go clear to the beginning and start over again. And so we try to, as chairs, we've been asked to not tell people what to do with their bills, but to give wise counsel so that whatever comes in front of the committee, a lot of the questions have already been answered and concerns have been addressed.

Brennan Summers (06:08):

So first off, your first role is to act as a filter in some sense to ensure that the committee's time's not wasted.

Representative Julie Yamamoto (06:15):

Right. And I know some people think that that means that you draw bills. I made a real effort to not do that, to say that if they had enough interest on the committee for it to be heard, whether it was an educational savings account or whether it was the library bill, all of those things that we heard them, I think there were only two that we ended up not hearing. And it's mainly because we got so late in this session and we needed to get the rules taken care of, which is another part of committee work that probably the average person doesn't know or maybe even care about. But it's pretty important that we're reviewing the rules that are to our germane committee. And so we just got caught in a time crunch and there were two that we didn't hear.

Brennan Summers (07:04):

But there's something to be said about even bills that you opposed in committee, you still brought forward and let the debate occur.

Representative Julie Yamamoto (07:11):

Agreed. And I know there were people who felt like that the chair, that it is your prerogative to just say, I'm not going to listen to. I'm not going to hear it. I didn't approach it that way. I believe that the political process, even if there are people who, I mean it was actually said, well, we win either way. Either we win because the bill gets passed or we win because we have people on record as voting for or against whatever it is. So I suppose that there's, there are those who would say it would've been prudent to not let some of those come through, but that's not the process. The process is that people are elected 105 of us to come to Boise and to cash this stuff out and to debate these issues. And I think that that is the process, and it's a good one. It means that laws don't get usually passed, usually not easily. And I think the library bill is a really good example of that. That's something that maybe needs more time and as they say, to bake and not just a knee-jerk reaction to pass.

Brennan Summers (08:29):

Well, I'm excited to get into some of these specific bills that you mentioned, but when you became chair of the committee, you said that a goal of yours was to create a collaborative lawmaking environment and push forward robust legislation to serve Idaho's students and families. So you've already mentioned one way you've created a collaborative environment, and that's by hearing bills and allowing the education process, the debate process and the lawmaking process all play out in your committee. What are some of the other ways you feel like you've been able to achieve that goal at your short time so far? As chair of the committee,

Representative Julie Yamamoto (09:04):

One of the things that we did is we really looked at that, what does the constitution say as our job is to provide a system of free, thorough public common schools? And it was something that we put the exact wording right on the back of everybody's nameplate. So it was in front of us every day that we were meeting and that we were deliberating, or as we were listening to the presentations that came to us, and we had a couple of discussions about that. It didn't get as far as I would've liked to, I would hope that we would maybe try to come to some kind of a consensus about what did that actually mean, because some of the friction that you see on that committee is what a difference of opinion you could have on what it means to be thorough and what it means to have common and what it means to have a system.

(09:58):

And does that really not take care of individual students just because you call it a system? So those were the things though that I felt like that if we could talk about as a committee, it's a pretty large committee with very diverse views, could we get to a common understanding of what those terms meant? And I think we started down that path, but as you said, one session, we certainly didn't finish that conversation. The other part of it is just bringing people in so that we have so many new people on the education committee just to know all the different, they call it the alphabet soup, but there's everything from the School Boards Association to the Idaho Education Association, witchy, which is the upper ed, the colleges and universities, B-S-U-I-S-U, all of those to bring them in and to give them an opportunity to present so that we start having a common experience and understanding to approach the bills that come before us.

Brennan Summers (11:10):

Yeah. You mentioned a lot of different groups that you've brought forward. You mentioned previously collaborating on the senate side with Chairman Lent. I assume you probably have to work pretty closely with the State Board of Education and our new state superintendent. Why don't you tell us a little bit about working with superintendent Debbie Critchfield. She's new. How's she doing? What's she doing that you like? Where do you see opportunities for her and her organization to venture into new fields?

Representative Julie Yamamoto (11:38):

So Superintendent Critchfield just brings such a positive energy, and she has surrounded herself with people like Ryan Cantrell who is just at the top of his, he's in his A game as far looking at what do all schools need to be successful, Greg Wilson has great policy background, and then the people that they are putting into positions to help guide schools, they are people who truly care about students individually and then as collectively and then as teachers and as local education group, school districts. And I think that that approach of being truly collaborative with the schools that you are representing, with the superintendents, with those principals, and coming alongside to help and to give clear direction about what it is, this is what it says, this is what it means. Julie Oberly, Gideon Tolman, these are the finance people. They have forgotten more than I'll ever know about school finance.

(12:50):

And they have just been excellent guides as Debbie has developed her budget for this coming year. And I really like how she has put it into, she's trying to look at what does the constitution say and then put it into these different buckets so that we're looking at it with a little different framework as far as why are we spending this money in this way? And I just feel like that all of those things that she's trying to listen to what her stakeholders, she brought people together for that finance to the modernization of the school funding formula, which in and of itself is just a beast. And just this idea that she's listened. And when we met last Monday, the things that she has put in place to address, you could draw a line from what somebody's concern was to where it is in the budget. And to me, that is somebody who's listening and not just listening to pander, but listening to really move the work forward. I have high hopes for where we're going with education, and she's working with the governor's office, working with the state board since she was on the state board. She understands that role, their role better than the average person, and I feel like there is a true collaboration there. So I give her an A and she's just, it's a work in progress.

Brennan Summers (14:16):

Yeah, gleaming review from the chair to the new superintendent. We're going to have Debbie on the podcast here in a week or so, and I expect her to give you such positive remarks as well. So we'll hold her to that. So that's great. That's great. You're working closely with her and her team. Love to hear you talk specifically about not just the boss at top, but all the people helping her making things run. You as chair and Debbie as superintendent, a lot of unique issues came forward this last term, this last cycle, last session. I would like to quickly get into a few of them if it's okay with you. We've got a lot of 'em, so I'll hold you to some shorter answers, but I think our listeners are really going to be excited to get your perspective on some of 'em. We'll start with a non-controversial, really easy one.

(15:03):

How about school choice? Okay, so we're under the impression, and we've heard often that Idaho has numerous choices for students and parents when it comes to places to be educated. A bill came forward that you referenced a little while ago that we would call ESAs Educational Savings Accounts that allow a student and a parent to take the public funds allocated for public education of that student and take it with them to a private organization or homeschool in order for them to be educated. Then the dollars can follow the students that came before your committee. You opposed it, but it was heard. Maybe walk us through briefly why you opposed it and where you see the issue going from here.

Representative Julie Yamamoto (15:49):

A I'll start with the end. It will be back. I've been told that and what form it takes, I don't know. But I think the issue becomes back to what the Constitution says is our job as state legislators, and that is to provide a system of thorough system of free common public schools. And I know that we had one representative who felt like, because it didn't say specifically not private, that it didn't close the door on private, but the Blaine Amendment does close the door on that. And what I had been told last year from the attorney general's office was that once you open that door, then you can't close it. But Idaho has not been providing funds for private schools and therefore, yes, giving to parents, but not giving to private schools. So I think that that's part of the issue. Part of the issue is just this misunderstanding of when most homeschoolers that I talk to say that 500 to a thousand dollars is what it takes for them to homeschool their children at home.

(17:06):

So for it to be six, $7,000, they didn't even know how they would even begin to use that kind of cash and concerned mainly with once we take money from the state, we have always been a conservative take on funds given was return on investment and accountability. And what that ESA said is that there would be no accountability. That is just hard to, I've been a conservative all my life, and to think that we're just fork out dollars and accountability square with most of us who have been conservative Republicans fiscally conservative. So I think that those are some of the main issues. And the other part of that is when we see that we have still a funding gap, I understand that people feel like that schools are the black hole, that you never can give 'em enough, but we aren't meeting the obligation. And we just saw something come out that said, our special ed obligation is like to the tuna 66 million short, but now we're going to take money and an average. And that's another misnomer is that when you're dealing with averages of money spent, it doesn't make sense to say that it doesn't cost the same. All students don't cost the same. And so you have those special education students that can be one student a hundred thousand dollars, and then another student, maybe they're the $500, but we're going to do an average.

(18:54):

It logically doesn't make sense.

Brennan Summers (18:57):

Got it. So this comes down to primarily the way you're viewing and reading the Constitution, your responsibility to protect tax dollars and have accountability of what's spent, and then also making sure the numbers work out. So we could spend a long time talking about that. And there's probably a lot we didn't cover with that, but I want to make sure, because you brought up our requirement to the public school system, let's talk about building maintenance. A lot of these schools briefly, what can be done in the legislature to help some of these schools that are struggling to pass their bonds and they're living kind of in tough facilities. We talked to Senator Lent about it, and he was very open to the collaborative approach and bringing in new ideas. What are you seeing through your lens of what we can do to help out some of these school facilities?

Representative Julie Yamamoto (19:42):

Well, the idea that first of all, supplemental levies aren't supplemental anymore. And I think we have to come down to that realization that I understand why it was decided that we would vote on those things to give people more choice in how they tax themselves. But the reality is some of those buildings are 50 or more years old and they are not up to snuff. And so we really do need to look at a different way of funding that and whether people like it or not, that is a state responsibility. So whether it's Senator Lents idea of using endowment land funds or whether it's that revolving loan fund that we talked about, we pass for charter schools with the idea that maybe we could do that for regular public schools, but it really isn't, to me, it's not optional anymore to keep saying that that is our responsibility, but we're not going to need it. And it's up to, there are places like Wilder small school districts that being able to pass a bond to build a school or to fix the one they're in, it just isn't in the cards. And so what is our responsibility as a state? Our responsibility is to provide a safe building for those teachers and kids to work and live in.

Brennan Summers (21:09):

And it's on your radar.

Representative Julie Yamamoto (21:11):

Yeah.

Brennan Summers (21:12):

Yeah. So it's a priority. It's on your radar. It's something you're still going to work to help tackle.

Representative Julie Yamamoto (21:18):

And I think in the funding formula, I don't know that it'll happen this session, but I do believe that it's something that Superintendent Critchfield the state board. It's not that people don't understand it, and it's not that they don't understand the special ed component of it. And that when she said it was a budget buster, she wasn't kidding. But then how do we as a state, how do we approach it? And we had the one bill that from Representative Monks that over time even he said, it's not going to be an immediate fix. It's an overtime fix. And the problem is some of these things need an immediate fix. So I think we're going to have to take another look at that and how we appropriate funds for buildings and maintenance.

Brennan Summers (22:05):

So building maintenance facility funds not the most controversial issue. Very important. Happy to hear that. It's still on your radar. These superintendent school boards are stressing about it. An issue that did draw a lot of attention, there was the library bill that you referenced earlier. This was a bill that on face value, it looked like it was trying to protect children from access to inappropriate materials in their libraries. Can you walk us through, as we are running out of time, but can you walk us through a little bit of what that bill actually did, and then the issue with the private right of action and why that kind of played out the way that it did?

Representative Julie Yamamoto (22:42):

So if you looked at a and B of that bill, I don't think anybody would argue that those materials should not be in the hands of children, and I would maintain or not. When it became problematic was any other harmful materials. Now that becomes very subjective. And then you add to that then that private right of action that I could keep a school district or a public library in litigation constantly. If I was a person who wanted to set up somebody to go in and find something that I decided was other harmful material. And that to me, anytime that you're asking taxpayers to sue for taxpayer money, that also does not make sense to my conservative fiscal brain. I think if somebody isn't using money appropriately, then you look at that appropriation and that the bill that I hear might be coming through that would address that instead of a private right action would look at withholding of funds if in fact these things are not met as far as what is, there is a measure that is clear about what is harmful. But once you get to that subjective, we saw it in Davis County the day after it went on the Idaho House floor and pass. The next day someone in Davis County asked for the Bible to be taken off of shelves, and it did. Since that time, it's back on. But it required a process, which is time and money, taxpayer dollars I think that maybe could have been used in a different way to actually impact what's happening in the classroom.

Brennan Summers (24:26):

Do you foresee a bill coming to your committee that addresses this, that you would support such as the one you talk about of withholding funds versus taxpayers suing for taxpayer dollars?

Representative Julie Yamamoto (24:36):

I've been checking in with the folks along the way because let's face it, who does want little ones seeing things that are, that pornography OB seen? You don't. I don't. Nobody does. But to say that that's all that bill was to me, that was a disingenuous argument, and it was more than that.

Brennan Summers (25:00):

Now, there are those who, no matter how much you explain yourself on issues from ESAs to this library bill, they'll never get to the same place you will. What do you say to those that just will categorically disagree with you on some of these issues? How do you find a point of agreeing to disagree with those who are pretty vocal in their opposition to some of the stances you've taken?

Representative Julie Yamamoto (25:22):

Right. I think that I tried to model what I believe that my faith in God requires, which is in as much as possible live at peace with all people, and that they are entitled, they have First Amendment, free speech rights to disagree and to do it vociferously. And my job isn't trying to squash them or not let their position be heard. It's to be a voice of reason and calm and to hear and first seek to understand, and then just at, I refuse to count them as my enemy. And that's just the long and the short of it is I refuse to have enemies. We might disagree, but I'm called to love others and to treat them as I would want to be treated. And that is my standard, and I'm going to stick to it.

Brennan Summers (26:17):

Yeah, I know your faith plays an important role in your life and in the way that you lead and govern, and I appreciate that. Now, as we're wrapping up here, as a former educator, as somebody that deals extens education policy, we've got to ask if there was one book out there that you would recommend to everybody that they need to run down the library and get, what would you say that book is?

Representative Julie Yamamoto (26:38):

I would tell them that they need to read the book of Proverbs.

Speaker 3 (26:42):

Okay.

Representative Julie Yamamoto (26:43):

People will say, life doesn't come with an instruction manual. Oh, I beg to differ. I think it does. And I think that if we would read that, and then you should follow it closely with Psalms, because I think those two just work together as far as what is just and true and write, and then how to live your life in such a way that you're doing the right things for the right reasons and in the right way.

Brennan Summers (27:11):

And they can find that book at Davis in the Davis County Library now because it's been returned. Yeah, they can praise the Lord. That's right. Now, in your district, I love to ask our elected leaders, if you had to pick one place that you'd recommend as the best place to eat in District 11, what would you choose?

Representative Julie Yamamoto (27:28):

So you've done this with others and I've been thinking, oh, what would I, it is tough, but I will tell you what I call my second. My office is Mr. V's on 10th, and it is just, it's a family owned and run business. There's somebody who's, Tammy has worked there for 30 years, and once you're part of that family, they tend to keep them there. And I don't know, it's sort of like cheers, but without the booze. It's everybody knows your name and it's just really good food too. Bacon. Really good bacon.

Brennan Summers (28:04):

There we go. All right, we're taking notes next time. We're over that way now. Representative, we started talking about your calling to education, your incredible experiences, and educator is an administrator. We got into your goal in a collaborative environment and talked about how you're working with all the stakeholders, the Senate, and we got your a plus rating from Superintendent Critchfield and her staff. We even got to talk a little bit about school funding formulas, about building maintenance, about ESAs, about the library. Bill, we've got to talk about a lot of things today. Now, as we end and wrap this up, why don't we finish on a really positive No. Tell us what you look forward to as being, what gets you excited about the future in Idaho? As you think about the kids entering the K through 12 system. What is it that you can say this is the right place for them to be and this is the right place for them to be educated?

Representative Julie Yamamoto (28:59):

Well, the one thing we didn't talk about is launch, and I know you've talked about launch with others, but to me, this idea that we're going to invest in young people early and often, and well with the idea that we want them to stay in Idaho, and the idea that we're going to help you do that, the schools that I've been in have had a very large low income component, and that going on, whether it be CTE or two or four year has just been out of reach. So to put it in reach, to actually put behind our words some action that says, we're going to invest in you. This is very exciting to me. So I'm hoping that we can start seeing the wisdom and the value and investing in children early with early childhood education, and then all the way through to let's launch them into their future, and let's hope that future includes a lot of them wanting to stay and raise their families in Idaho.

Brennan Summers (30:01):

Absolutely a priority for the governor, and something that you were a strong supporter of Idaho's launch program, so I too am excited to see how that plays out. The representative, we know you love your district. We didn't get a lot of time to talk about all the issues from property taxes and water issues and all the other things that are important to District 11. We're going to have you back on and we'll talk a little bit less about education, then we'll go more into those other issues. But we really appreciate taking the time to chat with us today.

Representative Julie Yamamoto (30:27):

I appreciate your time too. Thank you so much.

Main Street Idaho Podcast Episode 12: Representative Marco Erickson

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Representative Marco Erickson is a man with a unique story and a passion for public service. Marco’s journey is an inspiring tale of turning personal tragedy into a lifelong commitment to making a positive impact.

Rep. Erickson tragically lost his father in a drunk driving accident when he was just eight years old. The pain and trauma of that experience, coupled with witnessing the devastating effects of alcohol and drug abuse, ignited a deep desire within him to prevent others from going through the same ordeal.

Marco’s life took a different path from many of his peers who faced similar challenges. He credits this to his resilience and unwavering determination to avoid negative influences. He also acknowledges the role of healthy adults and mentors in his life who guided him towards making positive choices.

In addition to his public service, Representative Erickson is an accomplished musician and songwriter. He began performing at a young age and has written numerous songs, demonstrating his creativity and passion for the arts.

Tune into today’s episode to hear more about Marco’s journey, his work with at-risk youth, and his vision for a brighter future for Idaho.

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Follow Along With The Transcript

Welcome to Main Street Podcast, an opportunity to talk to Idaho's elected leaders about the issues that matter to you. Welcome. It is Idaho Main Street

Podcast, and we are here with one of our favorite legislators, representative

Marco Erickson out of district 33. So for those that don't know where that might fall on the map, this is a pretty easy one.

Where's your district?

Right in the center of Idaho Falls. Perfect. And you've been in the

Idaho House of Rep representatives for two

Terms now?

Yes. Yeah. Now

We first met,

I don't know if you remember, but when we first

Met, it was when you were

Getting ready to run for that seat. Yes,

I remember. And I remember coming

Away from that meeting thinking

Not only this might be the nicest

Guy I've ever met,

But thank you. I've never

Met a politician like this guy before. So I'm really excited about the conversations we're going to get into. The listeners today are going to get to see a whole different side of Representative Erickson. So

Let's start with

The beginning.

You kind of

Have a unique story. It grew

Up in some

Tragedy that shaped your future, lost your father when you were

Eight,

Yes. To a pretty tragic accident. If you're comfortable, share with us a little bit of that experience and how that legend of public service. Well,

It was a drunk driving

Accident and my dad was at fault.

Bad things were going on. I didn't even know some of

The things. My mom has revealed

Things

To me later in life that I didn't know as a child. But

When that happened, I was a young kid and I just wanted to help other people not experience that, not have to, not just that, but all the trauma that comes with alcohol, drugs, witnessing all those things that I got to see. So luckily I had a lot of healthy adults around

Me, a lot of opportunities. I grew up in Boise, so there were people there that were shaping me and got me

Involved in

Things that made a difference in the world. So I started doing drug prevention when I was literally around eight or nine years old, got

Involved in the community. What did that

Look like? Drug prevention at that

Age. So in that time, in that era, it was Nancy Reagan had this big just say no, it

Was her thing.

And we

Later learned

Through science that it wasn't a very effective campaign overall in the whole scheme of science, of drug change and how we do it in a community approach. But for me, it was one of the first ways that it got me engaged in that work. And so it was highly successful for me because I already didn't want to do those things ever because

Of what I

Saw growing up. And it just helped me have a good start. So we would march in parades in Meridian, we would do community cleanup projects, things like that. But you

Probably

Fell,

Especially looking back and we'll talk about what you're doing now with at risk, but you were probably right there on the edge of it could have gone either way, between being a force for good in the community or finding yourself in some serious habits, trouble, things

Like that. I don't know what was different about me. I was very resilient. I did not want to do any of those negative things. I got in a little bit of trouble. I was a rambunctious kid, no adult supervision. So we would just kind of do our thing without parents watching over us. We gotten a little bit, but not the major, but my brother and my sister, they had to do up a different direction. My cousins, a lot of our relatives, some of 'em ended up in prison. Some of them are not alive anymore. So I kind of got to see all of that. Thank goodness I made a choice to go the right direction because now I don't know the impact I've had on the world, but it's been huge. I know as there's a lot of families and people, I've made a difference in policy work and things I do every day.

Let's talk about that impact. So not only at a young age did you avoid falling in some of those pitfalls, but it shaped your career of where you are now. So we know that our legislators, we have a part-time legislature where they spend a period of time in Boise doing work, but your full-time job, you actually work with

At-risk teens, right? Yeah. I call 'em teens. We call 'em at Promise Kids at Promise because the word at risk is so negative.

So we're like Youth of Promise. These kids are amazing. People just don't always give 'em the opportunity to see, and I see their potential and I try to find that the first day, bring it out of them. And if I have so many stories, I can tell hundreds of stories about these kids and the differences their lives are. There was one particular girl I think about right now, she's still in our program, but two years ago she was vaping and causing all kinds of chaos. She looked horrible, her face, everything about her looked depressed. Now you wouldn't even recognize that that kid ever had a background like that. And she talks about it all the time. So we have several good stories like that. And what is it

That you do that helps

These app

Promise

Teens

Change

Their lives? I tell you what, the most thing we do is love them like a normal person. We not in an inappropriate way, but we just love them and we build relationships with them that they're kind of often overlooked. So we give them an opportunity to be themselves, to be loved and have adults pay attention to 'em and that are healthy adults who just say, Hey, how was your weekend? Oh, you had a hard time at home. Oh man, tell me about that. And they just get to talk and share their life with

Us. I think we all can think of people that we went to school with, people in our community, cousins, people

That

Fall in that category of they

Don't have

A community that is supporting to them necessarily or they're struggling to make that connection. And so what your folks do is you create that community where they can feel supported and loved and open to connect,

And we build a place and in the place they're structured, right? So they don't just get to come in there and just be free. We have rules and regulation and there's cameras watching that. So they know there's no way they can get away with stuff. So kids who are trying to go there and just do things that they don't normally stick around long because they know that's not going to work. We make 'em go to classes, enrichment, we build them up, we want to build their future. So we give them, I'm working with kids right now, teach 'em how to play guitar. And another group, I'm teaching how to build their own business, showing 'em how to use the Idaho

Secretary of

State's website to go and register a business, how to build a logo. And

Then

I have another group I'm working on community drug prevention efforts where next week is Red Ribbon week, October 23rd through the 31st. We go and we work with schools. We hype up the kids, we do this rally, and the community is celebrating that lifestyle of, Hey, we're happy, we're drug free. That's fantastic.

Lot of good stuff coming from there.

Talk to us a little bit about how you went

From being involved in the community of helping these kids to thinking, you

Know what?

I'm going to go put my name on some

Signs and I'm going to be a politician. I still don't call myself a politician. I call myself a statesman. I was always interested in serving the public in various capacities. And so my entire career from the time I was a little boy, the age eight, it was always a public service career. It wasn't meant to make me a lot of money. I spent 14 years working in mental health in the field, did every role I could do in drug treatment and in mental health, building my own agency, doing all that work and then watching and helping with policy consulting, going and working for the state government when I left for Nevada,

Came back to Idaho and I said, listen, it's my time to run for legislature because that was kind of the capstone of the work I was doing. If I'm in the legislature now, I can really set the policy and use all my life experience, all that gamut, the whole round circle of being a provider, helping consumers, looking out for the state's interest, understanding the federal government laws, bring all that into a perspective that just wasn't in the legislature, i's like they need me. And so that's said, I'm going to run. I'm like, why not me if America's still America, the small guy who came out of nowhere can do this, and I did. And it was such a great gift to be able to do and continue to serve

Right now. Well, and there's a lesson out there to the kids you work with and to anyone listening that it doesn't matter the home you grew up in, doesn't matter the difficulties and challenges put your mind to something. America is still America and you can be elected to public office

And you have to have good positive choices that you're making throughout your life. That was one thing when I

Decided

To run. People were asking me, do you have

Any

Demons in your closet? And you're like, no, you're not going to find anything. I didn't do the thing. I did do things that would get me in trouble. I always was a servant and I said, you could find anyone that ever knew me. You can go back in time and they're going to all say something positive about their, and I was just there

To

Serve. I still am. That's what I'll continue doing that as long as the people let me do it.

And as you serve, you have a very different approach than a lot of leaders in the political public scene. So when we

First

Met, the first thing you said is, look, I am not political. And when we were talking

Your two terms in it, you still remind me, Hey, I am still not

Political. You're a servant, you're a public servant, but you

Don't have special interests or secret

Agendas. You don't have smoke field backroom deals, and when you're in Boise,

You don't really make enemies or

Back bite any of your colleagues over there.

How has that approach been received in the

Capitol?

Yeah, it was funny because the first term, I went in there, I got feedback and people were like, we don't know what his agenda is. And they're used to having people that have either one faction or the other. Sure. I fit in with everybody. I've always been, I think what you call a floater. I fit in with the groups who are doing the work that matters that we need to do at the time. There's certain things that just need done and sometimes that's some of the things that align with one group and the other and we just go do it. That's what I'm focused on. I think the general public just wants us to do good work now, and this is no

Dig on any of your colleagues because it's just your personality and your focus has allowed you to just be very open, very loving and focusing like you say on the good work.

What are some of the

Most important things that you have been doing over in the state capital?

Well, my dream from day one was I called it the inverted V,

And

That means there was a lot more money and energy being spent on the crisis response after a problem occurred. And I wanted to invert that and find resources that could create systems. The entire system would be focused on stopping the stuff before it happens. And walk us through the

Context here. Are we talking a mental health crisis? What kind of crisis are we talking

About? Any of the crisis, so that would be substance abuse, mental health, but things that I see a lot in the world that are affecting people, so that helps us to, and education, making sure those kids are being caught early, not having people go into prison system. The trouble system, the things that we spend a lot of money in that are not always necessary, including entitlement programs. There's ways we can stop those problems. For example, project launch, which was a lot of people don't like, but I love it because it gives the opportunity for some young people to get an advanced education quicker and then they won't be needing some of those entitlement programs. They'll pay taxes. A lot of great bigs

Contribute. So your approach has been,

Rather than try

To treat the

Problems, let's

Invest more in trying to prevent some of these problems.

And so as a result, there's been millions and millions of dollars invested in mental health and into new things like assessment centers, early detection, and we're just getting started. Some of these things are just getting off the ground and it's already having results. The assessment centers across the state have already had. The last report I had, there was over 500 families served in them, and they're in the first year of implementation. Some of them just opened last month. None of them have been open an entire year yet. So it's just getting started. And as people know about these things that are early, we catch things before they start. Like

A kid

Is through it from school, they ask us for help, we go in and we help the family meet the needs of what's going on, how can we support you? Just little things like that rather than entering them into state systems like child protection serves, can we divert that? It's a possibility and if we can, we want to do that on the community level before whatever escalates to a higher, expensive,

More expensive thing. So there's a lot of fiscal conservatism in this and trying to determine how are we going to use these taxpayer dollars in a way that's actually efficient.

Yeah, because my vision, I don't see two years ahead or the next election cycle. I don't think like that. I'm thinking 15, 20 years down the road, what we do now, the policies, we can make an impact for families for generations, and someday I'll look back and go, Hey, I'll help with that. No big deal. So

You mentioned not thinking short term. Are you ever concerned that the time's going to come where you're going to get a tough election and not be able to get reelected because two years or one year came and they came after you because you were thinking far ahead?

I don't think about that honestly, because I feel that the work I do will speak for itself. And if there comes a time when the public says, you know what? We prefer some other candidate over you, I'm okay with that because I didn't get in this business to be a lifelong person sitting in that spot.

I

Did it to serve the public. And if they think my time as a servant for them is done, then that's okay with me. But I would hope they would kick me around a little bit longer. This are really awesome things we're working on. It'll takes a few years and we have to meet certain

Thresholds before

We can do the next step.

So

There's things that are five to 10 year projects, and at the end of that, then hopefully I can say, yeah, I've done all the things I set out to do.

Yeah, absolutely. I

Think that's

A brilliant outlook and I think it's refreshing and it's probably why you have so much support with the voters is because you're not pandering. You're trying to get the job done, which is great. You mentioned some things you have common. I'd love to get into those, but first you brought up

Launch,

Which we've talked

About

With some of your other colleagues. That was a big priority for the governor, right? You supported Launch, correct?

I did, yes.

Now,

How is

It working with the governor? You've

Supported him in the past and his

Elections, you've endorsed him, you've been behind Governor Little and Launch of course was a big initiative for him. What's it give us some insights into our governor?

Well, I could tell you this, when I first met him, he got stuck in a thing he didn't want to be doing, which was this crazy pandemic. And he told me, he is like, yeah, I wish I were able to do these other things. He and I were aligned on some of these projects with mental health, the behavioral health council, the things that were going, and I told him, yeah, I'm going to want to do some of the same thing. And just that first couple years, it was awkward for all of us, a

Lot of different stuff being thrown at us, and

Now we're starting to see the fruit. So what his passion was. And so I get excited when we can make a difference and we could do new things that haven't been done, that actual solve real problems, keeps a workforce here in Idaho, helps the youth get out of poverty. So many great things.

I love that. So let's talk future. What are some of the big projects that you're looking forward to

Tackling? Right now I'm working with the Millennium Funds project and we have 15 to 20 million to

Allocate across the

State Idaho, and they've been doing that for a lot of years. But last year we decided to move that back into prevention, kind of like I talked about with the Invert V. And now we're just putting a scientific approach to it. So we're really analyzing the need in Idaho and where to place the resources. That includes school resource officers and drug-free school coordinators and afterschool programs and time out of school. So we're covering and what to do with the parents and educating parents. And so there's this massive approach to that in a scientific manner. So it's not just willy nilly, we throw money here and here we actually are going to have data that's driving the decisionmaking, and it's just a better approach than in the past where they would just throw $5,000 to each district and really didn't have a way to measure the true impact to the kids. Now we're going to have better collaboration across the board with different agencies in the state and better connection to a particular goal and objective, and then there'll be more resources put into individual areas that need it specifically.

Yeah. I know before we started recording, we were talking about you had meetings this morning regarding

That

Your calendar is constantly

Full. Oh man. It's crazy. Is a busy guy who's

Got so

Much going.

I mean, I have to ask, you're a father, a husband, so you got an incredible wife and five kids at home. Is it four boys and a girl?

Yes, four boys and a girl. How do you manage all of this

Stuff? It'd still be Marco, the dad.

I have figured out how to co-mingle the different task I have. So with my wife, I'll bring her to political things and we get to spend some time together and she's there with me and it's not her favorite thing to do, but she does that. So it gives us some time. Or my kids, I have a teen center and they have classes, they're interested. So for years my boys helped build that as teen leaders got them involved in leadership. One of my sons served as a page at the House of Representative last year, so I get to find a way to be the dad and also help them in their career steps in the future. I've been able to public speak nationally with my own children At

Some

Events. We were with the US Surgeon General three years ago in Florida speaking, and my sons were with me and they were speaking as the youth representatives, and it's really just cool to get to do that as a dad.

So there's a message out there to parents to say, even though you're raising kids, there's opportunities to get involved in the community and still not sacrifice time

With your families. Also, in my church, I was able to be their young man leader, so that was really nice for years, that was my role and I've been meaning to

Ask about that. So you're a man of faith, and I was curious

What

Role your faith plays as you go to Boise and vote, and

To what extent does those beliefs

Factor in? I mean, your faith

Creates a foundation with who you are. It makes it easy to make the positive choices, and so you take them into account as part of who you are to the core. But there's a lot of factors that determine what the work we do, including some of the things our people are asking for. Mental health is a really serious problem across the nation. Healthcare in general is so expensive, right? So that's what I try to be an expert in. My master's degree in psychology, I've obviously worked in treatment space, but I've also spent a lot of time in the healthcare space and studying how to change systems.

And

So my energy has been really focused on the systems, and the more I get in there, the more people realize, oh yes, this guy knows what he's talking about, and he can do some changes without having to disrupt the services that are provided to the patients and the people receiving those services. Also taking care of the provider, the people out there doing the work. So it's a big, big, I mean, nationwide, it's a huge thing. A lot of the budget is taken up by that and not

Something one man can carry alone. So as you're in Boise, who are some of the people that you work with, whether it's on the other side in the Senate or in the house?

Who are some of the people you work with or some of

The people you look to for advice or counsel?

Well, it just depends on what the issue is. I look at the experts who know a particular topic the most, and I'll look to them. For example, there's things when you're dealing with water, that's not my expertise. There's certain people that know that Scott EdKey knows a lot about water and Stephanie Mickelson knows a lot about, so if you're dealing with a topic like that, it's better to just go to the people who live that world. And then on mental health issues, guess what they do? They send them to me. If it's an education, there's certain people that, we had people that had been superintendents of school or principals, so we talked to them and talk about how it affects their work, and you got to collaborate with people.

The picture you're painting is that the legislature might not be broken, that there actually is a lot of collaboration. And you guys

Do work together? Oh, we talk a lot. And sometimes, so for example, you'll see a committee, the Judiciary rules committee gets really busy with a lot of very tough topics, and we'll spend hours and hours behind the scenes collaborating with each other, talking, sharing conversations, and having private meetings is going over things together. That takes a lot of work, and it's all worth it because at the end when the time to come vote is, we've had a lot of contemplation time to make a decent decision, and it's not always easy.

It's

The hard part. How do you stay so

Positive? I think even through this interview as we've gone in, there's tough issues that you have to deal with. There's tough issues in the world right now. We're dealing with war in the Middle East, we're dealing with a nation's capital and Congress absolutely broken. How

Do you stay

So positive and optimistic?

I think it's part of my personality. For one, I choose the happy over sadness, but there's always someone out there that's encouraging me. Once in a while I'll get an email or sometimes a lot of emails back to back. They're like, Hey, you did great. Thank you for doing that. And those things just are much better than the negative ones. The negative ones you always think of, what's that person going through? What's in their mind? They may not know what I know. So I think of it from an empathetic standpoint rather than an angry standpoint. That's just how I get through it. Yeah,

I like that a lot.

And for those that

Don't know, you actually have unique musical talents. You mentioned before teaching some of these promised teens, the guitar.

Yes. So why don't you tell us a little bit about how you

Got into it and

Some of the gigs

I've seen you perform many times. Mostly I'll be your groupie at the fair. I always come and watch out. Oh,

You've seen

Me

At the fair. That's funny. So why don't you tell us a

Little bit about your musical talent?

When I was young, I performed in bars and I would go, I play with my uncle's band, so I'd be 14, 15, 16. This is another thing that helped me stay away from drugs. I'd see all the behavior

Of those

Adults

And go,

Man, you're 40 and you're acting like that. I don't want to do that. I want to do something different. So I performed from the time I was really little. I wrote songs. I was 15 years old when I wrote my first real song that I got to perform at a wedding. And I love songwriting and I love performance. So over time, I don't claim to be the best musician. I'm a pretty decent songwriter. People can ask me to write a song about anything, and I'm able to do that. But I like to perform and I enjoy sharing musical talent. At one time, I wanted to do that as a profession. Look, I think I had another calling in public service, and so I was grateful to go that direction too.

Yeah,

Well, it's neat. You

Get so many opportunities to still

For perform. Yeah, you have to balance your life. That's part of the, I joke about I get to dabble in some of my hobbies that I find great joy in doing and peace

And

Writing music. And I usually write 'em about, I've written songs about suicide, which is a really tough being from, and people relate to the work I written songs about foster care, things that kids go through, and then lots of fun, love songs and religious songs too. So it kind of balances it out. If

You had to pick a couple of your absolute famous, favorite, famous artist,

Who would you choose? Oh my goodness. I like the nineties country sound. So people like George Strait definitely is one of them. The

King.

Yeah. Got to have George Strait in there. He was huge influence on me. Randy Travis was another one. Okay. Big for me when I was young. Yeah, those two. And

You know the one, you left off the correct answer. Look,

Garth. Garth.

Yeah,

Garth was, I mean, I've gone to many of his shows and enjoyed them very much. He puts on a show, he does a great job, and he connects with his audience. So even though I was pretty close at the last one of Salt Lake, I tipped my hat to him. He saw me and tipped his hat back. That was the coolest thing. That's

Incredible.

So some fun

Questions that we'd love

To ask the

Guests. The

First

One, no, this is a really tough one for you. Being representing Atle Falls, we always like to ask them what's their favorite place

To eat

In their district?

Oh my goodness.

I

Always tell people, go over to the bee's knees.

Okay. Yeah,

Yeah, because it's just different. It's small. You wouldn't expect to be a restaurant there. And it's something unique to Idle Falls.

They have something on their menu that I haven't tried yet, and we may end up getting bleeped out for this, but it's called a slutty brownie, and I'm not really curious what that entails. I

Don't know. I haven't had that.

We'll

Have to share

A slutty

Brownie

Sometime. We won't tell everyone what it's like. Yeah,

I have no idea. I didn't even know they had that.

It's got to be rich. Okay, so bees knees is a big recommendation. Another question

We'd like to

Ask, if there was one

Book in the world that you'd recommend everybody ought to read,

What might

It be? Oh, I don't know. There's too many amazing books, but my favorite when I was young was the Chronicles and Arties Lewis work. There's so many parallels to the modern world and some of the things. So I just love those characters and the development of the characters from my kids. I don't know. There's so many books in our house,

Thousands

Of books in my house.

C s Lewis is a great recommendation. Now, if they're one political leader that you really look up to or try to emulate,

I never really emulated one particular political leader. I just look at the good that they're doing and I just do my thing. So I didn't really have an influencer like that. Reagan was a good, but there were some things that we could change too. So anyone

That's met you, Marco knows that that is absolutely the accurate question is there is no other political leader. You're one of a kind.

I find that interesting. I hope that in America, I know there's a ton of people just like me. They just maybe not, didn't have the courage to do that. I just stepped out and said, I'm going to try that. We're able to work together in a lot of ways across the country in a more collaborative manner. And it's civil right, and we can get a lot done, and you can be totally different politically in your views, but you could still work in America, get things done. I still believe in that sometimes. I see the two polarized sides and the struggles even in our own party sometimes. And if you work together, you can achieve amazing things and you can fix those problems.

Amen, brother. Amen. So we started this interview talking about the difficult journey you've gone through in losing your dad at a young age. Talked about how you were kind of brought into a community and how that shaped your profession and the good you're doing with these promised teens. I

Love you. You figured that out. I'm a slow learner, bro. There.

We

Talked about

Your long-term outlook, your positive approach to the legislature of stepping up and running despite your background and coming in and wanting to contribute. You talked about launch and your support of the governor and the great things he's doing. We've gone through a lot of things here from favorite books and artists to just the fact that you're different and you have a good approach in things. What would be the last thing you'd like to share? To anybody listening today,

Hey, just got to be, you are who you are, and you're enough.

You're enough. That's a great one

Representative. We're going to have to have you

Back, and we're going to have to dig in more to some of the work that you've got coming up as you tackle the mental hilt crisis and everything else going on. We really do appreciate your time today.

Thank you so much. Mark Erickson, district 33,

Straight out of Idaho falls. Appreciate being here. Till next time.

Main Street Idaho Podcast Episode 11: Senator Geoff Schroeder

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“People move out into the country because that’s where they want to live. They don’t want to be bothered... So when cities grow out into the county, or people want to develop, preserving that rural way of life is important.”

— Senator Geoff Schroede

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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 Main Street, Idaho. We're fortunate today to have a senator, Senator Jeff Schroeder out of District eight. Joining us today. Senator Schroeder, thanks for being on.

Senator Geoff Schroeder (00:22):

Hey, thanks for having me. Glad to be here.

Brennan Summers (00:24):

Now, Senator from District eight, for those who might not be incredibly literate at where all the districts are, what exactly is the area that you represent?

Senator Geoff Schroeder (00:34):

District eight is Custer County, valley County, Boise County, and Elmore County. So it's almost 14,000 square miles in the heart of Idaho. It includes, well, I like to claim it's the most scenic district in the state. I claim that I came up with the first representative Blanks. I think she did. So in any event, we have the Sawtooth Mountains, we have McCall and all the national forests in Boise County, Elmore County's beauty. Anyway, that's the

Brennan Summers (01:09):

Wow. And Senator, is that the largest district in Idaho legislative district?

Senator Geoff Schroeder (01:14):

Largest legislative district in acreage or, yeah, square miles.

Brennan Summers (01:19):

Okay. Well, today we'll have to get into some of the challenges that come with that, but currently you're located in what city?

Senator Geoff Schroeder (01:25):

I live in Mountain Home and I've lived there for 33 years, and so lived in Mountain Home 33 years. The law firm that I work for is in Boise, but their representation is statewide representing local governments and cities across the state.

Brennan Summers (01:46):

Now, currently in Mount Nom, from what I understand though, born and raised as in Central Idaho. Right. You're local.

Senator Geoff Schroeder (01:54):

I grew up in Cameo, so my parents moved there in 1971. My dad got a job right out of college teaching junior high school in Cameo. So I've lived there since. See, I went kindergarten through 12th grade in and graduated from came. I went to school at the University of Idaho. Had the inevitably, well, maybe not always inevitable, but did not quite as successful as we would've liked first semester spent time working. Returned in 1986 for my first successful semester, and it was at that point that I ran out of the money I had saved to go back to school and join the National Guard to try to pay for school.

Brennan Summers (02:39):

Do you mean to tell me you didn't just max out student loans and hope that the government was going to pay for it?

Senator Geoff Schroeder (02:45):

No, I had to wait until I went to law school to do that. But go through those boxes

Brennan Summers (02:55):

Now. Senator in the I Idaho National Guard. I think that probably gives you some unique experience in the Senate. Why don't you walk us through your decision to join the Idaho National Guard and what that experience was like?

Senator Geoff Schroeder (03:12):

It kind informed the rest of my career in the Guard, and it was, my roommate and I were successful in college. We were having a good time, but we had a tough time finding part-time work. The job market in 1986 in Moscow, Idaho is a lot different than it is now. And so it was difficult. There was a lot of competition for the few jobs that were available. He got a job driving for the bus company. I never did get on with that, but we went into the armory, talked to the recruiter and kind of couldn't. It's like, you kidding? We go to basic and then we get paid and you pay for student loans and you get the GI Bill. Okay. So I remember telling my dad, he's like, well, if you sure you want to do it, it worked. I got a ton of money.

(04:07):

It was still largely the one weekend, a month, two weeks out of the summer sort of a thing. It was really interesting because the Idaho National Guard is, its one 16th engineer battalion has deployed in every major conflict since the Spanish American War. So there were people in our unit that had been in Vietnam in 1988 when I was working there, A gentleman came into the armory named Clifford Ott. He had been in the guard for the Spanish American War and World War I. He foot marched to Boise to get on the train to go deploy to Europe and to, he wasn't in the Spanish American War exit, but poncho, I'm sorry, poncho V and World War I. So wow. The unit crest in Moscow or in the engineer battalion is the key, the castle and the cactus. The key is the key to the city of Angi France from their service in World War I. The castle is the Poncho V and the cactus is Poncho V, and the castle is the Spanish-American war. And so I met a living person who was in the unit I was in when they did the things that led to that unit crest.

Brennan Summers (05:19):

Wow. Now what rich history there when you signed up, did you expect that you also would be participating in active duty conflicts?

Senator Geoff Schroeder (05:29):

So this was the height of the Cold War, 1986. So war meant the end of nuclear winter, all these, because the Soviet Union was the biggest threat to our country. You probably could say they remain that way. They're not the Soviet Union anymore. But

(05:48):

War was kind of a distant thought. It was like, well, probably maybe. But I spent the bulk of my enlistment in the military training to fight the Cold War and training to fight in Europe and basically retraining tactics from the Vietnam War squad tactics through, I was a supply clerk when I first enlisted, but everybody has to know basic infantry tactics. So, but the Idaho Guard played a real important role and still does in their local communities. And my first two week summer camp was to renovate or to take care of the mine tailings from the continental mine in Boundary County, Idaho. So we went and took two week summer Camp Convoy all the way to Bonners Ferry, actually to drive through Canada to get there. And then spent two weeks where the dump trucks and bulldozers that our engineer battalion had took away mine tailings and replaced them with top soil. We'd have to stop occasionally because of grizzly bears. And it was just

(06:56):

Quite an experience working alongside people who have been in Idaho forever and who had been through deployments to Vietnam with this unit, worked themselves working side by side. Glenn Smith, my company Commander John Rug, John Schneider, who was the postmaster in Orino. Those folks all were from that local area and were still in the guard in the eighties. And back to your question about did I anticipate that when the Iraq war came up, John Rod was still in the Idaho National Guard, still in the one 16th engineer Battalion and Lewiston, Martin Tribune did an article about him deploying again to Iraq, and that was part of it.

Brennan Summers (07:39):

And that was what, 20 years later?

Senator Geoff Schroeder (07:42):

Yeah, 2004.

Brennan Summers (07:43):

Wow. Yeah. And you joined, you also had a deployment in Iraq, correct?

Senator Geoff Schroeder (07:49):

Yes. But at the time the Iraq War hit, I was a recruiter in Mountain Home, had enlisted quite a few people from the town and saw a maintenance unit in Iraq get lost and then get taken prisoner. And I thought that's kind of the same outfit we have in Mountain Home where mechanics, I felt an obligation to make good on the, I was incentivized to join the guard to pay for school and to pay for college, and I did it for that. It became a full-time job, which is a different topic, I guess. But in any event, here I am the recruiter and here are folks who have joined to pay for school and this sort of thing, and now we're actually getting called up to do the thing that we've all trained to do. And I wanted to make sure that I guess I was a part of that and that I was there on the ground to see how it was going and that the skills that you need to be able to survive versus getting lost, knowing how to run a convoy, knowing how to stay in communication with people. I just wanted to make sure that I was a part of making sure those mistakes weren't made. I was watching unfold live on television in front of me.

Brennan Summers (09:13):

So you felt a sense of, call it duty or obligation to actually go over there and serve in the sand?

Senator Geoff Schroeder (09:22):

Yeah. Northern Iraq isn't asan. It looks a lot, but yeah.

Brennan Summers (09:28):

Yeah. Now that's got to have given you a very unique perspective in serving in the Senate. There's probably not a lot of people in Idaho legislature who have served in the military. There's a few of you. But as a veteran, how has that affected the way that you view policymaking in Idaho?

Senator Geoff Schroeder (09:48):

Well, I think the biggest driving thing that I took away when I left that return from that deployment was an event that occurred right after we arrived, and that was their first set of elections. So Iraqis didn't, under Saddam Hussein didn't have free and fair elections to the extent they had them. The tickets were already marked. You already had, the party had already picked who you got to vote for, and when the party picks who you get to vote for, you don't have very many choices. So you have these elections with 98% or 99 and this sort of thing. And so one of the things that had been set up was for the Iraqis to form their own government, and it required elections at a local level, city elections, precinct elections, to elect the people who would go form the Iraqi constitution. Those elections were the last week of January in 2005, and there was a lot of threat that there would be people who wanted to disrupt those elections, people who wouldn't like the outcome of those elections because the results weren't predicated on skewing who got to be on the ballot.

(11:08):

So you see a lot of ballots with a lot of names hanging up around the city, I guess. And so we were told this is going to be a big event, and there's a huge threat of disruption, people seeking to disrupt the elective process or the results. And so it was kind of an all hands on deck. I was a motor sergeant for the brigade headquarters company. I had 20 mechanics, and they're like, everybody's going out in the city off of our base, and you're all going to backstop the Iraqi police. So instead of American soldiers at polling places, it would be Iraqi police at polling places, but the soldiers would help guard the police stations. And so 12 of my soldiers were on the rooftop of the Kirkuk traffic police building. Another half of my motor pool was on the rooftop of another police building in Iraq for five days.

(12:03):

And we had a front row seat to watch how they conducted those elections and to make sure that people obeyed the curfew and weren't out when driving around after dark when they weren't supposed to. And there was some conflict. But what I took away that I found the most impressive was the morning of the elections. No one could drive anywhere, and everyone was walking and people were coming out of their homes over the threat of actual physical violence. There were people who were threatened, if you vote in this election, we don't want you to participate. And everyone had to stick their fingers in ink when they voted. And so I have a ton of pictures that I took during those five days, and the tail end is a bunch of people with ink stained fingers that would prevent them from voting twice. But people facing the threat of a real threat of violence in a semi chaotic country. Cook is a city of 700,000 people or was in 2005, so it's not a small city, but here they were, I'm going to go vote, because they had the opportunity to vote that they hadn't had for 50 years.

(13:22):

And so for me, voting that, that really sticks with me to this day. People were joking. I took a picture of an Iraqi guy holding his finger up. You can see it on my Facebook page, but every primary election I would put, have you voted? He did. He did when he was threatened to be killed for having that ink stained finger. So when people monkey with elections or election processes, I get a little wound up. And so that's one of the more pivotal things that informs my local elections at the local level are the place where government is the most responsive to the people. They're the most important elections, and it's important that people be able to participate in those.

Brennan Summers (14:13):

Wow. I think that's a fantastic description of the importance of elections and voting. Wow. I'm moved by that. I appreciate you sharing that experience. I know our veterans are not always in a place to share their experiences of what happened over there, but wow, what a great message there. Let's talk about local elections, right? So you've taught us about the importance of voting and what some have been willing to do to get to the ballot box. You served in local government, correct? You were on the city council?

Senator Geoff Schroeder (14:40):

Yes. So right after I retired, there was a mountain home city council election, and I had decided to run, I'd been again, I lived there for the Guard, moved me there in 1990. So I've lived there for now 33 years. But when I first got there, there was this little camera eight local access channel that would come and set up and film city council meetings. So I got invited to participate with that channel, and so I ended up attending a lot of city council meetings just to film it and then later edit the tape or play the tape for folks. Now we have YouTube and live streaming, so that thing is a little outdated, but I've been involved and known mayors of city council people through the years. And so I thought, sure, I could step in and offer some insight now that I'm free of the limitations of military service.

(15:38):

So I did. I ran and I won and got elected and really enjoyed that time on the council. I decided to finish the degree that I had started. So my 20 year army career took me outside of that for a while. So I was working part-time and I decided to stop the city council participation and kind of focused on getting that undergraduate degree finished. So I spent two years off the council, and in that time I was working as a consultant, partly for a project for finishing my undergrad degree. And then they hired me for this law firm. So prior to going to law school, and the reason I'm telling this is one of the projects was go to Glens Ferry and help them rewrite their comp plan for zoning. I had not done it before. Susan Buckin, who's now the state parks and rec director, was the attorney for Glens Ferry at the time.

(16:38):

And she put me on that project, and I had to help shepherd this council and mayor through just as an assistant on the legal part of it, the actual practice of law. Of course the firm did. But I attended the p and z meetings and attended the council meetings to walk through each of the chapters of the comp plan. And what I noticed going to this meeting was this was the first time I dealt with the city council other than one I had served on, and I started to miss it a lot. I was like, here are these people, and here's the part that really struck me. Then when I first saw it, I was at one of their meetings and they were debating their budget, and they were debating a budget about how much to pay the librarian and should it be this much, should it be this much more?

(17:26):

But I realized here we are on a Tuesday night, it's eight 30, and here are this group of four people and a mayor, and then there's city staff, and they're all sitting here doing their level best to try to keep this city running, to try to keep the streets paved, to keep the library open, to run a water treatment facility, a wastewater treatment plant. These are all largely volunteers. They're paid very little, but they're putting their heart and soul and they're putting their effort into how best to run a city. And it was then that I realized that there's not much difference from one city to another when it comes to the role of that government and the way folks on these city councils treat their responsibility. They're devoted to it. They're passionate about it. It certainly creates conflict in some places, some more aggravated than others. But I realized that this is the heart of our society that are local governments really are where the action is and where you have the most access and the most influence in making sure that the outcome is that what you want. We need an ordinance to do X or Y or Z. So as a result of that, I ran for a second term on the city council and finished most of it, and then resigned right at the tail end. So anyway.

Brennan Summers (18:53):

So Senator, you describe the impact of local elected leaders and how much they can do in their devotion. Many, I mean, what percentage of Idahoans do you think can name their city counselors though?

Senator Geoff Schroeder (19:08):

I don't know. I think there's a lot. I've thought about this a bit, and it comes up a lot, which is one of the reasons I ran. When you talk about cities in Idaho, there are 200 of them,

Brennan Summers (19:27):

200,

Senator Geoff Schroeder (19:28):

200 cities, or one depending on, I think one dis incorporated. I'm not sure the Association of Cities could, but you have the big ones. So you have cities of 10,000 or higher. Mountain home is in that group. There's 23 cities of the 199 that have more than 10,000 people in them, 23 of those cities. But when you get down to those 200, yeah, everyone knows their city council person. Everyone knows their mayor because you run into 'em at the post office, you run into 'em at the grocery store, you go to Thanksgiving dinner with them. Clayton has 14 people. I would suspect that a Thanksgiving dinner would require public notice. It's a city, an attorney in our office represents. But

Brennan Summers (20:18):

Wow, 14 people. You said 14 people in Clayton.

Senator Geoff Schroeder (20:22):

Yes.

Brennan Summers (20:23):

And is that the smallest city in Idaho?

Senator Geoff Schroeder (20:25):

It's not. I think Warm River. I was just looking this up a little bit earlier today, but here's the important part. There are 23 cities over 10,000. There's 11 from five to 10,000, and then 27 cities from two to 5,000, 22 from 1000 to 2000. And here's 43 cities from 500 to a thousand and another 40 cities from 200 to 536 are below 200. So

(21:05):

When it comes to city government in Idaho, it's all rural by count of cities. And so this gets to another, probably a little more technical topic inside baseball or local government thing. But anyway, the idea that cities exist to under a mandate from the constitution for police power and to promote the health, safety, and welfare of the citizens, they incorporate for a reason to deliver services to the citizens and to help govern and regulate their conduct amongst people who are living in a small area versus scattered out in the countryside like where I grew up eight miles out of town.

(21:55):

So what you end up having, and I think what's reflected in some of my literature about why I decided to run is you have these great big cities that have maybe an inaccessible government, maybe the top five or six aren't, they have so many people in that city that the government isn't, the city councilman isn't ready to answer the phone at a moment's notice, but they're the ones that end up, they're the punching bag for what people perceive to be problems with local government, particularly with respect to spending and overspending and property taxes. Oh, these cities are out of control. They're spending so much money. Well, there's a whole bunch of process baked into adopting a budget and spending money. And so the notion that that city governments are out of touch with their constituents might hold true for the top 15 or 10 cities. Maybe that's the case, maybe it's not. But I can tell you, as someone who is in the trenches with these cities every single day, the cities that are the bottom tier of this, which is the bulk of the cities in Idaho, 22 plus 43, plus 40 plus 36 or below 2000, that those people are spending exactly as much money as their constituents want them to spend.

Brennan Summers (23:17):

So Senator, how does that affect what you've been doing in the Senate? Because you talk about wanting to run to kind of bolster local government and fight for the little guy in Boise's capitol. How has that affected what you're doing in the Senate?

Senator Geoff Schroeder (23:32):

Well, the ability of a little city to do the things that it needs to do to function as a city is there by this kind of hybridized grant of power. So in legal realm, a city, you have what's called the Dillon's rural state where cities or local governments have only that power granted by the state, or you have home rural states and Idaho is kind of different. So you have a police power. Granted, my concern has been, and I've seen over the years from my first term on the city council and through now efforts to go in and restrain the powers of local governments to do things, and particularly the powers of cities. And those come as a result of some large city having some zoning ordinance or some ordinance that someone runs afoul of, or we had this come up this session. So back in, I dunno, the late nineties, early two thousands, one of the largest cities in Ada County annexed without permission or without consent, a bunch of people.

(24:40):

And that turned into an annexation statute that we live with to this day. That is Byzantine would be one way to describe it, but it's very difficult to navigate to understand category A, category B, category C. And so there are efforts to try to simplify that. There are efforts to try to reign in other areas that cities can do. I remember in 2015 or 16, the statute was passed. You can't, cities can't regulate garbage bags, minimum wage, I don't know. You name it. Every year there's something that we don't want cities to do, and the targets are always directed at these big cities. Well, the problem is that who has to live with that? Who has to live with those restrictions are the tiny ones as well, where the problem doesn't exist. We wouldn't have thought of banning garbage bags. Who cares? And those examples are a little less problematic.

(25:41):

It doesn't matter. But there's other ones that direct how cities adopt budget, how cities are funded, that when your target is the big guy, you're accidentally getting the little guy. So when you restrict growth to a certain percentage or a budget to a certain percentage, and you restrict services to a certain percentage, well that affect a tiny city a great deal more than it will a big city. So 8%, if I want to add 30 houses to a city and I need and a 30 home subdivision to a city, if that's more than 8% of the total homes in the city, then I'm going to have a problem getting my budget grown enough to deliver the same level of service they had before.

Brennan Summers (26:30):

Right? So I think anyone listening can't question your passion or understanding of these local issues. And clearly that's one of the reasons why you ran. So we've talked a lot about the connection here between city and rural and these small incorporated cities and the way that plays out. You talked earlier about such a vast and diverse district and District eight. Why don't you, as we're running out of time quickly, but why don't you give us a couple examples of the issues that you're hearing about and that you're seeing in District eight as it's so big and so many issues. Give us a few examples of some of the challenges that your constituents are facing.

Senator Geoff Schroeder (27:09):

Well, we have a huge diversity. So we have a very agricultural dependent component in Elmore County where there's the dependent on water is just a tremendous issue.

Brennan Summers (27:25):

Sure.

Senator Geoff Schroeder (27:26):

We have rural farms in Custer County as well that require irrigation and irrigation water and water rights. We have in Valley County and in Custer County and Valley County, both have tremendous mining resources and mineral resources. And those are under constant scrutiny to make sure that they comply with environmental regulations before they can either cause of harm or a detriment. And so you're balancing the needs of the country to produce minerals and the need of the county to have a bustling economy and to provide, but to not be at odds with, for example, the tremendous recreation and scenic values in the city of McCall or the city, city of Cascade. And so those are tough to wrestle with. Should this mine be approved, is it going to have the effect that the folks claim that it will?

(28:32):

And then, yes, preserving the rural way of life, people move out into the country because that's where they want to live. They don't want to be bothered. They want to be able to shoot out the back door like I did where I was growing up. We make sure no one's behind us, but we lived miles from other people. So when cities grow out into the county or people want to develop those, that rural way of life is important. I grew up in a rural situation. If I was expecting my rural lifestyle and all of a sudden it's encroached by a city or by other growth from my neighbor next door, maybe not in a city, it would concern me. And so those growing pains are prevalent in Valley and Elmore counties to some extent in Boise County as well. The demands of growth of population on emergency medical services in Boise County, the recreation folks in these counties, and particularly in Valley County. How do you fund that? And there's an effort now that I've seen people criticize, but a statewide solution to E SS funding I think is necessary given some property tax value limitations and the expense of medical service in Arbor area.

Brennan Summers (29:49):

Yeah. Yeah. There's no doubt when you look at these conflicting interests at times and a vocal constituency, you've definitely got your job cut out for you as you figure out what we need to do in those regards. As we're wrapping up, there's a couple of questions I have to ask all of our guests and you with your unique background, I've got to ask you a couple. The first one, if there's a book that you would recommend that everyone out there reads, what book would it be?

Senator Geoff Schroeder (30:25):

Oh boy. I have an answer, but I'm not going to answer it. Okay. Well, this came up on a Twitter. This book passed away recently as a philosopher. I have a philosophy degree. His name's Harry Frankfort.

Brennan Summers (30:41):

Okay.

Senator Geoff Schroeder (30:42):

He wrote a book. It's very small and the title is fun, but don't be fooled by the title. It is a piece of scholarly work. But the title by philosopher Harry, the book by philosopher Harry Frankfurt, is called On Bullshit. And it describes the difference between truth and lies, and then this other notion and this third thing, which is the title of the book is A Greater Enemy of the Truth than is a lie. And he does a stunning job of it, and I really think more people ought to read it.

Brennan Summers (31:18):

Fantastic. Maybe not a bedtime story for the kids, but definitely one that some of your coworkers, and

Senator Geoff Schroeder (31:24):

For someone just talking around something besides giving you an answer that can be verified or falsified,

Brennan Summers (31:31):

Fair, best place to eat in your district. Now your district is massive, so if you could possibly choose one or two places,

Senator Geoff Schroeder (31:39):

I wouldn't do justice. I will tell you this. Before I had the district and was a senator, before I was a senator, I would have to go to, I'm the city attorney for the City of Crouch, and our firm is a city attorney for Horseshoe Bend. So Sonora Mexican Grill and Horseshoe Bend. It's a great place to stop and get an enchilada. That's one that end of the district. There are so many more, but

Brennan Summers (32:10):

We will take that one and then we'll atric it with so many more. As Senator, we started today talking about your time signing up in the National Guard, the way you felt an obligation to go serve, and your very compelling story about the importance of voting. We got into some of these local government issues, your time on the city council, the unsung heroes that have so much impact and a call to serve in local government where possible. And talked about how that's affected not only your reason to run for the Senate, but also the issues you've been carrying then you went through quickly, but a list of a lot of issues that your district is experiencing, and with this historic growth, everything going on, you gave us a great book recommendation and a good Mexican restaurant. Senator, we've appreciated your time with us today as we depart some last minute words of maybe anything you'd like to leave us with.

Senator Geoff Schroeder (32:59):

Well, I think one of the more important jobs that I have is to listen. There's a lot of us there that like to talk. I have a lot to say, but if I don't stop and listen and if I don't listen carefully to what someone is saying, so people leave me voicemails, I listen to 'em, I try to call 'em back, but I try to listen and listen for what it is that I'm being asked, and whether that's a person who's advocating for a piece of legislation, a colleague, but I try to listen carefully to what people are saying. And so if you don't think I'm listening, maybe I've missed it and I'm not, and maybe I'm jumping to talking, but I prefer to listen first, listen carefully, and then offer what it is that I have to say.

Brennan Summers (33:46):

Fantastic. Well, anybody listening now, that's an open invitation to reach out if you're in District eight to Senator Jeff Schroeder. Again, district eight. He's open and willing to listen to anything you've got to say to him. Senator, again, thank you so much for joining us. We're going to have to have you back on. Okay? Okay.

Senator Geoff Schroeder (34:02):

Thank you.

Brennan Summers (34:03):

Thanks, Senator.

Main Street Idaho Podcast Episode 10: Representative Chenele Dixon

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“Stuff that matters in day-to-day lives. I think most people are, they’re just trying to provide for their family and live and work and play in Idaho and just make a good life for their family. And so they’re concerned about things that help them do that.”

— Representative Chenele Dixon

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.

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. Hello. Welcome to Main Street, Idaho. We are very lucky today to have representative Chanel Dixon with US District 24 out of Twin Falls, right?

Representative Chenele Dixon (00:21):

Yes. So Twin Falls County, so it's the rural part of Twin Falls County, and then Gooding and Camas Counties.

Brennan Summers (00:28):

And you had to add that because your kids, you are in the school board or over the school foundation for, is it the, which school? Kimberly?

Representative Chenele Dixon (00:37):

Yeah, so I'm the president of the Kimberly School Foundation.

Brennan Summers (00:40):

Yeah. Alright. Okay. So we've got a lot to cover today. Well, first we've got to figure out who you are, right? You're a first term representative in the Idaho House. How are you feeling about it?

Representative Chenele Dixon (00:49):

It's great.

Brennan Summers (00:50):

It's great.

Representative Chenele Dixon (00:51):

Yeah. You're

Brennan Summers (00:51):

Happy

Representative Chenele Dixon (00:52):

Am

Brennan Summers (00:52):

You may come back for a second

Representative Chenele Dixon (00:54):

Time. I am coming back, yes. Love it. That's my plan.

Brennan Summers (00:57):

Tell us a little bit about your family. Tell us about how you, who are you?

Representative Chenele Dixon (01:01):

Okay. Well, Chanel Dixon, and we live in Kimberly. My husband grew up in Twin. He's a fifth generation Idaho. And I actually grew up in Phoenix.

Brennan Summers (01:10):

Oh, really?

Representative Chenele Dixon (01:11):

Yep. But we got back here as soon as we were done with all our training and schooling and raised our kids in Idaho. We have two girls and they're both grown, both married. We have one granddaughter that just started second grade. Wow. They're kind of far away right now. So our oldest daughter lives in San Antonio with her family and our youngest daughter and her husband are in Knoxville, Tennessee. But we're hoping that we see everybody come back this way.

(01:44):

So my background is in education. I have an English teaching degree, and I did my master's in education. And then about four or five years ago, I went and got a real estate license. So I'm a licensed realtor. My husband's a physician. And yeah, I've always tried to be involved in my community in doing community service. I ran the Music fest for C S I, college of Southern Idaho for quite a while, which is a music camp for 12 to 18 year olds. And so I would coordinate that. I'm not musically inclined. My kids are,

Brennan Summers (02:23):

Oh, that's neat.

Representative Chenele Dixon (02:23):

I'm not musically inclined, but I can organize. And so they asked me to be the director and I would bring in the music teachers and we'd have a hundred to 110 youth come for the week. And then we put on a big concert at the end, been involved in the Republican party for a long time. And I started off, I actually ran to be on the executive committee for the Twin Falls County Republicans, and then I ran for precinct committee person. So I did that for a long time. And I was the secretary for our county. And then I was our state committee woman. And then I helped on a lot of campaigns. And when it was good timing, it's always about timing. And so our kids were grown. My husband had actually changed jobs and he can come with me to Boise work from Twin or from Boise, which is really nice. That

Brennan Summers (03:20):

Is nice.

Representative Chenele Dixon (03:21):

And then with redistricting, there was an open seat and so I put my head in the ring

Brennan Summers (03:28):

And was the campaign process as stressful as it sounds,

Representative Chenele Dixon (03:32):

It's a little stressful. I mean, it's a lot of work, but I kind of enjoy it and it's fun to get out there and just meet a ton of people. And we knocked a lot of doors and held some town halls and we'll do that again. But I've met obviously a ton more people

Brennan Summers (03:53):

Since

Representative Chenele Dixon (03:53):

Being in the legislature. So

Brennan Summers (03:55):

A lot of people that you've got to know and a lot of people you probably still need to get to know. Oh

Representative Chenele Dixon (03:59):

Yeah.

Brennan Summers (03:59):

Right. Absolutely. As you're out meeting with people, what issues are they telling you that they care about?

Representative Chenele Dixon (04:04):

Well, I think most people care about their roads.

Brennan Summers (04:08):

They

Representative Chenele Dixon (04:08):

Don't like the potholes in the roads. They want want smooth roads. They want low taxes. They want good schools for their kids and the things that government actually does play a role in.

Brennan Summers (04:20):

So maybe not the super controversial stuff, but stuff that matters,

Representative Chenele Dixon (04:24):

Stuff that matters in day-to-day lives. I think most people are, they're just trying to provide for their family and live and work and play in Idaho and just make a good life for their family. And so they're concerned about things that help them do that.

Brennan Summers (04:41):

Yeah, I think that's a really interesting point because a vast majority of people, politics is not their life and it's not necessarily their passion and most actually hate it, but for everybody it matters.

Representative Chenele Dixon (04:53):

It does matter.

Brennan Summers (04:54):

And so how do you reach those voices of people who they don't want to argue with their neighbor about Biden or Trump, they just want their roads to be clear?

Representative Chenele Dixon (05:04):

Well, I think having that message and just talking to them, I went, when I was running in the primary, I went and talked to a group of people and I said, okay, so let's talk about your schools. They were all young parents and I said, what concerns do you have? And they're like, well, we actually really like our schools and we like our teachers and we like our principals. And I said, so you don't have concerns about that? And they're like, no, but maybe we can retain teachers by paying them a little more. So I think just talking to people and helping them see that by electing good, solid people who are willing to be problem solvers, that it does positively affect their lives. I met people too who had never voted. And so I tried to have a conversation about why they should vote and why they should care because it does affect them even if they don't like politics.

Brennan Summers (06:01):

I am shocked how many people who I would view as really good members of the community that contribute help who they just vote every four years in a presidential election when it probably has the least influence in their daily lives, but they don't vote in these legislative primary races or even their municipal elections. That's scary. Right?

Representative Chenele Dixon (06:21):

It is scary. And you want the voices of all the people that live in your district to turn out and vote and be a little bit engaged. They don't necessarily have to run for office themselves, but just to be a little engaged is important.

Brennan Summers (06:37):

But when a very small selection of people are the ones who are voting, then that's the very small selection of people whose voices are represented and that they choose someone. So that's safe. Carrie, you mentioned education, going to schools, you have a unique perspective on education, and I'm really excited to actually kind of put some pins onto where you are with that because you homeschooled your kids, correct?

Representative Chenele Dixon (06:59):

We did.

Brennan Summers (07:00):

And not just your kids, but you operated in a co-op where there was a lot of different things going on. Maybe walk us through the decision to homeschool, why that was helpful. And then I've got a lot more education questions.

Representative Chenele Dixon (07:10):

So we started off, like I said, I majored in English teaching in college. That's what my degree is in. When we had our oldest daughter, she was getting ready to start kindergarten, and the school district was teaching sex ed in kindergarten. And I had some concerns about that and a number of parents had some concerns. And so we went to a school board meeting and said, Hey, can we just talk about this? And I should back up. We were living in Portland, Oregon at the time. My husband was in medical school there. And they wouldn't talk to us about the curriculum, which in Idaho parents have the right to see the curriculum as

Brennan Summers (07:52):

They should.

Representative Chenele Dixon (07:52):

As they should. And that's important and that's an important part of the process, that communication between parents and teachers. And I grew up with a mom who was always very involved in the classroom. She was always the homeroom mom and concerned about what was going on. We would talk about what I was learning. She would read books that we were reading. It was great. So I kind of came from that lens and we had already been talking about how it might be kind of fun to homeschool for kindergarten. And when the school district wouldn't have a conversation, we decided to try our hat at homeschooling and we loved it, and it was so much fun. And then the next year, and we knew we were moving because then my husband was graduating from medical school and we were going onto residency at kindergarten level. We hadn't decided we were going to homeschool through the whole process, but it turned out that we pretty much did. Our oldest daughter graduated as a homeschooler. Our youngest daughter went to Kimberly High School for the last two years

(09:05):

Of her high school. And anyway, during that time, I did some private tutoring as an English teacher. I would help kids with their reading and their writing and learning to think critically as they were reading novels for their English class. Then I got involved in some homeschool, and so I started teaching the high school English classes and loved it. And about the same time that my daughter, we would always ask them, we always left it up to our daughters, do you want to keep homeschooling? Do you want to go to public school? Do you want to go to private school? We would always have that conversation. So our youngest daughter decided to go to Kimberly High School and they were having a bond levy election, and I got involved to help support that. I've always been a huge supporter of public education, even though we were homeschooled,

Brennan Summers (10:05):

Which is interesting. There seems to be an appearance at time that the homeschool community doesn't support public education because they pulled themselves from it. And the public education doesn't support the homeschool community, not part of the process. But I know that isn't necessarily the case. I

Representative Chenele Dixon (10:18):

Don't think so. I don't think so because there's a lot of dual enrolling going on. My experience was that as our girls went to the local public school to take different classes, they were always very welcomed. I had great relationships with their teachers,

(10:38):

So I don't think there needs to be this disconnect. Anyway, so I got involved in helping with their campaign for their bond levy, and I was putting signs out and I was calling people and knocking doors with this group of parents. And anyway, that passed. And after that passed, I was approached by some people at the school district to be on the foundation, the Kimberly School Foundation, and it's been great. I've done that since 2016, and I've been the president for the last four years I think. So basically what the foundation does, and it varies from district to district, but the Kimberly School Foundation raises money for scholarships

Brennan Summers (11:20):

Perfect for

Representative Chenele Dixon (11:20):

Kimberly graduates.

Brennan Summers (11:21):

That's great.

Representative Chenele Dixon (11:22):

And so we've given out to date about a hundred thousand dollars in scholarships. We go to the football games and we do our fundraisers. It's a great,

Brennan Summers (11:33):

Which is really important because in the legislature, education eats up a lot of time as it probably should because it's so important. We had this last session, the topics of the day were choice, voucher, whatever you want to call it. So how did you feel when these education topics come up? How do you wrestle with them as a mother who homeschooled as strong advocate of public schools wanting to get teachers paid more? Where are you at with education policy?

Representative Chenele Dixon (11:58):

So this is not the first time I've thought about this, right? Yeah. So I came into the legislature and all of a sudden I had to think about this. I've thought about this since my oldest daughter who's now 30, started kindergarten. How does this all connect and how does this work together? And in Idaho, we actually have some of the best school choice laws or

Brennan Summers (12:22):

Regulations,

Representative Chenele Dixon (12:23):

Options. We're ranked number three in the country for school choice. And people sometimes confuse school choice with funding. But school choice really means do parents have the opportunity to easily take the method of education that they want and explore that? So in Idaho, we don't have any regulations on homeschoolers. They have nothing that they have to do to fulfill requirements by our state government. And private schools don't either. And a lot of people don't realize that. And so in my mind, that's great school choice. If you want to homeschool, you can do that and you can do that how you want to. And many states are not that way. And then we have charter schools, we have public schools, charter schools are public schools, but

Brennan Summers (13:14):

A

Representative Chenele Dixon (13:14):

Little bit different setup than your traditional public

Brennan Summers (13:16):

Schools. Another option,

Representative Chenele Dixon (13:17):

Another option. We have all of those things here. And the school choice discussion that's really about funding is where I probably, I think my perspective is a little different because as a homeschooler, I appreciated the fact when we got back to Idaho that we could do that, how we saw fit. And if we're going to put state tax dollars into homeschool or into private schools, either one, then there has to be accountability. We can't spend taxpayer dollars and not have accountability.

Brennan Summers (13:54):

So you liked the freedom in Idaho being able to teach your kids in a way that you saw fit without the government kind of

Representative Chenele Dixon (14:00):

Overseeing it,

Brennan Summers (14:01):

But you were also very supportive of those who chose to send their kids

Representative Chenele Dixon (14:04):

Public. Super supportive. And I think the end goal should be that we want a well-educated society. Absolutely. And there's various ways and things that work for different families. And I don't think tossing our taxpayer dollars to a private school, just like the homeschool, there would have to be accountability for that money. And I think down the road, what you would see is that those private schools didn't have the same opportunity to maybe teach in the way or bring certain, maybe they use the Bible, maybe it's a private Catholic school, and they use the Bible as part of their curriculum. Would that be in question if they started having state money? Probably.

Brennan Summers (14:51):

Yeah. Do you expect this issue to come up? School choice, come up again, the session. Oh

Representative Chenele Dixon (14:55):

Yeah.

Brennan Summers (14:56):

You're ready for it.

Representative Chenele Dixon (14:56):

Yeah.

Brennan Summers (14:57):

We could spend all day talking about education, and I kind of like to, but we've got to cover a few more

Representative Chenele Dixon (15:02):

Topics.

Brennan Summers (15:02):

We talked to your dear friend, Senator Harren about drugs came up and issues in, she mentioned in the community that there's a concern about the role that drugs are playing, especially with the historic growth that's coming with a lot of other challenges. You recently wrote an op-ed about fentanyl and in opposition of it, but you brought up what a concern is and how we probably should put more of a focus on, I said, what are you seeing? What is your perspective with fentanyl?

Representative Chenele Dixon (15:30):

Well, so in the Twin Falls area, we have highway 93 that comes up, and it's a common route for drug traffickers to come through. Most of them though, don't want to come to Idaho drug traffickers. There's recordings of voicemails and emails from drug traffickers saying to people who are trying to get them to come to Idaho, no, because you guys have mandatory minimums,

Brennan Summers (16:01):

Drug

Representative Chenele Dixon (16:01):

Traffickers, but we don't for fentanyl. And fentanyl is one of the deadliest drugs. And there's probably not a person around that hasn't heard something about fentanyl. But it's more powerful. It's 50 times more powerful than heroin and a hundred times more powerful than morphine. So it's a deadly drug, and it's getting mixed in with a lot of other drugs. And in the course of a month, it was like the middle of May to the middle of June or something, there were two drug buss on Highway 93 just in my district, and 14 pounds of fentanyl was confiscated.

Brennan Summers (16:41):

Any idea how many people that could kill?

Representative Chenele Dixon (16:43):

Well, it could kill all of Idaho, Montana, and most of Wyoming. It takes basically two milligrams, which is about the size of a grain of salt to kill someone for fentanyl, 14, 14 pounds. And that was just in those two drug busts. And so

Brennan Summers (17:01):

You're saying we've managed to deter a lot of drugs to the community because of the way we've punished drug offenders. But fentanyl doesn't qualify. Why is that?

Representative Chenele Dixon (17:11):

Well, it's a, it's a newer street drug. It gets used in the hospital all the time. It was developed in the sixties. But last session we did have a bill that would've added fentanyl to our mandatory minimums. And I should be clear. So it's not for drug users, it's for drug traffickers. So they have to be proven guilty as a drug trafficker in the court of law. And then if they're proven guilty, these mandatory minimums say, well, you're going to prison for this minimum amount of time no

Brennan Summers (17:48):

Matter what. No

Representative Chenele Dixon (17:49):

Matter

Brennan Summers (17:49):

What.

Representative Chenele Dixon (17:50):

If you've gone through the whole court process and been found guilty of drug trafficking. So sometimes there's confusion. Anyway, so we had a bill and we couldn't get it out of committee. We'll bring it back this session. I've been talking to a lot of legislators and just trying to help educate them on what this really means, what the mandatory minimums actually do. The dangers of fentanyl, I mean, it's contributing to a lot of deaths. And I think the C D C said that about 44% of drug overdose deaths in the United States and Idaho's about the same were fentanyl related. Wow, that's a lot.

Brennan Summers (18:40):

Where's the law enforcement community with the legislation?

Representative Chenele Dixon (18:43):

I think they're in favor of it.

Brennan Summers (18:44):

They support it.

Representative Chenele Dixon (18:45):

And in conversations with policemen and our prosecutors, they're very much in favor of it. And they know that the mandatory minimums, we do have help to.

Brennan Summers (19:01):

So if somebody out there is listening and they have a reaction like me when they hear about how impactful this is, what can they do to help this legislation get across the finish line?

Representative Chenele Dixon (19:11):

Well, I think they can contact their legislator

Brennan Summers (19:15):

And

Representative Chenele Dixon (19:15):

Say, Hey, this is important. And we had a big campaign in Idaho. Fentanyl Takes All, and there's a website and there's some personal stories on there from people who lost their children to fentanyl. I think a lot of it has to be education because we just hear, oh, fentanyl. But we think, oh, it's not going to affect somebody that we know.

Brennan Summers (19:42):

Sure.

Representative Chenele Dixon (19:42):

So I think if people can educate themselves and then just reach out to your legislators,

Brennan Summers (19:46):

Which is crazy how easy it is because your email and phone phone number is online. They just have to Google your name.

Representative Chenele Dixon (19:53):

And

Brennan Summers (19:53):

The first one that comes up is the State's directory.

Representative Chenele Dixon (19:56):

Yeah.

Brennan Summers (19:57):

I love I know, I love that. What you

Representative Chenele Dixon (19:58):

So

Brennan Summers (19:59):

Easy.

Representative Chenele Dixon (19:59):

Oh yeah. We're accessible in Idaho. That's not true everywhere.

Brennan Summers (20:03):

No. So that's great. This is a sad topic. It's an unfortunate topic, but it's an important topic. It

Representative Chenele Dixon (20:08):

Is.

Brennan Summers (20:08):

So let's try to liven things up a little bit. What do you think,

Representative Chenele Dixon (20:11):

Perfect.

Brennan Summers (20:11):

What are some good things happening in the stage? What are you happy about your first term, your first session, I should say? You got it under your belt. How do you feel about it? What were some really good things that you can walk away and say These

Representative Chenele Dixon (20:20):

Wins? It was good. So I think our property tax relief bill,

Brennan Summers (20:26):

That

Representative Chenele Dixon (20:26):

Was a big deal, and people will see that on their,

Brennan Summers (20:30):

Soon

Representative Chenele Dixon (20:31):

In November when they get sent out, people are going to notice it'll be noticeable. And it doesn't mean that their property value hasn't gone up, depending on how their neck of the woods is, but they will see a decrease in their property taxes. And that's a really big deal,

Brennan Summers (20:47):

Especially when so many people have been dreading looking at that. And it's been such a just kick to the teeth when people looked at what that's coming. And now we've kind of switched the narrative, which I think is great. Property taxes, good thing for us to look forward to. What else?

Representative Chenele Dixon (21:00):

Let's see. I think we did some good things with education. I think we started as a state taking responsibility for the buildings, and we got some great raises for teachers and certified staff. I think that funding, it's not a one and done. We have to keep looking at that and making sure that we're making our schools and our teachers whole. There's a lot of turnover in teachers right now, and just all the staff in the schools and pay has a lot to do with it. And so if we can just help, that'll help our education as a state.

Brennan Summers (21:39):

We had Senator lent on early on, if anybody hasn't listened to that one, it's so good to have Send lt talk through what their plan is and how he's learning about maybe what the legislature can do to better address some of these educations. Just specific to buildings, the facilities.

Representative Chenele Dixon (21:54):

Oh yeah. I mean, in my district, we have some very old schools. There's one that's a hundred years old and maybe two actually. But anyway, we just need to keep up on those buildings. They need to be safe and they need to be adequate and up to standards.

Brennan Summers (22:10):

So now that you've had a little experience with your first session, other than the Fentanyl bill, what are some projects you're really hoping to bring forward in the coming years?

Representative Chenele Dixon (22:20):

Oh, well, I'm working on some stuff with counselors and the counselors brought it to me,

Brennan Summers (22:28):

And

Representative Chenele Dixon (22:28):

I think that's important. I try to, even in this last session and moving forward, as I hear about things, I try to talk to the people it's going to affect because the people that sit in the capitol don't know everything about every industry. So when we reach out and we listen to the needs of these different industries and the people that work in them, I think that's really helpful.

Brennan Summers (22:54):

I agree.

Representative Chenele Dixon (22:54):

So I'm working with them on something. I had some people reach out to me about some things that would affect counties. And so I'm just talking to people about that and seeing what we might be able to do and see if we can solve this maybe small problem, but important. Yeah, I think there'll be some good things that happen this session.

Brennan Summers (23:20):

Yeah, no, it sounds like

Representative Chenele Dixon (23:21):

It have some good budgets.

Brennan Summers (23:23):

You mentioned you've had some experience working in real estate as you've seen firsthand then the historic growth that's happening in this state, and it doesn't seem to be plateauing in terms of lots of people coming in home prices skyrocketing. What are you seeing in that space?

Representative Chenele Dixon (23:42):

It has slowed down in the Magic Valley a little bit. The prices haven't slowed down, but the buying has slowed down. And I think it's because we've seen interest rates go up when people are paying 2.5%. That's a lot different than 8%. So people have kind of pulled back a little. I think smart growth is important. I think the state, the counties, the cities, we can all work together to kind of plan ahead. We know, or we expect that Idaho's going to continue to be one of the fastest growing states so we can make some plans. And the third crossing

Brennan Summers (24:21):

In

Representative Chenele Dixon (24:22):

The Magic Valley, if you've heard of that, it's important because we see all this traffic in Twin Falls City. The population doubles every day from people coming in to Twin Falls from outside

Brennan Summers (24:35):

Because they're coming in on those two ramps.

Representative Chenele Dixon (24:38):

And so things like that, as we plan ahead, knowing that the growth is going to continue, that's really, really important. And funding these infrastructure programs that we have and really helping move things along. And I think our counties and cities are looking and doing a good job of planning for what does this look like and how do we have that smart growth.

Brennan Summers (25:04):

Yeah, I love that. We have so many things I love to talk about time's always running short. But before we end, I always have to ask a couple of questions I ask everybody. Kay. So I think you might be ready with some of these, listened to the podcast before and some of these questions. But first one I love to ask is, what's a book you've read that you think everybody out there needs to read?

Representative Chenele Dixon (25:21):

Well, probably my favorite. I have a lot of favorite books I like to read, but probably my favorite book of all times is The Count of Monte Crito.

Brennan Summers (25:28):

Really

Representative Chenele Dixon (25:29):

So great. But you have to, I mean, it takes a while, right? 12, this is an English teacher

Brennan Summers (25:32):

We write, this is an English teacher. We're talking to

Representative Chenele Dixon (25:35):

My dad, who was never a reader when I was growing up about 10 years ago, really got into reading for some reason. And he's an avid reader now. And so I gave that book to him for Christmas a few years ago, and he was like, whoa, I don't know, because of the size of it. Yeah, it's 1200 pages. And anyway, he read it and he was like, you're right. That was one of the best books ever. But

Brennan Summers (25:57):

There's a movie, you can just watch the movie, right?

Representative Chenele Dixon (25:59):

But it's not the same. And even the ending isn't the same.

Brennan Summers (26:02):

Oh, really? Okay.

Representative Chenele Dixon (26:02):

Yeah. Anyway, it's just beautifully written. And then it makes you think it's one of those books that has kind of some of those every man topics, right?

Brennan Summers (26:12):

Yeah. You

Representative Chenele Dixon (26:12):

Can think through. But I also, I recently read one called Think Again. That's really good. And it's just that idea that we have our core values, but then you can come to the table and talk to people about things and really listen. And sometimes you might find that there's another way to look at things and that's okay, and that's healthy, and that's what we want. That's what we want, and that's what our society needs. That was a great one. It is

Brennan Summers (26:41):

What our sightings, but it's so dangerous in politics is that you're changing your view or your perspective. But if we get more comfortable saying, I've learned more and I'm ready to look at this different, it might be helpful.

Representative Chenele Dixon (26:50):

Yeah. I think like Spencer Cox, the governor, Dan Utah, came out with his initiative, disagree Better. And that's kind of the whole idea of that, of let's just listen to each other, come to the table and listen, and then we can actually solve problems.

Brennan Summers (27:05):

Oh, that's perfect. Now, best place to eat in your district.

Representative Chenele Dixon (27:10):

Oh, well, yeah. That's a little touchy. I

Brennan Summers (27:16):

Know. We got favorites. We don't, everyone says it's same thing, but I haven't received any hate mail from a restaurant. Oh,

Representative Chenele Dixon (27:22):

Good. You

Brennan Summers (27:23):

Have the liberty to add a few. And then of course any additionals.

Representative Chenele Dixon (27:27):

Okay. So there's a really great place in Hagerman called the Snake River Grill. It's a great restaurant and Hagerman's just such the Hagerman Valley's so beautiful. So it's fun to go over there. It's a little ways from my house, but it's in my district.

Brennan Summers (27:42):

Wow.

Representative Chenele Dixon (27:44):

There's a great Indian restaurant called Saffron

Brennan Summers (27:47):

In

Representative Chenele Dixon (27:47):

Downtown Twin, which technically I don't cover downtown Twin Falls, but Foot Falls County in my district. Great restaurant. They, it's pretty spicy, so you have to like some spice. But yeah, those two are great. And I dunno, all over my district, there's a lot of good restaurants.

Brennan Summers (28:08):

Good save. Yeah. So if you got left off the list, she meant to add you. You've been in politics for a little while. You've volunteered, you've been actually in the party. So is there a favorite political leader that you have and kind of look up to your friend? Senator Harran talked about Sandra Day O'Connor being somebody that she looked up to and how her biography being something that shaped her life. What about you?

Representative Chenele Dixon (28:30):

Oh, I've always liked Ronald Reagan and I was a little kid. I was pretty little when he first ran, and I just loved him. I was just drawn to what he had to say. And I go back occasionally and read some of his speeches and just classy.

Brennan Summers (28:48):

So something on your bucket list if you haven't been yet. Last week I went to the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in the semi valley. Incredible.

Representative Chenele Dixon (28:54):

Oh yeah. I would love to go. I haven't been.

Brennan Summers (28:56):

Yeah,

(28:58):

I left. Very moved. So you must do that. Well, representative, we started learning about your background, learned about your experience with the Portland School Board and how that shaped your views on education. You knocking doors and learning about the people in the community really care about the things that matter to them, which are the roads being clear. And we've covered everything from drug crisis all the way to favorite books and restaurants. Last thing you want to say to anyone out there who might not be very civic minded, doesn't vote or just kind of stumbled upon this podcast.

Representative Chenele Dixon (29:32):

Well, I would say, like we talked about earlier, it's important to vote and try to educate yourself. And certainly everybody has friends that vote. So if we can just bring our dialogue, make it a little broader, that's such a right. We have in this country that other people want around the world and we shouldn't take it for granted

Brennan Summers (29:54):

And a right that some very special people paid for.

Representative Chenele Dixon (29:56):

Yeah.

Brennan Summers (29:58):

So we thank them and we definitely thank you for being on here.

Representative Chenele Dixon (30:00):

Oh, happy to be here. This

Brennan Summers (30:01):

Has been so fun. We're definitely going to have to have you back after you've solved some of these problems for us.

Representative Chenele Dixon (30:06):

Sounds great. Okay. Thank

Brennan Summers (30:07):

You so much. Appreciate it.

Main Street Idaho Podcast Episode 9: Senator Linda Hartgen

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“...”

— Senator Linda Hartgen

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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. Hello. Welcome to Main Street, Idaho. We are here with a veteran now in the Idaho legislature. Senator Linda Wright-Hartgen. That's District 25, right out of Twin Falls, correct? That's correct. Now I say veteran because there has been so much turnover in recent years in the legislature. It seems like you've been there forever, but it really has only been five years.

Representative Linda Wright-Hartgen (00:32):

Yeah.

Brennan Summers (00:33):

Okay. And you recently made a change right from the house? I did. I did the Senate. What prompted that?

Representative Linda Wright-Hartgen (00:39):

I think everybody at some point thinks they'd like to go to the other side of the aisle as well, or I should say the rotunda, not the aisle. And I decided to had our senator was retiring in Twin and asked if I would be interested and I jumped on it.

Brennan Summers (00:57):

And what's that been like? Has there been a big difference between, you hear the legislature, the legislature, they don't go, they vote, but is there a big difference between the house side versus the Senate side?

Representative Linda Wright-Hartgen (01:08):

Well, is there's a rules difference even in how they vote? We don't use a machine, everybody, you always are called on with roll call vote every time, which takes up a good amount of time. So the rule changed. The decorum? Yeah, I think there was a change. I like it. I like the change. I like the people. The leadership's great.

Brennan Summers (01:33):

Yeah. You say decorum, you guys are a little bit better behaved than the house side, right?

Representative Linda Wright-Hartgen (01:39):

Well, you know what it seemed like, but there's only half of us, so they only have to get onto 35 people instead of seven.

Brennan Summers (01:45):

Easier to herd the cats. That's right. That's fair. That's fair. And so you've come over, but you've moved pretty quickly into chairmanship role, right?

Representative Linda Wright-Hartgen (01:54):

Well, that's right. When you said veteran, to be a veteran and to be a seniority at five years seems pretty strange. And so they did let me use my seniority, which they ordinarily don't. So I got to go in and was asked to be a chair of agriculture. And of course I said I, I love it. I have a background in agriculture as well. And

Brennan Summers (02:15):

That is such an important committee, not just to Idaho, but particularly to your community, right? In the Magic Valley.

Representative Linda Wright-Hartgen (02:23):

It is to my community and Idaho. It's still the breadwinner. It's still the running economic,

Brennan Summers (02:30):

Absolutely feeding the country. So I want to get into ag, but first we got to go back to the beginnings. A lot of people, even though you're a veteran, may not know you. I first met you, we were up in northern Idaho in the middle of the forest learning about the temper industry. And I thought, here's somebody who knows how to do their homework. You here, you're looking at the trees and asking all the questions I hadn't even thought of. So the people that don't know you, let's go back. What prompted you? How'd you get involved in the political scene in Idaho?

Representative Linda Wright-Hartgen (02:58):

I've always kind of been a political junkie. Really. Yeah. And 30 years ago, I actually ran for and was county clerk in Twin Falls. And so I really kind of liked that. I actually though left the job and went to be the court administrator for the next 23 years. So I have a background in both agriculture and in the judiciary. And so my spouse ran and was a representative for our district for 10, 12 years, and he became ill one in 16. And so I took his place for five weeks

Brennan Summers (03:35):

As like a substitute. That's a

Representative Linda Wright-Hartgen (03:36):

Substitute. And I really liked it. And of course his joke was he needed to get back to work because people were going to begin to send me donations to run against him.

Brennan Summers (03:47):

Were you surprised how at home you felt in the capitol?

Representative Linda Wright-Hartgen (03:50):

I was really intimidated at first to even find the speaker to be sworn in, but everyone was so friendly and they help out someone like that, you're just a novice and they know that you're there helping out, but it kind of gets in your blood.

Brennan Summers (04:08):

And before that, I mean you would've traveled around with your husband because he was a veteran by all definition and a statesman and still your late husband, but still very well respected for all the good he did. You didn't think as you would travel around with him and go to Lincoln Days and attend dinners, you thought maybe someday this can be my job. Well,

Representative Linda Wright-Hartgen (04:28):

I really did. You did? Okay. Yeah, I really did. I had always thought that it was something that I wanted to do. Actually when he got into it, it was because one of the senators had passed away in our district as well. He applied for that and he came in second. But when we got the call about it, actually I got the call from someone saying, I know that you've always wanted this. Why don't you put your name in? And I said, well, I don't want to retire yet. I still need to work on this. And so I called him and said, why don't you put your name in?

Brennan Summers (05:03):

And he did. What are some of the things that you learned before actually running by watching your husband as an elected leader?

Representative Linda Wright-Hartgen (05:12):

I think I learned one, you got to really ask a lot of questions and you need to listen and you need to get around your district and learn what's going on and get to know the people. But you also learned, I learned a lot from him about what worked and how political it really was up there. A lot of times you think, well, I'm just going to go up and do my very best and everybody will appreciate that. And I could remember coming home after my first week in sessions telling him, not everybody agrees with me on everything that I think. And so there's a lot of learning to do.

Brennan Summers (05:56):

Let's dig into a little bit more, because when you hear political, you picture campaign badges and signs. And the political part is when you're out and it's Republican, verse Republican in a primary and then Republican verse, that's the political, but you're telling me, and for the average person that might not have a glimpse behind the curtain, what's the political stuff that happens in the capitol that you have to deal with every day to be able to do your job

Representative Linda Wright-Hartgen (06:21):

Well? You really need to work with people and you need to negotiate and you need to come to agreement. And there are some up there that never come to an agreement with you. It's their way or the highway. And so trying to work around that and finding a majority of people that well agree with you on a certain bail seems really political. Yeah.

Brennan Summers (06:45):

Were there things that you watched before you were in the legislature, your husband do, that you thought, I don't agree with that policy or even that political position?

Representative Linda Wright-Hartgen (06:54):

Yeah,

Brennan Summers (06:55):

So there might've been discussions at night about, yeah,

Representative Linda Wright-Hartgen (06:57):

There were discussions that I know after I was elected, I'd come home and he'd say, I don't think I'd have voted that way, really. And I'd say, did you hear there's a new girl in town?

Brennan Summers (07:08):

Oh, that's fantastic. Projects that he felt very passionate about that you've been able to continue to carry the torch on?

Representative Linda Wright-Hartgen (07:15):

Well, projects especially infrastructure was a really big deal to him. Education, A lot of people thought he was not pro-education, but he truly was pro-education. And so that was something that I continued on to try to do what he wanted and also to keep taxes down. Philosophy is we need to do what we need and not necessarily what we want.

Brennan Summers (07:44):

You mentioned infrastructure. What are some things that are currently happening in Idaho that we need to be aware of in regards to new infrastructure spending?

Representative Linda Wright-Hartgen (07:51):

Well, in our district, a really big deal would be a third river crossing. And so that's so

Brennan Summers (07:58):

Huge. We've heard a lot about this, but for those that don't travel that way, why is that so important?

Representative Linda Wright-Hartgen (08:03):

It's important because we have so many people coming into Twin and so many trucks come across that prime bridge and they all enter into the city. I mean, there's tens of thousands a day coming through Twin Falls City. And so the studies have shown, yes, we do need a third river crossing. We've needed it for probably 30 years, but now it's really at a very critical point. And so they've done studies. They have come up with five different areas that they'd like to have it. Of course, many of us think there's only one place to have it, so we need to agree on a place to do it, but we need to start putting some money away for this.

Brennan Summers (08:41):

Any idea how aspects of it'll be?

Representative Linda Wright-Hartgen (08:43):

Yeah, right now it's 400 million for the spots that we don't particularly want it. And it's 600 million for the one I do want it. So it'd be a good time to start pocketing away several hundred million a year until we could do

Brennan Summers (09:01):

This. What's the timeframe look like?

Representative Linda Wright-Hartgen (09:04):

Oh, it's not quick enough. And I don't know, once we finish the study, it seems like they start another one and they're in the middle and probably the third or fourth study right

Brennan Summers (09:13):

Now. And so the legislature in theory is going to have to allocate some money towards that.

Representative Linda Wright-Hartgen (09:18):

They are. We're going to have to obviously probably contact the feds to make sure our own congressional people are on it and maybe they can help with a lot of this. It seems like they should,

Brennan Summers (09:30):

Should your taxes. That's they should help. All right. So infrastructure third river crossing's important. Looks like good news may be coming in our lifetime. Hopefully we'll get to cross hopefully. Before we go, let's talk ag. When you got named as chairman of the Agriculture Committee, probably a big task. What were some of the first issues you thought, these are the things we've got to tackle?

Representative Linda Wright-Hartgen (09:51):

Well, it's one I was with on a committee that there were probably only three of us that really had any ag background. And so you hear a lot of presentations. And so we had every different type of ag department come in and do their presentation so we could learn more sewer and could be on the same page,

Brennan Summers (10:13):

Which we hear spuds, Idaho's a potato state, but there's a lot of crops grown here. Oh

Representative Linda Wright-Hartgen (10:20):

My heavens, there's more than I ever dreamed.

Brennan Summers (10:23):

And I keep hearing about more and more things. And I was up in Teton County and I'd pointed out, I said, what could that possibly be? He said, that's quinoa. We're growing quinoa in Idaho now too. So a lot of different products, the growers have different needs and the state can help with those needs at times.

Representative Linda Wright-Hartgen (10:41):

They all have different needs and they all come with different policy ideas that they would like. And we obviously go over all of their rules during the first couple of weeks. We review all of the rules and agree or disagree.

Brennan Summers (10:55):

What do you think is the number one challenge that the agriculture industry is facing right now?

Representative Linda Wright-Hartgen (10:59):

Water,

Brennan Summers (11:00):

Water.

Representative Linda Wright-Hartgen (11:01):

Water. Yeah. I think, and it's to get on the same page about water, we priority doctrine first in time, first in. But we have lots of people that are also the ground pumpers that have a love of farming as well. We need to come to some sort of agreement. I don't think we can ever change the priority doctrine, and I ignore what I want to, but I do think that we need to make sure that everybody has a chance to be made whole and to keep their farms going.

Brennan Summers (11:37):

And we've had Representative Mickelson big grower on, and she's talked about her experience and how important the water is. And we've talked to Representative Ray bold about water. And it seems like the more that I hear about the issue, the less I understand about it. It seems like the water issue is pretty complicated.

Representative Linda Wright-Hartgen (11:55):

It is pretty

Brennan Summers (11:56):

Complicated. Is that something your committee's going to have to tackle or will that go through natural resources?

Representative Linda Wright-Hartgen (12:01):

It'll go through natural resources, which is probably a good thing. That is their bailiwick, but it's the aquifers, the recharge of aquifers. And how can we do more of that?

Brennan Summers (12:16):

The nice part is we have a governor and a lieutenant governor and

Representative Linda Wright-Hartgen (12:19):

Oh, they're all on

Brennan Summers (12:19):

Board that really understand the importance of it, which is nice. We've had some people that probably wouldn't care about the water issue, so it's good that we've got water. Important issue to ag. You signed on in a letter in the session kind of telling the Biden administration, Hey, our farmers need some help with their workforce, and the current state of immigration in this country is a nightmare. Why don't you walk us through what that issue means and why you would kind of sign on to something like that?

Representative Linda Wright-Hartgen (12:48):

Well, I signed on to it because my district and the districts right around us, well, actually the whole state, but we have a lot of dairies and a lot of farms that would not function without foreign-born labor. And I just feel the need that we, either we get this problem solved or we give these people some sort of a right to be here. I mean, many of them have lived here their whole life, but they live in fear every day. And I can't imagine sending my children to school and fear that they might come home and not find their parents there because kids were born here and they're good people, and our farms and dairies would be in a real hurt without

Brennan Summers (13:36):

Them. But there's a faction of your party who would say no sense that everyone that came here illegally needs to get sent home. And we also need to make sure nobody illegally comes in, right,

Representative Linda Wright-Hartgen (13:47):

Round them up, put 'em on a bus, send 'em home, and that just can't happen. And every time we tried to explain what this memorial was, they said it was an amnesty. It isn't amnesty. There is, amnesty was not a word ever in

Brennan Summers (14:03):

There. And amnesty means granting everybody who's broke the law.

Representative Linda Wright-Hartgen (14:06):

Absolutely.

Brennan Summers (14:08):

Yeah, exactly. But it's not. And how come it's

Representative Linda Wright-Hartgen (14:10):

Not? This was simply to tell the feds, get off your duff and get this taken care of. You've had it in your bailiwick for years, and you just keep punting down the road and it's time to fix

Brennan Summers (14:23):

It. So if we put you in the White House tomorrow, how would you fix this problem?

Representative Linda Wright-Hartgen (14:28):

Well, it would be nice to be able to do an administrative order. Me seem to do each presidential, but it would be to encourage and say, I'm not going to sign your budgets and tell you fixes this immigration

Brennan Summers (14:43):

Issue. And what does a fix to you look like?

Representative Linda Wright-Hartgen (14:46):

Well, a fix to me looks like the green cards need to be, I guess, given out easier. I have heard how hard it is when you come here to try to, especially to get citizenship. We've made it truly hard. But I think that we need to have more work release type things for these people to come here and be able to work and to be able to bank their money instead of sending it all back to Mexico.

Brennan Summers (15:17):

So you are on the record as a staunch advocate of legal immigration. That's right. And then where are you with the southern border and illegal immigration? How do you feel about that?

Representative Linda Wright-Hartgen (15:30):

Well, I think that they need to come in the country the correct way, and the people flooding through the borders right now, it's really hard to watch. And it's like they're just thumbing their nose out and that isn't good. I don't appreciate that either.

Brennan Summers (15:46):

So if we can control the border and set up a system where people are able to come and legally and be vetted, then we can get our farmers and ranchers workforce where

Representative Linda Wright-Hartgen (15:55):

They can. And it seemed like we were on that path. And then it stopped with the administration that we have now.

Brennan Summers (16:01):

Yeah. Yeah. We're seeing it every day. So a very serious challenge and something that's probably not going away anytime soon. Let's go back to, you mentioned time as a court administrator. Yes. Yeah. What did that include for you?

Representative Linda Wright-Hartgen (16:16):

It included, I worked in the eight counties in the Magic Valley. And so you work with all of the judges, all the elected clerks. You're the media person, so you're the go-to person and you put out a lot of flyers. You work on all of their budgets. So you do district court budgets and then you do the one for the Supreme Court for your whole district. I started many problem solving courts for people, and yeah, it was just actually, it was very interesting. It was not

Brennan Summers (16:43):

Dull. And it probably gave you some unique experience that you were able to take to legislature,

Representative Linda Wright-Hartgen (16:48):

Unique experiences of working with people, listening, working, making programs, go, actually getting in and getting people to work together. And that's what I assumed it would be like to go to the legislature. And my ideal is to go to the legislature and you take the hard stuff on first instead of waiting until the last days.

Brennan Summers (17:11):

And that doesn't seem to be the way that it is happening though.

Representative Linda Wright-Hartgen (17:13):

It doesn't happen that way. And so that was a real hard learn for me that because my administrative abilities say, no, you get in, you tackle big stuff and let the easy stuff flow later.

Brennan Summers (17:26):

So when you were on the house side, you actually served in a germane committee for judiciary, right? Yeah. What type of issues came before you and what are the type of issues that you're still dealing with when it comes to judiciary issues?

Representative Linda Wright-Hartgen (17:39):

Well, doxxing was a huge issue. It still is where people can be on your front porch or be out in front of your house and burning crosses and whatever. And so that was a big deal. All sorts of drug issues, all sorts of civil issues as far as child welfare and whether parents should be punished or whether they should have sole authority to do whatever they want with their children.

Brennan Summers (18:13):

And when you campaign, one of the big talking points you talked about is being very pro children. And where are we at in Idaho with that, and what do you think we still need to do to better be pro children?

Representative Linda Wright-Hartgen (18:26):

Well, I think when you're pro child, but it's not just having this child, it's keeping them healthy. It's making sure they're safe, it's making sure they're educated. It's making sure all the good things that we have to offer in the United States come their way. It's not just making sure they're mourn.

Brennan Summers (18:48):

Okay. And in the upcoming session, issues with children, you expect to be important. Education's probably always going to be at the topic. You mentioned that. Other issues that you might be dealing with?

Representative Linda Wright-Hartgen (19:02):

I just feel parental rights are a really big deal with children. Although when it comes to their safety, I think sometimes if the Department of Health and Welfare has stepped in, there is a reason that they've stepped in. But I think that parents should have the right of deciding how their child is treated no matter what their child is, they need to have the right.

Brennan Summers (19:28):

Yeah. And an issue that when it comes up, it's so important. It just doesn't come up maybe enough. Yes,

Representative Linda Wright-Hartgen (19:34):

Yes.

Brennan Summers (19:35):

So you've got five years under your belt. Looking back, do you think you consider some best things you've done?

Representative Linda Wright-Hartgen (19:42):

Well, looking back, especially this last year, the launch, I didn't carry it, but I did work on it in the governor's office often. And so the launch bell was huge. It's to give everyone a chance to go on to college that otherwise might not be able to or go on to rather a certificate school in job demand job.

Brennan Summers (20:06):

And that's just getting rolled out.

Representative Linda Wright-Hartgen (20:08):

It's getting rolled out. You're pretty excited. Third, I think excited.

Brennan Summers (20:11):

See how this plays. Yeah.

Representative Linda Wright-Hartgen (20:12):

And I am excited. I think it'll go really, really well. I'm excited about the tax cuts that we've done. Can they be improved? Yes. Yeah, it can be improved. I think we put too much in a bill. And

Brennan Summers (20:28):

This is the property tax bill? Yeah.

Representative Linda Wright-Hartgen (20:32):

I personally was not in favor of cutting the schools off in March, but I went ahead with it because we got lots of other benefits and just had to explain that to the schools.

Brennan Summers (20:43):

So there you are willing to negotiate going back to the political side and you might not get your whole way, but you got

Representative Linda Wright-Hartgen (20:48):

Some of it. So we'll help you out by getting increased salaries. But yeah, you're going to have to bite the bullet on March.

Brennan Summers (20:55):

And the salaries have been incredible.

Representative Linda Wright-Hartgen (20:57):

The salaries, that's another thing to be proud of. We've upped salaries over the last, actually 10 years. They've gone up a lot, but the last two or three years they've gone up exponentially. Could they go up more? Yes, they should. We should not stop. You should never be happy with what you're giving someone. It's something that they need to always keep in touch with nationwide.

Brennan Summers (21:23):

Sure. A lot of good things that have happened in the last five years. If you look forward to the next five years, whether you're a servant or not, what do you think are the priorities in the next five years that the Idaho Senate should tackle?

Representative Linda Wright-Hartgen (21:34):

Well, I think the priorities should be continued with the education. Continue with infrastructure.

Brennan Summers (21:41):

Yeah, we got to get third river crossing. They're crossing against absolutely five years. That's your deadline. Get it done.

Representative Linda Wright-Hartgen (21:47):

That would be a great deadline. And to keep the drugs out of Idaho, I've never been a person that would ever vote for any drug to come into Idaho. And marijuana is no exception. Really. Yeah. And I think medical marijuana is actually just the same as recreational marijuana. I guess if they have something that you go into a pharmacy, your doctor's written your prescription, you go to an actual pharmacy and you walk out of there with a sack that I might have to look at that, but that's it.

Brennan Summers (22:22):

So we've seen a lot of states around us except recreational. It's really transformed a lot of states. This stance on being against marijuana coming to Idaho, what have you seen or heard that's caused that?

Representative Linda Wright-Hartgen (22:37):

Well, I think working in the court has caused it for me. I know that that's why all the kids are in trouble. Every one of them that comes into our juvenile detention centers are tested hot for marijuana. And it's not the marijuana of the sixties when I went to high school. It's not that marijuana is, there's a huge factor of T H C in all of this that they have today. And they just won't change my mind on it. I'm just not a pro marijuana

Brennan Summers (23:07):

Person. Well, at times we've wondered if some in the legislature, if marijuana would help calm 'em down, but we don't think that would speed up the process of getting anything done. If they ever all chill down on marijuana, give him a little up your keep to make sure that that doesn't happen. Well, this is the fun part where we get to learn a little bit more about you. So I'm going to put you on the spot here with a couple fun questions. First off, number one book that you think everybody in their life should read Now, your husband, a great author, really good writer. Oh

Representative Linda Wright-Hartgen (23:34):

Yeah. I should read his

Brennan Summers (23:35):

Book. You can add, yeah, his book is a notable. What other book would

Representative Linda Wright-Hartgen (23:41):

You say? Well, I loved Sandra Dale O'Connor, and maybe that's because of the court background that I have, but I loved her book and she did not write it, but it was a biography of her this summer. I've actually done just some fun things, the Essential Ingredients book. Oh, fun. And it's about cooking. And another one. Have you seen Louis Valdez? Now I know that sounds like a crazy, but there are books on how different ages work together. I mean, they've always got an older person and a very young person, and they're working together. They're not stalking one another anymore. It seems like when you hear about age differences in people, everybody begins to wonder if something nefarious is going on. But these are wonderful books and it's just been a good time to read some feel good books in a time when there's not a lot of feel-good things.

Brennan Summers (24:42):

Yes. Especially because things can feel so negative. Yes. Okay, so we covered books. What about if there's the best place you've ever traveled in your life, do you think everybody needs to visit?

Representative Linda Wright-Hartgen (24:53):

Well, I wished I have traveled more, but I have not traveled a lot. The best place that I've ever gone, it's hard to say. I think I love traveling in the United States, and I have only been out to the country a couple times, Canada or Mexico, so it's not,

Brennan Summers (25:17):

Well, the correct answer was Twin Falls, that that's the place everybody used to travel in their life. Of

Representative Linda Wright-Hartgen (25:21):

Course, of

Brennan Summers (25:22):

Course. Missed that one. Watch the base

Representative Linda Wright-Hartgen (25:23):

Shower.

Brennan Summers (25:24):

But we got to wait until we get the third row across and then everyone can travel it. Okay. This one's you're definitely going to be able to get. Okay. What is the best place to eat in your district?

Representative Linda Wright-Hartgen (25:33):

Oh, I could get in

Brennan Summers (25:34):

Trouble. You could. Yes. So maybe give us a few.

Representative Linda Wright-Hartgen (25:38):

I'll give you a few. Okay. Elevation 46 always comes to mind.

Brennan Summers (25:42):

Elevation 46. Okay.

Representative Linda Wright-Hartgen (25:44):

Jakers comes to

Brennan Summers (25:45):

Mind. Classic. Classic.

Representative Linda Wright-Hartgen (25:47):

Yeah. And there's got to be, we have a new one Uptown Milner's Gate. Okay, that's a good one. There's three. We have a lot of good ones. We just have a lot of fun things happening in Twin Falls.

Brennan Summers (26:01):

Now we mentioned it's really easy to feel down and negative. Give us some good news of what's coming, something we can look forward to in Idaho.

Representative Linda Wright-Hartgen (26:09):

Oh golly. What's good that's coming in Idaho? I can't think of anything that's bad that's coming to Idaho. I think that Idaho is the place to be, and I think that our economics here is wonderful, and we have so many businesses coming to our area. Twin Falls has changed. If you've not been there in a while, you need to come see what Twin Falls

Brennan Summers (26:31):

Is. I love that optimistic message. So Senator, we started with your background and getting to watch your husband and learning that way. We got to cover your experience from agriculture and the water issues and immigration issues to infrastructure in that third river crossing. We got to learn about books and the places to travel. Last things you'd like to say to anyone out there who is maybe wondering what this is all about, who is this senator and really why should I care?

Representative Linda Wright-Hartgen (27:00):

That's true, but I love people. I love working with young people, but I love all ages, and I like the people that come to see us up at the session, and their hearts are so full of good things and everybody has an issue, and you just need to listen to every one of them. Whether you agree or don't agree. Oftentimes my mind's been changed because I do like to listen, and that's not always easy to say. Oh golly, I think they changed my mind on this. I've done that. I've done a 180 on a bill because you come in. So I love learning about the state of Idaho. We just came off of a tour that was in Pocatello the last three days, and fascinating. It's fascinating. We often think our own area is the very best, but then we travel around and do these tours and we know that everybody thinks that, and they are. Everybody's got wonderful areas. Ours just happens to be

Brennan Summers (28:04):

Fixed. Yeah, right. Well, Senator, we've been blessed to be able to listen to you today. Thank you so much for being on. We're going to have you back after you've tackled all these tough issues that are coming forward. We really do appreciate you being on.

Representative Linda Wright-Hartgen (28:14):

Thank you, Brennan. Thank you.

Brennan Summers (28:15):

Appreciate it. Yep.

Main Street Idaho Podcast Episode 8: Representative Jon Weber

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“Finding the common ground and working together is the beauty of politics.”

— Representative Jon Weber

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Follow Along With The Transcript

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. So we are here today with Representative John Weber out of district 34. So that's Madison County, correct? That's

Representative Jon Weber (00:16):

Correct,

Brennan Summers (00:17):

Yes. Right. So we had your seat mate, Britt Ray Bull on. Excellent. And she told us all things farm and water, so we really got into the

Representative Jon Weber (00:24):

Details. Yes. She'd be the one to ask.

Brennan Summers (00:26):

Right, right. So this is your second term, so you've been elected twice now.

Representative Jon Weber (00:32):

That's correct,

Brennan Summers (00:32):

Yes. Third legislative session.

Representative Jon Weber (00:34):

Yes.

Brennan Summers (00:35):

How's it going?

Representative Jon Weber (00:36):

Excellent. We've got great representatives across the state. We may not always see eye to eye. We might have different opinions and ideas, but overall great people and we work hard for Idaho.

Brennan Summers (00:52):

So we're going to cover a lot of different topics today. We're going to be all over the board, but we kind of need to start with is it what you thought it would be joining the legislature?

Representative Jon Weber (01:01):

Somewhat. As you know, I've served in local government as a county commissioner for 12 years in Madison County, and so I had that flavor of local government and serving locally state is a little bit different, a little bit, well not a little bit, but a lot broader in terms of policy and things that go on throughout the state and how it impacts all of us, particularly locally, but overall great experience and good things happening.

Brennan Summers (01:33):

Yeah. You mentioned you were a county commissioner that helps give the listeners kind of an idea of how you ended up here, but let's go back a little bit further. Born and raised in Michigan, right south of Detroit?

Representative Jon Weber (01:43):

That's correct.

Brennan Summers (01:44):

Okay. What was that like?

Representative Jon Weber (01:46):

When I say south of Detroit, we were about 40 miles south of Detroit, so it does get a little bit more rural area. In fact, similar to Idaho in a lot of ways when it comes to, we grow a lot of potatoes in Michigan, really, which is a fun fact that most people don't realize. But great fond memories of growing up. My buddies and I did spend a lot of time in the city and so we have unique experiences there, but so much fun and things to his fond memories and

Brennan Summers (02:25):

Then left Michigan to come. Was it Rick's college that you ended up to?

Representative Jon Weber (02:30):

Yeah, I served mission for church in St. Louis, Missouri. And after the mission I attended Rick's College and my wife is from Rexburg, Heather, and we met at Rick's the old story of so many people and we attended Utah State University, then back to Rexburg to run a small business. We ran that small business for 30 years and sold it to my oldest son. Still in the family, still connected and great things. But yeah,

Brennan Summers (03:03):

From there. What kind of prompted you to say, look, maybe I'm going to run for county commission? I mean that's got to be one of the more controversial positions in an area. They deal with a lot of really kind of tough issues. What prompted that?

Representative Jon Weber (03:19):

So as a small business owner and being active in the community, chamber of commerce sat with different city projects and different things became very involved in the community and when the opportunity came to run, there were some folks that said, John, you really need to consider this. And really honestly hadn't crossed my mind until that time. And then I thought I am interested becoming more involved. And so I ran and was obviously elected, had a great experience for 12 years, did a lot of great and accomplish some amazing projects in the county.

Brennan Summers (04:07):

What things looking back are you most proud that you did while in the commission?

Representative Jon Weber (04:12):

I think working with Road and Bridge and the transportation, our transportation plan and moving that forward as a very fast growing community, it's important that we keep up with infrastructure, particularly roads and bridges and moving people more efficiently and safely around our community would be a standout.

Brennan Summers (04:36):

And people think Madison County, and I think based on who you ask, the image day SS can be very different. So for some it's the potato farms up on the banks, right? For others it's the university, a massive university. It has big influx of students coming and going. How did you manage such a diverse population there in terms of what everyone was doing in Madison County, and I mean Madison County's not just Rexburg either that you're handling right, got sugar, you're going all over the place. What was your approach there in the commission?

Representative Jon Weber (05:09):

The approach is we need everyone. We need the university that defines us in so many ways. As a community, we need and recognize the importance of our ag community, our families in agriculture, we need them. And so when you look at the broader picture and put everything together, it makes an amazing dynamic and it's a beautiful puzzle. As they say, all the pieces fit together, not always nicely, but they fit together and define who we are as a community.

Brennan Summers (05:49):

So after over a decade of dealing with opinionated constituents and complicated policy, you decided I'm going to end up going to Boise and dealing with this even more.

Representative Jon Weber (06:01):

Well, as you know, there's a shift when Senator Hill retired from the Senate and that left an open seat and then there was a shift from then Representative Ricks, now Senator Ricks to fill that seat and left an open seat again. Folks approached and says, consider running. And so it really wasn't on the radar at the time, but again, after a long weekend of visiting with family and friends and thinking it over says, yeah, I'm interested and again, decided to run.

Brennan Summers (06:40):

No, that's fantastic. Was the campaign as stressful as you thought it might be? What was it like actually, because you've had a couple primary races now and they've both been pretty hard fought and close in the result. And what have you learned from those

Representative Jon Weber (06:58):

Campaignings? Interesting. You meet a lot of amazing people out on the campaign trail and they want to be heard and you listen to their concerns. But it gets stressful. There's no doubt. I mean, when you're in public life, you put yourself out there, you put your family out there for full spotlight scrutiny of every detail of your life, if you will. And that can be stressful in a lot of ways. You take as an individual and as a person, as a candidate, you take some hits that can hurt once in a while, but there's so much good out there that far outweighs the bad. And so it keeps you motivated, keeps you coming back.

Brennan Summers (07:54):

Imagine it helps when you have people coming to encouraging you to run for this and for those that don't know you, there's a lot of people that are big supporters of you. There's a lot of people that are just big fans. You're not necessarily the type that has to say, I think I want to run for this. Like you've mentioned twice now, people will come to you and say, Hey, you're a good guy. They've seen the way you've run your business and they've seen the way you've run the county and they've been pretty impressed. So is pretty helpful to have such a good group of supporters in the county?

Representative Jon Weber (08:21):

Oh, absolutely. And everyone loves a fan club. Everyone loves to have their name out there in a positive way. And so yeah, it's important that you build that base and it's far and wide and you run it in all circles. And I really, really try hard to treat all people the same respect. You respect their opinions even if you disagree with them, but you find common ground. And that's the beauty about politics is finding that common ground and working with them.

Brennan Summers (09:10):

This is Main Street, Idaho, the podcast, the caucus. It's a group of legislators who've come together to support Main Street ideas. You're kind of embody that in the fact that your business was literally on Main Street in Rexburg, right?

Representative Jon Weber (09:24):

Over 30 years.

Brennan Summers (09:25):

So let's walk through that and what, running a small business for 30 years, how has that helped you? And when it comes to being in the capitol and voting and building legislation,

Representative Jon Weber (09:39):

It's going to sound like I'm beating a drum here, but it is so true. Everything we do in life is about people. When I'm running a small business, it's about customers. It's about customer service and how you not only entice 'em or get 'em into your store and sell 'em a good or service goods and services, but it's how you treat them and get them to come back. Heather and I would always say if we only served our customer one time, we wouldn't be in business very long. And so it's to keep that and build that relationship of keeping them coming back. So whether it's business, whether you're in education, whether you're in healthcare, politics, it is all about the individual, the person, and building that relationship of trust.

Brennan Summers (10:35):

So maybe give us some examples of how in Boise you do that.

Representative Jon Weber (10:41):

The first is you have to reach out. Some folks aren't going to reach out to you. You've got to reach out to them and generally build that relationship step by step. It's sometimes it is, you've got to keep it obviously on a professional level, but as you build that relationships, it starts going more personal now, Hey, how's your wife and your kids doing? And you start learning more about them as an individual. So open yourself up, open your mouth, start talking and getting to know people.

Brennan Summers (11:24):

Sure, sure. That's great advice that really anyone can take down. We've finished up what is now your third legislative session. You had a very successful session. I mean, I guess I shouldn't say that. How do you feel about the session?

Representative Jon Weber (11:36):

I think the session was amazing. Whenever we can give literally hundreds of millions of dollars back to the taxpayer, that's a win. Whenever we can make major investments in infrastructure, in education, in healthcare, that's a win for all of Idaho.

Brennan Summers (11:59):

As a county commissioner, roads and Bridges was always kind of a big pain point of something that always needed fixed, but there wasn't always the money for it. You came out of this legislative session pretty proud of what the state was doing and roads and bridges. Why don't you talk us through that a little bit?

Representative Jon Weber (12:11):

Yeah, over $200 million investment made in roads and bridges, and again, from local issues to regional, the state, our transportation plan needs to continue to be updated and improved and worked on and that's not going away. That is something that will need to be for a very long time. Yeah.

Brennan Summers (12:45):

So you talk, property tax relief was a big one that you were able to support. We rode some bridges, a lot of good stuff came out of this last session. But you had a bill that actually you authored and worked with a few others on that involved a public defender's office. Is that right?

Representative Jon Weber (13:00):

Yeah. We have a constitutional duty to provide an attorney when one can't afford an attorney. And so it's called public defense and a public defender throughout our state. And in the past, the state has always deferred or given that responsibility to this and relied on local government counties in particular. And it's very expensive and the bigger metropolitan areas do a great job in public defense, but then you start thinking the more rural areas and they do the best they can, but it's challenging. It's very expensive. And you think of some of the challenges with the cases in Madison County that we just went through the case up in north Idaho with the University of Idaho students, and as sad as that is, we as a state, we weren't keeping up with the standard that we needed to keep up with when it comes to public defense. And so the last two sessions, we worked hard House Bill 7 35 last two sessions ago was to move and reach the funding mechanism back to the state, which by the way, relieves property tax burden from local government, puts it back on the state. I think that bill was roughly $36 million somewhere in there.

(14:56):

So this last session we worked on house bill 2 36, which restructured public defense back to the state and created an office. The state public defender. It is not growing government, it is a new office, but it's replacing the Public Defense Commission, which currently is in place. There were some concern throughout the state and the locals local public defenders with some of the way it was currently being run. But anyway, it needed to be tweaked a little bit. And so this is what we came up with, help of public defenders throughout the state. The governor's office had overwhelming support in the House and the Senate and is now state law.

Brennan Summers (15:51):

So in essence, you're able to provide a higher quality public defense and you're able to relieve the counties and cities of, they're not going to lose all their budgets in this process by shifting the burden to the state. For those that might be thinking, why would we want to give murderers better quality defense? Maybe walk us through, even with some of the cases we've seen in your county, Madison County, why we actually do want to give them better quality public defense.

Representative Jon Weber (16:23):

Well, yeah, that's frustration. I understand. But it's our constitutional duty and that's the bottom line. And if we are firm believers in our constitution, then we will provide representation when one can't afford it.

Brennan Summers (16:40):

And I imagine it actually ends up being cheaper in the long run because if you have bad representation, not only are there endless appeals that people can actually get off because of poor council. Right.

Representative Jon Weber (16:52):

There's always that possibility. Yes.

Brennan Summers (16:54):

So that bill passed the house, passed the Senate and the governor signed it,

Representative Jon Weber (16:58):

Right? That's correct.

Brennan Summers (17:00):

That's got to feel good.

Representative Jon Weber (17:02):

It feels good. And there's a lot of work to be done as we transition from our current model to our new public defense model.

Brennan Summers (17:15):

But this was kind of grassroots. You didn't wake up one morning and think this was on you, so this was fed to you through a lot of different people who were saying, there's a problem here.

Representative Jon Weber (17:24):

And it started Brendan back when I was a county commissioner. Oh really? We as counties looked at this and said, this burden of public defense is killing us. It's expensive. There's challenges out there providing the adequate representation, and now you've got federal folks looking at us saying Idaho needs to step it up and provide a better public defense for these people as your constitution. Not only the state, but the federal constitution demands. And so we had to do something.

Brennan Summers (18:04):

Yeah, it sounds like a common sense solution to it.

Representative Jon Weber (18:07):

Absolutely.

Brennan Summers (18:08):

Yeah. So that's the box checked last session as you look to, okay. It won't be long before it's snowing here. It won't be long before the session is speaking up on us again. What's on your to-do list for the new session?

Representative Jon Weber (18:21):

Oh, well, it is an election year and I think we will be focusing still on property tax relief.

Brennan Summers (18:31):

So let me stop you there, because some people, legislators are really good about pointing out, well, it's an election year. Why is an election year different in the legislative session than a non-election

Representative Jon Weber (18:42):

Year? Well, every two years, all of us are up for election. We're accountable to the people. We want to get home to the people and really get out and start visiting more than we currently do because we want to be with the folks and hear what's on their mind. So yeah, we point out that a selection year mainly for that reason, get home and be with the people

Brennan Summers (19:11):

And be a little more effective and get done pressing issues. Right, right. So what are the big pressing issues that you want to take care of this session?

Representative Jon Weber (19:20):

This session? Well, I mentioned homeowners association.

Brennan Summers (19:24):

Okay, walk us through

Representative Jon Weber (19:24):

That. So currently HOAs Homeowners Association, it's crazy to think that Idaho's become and growing so fast in these developments that most people live in association. And as we go through some of these growing pains, there's some issues that need to be addressed. For example, we have some developers in the state that remain in full control of a homeowner association even after they sell all of the lots. And some of these developers don't even live in Idaho, which is a concern. So what we're proposing is when X amount of lots sell, the developer turns that power over to the homeowners, they reorganize and manage themselves.

(20:22):

If there's contracts entered into between the developer and other folks, those contracts will be null and void after 30 days, whatever that may be, that number, and go back to the homeowners so they can renegotiate or control those contracts. There's an issue over in Teton County where most of the lot owners don't even live in Idaho and they gave their proxy vote to one person, the president of the H O A. So one person controls that whole association through proxy votes. That's a concern. So there's things like that as we get in and as we open this up and people are hearing more about HOAs, we're like, yeah, there's a concern there. We should all be concerned. So our approach is really restoring personal property rights to the homeowner. And that's what we are about Idaho, about good Republicans is personal property rights. So as we move forward, we'll be addressing some of those issues.

Brennan Summers (21:38):

I know there's a lot of people who they hear HOAs and they cringe. A lot of people had bad experiences with them. And so empowering the actual homeowners in the association to be able to make decisions, I think that's probably a good thing. Another thing, another example of information coming to you. Problems that people are experiencing that they're able to bring to their elected leaders. It seems that District 34 is very available to their constituents Now, Madison County is a unique community, close, good kind. People for the most part care about things like education and they care about low taxes. But you and Senator, Ricks representative Rold have really made yourself available to your constituents.

Representative Jon Weber (22:20):

And we do that on purpose. My cell phone number is on the contact list when you look at the registry for the Idaho legislature. And I do that on purpose. I want people to contact me and talk to me, and I make a personal effort, a concerted effort to reach back personally. And I know Representative Rabel does and so does Senator Ricks, we're going to church with these folks. We're going to school functions. We see him at the grocery store. We live in a relatively small community. In comparison, it's fastly growing, but we're still, we know who put us in office and we want to be available.

Brennan Summers (23:14):

And sometimes people see the title representative and it kind of creates this power distance. But anyone who's rubbed shoulders, he knows how warm and welcoming you are. So for those that don't have a chance to associate with you every day, we want to make sure they get a chance to know really who you are. So wife is Heather. She's lovely. We got to give her a shout out. She just got an award from the Chamber of Commerce for Women in Business Leadership. That's right. That's right. You've got a son now running the business,

Representative Jon Weber (23:41):

Jc.

Brennan Summers (23:42):

Yes, that's right. How many grandkids do you have

Representative Jon Weber (23:44):

Right now? Seven grandkids.

Brennan Summers (23:46):

Seven grandkids. And so we shouted out jc, I guess we better who are the other kids?

Representative Jon Weber (23:49):

Okay. Jcs our oldest. Yep. JC and Kaylee. They have four kids. And Brittany and Andrew, they have three. Brittany's our only daughter and amazing. And then we have Chase. Chase lives out in New York City and living his best life. And Preston and Parker are both married. Preston is married to Madison, great name. And Briley and Parker are married. And they're both, they're twin boys going to Utah State.

Brennan Summers (24:24):

Go Aggies.

Representative Jon Weber (24:25):

Go Aggies. Yeah.

Brennan Summers (24:26):

Love that. So when you're not chasing down H O A issues or solving public defender problems, what does John do in his spare time? What does he do when he finally has a bit of free time?

Representative Jon Weber (24:37):

Wow, great question. I spend a lot of time in the yard. Do you? I love doing pristine yard. I do love doing yard work. In fact, I get teased quite often that I mow the lawn way too much or too often. But I do like outdoor work. I spend a lot of time, Heather and I enjoy bike riding. We enjoy our e-bikes. We're to that age where it's softer on our knees, but it's just game changer when it comes to riding bikes. And we spend a lot of time with family doing family activity things. So

Brennan Summers (25:20):

A question we always have to ask when people come in, in your district, if you had to pick one place, I know it's hard and it's very unfair, especially because you're on Main Street with a lot of good businesses with one place to eat. Where's the one place in your district to

Representative Jon Weber (25:34):

Eat? Yeah, we have a lot of great places to eat. In fact, because we're college town, we kind of get rubbed a little bit about all the fast food. But there are still some great places. The Red Rabbit, great place to eat and there's a Thai restaurant. Heather and I really enjoy kind of out of the way hole in the wall if you will, type place. They're quiet, they're just quaint. In fact, there's a new place, I shouldn't say new. They were open and ran into some issues there. But the reopening and it's called Soup for You. Soup

Brennan Summers (26:19):

For You.

Representative Jon Weber (26:20):

Okay. It used to be Soup for You. I think they changed the name to, they just changed it. So anyway, it's on College Avenue.

Brennan Summers (26:30):

It's a wet, rainy day in Rexburg, so it'd be a perfect day

Representative Jon Weber (26:32):

For soup. Yeah, winter's coming. I mean great soup, warm the soul.

Brennan Summers (26:37):

One book you'd recommend everybody should read.

Representative Jon Weber (26:40):

I've been into Team of Rivals with a Lincoln. Yeah, Abraham Lincoln. That's a great, and what a great lesson for heaven's sakes. If you got people that are your rivals, bring them in close, use them. They're smart people.

Brennan Summers (26:57):

And you have a few of those. You have a few rivals in Madison County that it might not fall as presidents of the fan club, but you find opportunities to give feedback from

Representative Jon Weber (27:06):

'em, reach out to 'em, be nice to 'em and bring them in and see what they have.

Brennan Summers (27:10):

But we need to finish today talking about your personal motto. So it's a motto that still hangs in your office. It's work

Representative Jon Weber (27:18):

Hard, be nice,

Brennan Summers (27:18):

Work hard and be nice. First off, where'd you find this model? How did that come to be?

Representative Jon Weber (27:23):

It's interesting because it really stems back to Heather because she'd always say be nice and I'd say work hard to our kids or around. And we we're thrifts. We like to go to thrift and just nose around. We find some amazing deals and we're in Boise and we're looking for some things for the office. And I see this big sign and it's beautifully done and I work hard and be nice. I said, honey, that's what I need and we need to put that in the office. And so we bought it and it's been there since day one. People come in, they love it. And it's a great mantra of just saying, folks, we can have our disagreements, but be nice about it. Be respectful.

Brennan Summers (28:19):

And I know sometimes it feels like Hatfields and McCoys over there and sometimes it's Republicans versus Democrats. Sometimes it's a little further conservatives versus a little more moderate conservatives. And you've always kind of come out on top of refusing to really get into these punching matches.

Representative Jon Weber (28:34):

Yeah, I'm not, it is not that I don't care. Obviously I care. I'm concerned about it, but I'm not going to go to the mat with some folks and punch each other out over some disagreement in the long run. Guaranteed it will work its way out. So I

Brennan Summers (28:56):

Imagine there are many times you get to look at that sign while in Boise that you may not want to be nice and you might be exhausted and not want to go to another meeting. And that signs a good reminder to keep pushing.

Representative Jon Weber (29:06):

Great reminder

Brennan Summers (29:07):

So that everybody work hard and be nice. That's right. As we wrap up, any last thoughts you'd like to share with those who are listening of things that are important to you or things that are coming down the pipe?

Representative Jon Weber (29:18):

Brian, I say stay positive. There's so many crazy things going on in the world right now and it's easy for us to be divided in so many ways, but it's important that we remain hopeful. We live in a great state. There are so many people looking at Idaho, other states looking at Idaho and just wonder, how are you guys doing it? Well, we're fiscally conservative. We have a balanced budget. We give as much as we can give back to the taxpayer while maintaining unprecedented growth. So there's so much good out there to remain hopeful. Things are great. Things are good.

Brennan Summers (30:04):

Well, we've jumped from a start in Michigan. We've covered issues with public defender's office and HOAs. We've learned about you and your family and your personal motto. We appreciate you, really appreciate taking the time to the voters, to the constituents of District 34. They can find you on social media. You've got a Facebook, they can find your cell phone number online

Representative Jon Weber (30:24):

As well. Find my cell phone, they can find me around town. And always welcome folks to sit and chat

Brennan Summers (30:34):

And you hold regular town hall meetings during the session. We do. And they can come and bring their questions and prompts to you. Right. Fantastic. Representative Weber, we really appreciate you being here and we'll have you back. All right.

Representative Jon Weber (30:46):

Excellent. Thanks Brandon.

Brennan Summers (30:47):

Appreciate, appreciate.

Main Street Idaho Podcast Episode 7: Representative Rick Cheatum

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“Whether you want to talk about schools or water or sewer or fire or cemetery districts or whatever it might be, the problems are different. They’re being handled differently because they’re being handled by local people who understand their constituency and what’s needed within their county, what isn’t being done or done as well as it could be done. They know how to solve those problems. And I don’t think somebody sitting across the state 250 miles away has the ability to say, this is how we do it here and that’s how we’re going to make you do it over there. That is appropriate.”

— Representative Rick Cheatum

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Follow Along With The Transcript

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. We are here today with Representative Rick Cheatham at a district 28 in Pocatello.

Representative Rick Cheatum (00:19):

It's Bingo Wednesday.

Brennan Summers (00:21):

Yes, it is. Representative. We're so happy that you could join us here today. Thank you. I appreciate being here. Now you are in a unique position because not only do you represent the Pocatello Ban area in the state legislature in Boise, but you're also serving on the Pocatello City Council, correct?

Representative Rick Cheatum (00:35):

Yes. I served in the legislature in District 28 C Day, which is Franklin and Power Counties, and then enough of Bannon County to connect those two, what we call the donut, the Pocatello City. Most of it is the donut hole, but the peripheries, the donut, and that's what connects those other two counties. So in addition to that, for the last five and a half years, I've also served on the Pocatello City Council, and currently I'm the president of the council.

Brennan Summers (00:58):

Well, that's perfect. And using the word donut, if anyone wasn't paying attention before, now we've got their attention. Right. We're talking donuts, we're talking city Council Service Now. Has it been a challenge? You're a freshman in the legislature, but you're also fulfilling these responsibilities for the city. How have you managed to manage your time in all this?

Representative Rick Cheatum (01:18):

It is been a little bit of a struggle. In fact, I was encouraged not to do this in the legislature because of the time that's required to do both jobs and do both jobs well. But the one thing we learned during COVID was how to work remotely and by utilizing electronic technology, computers, microphones, all the things that we have today, I was able to stay in Boise, use my office in the Capitol as a base to Zoom meeting in or GoToMeeting in at the city council meetings in Pocatello, at Capitol Chambers. What the people in the chamber saw was me on a 30 inch screen television setting in my normal spot. But I was able to do the research ahead of time to stay up on the issues, ask the questions by working later in the evenings and taking time out when I could have been getting a free meal from a lobbyist to do call in and get things ready to go so I could continue to participate and represent the citizens of Pocatello on the council.

Brennan Summers (02:16):

I think it's fair to say that no matter what happens in these upcoming elections, it'll be real hard for anyone to accuse you of not working hard enough. Right.

Representative Rick Cheatum (02:22):

Well, I've been accused of that, but there are those who don't think that I can fairly represent the city while I'm in Boise and I disagree. We have across the state, lemme back up a second. I also am on the board of directors of the Association of Vital Cities, and I represent District seven, which is bannock and power in Oneida and some of those counties in southeast Idaho. And I went around a year ago, two years ago and encouraged people to attend the annual meeting in Boise. And when I walked into those other council meetings to stand up and talk to them about encouraging them to come, I found a couple three people who were spending time in Arizona in the winter who were on television screens, on their spots on the day. So this is not something new, but the technology has gotten much better and much easier to do.

Brennan Summers (03:12):

Perfect. Well, and I love the idea that you've got, you're in the know. So today we're going to cover a lot of issues. We're going to be talking about your first session. We'll be talking about some issues that you want to spend more time with and then we'll look ahead in a few years down the road. But let's start with, you are a conservative Republican, is that correct? I say

Representative Rick Cheatum (03:30):

Consider myself a moderate conservative

Brennan Summers (03:33):

Republican and conservatives tend to talk about local control with your unique position on a city council, but also serving on the local government committee in the Idaho House. Let's talk about some of these local control issues that come before you and what issues you think are appropriate for the state to handle and maybe some issues that you think the state shouldn't be handling. We should actually let the cities run with it.

Representative Rick Cheatum (03:57):

I felt several times during the session that I was the little bird over in the corner saying local could fall, local issue, stay out of it. And I was the only one advocating for that. There are only two of us that I'm aware of right now who serve in the Senate or the House and the legislature who also were serving on city council. The other one's Chris Allgood from Caldwell. Chris is a former police chief of Caldwell and he ran for city council and he's also is serving with us this last year. Great guy, a guy that when he came to local issues, particularly with law enforcement, had a unique insight from the inside as to how some of these things, Mike kin, he's been a real source of help when those kind of questions came before us.

Brennan Summers (04:43):

And so when we look at what are some of the things I guess that you wrestle with every day on the city council that you might not wrestle with in the state? So it might come to mind, issues that people take advantage of every day, like snow removal or making sure Representative Ray Bold was here and she talked about people don't think about their toilets flush. You can tell they don't flush. And these are important water issues that come

Representative Rick Cheatum (05:06):

Up. And when you look at local issues and you look at local jurisdictions across the state of Idaho, they're all different. The city of Idaho Falls and the city of Pocatello and the city of Coeur d'Alene and the city of Boise are all different. And then you go, you look at the county level, you look at Ada County, 840,000 people living in Ada County according to some census figures I saw last week in Clark County, we have 800 and the differences across the state and the local jurisdictions are huge. Whether you want to talk about schools or water or sewer or fire or cemetery districts or whatever it might be, the problems are different. They're being handled differently because they're being handled by local people who understand their constituency and what's needed within their county, what isn't being done or done as well as it could be done. They know how to solve those problems. And I don't think somebody sitting across the state 250 miles away has the ability to say, this is how we do it here and that's how we're going to make you do it over there. That is appropriate.

Brennan Summers (06:13):

Well, and I think a lot of your voters would agree with you, right? Because we see that the term local control gets deployed on campaign literature, but then it sounds like in Boise it's not getting deployed enough. So I can appreciate that perspective and I think your voters would say keep being that little bird in the corner.

Representative Rick Cheatum (06:27):

Well, and what you hear when you go to Boise is complaints about how the federal government treats states, right, how they're trying to dictate from Washington DC how Idaho is managed, but they turn around and do the same thing from Boise to the local jurisdictions across the state, whether it's Northern Idaho problems, eastern Idaho problems, wherever they might be. They're not the same problems that are faced in Boise. The city of Boise, for example, doesn't have a water system. All their water system is private, but there aren't very many cities in the state that have that same luxury.

Brennan Summers (07:00):

Well, dozens and dozens of mayors and city council residents are cheering right now as they hear you talk about this. And I'm sure they're happy that you get to be that voice in Boise. Let's talk a little bit about your first session as a freshman. Why don't you walk us through, first off the beginning, what in your right mind made you think it'd be a good idea to run for the legislature?

Representative Rick Cheatum (07:18):

You really want to know, huh? Well, I've served on the association of Idaho City's board of directors for the last five and a half years. Right after I became stepped on the, in the council seat in March a I c brought a regional district meeting to Pocatello and we had an opening on that board from that district. There's two representatives in each district, and there was an opening, in fact, there were two openings that year. Both seats were vacant. And a fellow counselor from Pocatello turned to me, he'd been on the council several years, turned to me and said, Hey, you want to be on the board? And I thought there's one way to get your feet wet and figure out what this is all about. And I said, sure. So he nominated me and I got defeated. I got beat out by representative from Preston.

(08:00):

So when the second seat came up, the first seat was for one year, the second seat was for two. He threw my name in the hat again and I got elected. But that experience gave me a headstart on learning the issues that are faced at the state level because on the Association of Idaho, Idaho Cities Board, we set as the legislative committee, and each time an issue comes up that affects cities, the board sits down, discusses the issue with the executive director, talks with all the various members on the board, 20 odd of us, and decides whether we're going to oppose that issue, work in favor of the issue or stay neutral. And that gave me a perspective that I didn't have. And when it came time for the last election, I've always said I wouldn't run against an incumbent conservative, I wouldn't do it.

(08:48):

But we had a member of the Idaho House District 28 a Randy Armstrong decided not to run for reelection. And I'd always thought this would be an intriguing thing. I retired in 2017, so I didn't have a full-time job, but I was being a city councilman and I thought maybe this is the chance, maybe the stars are aligned. So I filed originally for 28 B and then changed my candidacy to 28 A and ran for that and got elected. And some of it was out of a concern for the extreme right that has occupied the legislature on both the House and Senate. And I was tired of those kinds of viewpoints and I knew that I didn't represent that side of things and I wanted to bring a more normal voice back to the legislature, at least one vote.

Brennan Summers (09:42):

Yes. And let's dig into that a little bit because throughout Idaho we often hear there are conservatives that get elected and then they get accused of not being Republican or conservative enough from what you would deem the far right or the Freedom caucus of the legislature. Walk us through the frustrations of that and how you've taken a governing approach to saying, I am a conservative Republican and even if I'm going to get accused of not being conservative Republican enough, this is the right position for me to take. Well,

Representative Rick Cheatum (10:14):

I guess it comes down to how you look at a bill and what stance you want to take on it. And when I look at a bill that comes before us and we don't get much time unless you're setting on the committee in which that routing slip is introduced where it becomes a bill and you go through the hearing process, you don't know much about one, it comes to the floor and you get usually a day to read it, figure it out. If you haven't talked to a legislative advisor lobbyist ahead of time to learn more about the bill, you got one day to figure out if that's a good piece of legislation. So I've always tried to read them first from a personal interest, read it again from my district and then read it again for the state of Idaho. Okay, how's it going to apply? And if it can't work in Clark County and in Ada County and in Bock County and in K County, it's not a good bill.

Brennan Summers (11:05):

Okay. I think this is really interesting. So just to reiterate, this first time you read that bill, it's this is what Rick thinks should happen, my own view. Second, do I

Representative Rick Cheatum (11:14):

Agree with that?

Brennan Summers (11:15):

Yes. Do I agree with that? Perfect. The second time, it's alright, district 28, how's this going to affect my district? Is this something that they can get behind? And then the third time you take kind of a holistic state view, how's the gem stake going to progress or fall apart based on this legislation? That's

Representative Rick Cheatum (11:28):

The way I spent from usually eight o'clock until midnight most nights during the legislature was doing that. In the beginning of the session, things were really slow. I was wonder of what we're spending so much time for. We go in, go and have a general session at nine o'clock in the morning with a committee and go in there and have a 10 minute meeting and oh, well, okay, here we are, go upstairs, sit down in the chamber and meet at 11 o'clock and 1115 we're gone. And I'm thinking, wow, this is slow. When are we going to get something done? There are 120 odd different appropriation bills that have to go through. And the first two or three weeks I kept a journal. That's what this book is. I kept the journal of each day's transactions and the first ones are two or three lines,

Brennan Summers (12:15):

Really

Representative Rick Cheatum (12:16):

Very, very slow. But by the end of the session we're shooting out 30, 40, 50 bills a day with virtually no chance to see 'em ahead of time. And that's when it got hairy. So it was difficult to judge those bills without talking to other legislators who might've been in that committee where the bill hearing was held or to talk to lobbyists who were carrying that bill who had an interest in it and wanted to tell you why you should or shouldn't vote for it.

Brennan Summers (12:43):

Yeah, it's almost like the legislature, not to be disrespectful, but can be compared to the teenager that needs to clean their room. They'll wait until the last possible moment and then they're really good at getting it clean, but without that deadline, they're not going to get it done. So we kind of see that on our end too as we watch all it's quiet in the session. And then those of us who kind of follow the legislature were blown away at how quickly things are moving.

Representative Rick Cheatum (13:04):

We had bills pile up on the slate of things to come up. At one point there had to be 30 bills linked here that we weren't acting on and to talk to others. There were things going on behind the scenes that as a freshman legislator I didn't see. I didn't know about the negotiations with the senator, negotiations with the governor's office for this particular version of a bill. And that's apparently what was happening. And then when those things reach some kind of a nexus, then boom, we're passing a bill every 90 seconds. Yeah.

Brennan Summers (13:37):

Let's talk specific issues maybe. Is there an issue that came up in the legislature as you talk about wasting time and let's get things going. Is there a specific issue that you personally felt we're spending too much taxpayer dollars talking about this issue and we should move on to more important things. And then as you think about that, maybe on the flip side we can talk about is there an issue you thought the legislature needed to spend more time on?

Representative Rick Cheatum (13:58):

Well, one that I thought I couldn't understand why we fiddled with it. There was a bill passed on vitamins,

Brennan Summers (14:04):

Vitamins

Representative Rick Cheatum (14:04):

Sold in the state of Idaho. It was a bill that legalized the sale of F D A approved vitamins in the state of Idaho. And I listened to that debate and thought their F D A approved, they'd been through the testing process, their legal products, why are we legalizing them? Why are we going through the cost of drafting a bill, making an r r s, running it through committee, getting a vote, tying people up, bringing it to the floor, doing the debate. So when that was over, I went up to legislative services office, which is where the bills are normally drafted and ask 'em when it cost to pass a bill and they couldn't tell me. Oh,

Brennan Summers (14:43):

Really?

Representative Rick Cheatum (14:45):

They're so variable. They could be, the one that I wrote in passed was one page, it would like six lines. It was a simple thing. It took me six weeks to get it squared away so that the committee chair and other people that I was bouncing these ideas off of agreed with it, but they couldn't tell me exactly what it takes to pass a bill. Instead, the guy I was talking to pointed to the window alleged in his office and said, there are 2200 bills setting there that I've written this year. Wow. But you take a dozen attorneys or so in that process, whatever they cost, and you take the staff that it takes to organize the legislature to keep things running, and we passed about what, 350 I think, bills when it was all done. Somehow there ought to be a way to divide that out and say it cost X thousand dollars and why are we messing around with that when there are educational funding bills to pass? There are other things that need to be done to keep our state running and we're fooling with passing bills on ps. Right.

Brennan Summers (15:46):

Well, and I hope we dig in and get an answer of why that was so important to pass.

Representative Rick Cheatum (15:52):

It was that particular freshman legislator's first bill, and I guess she was doing it to get her feet wet, but it just seemed like a total waste of

Brennan Summers (16:02):

Time at the very least. I hope next session you show up with a bottle of vitamins for every legate. Yeah. What do you think now maybe an issue you think would've been wise to spend more time on?

Representative Rick Cheatum (16:13):

Well, education is a big issue. I listened to Dave Lentz discussion with you as I drove up here today, and Dave's a smart guy and he's got a handle on education and so does Julia Yamamoto, and there are people in the legislature who have devoted years of their lives to trying to build the best educational system possible for the state of Idaho. And I think we've got a good start on it. This last year we had some money to spend. We're not going to have that money to spend this next year. State revenues are down. We've cut income tax down to 5.8%. Many of the state revenue sources at the end of this last fiscal year, July one, are off from the year before and it was planned to be that way. We've still got a surplus, just barely, but we've got a surplus. We funded that this year.

(17:07):

It appears that the revenue money isn't going to be there. So I'm very concerned about how we continue to fund some of these ongoing needs of the state, whether they be education or other state agencies that we need to keep this state running. That's a big concern to me, and I don't think you can spend too much time talking about ongoing needs, especially in the face of a lot of money. I heard it said in Boise this year that lots of money is easy when you're short and you're talking about salary cuts, layoffs, lower expenditures, that's when things get really tough and I don't think we're going to be there this next year. The forecast is for the 23, 24 fiscal year to be down a little and then toward the middle of the 24, 25 year things should start improving again. So we'll see how that goes. Yeah.

Brennan Summers (18:02):

You've been in the Bock County area for 45 years now?

Representative Rick Cheatum (18:06):

Almost 46.

Brennan Summers (18:07):

Almost 46. Fantastic.

Representative Rick Cheatum (18:08):

It's not like a kid saying I'm almost seven. Right? Yeah.

Brennan Summers (18:11):

45 and a half. No, I love that. So you represent in district 20 some really rural areas, but we're still in this state experiencing historic growth. Are your, how's your district changed in the last few decades and where do you see it going? What are the issues that are going to be important to the Franklin counties?

Representative Rick Cheatum (18:31):

I think it's urbanization. Franklin County, Preston lies very near Logan, Utah, and they're heavily influenced there. A lot of people in Franklin County drive to Logan, Utah to work. It's still a large agricultural production area, but it's not an agriculture industry area. Nothing in 28 is we don't have much agricultural industry in Power County and Bannock County or in Franklin County. I grew up in a tiny little town of 1800 people in western Kansas, and I lived on a farm. So I understand agriculture, but I don't understand potatoes completely. We didn't grow potatoes in Kansas. We grew cattle. We grew wheat primarily, but the problems that we have, things like water are, they handled that in Kansas in the sixties, and it was the same fight that Idaho is going through right now.

(19:25):

That's a problem. Urban areas use somewhere between two and 4% of the total water in the state. Agriculture uses the rest of it, and that's going to be an issue we've got. And I firmly believe, I've been listening to these water talks for the last couple of years, and I firmly believe we have enough water. We just don't use it very well. We don't store it long enough. We don't have good diversions from stream flows that we can get that water where it's needed and still maintain repair and habitat. So water is an ongoing huge issue. I'm sure everybody's heard about those things going across the state, but that battle isn't over. Yeah.

Brennan Summers (20:04):

We often talk about how it's not the easiest issue to wrestle with. It's not the easiest issue to understand, but those in Preston, Montpelier area are sorting out their farming and those around Bear Lake Water absolutely is going to be front of their mind in the coming decades. I agree with you there.

Representative Rick Cheatum (20:18):

And that area is just going through the same adjudication that the Eastern East Snake Plains aquifer did back in 2017 that's coming to them. And they're scared to death that they'll end up with a similar bill or similar legislation and laws and rules is what E S P was in because that didn't solve the problem. They want a solution, a real solution when we start managing the water of the Bear River and the Port and some of those other drainages.

Brennan Summers (20:45):

So as we hear you talk, you sound very similar in some of your responses to some of these legislators that you work with. Right. You already mentioned Senator Lent is somebody you kind of look up to on education. Representative Rabel could definitely teach you how to grow potatoes. Right. She could teach us all fingertip Stephanie Nichols

Representative Rick Cheatum (21:01):

That you could

Brennan Summers (21:01):

Absolutely. They wouldn't be shy about it. You're part of Main Street Caucus with a lot of these good colleagues of yours. Why join the caucus?

Representative Rick Cheatum (21:12):

I was elected to my first term across three counties, all the district 28 by a total of 400 votes out of 9,000 cast. Running a campaign on that scale was very different than running a campaign for a city council job. I was pretty well known in Pocatello. I spent a lot of my career working in jobs that put me in the face of the public, but outside of Pocatello, nobody knew who I was. And I think this next session is going to be much more difficult to get reelected, and that campaign stuff's already started. I mean, we're already starting to raise money for the next primary, get it going and facing some of the issues with deeper minds than mine on specific issues. I mean, I feel like a shallow stream. I'm six feet wide and inch deep, but I think to be able to understand and talk about these issues takes a conglomeration of experts.

(22:11):

And the mainstream caucus is representative of people from all across the state of Idaho, and they all have an individual expertise. And drawing on that helps me with my votes, helped me express my concerns when I get in front of the electorate. I just think it's a better way to organize. There was a lot of opposition to individual caucuses forming when the Republicans got together in Boise. We heard about it. We were told not to do that, but there are some caucuses that already exist that we're trying to fight against, and I think the Main Street caucus is a good way for the broad stroke of Idaho to get together and say, this is the way we want our state to go.

Brennan Summers (23:00):

Yeah. So you mentioned being well known in pocus. Hello. And to those that you work with on the city council to those you interact with every day, you are well known. They know you and your dear wife Deborah's in studio, and to you, you're just Rick to her. Right. But to those out there who don't know you, that you're not just Rick to, why don't you tell us a little bit about who you are. I mean, as I read up on you, I was fascinated to find the time you spent with the Idaho fishing game or that you reload your own ammunition. Don't you just give us a little glimpse to who Rick really is.

Representative Rick Cheatum (23:28):

Well, as you mentioned earlier, I came to Pocatello in 1977 as general manager of a radio station. I was 26 years old. I just turned 27 years old, and that job didn't last as long as I had hoped it would. Radio was in those days. I ended up in the car business, spent 20 odd years in the car business, and I met thousands of people, thousands. I sold about 4,000 cars over the term that I was in the car business, and three generations of people came to buy those cars, and I made a lot of friends from that aspect. I missed the car business. Things changed there again, and I got into credit unions, spent some years working in credit unions, had a little time on my hands through the years and did spend a lot of time with fish and game. I served on the Fish Game Wildlife Feeding Committee for region five.

(24:24):

I've been active at the city council level in getting a wildlife feeding ordinance passed in Pocatello to stop people from drawing deer out of the hills down to the streets. We had a fawn killed on South Manock Highway day before yesterday. Oh boy. And we have approximately 600 deer living in the city of Pocatello because of the unique nature of that community. As I mentioned earlier, every city's a little different. This is not an unusual thing in the West. So that had me concerned. We finally got a bill passed or an ordinance passed in Pocatello that allows that put some penalties if you're caught feeding deer in the city. I retired as I mentioned earlier in 2017, and decided to spend my retirement years instead of sitting at home watching educational television, of course, doing something different doing this, and I've thoroughly enjoyed it. I have a degree in broadcast journalism from the University of Kansas, William Allen, white School of Journalism, and I spent those years I spent in broadcasting.

(25:26):

I did much what you're doing here, but over the airwaves instead of over broadband, and I enjoyed councils. My first job was in Garden City, Kansas, and when the city council met, I was there for every meeting they had. I was sitting there and writing stories, getting interviews, doing things. My second job, that station actually broadcast city council meetings live if they had a city council meeting. We had a live mic, every mic, everybody was micd in the room on the council diocese and the mayor, and we carried them live from dabbled to gavel and it just created an interest in local government for me. And that's kind of where I think my interest today has evolved is listening and paying attention and being able to analyze and write stories about what was happening and explain those issues and the background at study sessions to the general public, and I enjoy the heck out of it. Yeah, it

Brennan Summers (26:23):

Was such a long resume of public service and opportunities to make friends and get involved in the community. What are you hoping that your legacy will be when all is said and done and you ride out of town, what are you hoping people will remember about you?

Representative Rick Cheatum (26:38):

Well, I haven't started to write an epitaph yet, but I'm not sure I know how to answer that. I haven't given much thought. I haven't tried to build a pyramid. That hasn't been my goal. Just that maybe that I helped a little. I got some things done that made a difference in people's lives. We had some issues at the session this last year. Some of the things that bugged me that I hope I can make a difference in people, things like carve outs, existing statutes that somebody breaks, somebody goes in violation of, then they come on and say, Hey, change the law for me. I'm better. I'm different. I know people. We had a couple of those and I stood up and protested against every one of 'em and didn't do a bit of good. They passed anyway, but I made people aware to watch and look for those things, and one of them, the governor vetoed after it passed. So I felt like I'd accomplished something there. But I guess this is more personal satisfaction and whether I leave a mark on people down the road, that isn't a goal. This is more personal ego satisfaction and gratification,

Brennan Summers (27:51):

And we talk legacy, but you're not going anywhere. Right? We're gearing up for another campaign. We're just getting our feet wet as you would put it, other than hopefully some lively vitamin bills. What are you looking forward to in the coming session?

Representative Rick Cheatum (28:04):

Well, water, that's going to be a big one, is going to be water. How we continue to move on K to 12 education and higher education, how we fund it, how we make it more important. And I think in people's minds across the state of Idaho, how do we stress to people that if your kids are going to be successful 20 years from today, you've got to start planning that today. We've got to do something about it now to make a difference. It's like trying to turn a big ship a little bit now, makes a big curve down the road, and we got to get there. I think we're behind in some areas across the state, but I guess the things that scare me the most are the population that's coming to Idaho. That forecast that I saw of 840,000 people at ADA County by 2045 is forecast to be 1.4 million. Wow. Pocatello has grown 15.7% from 2016 to 2021. It's the 17th fastest growing state in the nation according to Wall Street Journal, a city 17th, fastest growing city. We have to plan for that. I look at things in Pocatello like Jefferson Street that should have been fixed 75 years ago, and now we have a little narrow two lane street. That's a main thoroughfare. We need to fix those things now and look further down the road so that they aren't those kind of problems for the next generation or two. Yeah.

Brennan Summers (29:30):

Well, representative, we've covered a lot today. We appreciate your time. There's no doubt that you're putting in a lot of legwork for the city and for your district, the district 28, and you've got a long-term view of how to solve these problems, which I think a lot of the voters and a lot of the people on the public will appreciate. Any parting words you'd like to leave as those listening to the Main Street Podcast? We're listening to regular people speak to regular people about regular issues. What type of parting words might you want to give us?

Representative Rick Cheatum (29:57):

Vote the election's coming up in May for the legislature. City council elections are coming up this fall, and you need to listen to the people who are running and see if they represent where you want your city or your district or your state to go in the future and get out and vote and help those people who are doing what you feel is right. Put a yard, sign up, make a donation, get out, get involved. And don't be one of those people who sets back and says, well, I didn't vote this last year, but boy, they sure aren't screwing it up. They, there's too much of that. People need to get out and get active and don't sit by and watch it happen. Help make it happen.

Brennan Summers (30:38):

Amen brother. Amen. Representative Rick Cheatham, district 28, seat A serving out of Poel. Thank you so much for being with us today. Thank you.