What’s shaping Idaho politics

Episode 1 Representative Chenele Dixon—Main Street Idaho Podcast Season 3

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We're back for episode 1 of our third season for the Idaho Main Street Podcast. Joining us in the studio is Representative Chenele Dixon, our new Executive Director. Representative Dixon sits down with our host, Brennan Summers, to discuss her recent primary election, how out-of-state dark money is negatively shaping Idaho politics, and the current and future issues facing the Idaho Legislature.

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Brennan Summers, Host (00:00):

Welcome to the Idaho Main Street Podcast where we talk about the issues that matter to you. Welcome back to the Idaho Main Street podcast. We are here starting episode one of season three, which we are super excited about. We've been gone for a little bit though.

Chenele Dixon, Main Street ID Executive Director (00:20):

Yeah, it's been a bit.

Brennan Summers, Host (00:21):

It's been a bit. And we're back. We're back with a new studio, all decorated up, remodel. And we're here with a friend of the podcast, representative Chenele Dixon. Thanks for being here today.

Chenele Dixon, Main Street ID Executive Director (00:30):

Yeah, thanks for having

Brennan Summers, Host (00:31):

Me. So lot's happened. We were off during the primary election here in Idaho. The presidential election has gotten crazy since we went off. Everything's changed. And you're coming to us still as a member of the legislature, an elected leader, but you are also coming in with the title of the incoming Main Street Idaho's Executive Director, which we're thrilled about. Thanks. Excited. You're going to have to talk to us a little bit about how that happened and why it happened.

Chenele Dixon, Main Street ID Executive Director (00:56):

Okay. Well, the primary, I lost my primary and we'll talk more about that later, but I've been involved in Main Street, like you said, and I was asked if I'd consider being the executive director, and I'm really excited about that. I'm excited to carry on the good work that we've done. We're kind of rebranding a little bit, and I'm excited to be able to talk to business leaders throughout Idaho. And one of the things that we focused on was making sure that we had policy that was good for businesses, for entrepreneurs in Idaho, strong education, strong tax policy, all of those things. And so I'm excited to continue that work and be able to really dig into what makes Idaho such a great state. I mean, we're number one in so many areas, and we just heard that we are going to get another 76 and a half million dollars in tax refunds out to people in their property taxes, and lots of good things are happening. And so as the executive director, I have the opportunity to really bring that to the forefront for people across the state of Idaho. So I'm really, really excited about

Brennan Summers, Host (02:10):

That. And most importantly, as the executive director, you're going to whip this podcast into shape,

Chenele Dixon, Main Street ID Executive Director (02:14):

Right? Yep. We're going to have a great time on the podcast.

Brennan Summers, Host (02:17):

I love the fact that you've been on the podcast so many times, and so you see how important it is for us to be able to communicate to the public issues that we say are issues that matter to the public. So we try not to get into the mud slinging and the dirty stuff and the sensational sound bites. We like to get into the policy issues, the stuff you talk about, about education, about business and these types of things. Yeah,

Chenele Dixon, Main Street ID Executive Director (02:39):

And I think it's important. I think people, especially after this primary, I think people are pretty, there's this exhausted majority and people don't want to hear all the negative politicking. They want solutions. And the first time I was on the podcast, we talked about that people want good roads, they want good infrastructure, they want good schools for their kids. They want lower taxes, but they still want the things that happen because of our taxes. And I don't know, I think that's just a good opportunity to get that message out there and really engage with the people of Idaho.

Brennan Summers, Host (03:18):

And as you mentioned, you lost your primary, which is okay, your loss, our win. We were really happy in some sense to be able to pull you in and your time to free up a little bit. But you lost not just yourself, but many others lost their primary under somewhat unusual circumstances. It feels like this primary was a heavy one.

Chenele Dixon, Main Street ID Executive Director (03:38):

Yeah, it was a lot different. Idaho hasn't really seen anything like this before. A lot of out-of-state money, and probably the biggest out-of-state player was a group called Make Liberty Win. It's out of Fairfax, Virginia. It's largely funded by a group called Young Americans for Liberty out of Austin, Texas. So you might wonder, well, gee, what do these two groups, why do they care about Idaho politics? And they invested. So young. Americans for Liberty is a pro drug libertarian organization, and they've put about $8 million into make liberty win. If you go look up young Americans for Liberty, they use the hashtag Make Liberty win. So they're very connected and make Liberty Win decided to play in the Idaho primaries, and they put about $2 million into this primary election. And they have targeted several states, Idaho being one, Wyoming being another one. South Dakota, Michigan and Texas are kind of their main ones that they're playing in right now.

(04:51):

And I think there's a few reasons for that. Being pro with young Americans for Liberty, being pro-drug, you have only a few states that haven't legalized marijuana. Idaho and Wyoming are two of those. And so I think that's part of the reason they're playing in our elections. The other reason is that those are states where elections have typically not cost a lot. And I was talking recently to a representative in another state who said that state representative elections are nearing a million dollars to run those races. And here, I mean, you spend $50,000, that's quite a bit of money. And so the bang for the buck for Young Americans for Liberty or make Liberty win, is really, they get a lot out of their investment in Idaho or in Wyoming. I talked to somebody in Wyoming and they said that their elections have typically been six to $10,000. And so you put, I think last I heard, they had put about 375,000 into the primary election in Wyoming. But that's going to go pretty far when candidates are only spending maybe 10 grand on their election. And so it's really changing the way elections are happening. They also brought a negative campaign style that we haven't seen in Idaho, and you see it here and there, but it's not so pervasive. They were, I mean, it was constant. And I actually, I brought a little stack.

Brennan Summers, Host (06:35):

Yeah, let's unpack this a little bit because we talk about how much does the a legislator in Idaho make? What's the

Chenele Dixon, Main Street ID Executive Director (06:42):

Oh, 19,000,

Brennan Summers, Host (06:43):

19,000 a year, and you're talking a million dollars for somebody to get elected to that position, and it's not a million dollars that the candidate is putting in. These are groups from out of state that have decided we care so much about this person losing or this person winning that we're coming in and we're going to spend a million dollars outrageous. So what are they spending that money on? Well,

Chenele Dixon, Main Street ID Executive Director (07:04):

So that was throughout the state, right? So for, there's 105 elections up every two years in the legislature. They're spending it, at least from what I saw, mostly on the mailers. They also do TV and radio ads. And I don't know for sure if they put stuff on social media, but I would guess I'm not a huge fan of social media, so I don't spend a lot of time on there, but this is the stack that I received at

Brennan Summers, Host (07:40):

My house. This came to your house,

Chenele Dixon, Main Street ID Executive Director (07:41):

Okay. This came to my house. These are all from make liberty win all against me. So there's 17 mailers here. I don't know if I received all of them that were sent out, but it was interesting because on some of them, there was no bill number listed. It would make an accusation about me saying I wanted to do this or I didn't want to do this and I should be voted out, but no bill number for someone to go and reference. And then some of the other ones, there was a bill number, and I'll tell you about a couple of them. Please do. Because this was pretty interesting. And these were very similar all over the state. The people they were targeting. I talked to Speaker Mole and he had some of these exact same flyers. The only difference was the headshot and the name was

Brennan Summers, Host (08:30):

Changed. Speaker Moyle is a very, very conservative

Chenele Dixon, Main Street ID Executive Director (08:33):

Leader. Yeah, yeah. I mean, they spent a huge amount of money on him against him, but why? I don't know. I actually wrote down how much they spent against his race to oppose him. They spent almost $113,000, which is incredible. And then the pro tem Chuck Winder, they spent 107,000

Brennan Summers, Host (09:02):

And

Chenele Dixon, Main Street ID Executive Director (09:02):

He lost against him. And he lost. Yeah. And these are two people who have been very instrumental in some great policy that has helped Idaho and this out-of-State Group came in and targeted those two. So I certainly wasn't alone.

Brennan Summers, Host (09:20):

Is it primarily ideology or is it policy issues?

Chenele Dixon, Main Street ID Executive Director (09:26):

It's probably ideology, but then they use different policy, but they weren't accurate in their description of the policy. So like this one, for example, it said that I voted to ban shed antler hunting. And if you're not a sportsman, maybe you get this in the mail and you go, okay, whatever. Well, I had sportsmen start calling me as soon as this hit their mailboxes. And they were like, what have you done? I said, no, no, no. Let me explain what the bill actually did. So the bill actually said, if you're an out-of-State Hunter, you have to get a license to pick up shed antlers in the state of Idaho. Sportsmen are all in favor of that. So what the bill actually did, they were supportive of what this mailer said we had done was the exact opposite that we've just banned. Shed antler hunting. And I had a really interesting experience because as I was getting calls from sportsmen and people that rely on the shed antlers for their business in my district, as I explained, and they talked to other people and verified what I had said, all of a sudden they were fully on board with me and supported me and were sharing it with their friends to let people know that the mailer they had gotten was just a straight up lie.

(10:48):

I mean, it was the exact opposite of what we had done with that policy. So it was interesting to kind of start to see these come in and just see people's responses, but having the opportunity to talk about what the bill actually did is always, always

Brennan Summers, Host (11:08):

Good. It's so hard to be scalable in this day and age when you have so many constituents I think of, I mean, how many got the mailer and didn't call you and never got the facts?

Chenele Dixon, Main Street ID Executive Director (11:18):

Yeah, never questioned it. I had somebody say, well, if somebody's going to spend the money to put it in writing, it must be true. And that's a scary thought to me. Regardless of what the election is, you have to do some homework and really look into that. So another one that came that was pretty interesting, said, I was anti-gun. I wanted to put all gun owners on a public list to be harassed by anti-guns. I wanted to confiscate your weapons. I wanted to turn Idaho into California, and that I was just totally anti-gun. Well, what the bill actually did, it allowed, and it was a bill that was supported by the NRA. Really? Yes. And I was endorsed by the NRAI have a great track record for supporting gun rights, people's gun rights. So what this bill actually did, it said that if you had a gun that you could show it, you could put your hand on it, you could announce that you had a gun in an effort to deescalate a situation anyway.

(12:27):

And it wasn't unique to me. It was all over the state. The people that they had targeted, they used many of these same ads and same bills. And I've talked to a couple people in Wyoming and they're doing the exact same thing there. I saw some of the flyers that they're using there, twisting what the legislation was. And again, I think it has a lot to do with the fact that we don't have legalized marijuana. I was a huge proponent of mandatory minimums, and especially to add fentanyl. We worked really hard over the last two years to add fentanyl to our mandatory minimums, which if you want to legalize drugs, you're not going to be in favor of mandatory minimums. And Wyoming doesn't have legalized marijuana either. And so I think that, and also going back just to the cost, they get a lot more bang for their buck to come into states where elections haven't cost as much money.

(13:31):

So it's been interesting, and I think we really have to address this. I met with Speaker Moyle and we talked briefly about election reform. There has to be something, we have to approach this in the next session and really look at what we can do and make sure that people can still run a race and they can still get donations, but there needs to be some sideboards there so that we don't have this out-of-state dark money that's just flipping things on its head in Idaho and completely changing the way that things happen in Idaho. Sure.

Brennan Summers, Host (14:12):

There's just so much to impact here. First, the idea that somebody would get 17 mailers on one issue. If I was going to run my lawnmower and company and I sent 17 mailers of the same house begging them to let me mow their lawn, you'd think people would get turned off by it. But they're so salacious at times that I think it hooks people in. But also the fact that as it gets more expensive on one side, it gets more expensive on the other. And as the price for politics in Idaho gets driven up and up and up, we start becoming this unrecognizable state. We're no longer, I love the legislators and our elected leaders that when we go to a Lincoln Day, you can put your arm around and you know them by first name know that's how it is in

Chenele Dixon, Main Street ID Executive Director (14:53):

Idaho. They're your neighbor.

Brennan Summers, Host (14:54):

When it starts getting more expensive, suddenly it looks exactly like the dirty politics that everybody despises. Yeah,

Chenele Dixon, Main Street ID Executive Director (15:01):

Yeah. We don't want DC here. We're not looking for DC style politics in Idaho. And it's never been that way. Like you said, it's your neighbor down the street that runs and it's the farmer, the teacher.

Brennan Summers, Host (15:16):

But it feels like in these campaigns that if you've ever been in an argument where just the loudest person wins, not the smartest, not the most accurate, that's what these mailers throughout the state, and first of all, I love the name of Make Liberty Win and Young Americans for those are good things. You hear it and you kind of, yeah, young Americans should be for liberty, and liberty should win. And these are things we hold true. But the loudest voices just sending the most mailers, spending the most money saying the craziest thing. If that's what's going to have an impact in Idaho politics, then where do we go?

Chenele Dixon, Main Street ID Executive Director (15:49):

Right. Well, and I think it discourages people. At the end of the day, it's going to discourage people from participating from running, and not only the people that might be thinking about running for office, but I think it discourages voter participation too. I mean, I talked to some people who are like, oh, this is so gross. I'm getting so much negative mail in my mailbox. I don't really want anything to do with it. Which isn't what we want people to participate. We don't want people to back off because they're disgusted and it's gross, which it is gross, but we don't want people to disengage. And again, I think it goes back to that exhausted majority. They don't like that. They just want good policy. They want a place where their family can grow and they can provide for their family, and they know they can drive on the roads and have good schools. I mean it's, I dunno, it's not Idaho.

Brennan Summers, Host (16:48):

Well, and it seems like, correct me if you think I'm wrong, but it seems like the opportunity cost for engagement gets higher in these situations. So before it was, I support the second Amendment, or I don't support guns. And then it's pretty simple for somebody to work through that policy and work through that ideology and come down to it. But now you're having people say, look, I support the Second Amendment. I'm being told one thing about this candidate. I'm being told another thing about her as well. And now you're exactly right. When they don't know what truth is, it takes quite a bit. They got to get on the phone with you. If they can't get on the phone with you, they got to go read a bill, which who's out reading bills. And then you're right, they disengage and voter turnout decreases. And it's not great right now.

Chenele Dixon, Main Street ID Executive Director (17:32):

It's not great right now. Yeah. When you have 28% of the voters Republican voters show up in the Republican primary, that's not a great representation of the state of Idaho. And when someone gets elected, they don't just represent those 28%, they represent all of their constituents. And so you find yourself in this interesting situation when you have low voter turnout, but yet you represent everyone whether they showed up to vote or not. And sometimes that's not what happens.

Brennan Summers, Host (18:10):

Yeah. I've had a lot of conversations with friends recently who approached me and with their hands up in the air said, how do we get stuck with these people referring to some elected leaders? I take 'em right back to primary election turnout. It's like, well, when this number of people votes, this number of people likes that person, then those two are getting on great. But when that's all the votes, you weed out a lot of good people in the process. And that's just systematic. There's nothing we can do about that.

Chenele Dixon, Main Street ID Executive Director (18:39):

And just somehow we have to get back to people carrying a little bit more, not just being the couch complainers or the keyboard warriors, but actually engaging enough that they one, turn out to vote and two, that they can in a civil way, have a conversation about what matters to them. And I think that's some of what we're seeing too, is just that loss of civility. And when we look at these mailers, I mean, that's one instance of it, but just in our society right now, that idea of good governance is almost, it's struggling. It's kind of going by the wayside where people are, many people happy to just engage in this angry dialogue. And if you don't agree with me a hundred percent, then you're wrong. Or I don't want to talk to you, and it's not going to bode well for our country.

Brennan Summers, Host (19:34):

It's as if we're quickly slipping towards this Machi Valley and the ends justify the means. And as long as we can get the person that we think should be elected, elected or the people that the person that we don't think should be in office, out of office. And it doesn't matter how we get there, but why is that such a problematic approach?

Chenele Dixon, Main Street ID Executive Director (19:53):

Well, I think at the end of the day, it's just not long lasting. Right? Because it's so inflammatory. And can we disagree? We can absolutely disagree. I'm sure you and I wouldn't agree a hundred percent on everything, but we have to be able to disagree better. And Governor Cox in Utah was the recent president of the National Governor's Association, and he talked about that a lot. That was his initiative during his year. And the idea wasn't that we don't disagree. The idea was that you have to be able to have those conversations because that's how you work through problems. That's how you actually solve problems. Is everybody coming to the table and sharing their ideas and their perspectives things. And I've learned a lot from people that have had different life experiences from me and just being able to listen to them and see where they're coming from. And do I always change my mind? No, but you at least grow that understanding and increase your understanding of something. And that's important. And that's what has built America. And so if we abandon that, I think we're in trouble. But I think we have a good opportunity. There's always an opportunity to change and to grow and to learn from things that have happened, and we've seen this toxic environment and we need to get rid of the toxicity

Brennan Summers, Host (21:32):

We're seeing. Yeah, I couldn't agree more, but in hindsight, you're telling me we get to go back and you start your primary election over, if you got to deploy every deplorable tactic, you could think of half truths in as many mailers and radio ads as possible and anything salacious that it's pretty off the mark. You wouldn't go do it. Just knowing that you would be able to in office accomplish good things, everything you stand for through the process, would you be willing to deploy the same tactics they deployed against you? No.

Chenele Dixon, Main Street ID Executive Director (22:07):

Why? Well, I think good governance and solving problems is important. And I think integrity is important, and I think honesty is important. And all of those together work. And when you start abandoning, for me, that would be my principle, right? I'm not going to tell half truths to get something. And if I'm going to abandon that, then I've lost my integrity and I'm not with willing to do that. I tried to, and maybe I should have or could have done more to counter these, but they were coming so fast and furious, but I tried to get my message out there to the voters, this is what matters. This is what I think we can accomplish. This is what we can do, and keep that message positive. And I would do that again.

Brennan Summers, Host (23:06):

Well, it's probably hard to separate. If you run a not so honest campaign or if you get elected on means that way, then it's probably hard when you're in office to then govern in a way of honesty. Yeah.

Chenele Dixon, Main Street ID Executive Director (23:22):

And I think at the end of the day, all you have is your integrity, and I want that intact.

Brennan Summers, Host (23:27):

It also kind of feels like your whole identity and life and values is not tied up in the fact that you were elected as representative in the legislature, right? It was important to you. I think you very much valued the contributions you were able to make and you held the public's trust sacred. But it's not everything is it?

Chenele Dixon, Main Street ID Executive Director (23:46):

No. No, it's not. But for

Brennan Summers, Host (23:47):

Some it

Chenele Dixon, Main Street ID Executive Director (23:47):

Is. For some it is. And I've always been somebody that tried to solve problems, tried to be somebody that left wherever I was better than I found it. I learned that from my mom. And whether it was when I was in high school and I was our student body president, I tried to do that. In fact, recently I went back to my high school for a little visit. I was awarded the Hall of Fame. I was their nominee for the Hall of Fame. So I went to go see the presentation, I guess. Anyway, when I was in high school, we were the Panthers, and we had, as a student council, we'd come up with an idea to put Panther paws going out to the football stadium. And they're still doing that really? And so it was kind of fun. You see that you had this lasting impact on something. And that's little, but I've always tried to do that and just leave something better than how I found it. And so that was my goal with the legislature too. Do I wish I'd been there more than one term? Absolutely. But I'm going to continue to work for my community and do things that I think help to build the people around me.

Brennan Summers, Host (25:04):

So I start getting concerned when I see legislators like yourself, as you talk about who come in with a problem solving mentality, growth mindset, and are here to make a change, not to fill a seat. And it feels like politicians or elected leaders are punished for progress or punished for doing things. I mean, if you stayed quiet and voted no on everything, and you could probably justify voting no on most things, it probably would've made for an easier campaign season. Does that worry you as well, or am I the only one that's got this irrational thought that those who are actually doing the job we send 'em to do are making themselves very vulnerable to political attacks?

Chenele Dixon, Main Street ID Executive Director (25:44):

Yeah, that's absolutely true. And being a problem solver isn't always popular because it's not bumper sticker politics. Yes, right. Solving a problem. Good legislation doesn't fit onto a bumper sticker. And when someone can just put something out there on a bumper sticker, that makes it a lot easier. They're just out there. I voted no, whatever, without the nuances. And I think we have, I don't know, we're in an odd spot right now where people need to be able to understand somehow we have to educate people as to what the bills actually are and the nuances of them and help them see that these short little bursts or the bumper sticker

Brennan Summers, Host (26:37):

Politics, soundbites.

Chenele Dixon, Main Street ID Executive Director (26:39):

Soundbites, yeah, that that's not what works. That's not what makes Idaho the great state that it is. There's a lot of time and effort and thought and negotiation put into good

Brennan Summers, Host (26:53):

Policy. And we have to circle back to this idea that it is easier now to become informed in theory than ever in the history of politics. And you have more access to resources than you ever have, but engagement is not following the trend of information. And it's because to this point, there's so much out there and so much noise and such inaccuracy that I think people are just instead of saying, oh, now I'm curious because I heard this half truth. Instead, they're saying, I know Chenele, and then this doesn't make sense, so I'm just going to walk away and not engage.

Chenele Dixon, Main Street ID Executive Director (27:26):

Yeah. And I think we have a lot of noise, like you said, but I was an English teacher, and one of the things you always teach students is to go to the primary source. So whether that's the actual legislator or the actual piece of legislation, it's much better to go to the primary source than to just take that snippet that you hear or the snippet that comes into your mail. The primary source is going to be the best source.

Brennan Summers, Host (28:01):

That's great advice. Congressman Simpson would often say that the thing that he recognizes as a challenge in this day and age is people don't know whether or not they can trust their news and gone is the Walter Cronkite. That is the steady shirt. What he says is probably true and we'll run with it. And now it's wild that I haven't looked at the statistics lately, but most people are not getting their news from the same sources and they're finding confirmation bias and echo chambers, and they're saying, I'm going to go to the place that what I read is going to make me feel the most comfortable. That scares me. I don't know

Chenele Dixon, Main Street ID Executive Director (28:35):

Solutions. Well, then you have the algorithm,

Brennan Summers, Host (28:38):

Oh, you're making this worse.

Chenele Dixon, Main Street ID Executive Director (28:39):

You have the algorithms that say, oh, you go to this. Okay, we'll feed you more of that. So it does feed into that idea that, or whatever you see is going to make you feel better about the idea you already have rather than maybe challenging the idea. So

Brennan Summers, Host (28:55):

How do we fix this? What can we do? Especially when we look at where do we go for truth? How's that for philosophical, waxing philosophical over here? But what would you recommend when you point out primary sources? But to those out there who feel like there's a lot of noise and they don't know where to go and make sense of it, what can we do?

Chenele Dixon, Main Street ID Executive Director (29:17):

Well, it is good to learn how to read a bill. It is

Brennan Summers, Host (29:22):

Good coming from the English teacher.

Chenele Dixon, Main Street ID Executive Director (29:23):

Yeah, it's good to know how to read that bill and take a little time. Do you need to read all 600 bills? If you're not a legislator? Probably not. If you are, you for sure should be reading all of the bills and not just thinking, how's this going to look? If I take this, what's it going to look like on a bumper sticker? You need to read the legislation. But if you are a voter and you really want to know, go look up a bill. And with a little practice, they're actually not that hard to read. When I first became a legislator, they took me a lot longer to read, and then after doing it for a while, I can get thrown pretty fast. So I think that is one way. I think talking to legislators, and I think somehow if people can turn off the noise, it's so loud and it's so constant, but we have to learn to do that. And it is hard to know what you're hearing if it's true or not true or partly true.

Brennan Summers, Host (30:29):

So I like the advice, learn to read a bill could practice with it. I think that's something we can all take. I have found it's helpful when seeking objectivity of who are people that I know and trust that have not let me down in the past. And that can look at something and say, well, this is the facts of it. This is where I'm at on it. This is where somebody else is on it. And sometimes endorsements in campaigns, when you get 17 mailers and you get all this stuff from message, sometimes it really matters who your local mayor comes out and says, this is somebody who I'm supporting because I know they've been here for the city. Or people on the school board can come out and say, Hey, this person has the back of education. Forget what that other stuff says. Sometimes endorsements are helpful.

Chenele Dixon, Main Street ID Executive Director (31:11):

Yeah. Yeah, I think so. I think those are helpful. And they actually should carry weight, right? Because those individuals or those groups understand what that legislator has done, what they've worked on, and the questions they've asked or haven't asked. So yeah, I think that's really important. I also think that as we are looking at different people and their campaigns that you can, it does go a long way to see who is supporting them. Like you said, not even just the endorsements, but just as you have those conversations with friends, why do you support this person or why do you support this bill? Or why do you support this policy? And just understanding the background and the conversations that were had to get there. Because any good policy should come after a lot of conversation. And those votes that legislators take should come after a lot of good conversation. And I found that when I met with people about legislation that they were, the people that I trusted most were able to tell me not just why they thought their position was the position to take, but they knew the other arguments like, well, the opponent to this might say this, and they could validate some of that as well. So just being able to see both sides of it I think is important.

Brennan Summers, Host (32:48):

That sounds simplistic, but it's not. Right. And it doesn't happen right now because I often, and I'm sure you do too, hear the phrase, I can't imagine why somebody would support this. If you can't imagine why somebody could support it, you've got an issue there because somebody supports that. And you need to imagine why they could. They could. You don't need to agree with it, but you probably should understand. And that's hard. That's hard. When it comes to issues like charges, issues like abortion, like gun control, a lot of these issues, we're not asking for anybody to accept our views blindly. We probably should have a little bit more of, I can imagine why you think that way. I also think you're completely wrong, and I hope your policy position never moves, but we got to understand people a bit

Chenele Dixon, Main Street ID Executive Director (33:32):

Better. I was at a legislative conference about a year ago, and there were legislators from I think 48 of the 50 states. And on every political spectrum, it was fascinating because it wasn't based on policy. But right towards the end, a few policy ideas came out and people were very, very passionate about it. But as they explained why, it wasn't that all of a sudden I agreed with their position. But it gave me an understanding, like you said, of how they got to where they are. Their origin story played into how they arrived at how they felt about a given policy. And we have to have those conversations. We have to.

Brennan Summers, Host (34:18):

And one of the goals, one of my goals on this podcast is to create a platform for that. So I think back to there were the days in Washington DC where we look at Reagan and Tip O'Neill who were going out to dinner together. And when everyone was talking more, and now to still align, we're bowling alone and where we're not having conversations. The scariest statistic for me was that you said one in five people stopped talking to a close family member as a result of the 2016 presidential election. That's people that we know, trust and love, that we should feel comfortable having those conversations with. We aren't having those conversations in a way that is productive. So we walk away from 'em. This here is going to be a platform for us to be able to have those conversations where we can talk about things like tough legislative defeats at the hands of tactics that we may not support. We can talk about lots of issues and interview people. That's those type of conversations. Difficult conversations. Crucial conversations are ones that I hope happen here. Yeah,

Chenele Dixon, Main Street ID Executive Director (35:14):

I hope so. I hope so. And that's one of the things I am looking forward to as the executive director of Main Street, is just being able to really help that dialogue come back and help people see how things work in different areas that they may not be involved in, and just increase that communication all the way around. So hopefully we can do that.

Brennan Summers, Host (35:38):

Hopefully we can. I'm going to be on my best behavior and try. So we spent a lot of time today talking to the public, to voters about all this. As you near kind of wrapping up in the next few months or so of your time as elected leader, you've got a unique position where you go from educator part-time legislator, back to being quasi involved in the public service, but also private team. What goes through your mind as should be of a priority to elected leaders right now as they gear up and they start doing their homework for an upcoming legislative session? If you were going back and returning, what would be the homework you'd be doing right now?

Chenele Dixon, Main Street ID Executive Director (36:21):

Well, I'd probably be looking some more at our tax policy, especially as we see inflation. I mean, things are difficult right now for people. And so anything that we can do, I think we need to continue supporting our public education that's important and our infrastructure. And then keeping Idaho. It's a great place for small businesses and we need to keep it that way because people move here because it's such a family friendly, business friendly state, and we need to make sure that our policies continue to reflect that and encourage that.

Brennan Summers, Host (37:03):

We talk a little bit about budgets, about revenue, things like that. What would the legislature look like if all the elected leaders just didn't do the homework and vote for things that actually spend tax dollars? If they said, we'll return it all to the citizens, and this seems like a lot of works, we're not going to do any budgets. Some of these groups kind of have that mentality where if you've supported any kind of public funding, they want you gone. Yeah.

Chenele Dixon, Main Street ID Executive Director (37:30):

And it just doesn't work that way. And we have a pretty good tax structure here in Idaho, and we rank pretty well as far as our low taxes. We have a flat rate for income tax, 5.8%. That's pretty good. We've seen a lot of reduction in property tax, but we still need some spending at the government level. And the one mandate that the legislature has is to pass a budget. And it does need to be a balance budget, which we do, but we have to spend those things. I'm pretty sure we don't want to go back to having dirt roads. We want roads that work that we can drive on. We want bridges to be able to get across the canyon. And in the Magic Valley, we have a bridge that's aging, we're going to need a third crossing there. But that takes some money. And I think the wise use of those taxpayer dollars is critical, but we still do need to spend some money.

Brennan Summers, Host (38:40):

So you mentioned the issues that you think the legislature should prioritize in the upcoming session. Looking into your crystal ball, what do you predict are the issues that most definitely will come forward, whether or not they should be prioritized, they're coming?

Chenele Dixon, Main Street ID Executive Director (38:55):

Well, there's a few that I think are coming. You can kind of see trends across the country. And so I think we'll probably see something with school vouchers

Brennan Summers, Host (39:11):

Back to the school choice type. Yeah.

Chenele Dixon, Main Street ID Executive Director (39:12):

Alright. And we do have great school choice here. We're ranked number three in the country for school choice. But right now we don't spend taxpayer dollars to go to private schools. But we'll see that this legislative session. I think we'll also see, oh, I dunno. There's a number of things I think we'll

Brennan Summers, Host (39:38):

See. I can tell there are things you don't want to see that you're worried that if you say it'll speak it into existence, and then we're going to be dealing with those issues that make national headlines of new law passed in Idaho related to insert wacky policy. Oh boy. Okay. So we've got the session coming up. What do you do before they replace you? What do you got left?

Chenele Dixon, Main Street ID Executive Director (40:00):

Well, I've tried to still attend meetings and listen to constituents. To me, transportation and our infrastructure there is really important. I go to a monthly meeting where we talk about that in the Magic Valley, the law and order, the rule of law. It's important to me. I sat on judiciary and rules. It's something that's really important to me. So I continue to reach out to law enforcement and just hopefully I can still have some impact on some of what happens. And even though I won't be sitting on the floor taking a vote, just those conversations, I'll continue those conversations for sure.

Brennan Summers, Host (40:45):

Yeah. And from now until then, you're right, you're not taking votes, but you still have extensive experience and expertise in some of these issues, particularly ones that you helped usher across. So how, maybe excited is not the right word, but how much do you look forward to seeing the impact of things you're involved in, much like the mandatory minimums on Fentanyl?

Chenele Dixon, Main Street ID Executive Director (41:05):

Well, I'm very hopeful that it has a positive impact on Idaho. And it will be exciting to watch and see if it does. I think it will be a deterrent to the drug traffickers. It has been for other drugs. I'm excited to see how that plays out. It'll take a couple years on gathering some data to see how it really goes. But yeah, I think we're in for good times ahead with that and seeing a reduction in the fentanyl in Idaho. And then we've done a lot to help our public schools and really give them, we raised teacher salaries. We've put some good investments into the facilities, which are so needed to improve our school facilities. And again, that's going to take some time to see that play out. But I think it's going to be good.

Brennan Summers, Host (42:03):

And this really is the time of year where we have to pause and think of two of the issues that tend to jeopardize. I think most of Idaho policy policymakers, time. This is the time of year where we all recognize and care about the most. Number one, being back to school. We think about our teachers, think about these kids going back, trusting our little kids in the hands of these administrators and these teachers, and trusting that they're going to do the right thing and helping shape them the way we need to go. Our heart's gone to the teachers that are going back and then obviously our farmers and ranchers. This is the time of year where they start harvesting and feeding the world. And those are two things that are obviously, we talk about it a lot because we think it matters here in Idaho.

Chenele Dixon, Main Street ID Executive Director (42:42):

It does matter. AG really drives our economy throughout the state, and they work hard. Our farmers work hard for us, and they contribute a lot. Not just the food we eat, but they contribute a lot to our economy. And then education. Education is so important to me, and we've done a lot of things. We have launched where we've provided this way for people to go on. And really, it's a workforce development issue in the state of Idaho. And so I'm excited to see that work and that function in Idaho and see it continue. So

Brennan Summers, Host (43:20):

We've got some big guests coming up on the podcast. We won't reveal any names, we won't say anything yet, but we've got some exciting people that, policymakers and leaders throughout the state who have seen what we've done in the past in creating hopefully an open environment to share views and to speak about the issues that matter to Idahoans. What would you say to our listeners who may or may not want to keep listening as season three rolls out?

Chenele Dixon, Main Street ID Executive Director (43:45):

Oh, I think season three will be the most exciting yet, so I think they're going to want to tune in. Yeah, we have a good lineup like you said.

Brennan Summers, Host (43:52):

Well, I recommend, we'll leave it that cliffhanger right there. Representative Chenele Dixon, thank you for your time. We welcome you to our team and look forward to all the good that's going to be happening.

Chenele Dixon, Main Street ID Executive Director (44:01):

Thank you. I look

Brennan Summers, Host (44:02):

Forward to it. Thanks so much.

Education and Idaho’s Future

Main Street Town Hall Episode 17—Senator Dave Lent

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Back again to the studio is Senator Dave Lent from District 33. After finishing another legislative session, Senator Lent expresses his view on how the session ended. Among the various bills brought to the floor, he discusses the historical success of funding more educational infrastructure, K-12 institutions, and Idaho LAUNCH. Senator Lent elaborates on the future of nuclear energy in Idaho and the potential for future leaders in the industry.

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Balancing budgets and lowering taxes

Main Street Town Hall Episode 15—Representative Rod Furniss

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Representative Rod Furniss from District 31 returns for his second podcast appearance to recap his perspective of the now concluded legislative session. Furniss talks of the success balancing Idaho budgets, lowering taxes for Idaho residents, funding rural school infrastructure, and how he'd like to address the rising inflation.

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Legislative Session Recap

Main Street Town Hall Episode 14—Representative Marco Erickson

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Fresh from the end of the legislative session, Marco Erickson from District 33 returns to the studio to recap the successes and contentions he faced on the House floor. Host and Executive Director, Brennan Summers, digs into what made Representative Erickson's bills so widely supported by the majority of fellow legislators, as well as some of the opposition he faced in his pursuit to remedy women's healthcare in Idaho.

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Brennan Summers, Main Street Idaho  (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 the Idaho Main Street podcast. We are here live in studio. It's been a long time since we've had a guest in person because you've guys have all been over in sessions. We've been doing it via Zoom.

Representative Marco Erickson, Idaho Falls (00:22):

We've been in Boise since early January. You're here, nice to be in person. Finally home.

Brennan Summers, Main Street Idaho  (00:26):

Yes. This is great. I guess this is Representative Mark Erickson, district 33, representative seat. Be there. And that's the heart of I Falls, correct? Yeah. Thanks for being here. Thank you. We tried to snag you a few times during the session, but you had a very full calendar.

Representative Marco Erickson, Idaho Falls (00:41):

Yes. My calendar fills up so fast. I tell people they would call and say, can I get an appointment? I'm like, well, about two weeks maybe

Brennan Summers, Main Street Idaho  (00:48):

It was bad as my doctor, it was bad. Just less qualified to treat the rash on my back. That's true.

Representative Marco Erickson, Idaho Falls (00:53):

Wouldn't want to do that. Actually. I'd run away from that

Brennan Summers, Main Street Idaho  (00:57):

Representative. You said we could ask you anything today, but happy to. You qualified that with saying, accept your social security number. Social security numbers. We're going to throw the hard hitting questions at you. We'll start with how was the session?

Representative Marco Erickson, Idaho Falls (01:07):

Session is always fun for me. I enjoy it a lot. It is just some stressful times as well. That's good happen every year, but I enjoy it. I really do. I get along with all the people there more than most, I think. Yeah.

Brennan Summers, Main Street Idaho  (01:20):

Now, how does it compare to other sessions that you've had in the past? This

Representative Marco Erickson, Idaho Falls (01:25):

One was interesting. It was a little more contentious amongst our own colleagues inside our own caucus. I think there was some early contention got worked out mostly some of it carried on, but that was tough to witness and to be a part of, but at least we were able to work that out,

Brennan Summers, Main Street Idaho  (01:43):

Especially as the peacemaker that you are. Yes,

Representative Marco Erickson, Idaho Falls (01:46):

Very true. I was always trying to do that.

Brennan Summers, Main Street Idaho  (01:49):

Let's talk about some of the legislation that you were able to work through this session. What are some of the bills that you're most proud of?

Representative Marco Erickson, Idaho Falls (01:54):

Well, I mean, I do a lot of little things. I think most proud, I'm always most proud that most of my bills I run get all the members' support. I don't have to go around and talk to everybody because I kind of get a feel for the room. I know how they're going to vote on it. So I was blessed to pass most of my bills with full support of the body. So the Fentanyl test strip bill was probably the biggest one. They had been trying to do that for a long time. It was the right timing. We had just passed the fentanyl minimum mandatory sentencing bill, and that in mind was more of a trailer to say, Hey, since we've done that, here's one that will save people's lives in the public. Give them ability to test the different products that they purchase, whether it be drugs or let's say they go over to Mexico or they purchase lower cost prescription drugs. That happens occasionally. So they would still be able to test it. There's been cases in America of simple things like a Botox treatment, having fentanyl it and people dying because of that, so they get a cheaper version. So you got to test stuff now. This is a tough time in the world. So we've opened that up and hopefully it'll be used for good.

Brennan Summers, Main Street Idaho  (03:04):

Oh, for sure. So we talked at length with some of your colleagues about the mandatory minimums and how the goal is to help lower trafficking of Fentanyl act as a deterrent, but we haven't gotten too much into the fentanyl strips. So as you said, this is an opportunity for Idahoans can now have access these strips. Where would I need to go if I didn't get

Representative Marco Erickson, Idaho Falls (03:22):

My hand on surprising? You could buy 'em anywhere before you could get 'em on Amazon. It was like $10 for a pack of 12 of those test strips, so less than a dollar a piece. And it would be worth it for me if I were to, let's say, because the most common thing you would do is most people would buy a cheaper version of a prescription drug. So in America, it might cost you a hundred dollars and you might find it in Mexico and you're getting it for 40. And so you're going to want to spend that extra dollar and test the product to make sure you're safe and clear from fentanyl. You just can't know. Or kids, let's say kids, they like to go to parties a lot and they're interacting with people. They do things that aren't always the smartest, but if they had that option and they had one extra safety mechanism, even adults as well, just I would recommend 'em use that. So we'd push that out there and say, Hey, if you want purchase these test strips, save a life. Right?

Brennan Summers, Main Street Idaho  (04:17):

Yeah. Such a small quantity of fentanyl could be so lethal.

Representative Marco Erickson, Idaho Falls (04:20):

Very, it's this amount at the tip of a pencil tip,

Brennan Summers, Main Street Idaho  (04:23):

Crazy to think about. It's very

Representative Marco Erickson, Idaho Falls (04:24):

Teeny

Brennan Summers, Main Street Idaho  (04:25):

And a lot of the overdoses are accidental. They don't realize that it was laced with stuff.

Representative Marco Erickson, Idaho Falls (04:30):

Most people don't know. And another thing that happens is if they share a pill, let's say they cut it in half, one half was a lethal dose and the other half was not. It's kind of like we joke about being like, you're making a chocolate chip cookie. You throw it in there and it gets mixed up. You don't get the same amount of a chocolate chip and every single cookie and every single bite, and that's what fentanyl's like in the different products that are out there. So it's very dangerous and we don't want to see any more overdose deaths in Idaho.

Brennan Summers, Main Street Idaho  (04:57):

No, we don't. And now I'm craving chocolate chip cookies. So thanks for that.

Representative Marco Erickson, Idaho Falls (05:01):

At least it's not the brownie we talked about last time.

Brennan Summers, Main Street Idaho  (05:03):

Now that other legislation you were proud to get signed by the governor?

Representative Marco Erickson, Idaho Falls (05:07):

Well, I worked with Senator Van Orden on the Baby Box one. That was really great. It was something that everyone supported because it was a pro-life approach, pro-family approach. People were in tears when we were in committee presenting those, and it was just such a happy bill to present for everybody.

Brennan Summers, Main Street Idaho  (05:28):

Walk us through what that legislation does.

Representative Marco Erickson, Idaho Falls (05:30):

It allows for them to create these boxes. They're devices. Safe Haven boxes allows them to place a baby in a box that it's connected to the wall of a building, so it's a safe and secure spot. The minute you place a baby in that safe location, you'll be told that that's where you would do it. If you were going to place a baby somewhere, then that machine will lock, so no one could come from the outside and take the baby out and steal the baby. It would immediately trigger 9 1 1 and allow, or the people in the facility, so they would know that a baby has been placed in the box. They would come down and check it out medically and then walk through the proper processes, keep it in their possession for 30 days before they can adopt it out. But then potentially in that same time, they'd be looking to find adoptive parents.

Brennan Summers, Main Street Idaho  (06:26):

So there are a lot of babies getting dropped off on doorsteps in

Representative Marco Erickson, Idaho Falls (06:29):

Idaho. Well, no. I talked to a few firemen, first responders that had been captains or chiefs at their local fire districts, and they had indicated to me in their career happened three or four times, and that was just one district. So across the state, who knows once a year, twice a year, five times a year maybe, but one time that we get a safe baby and maybe place it with a family who had been waiting for long time to have a baby, that's a great option for people. So we figured why not? And what's great is most local foundations fund that themselves and the group. So it doesn't cost taxpayers any money. It's just an extra way of promoting the adoption for families. Yeah.

Brennan Summers, Main Street Idaho  (07:13):

Oh, that's fantastic. You had some more bills too that you were happy about.

Representative Marco Erickson, Idaho Falls (07:17):

Well, I always have bills I'm working on, I'm trying to remember. Shoot, I pulled over a few Senate bills. I did do some stuff with juvenile corrections and dispatchers, making sure that their Percy benefits were improved because a few years ago we did a bill and the supervisors got left out of that. So we fixed that, made that the final class that would ever enter into the rule of 80 means to get a little bit early retirement. And so we fixed that. I did a fix update to one of my bills from last year, which was Isolation and Seclusion bill. It was designed to make it to where schools wouldn't spank kids and whack 'em up beside the hand and then push 'em into closets and things like that. And we didn't want to tie the teacher's hands and have no discipline. That was never the intent.

(08:06):

But some of them took that bill to mean they couldn't do any restraint ever. And so we just clarified the language saying, yeah, you can restrain him. You just have to inform the parents right away and then let 'em go do the process that's proper and you can still take care of that. You don't have to exit all the other kids from the classroom. And the teachers, I think were really grateful that we updated that language so it was more clear and they can still engage in discipline. And a lot of the legislators that were kind of against that last year thanked us and said, yeah, and they all supported it this year. So I was really happy to, I didn't expect that and I was grateful and they just came to me and said, thanks for always being willing to hear people and listen to their concerns and work on that. So even my own bills, I'll take and fix and update if I need to.

Brennan Summers, Main Street Idaho  (08:53):

And your career, your professional career has been spent helping kids. It's youth treatment. It's the counseling and the substance abuse and everything to get these kids back on the right track. And that's been reflected in your political career because a lot of the priorities you have are how do we make sure that some of the most vulnerable of our population, these young kiddos are getting the stuff that they need, right?

Representative Marco Erickson, Idaho Falls (09:15):

Yeah. Almost everything you're going to see me do. If I'm carrying it and it's my bill and I've worked on it, it's going to have something to do with making people's lives better and trying to save the government money. So there's always tweaks and systems. We create systems, we can change systems, and I think sometimes we get stuck in the rut of just how the system was. And I'm a big fan of analyzing that and go, no, we should probably change things up a little bit. And sometimes that's a minor policy change. Sometimes that's a major change to the entire program, and so you have to look at it from all angles and be willing to do the hard stuff and convince your colleagues that sometimes change is necessary. So one of the big things I did this year with that was I like to commission studies occasionally from the, I forget the Office of Performance Evaluation, OPE.

(10:08):

So two years ago I did a, or no, four years ago in my first year, I did a study. I had 'em do on juvenile justice so that they can give me some outcomes reports and we could take a look at what we can change. Well, this year we had some major problems with some of these group homes that the state is taking custody and they're placing kids in, and they were experiencing abuse, neglect, and sometimes sexual abuse and things where we were just shocked that that could happen under a state's watch. So I asked for a study a little deeper into that for a statewide approach so that we could see what's going on and why that's happening and take care of it and fix it with policy so it doesn't happen in the future.

Brennan Summers, Main Street Idaho  (10:50):

I read an article in the paper that was talking just about that study that's being done, the investigation. When do we expect to see results of it?

Representative Marco Erickson, Idaho Falls (10:57):

Well, they got two other ones they're going to put priority on. I think the schools were top priority because they wanted to do a study to see if a four day week versus five day week, that was real important. Also, they wanted to look into Luma, which has been a big disaster. It was a new finance management system the state was using, and most employees across the whole state had major problems with it. So they're focused on those two, but then they'll get to ours next. Ours was the top priority picked by the committee, so I was proud of that. I didn't expect that when there were six proposals and ours was picked as the top priority one. So that was

Brennan Summers, Main Street Idaho  (11:32):

Good. Yeah. So the session ended last week, was it Friday

Representative Marco Erickson, Idaho Falls (11:36):

Mostly? Yes. On Friday. They may come back this week, but I am going to be tied up in other responsibilities.

Brennan Summers, Main Street Idaho  (11:43):

So session, I mean, if they come back, is it just veto override?

Representative Marco Erickson, Idaho Falls (11:48):

Yeah, and I think that's the intent in case, but as far as I know right now, there hasn't been any vetoes as of today.

Brennan Summers, Main Street Idaho  (11:53):

Yeah, I read that the governor vetoed a gold and silver bill. Oh,

Representative Marco Erickson, Idaho Falls (11:58):

Maybe he did today. I

Brennan Summers, Main Street Idaho  (11:59):

Hadn't read that yet. I don't suspect that veto override on the bill though as I was looking at it,

Representative Marco Erickson, Idaho Falls (12:02):

Most likely not.

Brennan Summers, Main Street Idaho  (12:04):

But I mean, even with the session being over, you'd think, okay, job's done. You book a flight to Cancun and put your feet up, but you're not. No, no,

Representative Marco Erickson, Idaho Falls (12:11):

No.

Brennan Summers, Main Street Idaho  (12:12):

Why is that?

Representative Marco Erickson, Idaho Falls (12:13):

I'm always, the minute I'm done with one thing, I've got another thing planned. So that was really hard for me to go with extra two weeks of session because I was working on some, writing some grants for our organization, making sure the funding was there. There's a lot of technical writing and also gathering of signatures is from people that you work with and collaborate with. So there's a lot involved in those processes. So I spent hundreds of hours working on that in the last few weeks. So I was that session, it took away from my ability to do that. And then I had other trips planned. I go speak, people ask me to speak because I'm a legislator, but also because of my professional background. And I've had to cancel one of those recently because it was just, I was going from one to another.

(12:59):

This week we have the Idaho Drug Prevention Conference, which I've been going to that almost 25 years, but it's in Sun Valley. And while I'm there, I figure I have most of my colleagues there who I'm working with on other legislative projects already. So I email them and create an agenda, send them out some ideas and say, Hey guys, we're going to meet at this location at this time, that Thursday, and we'll be right back into working on things for the next session. So we're preparing ahead of time. So when we come together right in January, we've got this stuff ready to go, and everybody's already talked about it. We're all ready to testify on behalf of what projects we support and why, and we're unified and there isn't a lot of opposition. So that's the best way to be a legislator, always working on things.

Brennan Summers, Main Street Idaho  (13:47):

Yeah, that's crazy to think that you're already gearing up for the session that will start January 25. Yes. Do you have some things in mind that you're thinking, we didn't get this done, but we need to?

Representative Marco Erickson, Idaho Falls (13:58):

Yeah, there's a lot we didn't get done. One of the things, obviously better quality healthcare for the women, women's health is a big issue, and we were trying to move some stuff forward this year, but because there's a federal lawsuit that's going into a Supreme Court case, they didn't want to allow anything to move forward. And I find that, I think that's the biggest disappointment of this whole session. There was some things we needed to do to do a better job there. So we're working on that ahead of time. We're working on some justice reform. We've been seeing some things really working well with juveniles, and I'm talking to some partners in law enforcement and in the prosecutor's offices, local courts and judicial system, seeing if there's some way we can run a potential pilot project, a couple of them, one of them in the prisons. And if we see good results that we can move those more universal across the state, and they're all designed to help the inmates have maximum outcomes, get back into the community at a maximum capacity in a good way, and then also have just better savings of dollars for the state, less people going into the prisons. So all of that together. And there's several of us legislators working on that together from this area in eastern Idaho. So we do collaborate outside of session. People don't always know that, but we do. Yeah.

Brennan Summers, Main Street Idaho  (15:19):

Is that the pilot program? Would that be the Ignite program that they're doing?

Representative Marco Erickson, Idaho Falls (15:23):

Absolutely. Yeah. The Ignite program from the sheriff's office is a big part of that. I just was talking with the sheriff just this morning about that, and I said, Hey, I would like you to come present that to our group that's working, because then they're all informed and it's going really well. So yeah, that's definitely one of the programs

Brennan Summers, Main Street Idaho  (15:39):

As I've spent time with the sheriff on it and learned more about it to reduce recidivism is so important. But it's also when you look at the individual and think, man, rather than the revolving door of our incarceration facilities, what if we could bring 'em out and have 'em contributing, become taxpayers and get 'em out and help in society?

Representative Marco Erickson, Idaho Falls (15:55):

We always say there's a balance of justice and mercy, and we want to do our best to have that mercy early on, but we have to have justice too. So when we find that balance, serve those families and keep 'em out of systems as much as possible, have them right their wrongs and learn and move forward. But the more we enter 'em into systems, the more they're stuck in there. So getting them treatment and looking at their readiness, working with them where they're at, you can't just force people to go down a new road and a new path, but you can help 'em encourage them. I used to say this old saying, we had out on the farms, they'd say, you lead a horse to water, but you can't make a drink. I says, well, I could put a salt lick out there and make it really thirsty. And I think it's the same concept with people that when they see this golden thing out there, golden carrot, that's going to make their life better and they have the option to choose that they're likely to go that route with a little bit of positive motivation.

Brennan Summers, Main Street Idaho  (16:54):

Yeah, because where would any of us be without second chances? Yeah,

Representative Marco Erickson, Idaho Falls (16:56):

Exactly. We would all be in a hard time.

Brennan Summers, Main Street Idaho  (16:58):

We definitely would be. Let's circle back to this women's healthcare issue. I know you speak with local physicians a lot. For those that are tuning in that are familiar with the pro-Life, pro-choice debate, but might not be familiar with what the challenges in Idaho with women's healthcare, walk us through what we need to fix or what's been going on.

Representative Marco Erickson, Idaho Falls (17:17):

Well, OB docs, we could start there. Doctors are struggling. They're worried that they're going to get sued all the time that they might have a legal lawsuit against them. And so it's not incentivizing new people to come around here and say, Hey, I want to do that treatment and help women who are specialized. Our family doctors can do so much they can provide, but they're not specialists in the way that those OB docs are. So we have a gap there. And they can't do a C-section, for example, when there's complications. And so you have higher risk when you don't have the people to do the work. And I really worry when we go too extreme and we're not able to take care of our physicians that we have and they're having to worry about getting sued over something that they know is medically necessary. They're not pushing an agenda or trying one way or the other. Their patients have a specific need and they need to meet that need.

Brennan Summers, Main Street Idaho  (18:17):

Yeah, we're not talking elective abortions here. We're talking about their doctors who, because of definition and statute or that are now second guessing or struggling to know what the right decision is with the life of a woman because of

Representative Marco Erickson, Idaho Falls (18:29):

Legal implications. And it's taken them longer to make those decisions, whereas before they just know what to do. But they have to go through now and make sure that they're covering themselves legally. They've got all the paperwork in order, and they're justifying every decision they make, and it's a little tougher on them. It's causing more administrative time, and they have to worry about each and every one of their staff in that room that's assisting them in their liability. So it's a burden we placed on 'em, unintentional, and we haven't fixed it yet, so people are waiting for us to fix it. And in the meantime, there are some spots in the state where we've lost the ability more in the rural areas as people are aging out in those rural communities and not as many people are moving there. And so it's not always fiscally sound for them and a good business practice for, so that's a factor. And then also population growth than a new baby's being born. Current generation isn't having as many babies, so when you get to those rural communities, it changes them and their business models have to adjust with that. So it's been a struggle world. We've lost a few physicians that are doing that work.

Brennan Summers, Main Street Idaho  (19:40):

So the hope is that once the case has worked its way through the Supreme Court, then Idaho will be able to change language in the statutes.

Representative Marco Erickson, Idaho Falls (19:47):

That's what we're told. I had a bill before we went to a couple years ago, we had a bill ready to go and we could have done some stuff, but there were some special interest groups that got involved. And Chairman sometimes allow those guys to have too much influence. I feel that we're the lawmakers and we should have just pushed that through because some of those chairman to hear their voices more than and they couldn't get along. And they were both pro-life groups. When you have two pro-life groups and they can't even agree, that's problematic. We're all pro-life. We're trying to help. But this has been really interesting the last few years. We had some solutions we were trying to push and we just didn't get them. And again, this year, and so I get disappointed. I really want to make a difference. It just small little things like that make a huge impact for our state on women's healthcare at least. Yeah.

Brennan Summers, Main Street Idaho  (20:39):

Let's transition from healthcare to education. You've got Idle Falls High School right in the middle of your district and you serve with former school board of District 91, Senator Dave Lent. And the issues around updating school facilities has been such a hot issue this session. And obviously out Falls High School is one that's pretty outdated and can't seem to pass a bond. What's the short-term solution here as you look at updating school facilities and the work that the governor and Senator Land have been doing?

Representative Marco Erickson, Idaho Falls (21:07):

Well, I think the fastest thing we can do is just divert a lot of money over to the school facilities across the state. And we need to retire programs that are currently, they're being funded that where some of our legislators pet projects and sometimes we have to realize that there's other priorities that are more important, and those facilities in that backlog of maintenance is long overdue. And we need to just, I say adjust those funding and retire an old program in favor of something. And if it's needed in the future, we could bring something back. Once we've taken care of business, we've just way too long gone without taking care of those facilities. And if you travel and you see some of those facilities we have, you'll be amazed and you wouldn't want your child going in there and you're shocked that we haven't taken care of that and it's our duty, so it's time for us to step up.

(22:04):

And I was really pleased to see that we were able to have one bill, but we can always do more. And I think, so to answer your question about short-term solutions, there's other options that have been proposed maybe in the future. We have designs of buildings that we say, Hey, these are four or five approved buildings for this size for an elementary school and for a middle school and highs. And we just give them the plans and the legislature can be built to a certain amount of money. And I think that would be a great solution. We haven't got there yet, but that would be a great option. Then a school district could say, we need a new elementary. They get on the list for a certain amount of years, and it would just happen. It would be like, however it is five a year, six a year, 10 a year. I don't know what that number would look like yet or how much they would cost. But I do know you do save costs when you keep the same design and everybody doesn't individualize their design. You could still change the colors, you could change the angle. It's pointed at that kind of thing.

Brennan Summers, Main Street Idaho  (23:03):

Yeah, I like that extender. Lent told us you'd be blown away. We would be blown away by how much a building costs.

Representative Marco Erickson, Idaho Falls (23:09):

Yeah,

Brennan Summers, Main Street Idaho  (23:10):

Not cheap. It's not getting cheaper.

Representative Marco Erickson, Idaho Falls (23:11):

20 to 40 million on some of those. Yeah,

Brennan Summers, Main Street Idaho  (23:14):

It's wild. So I imagine when you speak with your constituents, education and school facilities are probably near the top of many of their lists.

Representative Marco Erickson, Idaho Falls (23:21):

Yeah, it comes up a lot. They're concerned about the percentage that it takes to approve a bond. I hear that a lot. So there was a constitutional amendment proposed in the education committee this year. There were several different constitutional amendments, not very many of them. I don't think any of them moved forward. Most of us were like, it's really not a thing you take lightly to change the college. But that was one of 'em that came up to allow them to vote to lower that threshold. And I think the intent was to move that to a time when there are more people engaged in the process. So in November, and that makes sense to me. That way you have a real majority, and if it was 50 plus one, then you'd be okay. So that's an option that's out there as well. And I think a lot of our constituents have been asking for that option. It just didn't move forward past the committee. I think it was introduced by Representative Rod Furnace this year,

Brennan Summers, Main Street Idaho  (24:17):

And we know he's a troublemaker. Right.

Representative Marco Erickson, Idaho Falls (24:20):

No, I would say

Brennan Summers, Main Street Idaho  (24:20):

That we like Rod. Rod comes on a lot. Other issues that your constituents tell you about aside from education in school facilities and school bonds?

Representative Marco Erickson, Idaho Falls (24:28):

Well, we hear about the transportation infrastructure all the time. Potholes, I get calls. Most of my calls are related to mental health though, seriously, because people know and they look up my profile and they know hope this guy knows something about this. He'll do something or he'll make a phone call on my behalf. So I get a lot of phone calls specific to that, my specialty. So I'm proud of that, that they're willing to have. And I usually solve their problem rather quickly or connect them with the people that can. And it's really, it's nice to feel that they were looking for help and they got it. So that's one thing that I will do with all my constituents always is I give them my cell phone. I'm like, call me if you need something. We're happy to do that.

Brennan Summers, Main Street Idaho  (25:12):

That's wild. And you don't get too many spammers calling

Representative Marco Erickson, Idaho Falls (25:15):

You. No, have not had that. I've been really blessed. Well, let's not have any ERs caught me now all of a sudden.

Brennan Summers, Main Street Idaho  (25:22):

So you're in a different seat than a lot of us in that you get to see the laws be made. You're right there. Do you feel like Idaho's heading in the right direction?

Representative Marco Erickson, Idaho Falls (25:35):

I always feel Idaho's heading in the right direction. If you look at us compared to the national, I meet with legislators from all over the country. People don't realize I travel a lot to do legislative stuff. Last year I went to Washington, DC three times to work on healthcare policy. I was in Colorado, and when I was in Colorado was 13 other state led slavers were there and interacting with us. And whenever we travel to each other states, we connect with each other. We talk. Idaho's doing really well. We're not in major debt like other states. You talk to them and we're like, you are 30 billion in debt. That's more than our entire budget. How could you guys operate? And we do really good work. We have some rifts in our party sometimes, but nothing that's too hard to work out. We're good at working things out. That's what I love about Idaho. We're good people. Most of them are always there for the right reasons. We just see things differently.

Brennan Summers, Main Street Idaho  (26:31):

And there's sometimes a perception that in Boise, the Republicans and the Democrats vote completely opposite. And then sometimes the Republicans and other Republicans vote completely opposite. And we hope that some good comes. But you actually have been doing some research and cracking in on the bills and how they passed. I was surprised to learn that there was more bipartisanship bills passed this last session than what I think most people would realize.

Representative Marco Erickson, Idaho Falls (26:55):

Yeah, I've been trying to, I love statistics. I love that analysis. It tells the story. I looked at just the house bills so far haven't added the Senate bills in, but in just the house bills about 50% of all the bills we passed, which is close to a little over 200 of 'em that we voted on, and almost 50% were all members of both parties supported them. So that means either 70 members or there might've been a couple absent, but in the case, all the members supported that legislation equally. So that means it was bipartisan and we all supported.

Brennan Summers, Main Street Idaho  (27:29):

And so what does it tell you about that issue or about that need?

Representative Marco Erickson, Idaho Falls (27:35):

Oh, that's a great question. It's either a really darn good bill or it's a pretty simple fix to something that people really don't care that much. But most of the time it is kind of a mix, a mix of a simple tweak to, or something we do every year. I ran the pharmacy, it's a bill we run every year to classify the scheduling of new pharmaceuticals. It's something we do every year. Most of the times it gets a few voters are voting against it. And this year I was shocked. I was like, all 70 of you supported that bill. That's great. It's not normal. But we emphasized that Idaho had the Idaho way of doing it, and we didn't just follow the federal way. Our people didn't just adopt what the feds had said. Idaho had their own council, looked at things their own way. Once in a while they'll reject a couple of the federal classifications. That's kind of a simple example. It's a simple bill, but I run that when I need to.

Brennan Summers, Main Street Idaho  (28:33):

But the moral of the story is we would be concerned if every bill had unanimous support from both parties.

Representative Marco Erickson, Idaho Falls (28:39):

Yes, we

Brennan Summers, Main Street Idaho  (28:39):

Would. There would be challenges there. But it's nice to see that there is a number of bills that everyone can

Representative Marco Erickson, Idaho Falls (28:44):

Agree on. And I was trying to remember when I looked at my analysis, the party line votes, there was roughly in just houseboat almost 35, 36. So it was about 15% of all the bills that were very clear party line Republicans voted one way. Democrats voted another way. And it was all Republicans. And the way I do my analysis, if there's less than five that move one way or another that I don't count it that as a split vote or a straight party vote, but it's very rare. But those ones, it's pretty clear how many, 35 of them were very clear party votes like that. And then the rest of them, when there's extras, that means the Republicans were split. So there's occasionally that that happens about, what was it, 35% of the time that that happens.

Brennan Summers, Main Street Idaho  (29:31):

Yeah. Now, if you had the opportunity to sit down in front of the whole house and Senate and were able to say in this off session what they to do to become more effective when you're in session, what do you think is the missing component to ensure that you guys can run even smoother when January to March?

Representative Marco Erickson, Idaho Falls (29:50):

You asked the magical question. I've been thinking about this for a long time. One of the greatest things we can do is come prepared to session with bills ready. And the second thing we can do is have our committees have special work groups where the committee works together on legislations to fix actual problems. And then we've come up with these solutions and worked on them rather than outside interests coming. There were several bills this year where people from outside Idaho were trying to push their agenda, and you could see right through that. And they come testify in committee, and they're not even Idahoans. They're not solutions for Idaho. So I think that's what's missing. There isn't enough committee collaboration, even if we're split in how we're made up. But if we did that, we would come to a consensus together and then that legislation would fly right through and it would solve really amazing problems. So I'd love to see more of that happening in committee.

Brennan Summers, Main Street Idaho  (30:45):

So coming day one with a lot of preparation and pre-work done and collaboration with committee to ensure that when you're there, you're not starting from scratch. Correct. Yeah. I like that idea too,

Representative Marco Erickson, Idaho Falls (30:55):

Because what happens is they come in and the first week, not a lot of things happen. It's slow. And I wish that we just had bills ready to roll right out of the gate, and you already had a bill number and that first week you're having hearings on those bills. And most of us had already heard about it. We've talked about it, so we're ready to go. And I think that would speed things up. And especially with the budgets. I mean, our constitutional mandate is get those budgets done. And they tried a new process this year and we saw how it went. You could say it was good or bad. I mean, it was a little bit divided on how we liked that or not.

Brennan Summers, Main Street Idaho  (31:31):

Definitely. Definitely. Now you're busy, you've got everything going on, but you still decided you're a glutton for punishment and you're going to run again. You're up for reelection.

Representative Marco Erickson, Idaho Falls (31:40):

Yeah. I still have work to do. I've learned a lot of things. I still have some more work to do, and that's going to benefit Idahoans, especially in the mental health space and the justice space as we talked about earlier. And when I'm done feeling it should be a couple more years, maybe one term after that, and I am pretty sure I can achieve a lot of those things I set out to do, and then it'll be someone else's turn. So even with all the stress and all that, I'm willing to do the service that needs to be done for our constituents, and I'm happy to do

Brennan Summers, Main Street Idaho  (32:12):

That. Well, I think you bring a unique set of skills and an experience to the job that not every legislator does. So your voice is important. We know how busy you are. We know you've got to run off. But we really do appreciate you coming and meeting with us. Thanks

Representative Marco Erickson, Idaho Falls (32:26):

For having me here today.

Brennan Summers, Main Street Idaho  (32:27):

Yeah. Again, this is Representative Marco Erickson, district 33. Appreciate you being here.

Representative Marco Erickson, Idaho Falls (32:32):

Thank you.

Improving Idaho School Facilities

Main Street Town Hall Episode 13—Representative Matt Bundy

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Watch on YouTube
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Representative Matt Bundy from District 8A joins us for his first appearance on the podcast. Host and Executive Director, Brennan Summers, learns of Bundy's 20-year career as a combat aviator turned high school civics teacher, as well as his transition to the Idaho Legislature. Bundy provides his own insight to the current legislative session and his efforts to help school facilities.

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Brennan Summers - Executive Director Main Street (00:00):

Welcome to Main Street Podcast, an opportunity to talk to I Idaho's elected leaders about the issues that matter to you. Welcome to the Main Street podcast. We're here with the representative out of District eight, a high school teacher, a former combat aviator, city councilman from Mountain Home. Joining us today, representative Matt Bundy, representative, thanks for joining us today.

Representative Matt Bundy - District 8 Idaho (00:28):

Well, I appreciate the opportunity to sit here, to [00:00:30] chat with you and to talk about Idaho and all the great things about Idaho and District eight and all the fun things that we're doing and about the legislature. So thanks for the invitation.

Brennan Summers - Executive Director Main Street (00:38):

Invitation. Absolutely. We got a lot of exciting things we need to talk about today, and we're just going to jump right in. When I was a kid, I remember a pope passed away and as they were like all the cardinals got together to choose a new pope, my dad had us all grilled to the glued, I should say, to the TV and waiting to see if the white smoke would come, and every day we'd ask, is today the day we choose a new pope? That's not my question [00:01:00] for you today. My question is, is this week, the week that the session ends,

Representative Matt Bundy - District 8 Idaho (01:05):

We were taking a poll at lunch. We had a very short little meeting with some of the J FAC members and we were trying to pick a day for the pool on which day the session would end. I tried to take tomorrow, but I think that was a little bit optimistic. So I think the consensus is that we will be done by Friday,

Brennan Summers - Executive Director Main Street (01:23):

So not Tuesday, but maybe Friday. As you think about the session, what are some of the big [00:01:30] things we've learned this session?

Representative Matt Bundy - District 8 Idaho (01:33):

Well, I think we've learned that as many things as we discuss and debate. I think on a lot of the big issues, we came together and did the right thing for Idaho. Over the past few years we've seen that we have some trouble at the local level with our school facilities and the state is stepping up here and we're putting in some good efforts to help the districts [00:02:00] with their facilities where we're trying to get the right number. It's always a difficult thing on how much is too much and how much is too little. But I think where we're at right now is going to give the districts the ability to make some significant advancements in their facilities and it's going to give them the idea or the promise of ongoing facilities of money so that we can take care of our tenure facilities plans. So I think that the way we've come together on that and we've also adjusted once again our tax rates, so that's been a really good thing.

Brennan Summers - Executive Director Main Street (02:29):

Sure, [00:02:30] sure. And I'm excited to dig into more of education and your perspective on it, but if it's true that we wrap up this week, what can we expect, if anything, to be pushed through the pipe before you guys all wrap up and go home?

Representative Matt Bundy - District 8 Idaho (02:47):

Well, as I said before, my primary duty on J fac is the budget. So I'm personally looking at, I just got the official wording and the version after the, [00:03:00] excuse me, after we did all the motions in Jfa. So I'll be working with the community college's budget and we're also coming with the K 12 budgets, and I think the good news in the K 12 budgets, there's been a lot of folks asking us about that supplemental, and we are working, we're working very, very diligently to get that money out to the districts in a non-discretionary fashion through the supplemental for the money that was allocated for this year. But there was some slight reductions as we went from [00:03:30] attendance, excuse me, as we went from enrollment to a DA. So we're going to allow those school districts to meet their obligations this year. We'll see a little bit of right sizing on the budget next year as we move to an A DA, but I'm also very optimistic that our numbers and our enrollment are going to continue to increase after a year or two of stagnation and that our attendance will also pick up and we'll be able to recover that funding even though we're going to go to an A DA.

(03:54):

So those are two big things that I'm looking at right now are K 12 and the higher ed budgets.

Brennan Summers - Executive Director Main Street (03:59):

Let's dig in a little bit [00:04:00] more on that one. There's probably a few people listening that may not be familiar with the transition here. From going to a a walk us through what that is, what we were doing in terms of the budgetary process and then what this will look like when we make the transition to 88

Representative Matt Bundy - District 8 Idaho (04:19):

A DA is a average daily attendance. And so for the last few years in J fac, we created our budgets based on the current rule or code. And last year when we created [00:04:30] this budget, we were still in the second year of an enrollment based funding formula. For example, I'll just use an easy number. If I have a thousand students enrolled in my school, I figure out my support units and my funding based on the enrollment of a thousand students. When we went away from, this was a decision, the enrollment base was a temporary measure, and so then we got to the point where the pandemic was gone. We were back to looking at an average daily attendance. So [00:05:00] if I have a thousand students enrolled in my school, but I average 960 a day in attendance under the average daily attendance, it's a slight reduction.

(05:10):

You're funded based on how many students actually show up. And I think part of the reason we went back to an A DA is to reinforce the value of in-person education. And so last year when we created the budget, we created it for everybody enrolled, and then we went to average daily attendance [00:05:30] during the process. And so the schools were being allocated a slightly less amount of money even though they built their budgets based on an anticipated amount. So we're going to get that anticipated amount back out through a supplemental, and then we will rightsize the budgets next year.

Brennan Summers - Executive Director Main Street (05:46):

Perfect. That makes sense to me. So it should make sense to most Now I think it's important to kind of stop and take a breath and look back at everything you and your committee were able to do. We talk a lot [00:06:00] about the appropriations process. We had representative Ray Boldon last week and she had all of our heads spinning with all of the things that she was talking about. What are some of the big wins that you think that the jfa committee has been able to produce this session?

Representative Matt Bundy - District 8 Idaho (06:17):

Well, I think a big thing is we've been able to create, and like I say, I think folks are going to really be happy with our higher ed and our community colleges and our K 12 budgets. We've been able to take care [00:06:30] of the business, we've been able to project for the future. So I think our education budgets, nothing's ever perfect, but when you're working in a committee of 20 and then you have to take it to 70 house members and 35 senators, there's some things that you have to take into consideration so that you're successful in that larger group. The other thing, I think that just last week I was able to participate in the Department of Agricultural bill signing. The beautiful thing about being on JPAC is I get to learn a lot of new stuff. So in the Department [00:07:00] of Agriculture budget, we have added some veterinarians so that we can help out the dairy industry, which is a billion dollar industry.

(07:07):

We were able to put in some more testing stations for QUA so that we can make sure for the next five years that we're convinced that the qua muscle has been taken care of. There's just so many things, but very quickly, the big thing that we do in JPEG is we make sure through our very, very precise vetting process that we're doing budgets that make sense [00:07:30] that we are not just rubber stamping requests of the departments and the divisions, but we're making sure that those are things that idahos need. But more importantly, it's things that we can adequately fund with our general fund bottom line as well as, for example, like Parks and Rec, we're able to do some things because they're generating a lot of dedicated funds, which means that people are going to our state parks and recs and they're paying their entrance fees and they're camping at the campgrounds. And so we have that money that people [00:08:00] spend on the parks to turn back around and improve it and enhance our parks and recreation system here in Idaho, which I think is a great way to do business is that we have something, I mean, people can't create these parks on their own. They need the state help, but then when they go to 'em, we make sure that we use those dedicated funds to improve and enhance them. So there's been a lot of things that we've done that are fun.

Brennan Summers - Executive Director Main Street (08:22):

Yeah, you talk about learning lots of different stuff, and I can only imagine all [00:08:30] the budgets and all the details and all the line items you got to go through. But why don't you talk to us a little bit about what the committee was able to do in appropriations to public safety regarding some of these police budgets and anything we can do to alleviate the surge in crime that this nation's experiencing?

Representative Matt Bundy - District 8 Idaho (08:46):

Well, I think we've done a lot of good things. You might've seen, we pass the bill for the mandatory minimums on fentanyl. And what we've also been able to do is we have been able to fund through the JPAC process, through the appropriations [00:09:00] process, the ability for the governor to send Idaho state patrol or Idaho State Troopers down there, and they are basically working with and learning from folks that are on the border and they're learning skills on the go. I mean, they're down there doing it. This is not a classroom environment, it's more of a real world environment. They're down there on the border learning things and techniques and tactics that they can bring back to Idaho and to help keep us safe and to protect us from [00:09:30] some of those things that are coming across the border into the United States and Idaho. So I think the bottom line here is the ability to fund that mission so that we can send troopers down there to get real world experience and then bring it back and train the other troopers that they work with on how to best protect us against a lot, a lot of things that are obviously are not good.

Brennan Summers - Executive Director Main Street (09:51):

Yeah, I mean from a national standpoint, how frustrating is it as a conservative lawmaker to have to handle all the issues that come as a byproduct of [00:10:00] the kind of failure at our border? I mean, talk to us a little bit about you don't get to decide national border policy, but sometimes you have to deal with the consequences of it.

Representative Matt Bundy - District 8 Idaho (10:11):

That's a great point, and I appreciate you bringing that up. And that's why we have continued to fund police, local police. We're working on some rules that will allow the local police to work more closely with federal, federal departments when we find or when we locate [00:10:30] an illegal alien or somebody that shouldn't be here, that we can take steps to remedy that situation. But I do really want to give the Idaho State Police, I think they just celebrated one of their major anniversaries here a couple of weeks ago in the Capitol. The folks that dedicate their lives to protecting us here at the local level, I think is admirable, and we try to give 'em what they need. And we've done a lot of good things with them, but I really think that training environments and allowing them to go down there with [00:11:00] our support to learn real world what's going on is really going to enhance Idaho law enforcement capabilities.

Brennan Summers - Executive Director Main Street (11:07):

Yeah, I agree. I have the utmost respect and love for the Idaho State Police when I'm coming up on a rack and they've got everything sorted and everyone moving in the right way when they're keeping our streets safe, my feelings towards 'em change a little bit when I'm getting pulled over for speeding because every experience I've had, they're not warning givers, but that's more of a me problem than an US problem representative. [00:11:30] Let's transition to education. You sit in a very unique seat in that you've spent 16 years in the classroom. Is that correct?

Representative Matt Bundy - District 8 Idaho (11:38):

This is my 20th year in the classroom. Oh boy. I always feel so blessed when I look at the ability that I've had to have two 20 year careers and two professions that are very different but similar at the same time. So this is my 20th year in the classroom, so right now I'm kind of a split contract, so I do a lot of the planning and a lot of the overseeing, but that's another [00:12:00] reason why it's going to be great to get done this week so I can get back into the classroom next Monday and start to hang out with a bunch of 17 and 18 year olds that really, really keep my ideas fresh and really give me a nice perspective into the future of Idaho. And I'll tell you, I know you didn't ask this, but I always love to tell people that based on my knowledge and my working with the seniors in high school over the last two decades, Idaho is in good shape. We have super, super kids coming out of high school that are taking on business roles and government roles, [00:12:30] and obviously for mountain home, a lot of our kids at a much higher rate than anywhere else in the state join the military. So there's a lot of really super future leaders and current leaders of Idaho that are coming out of our public school system and other systems also.

Brennan Summers - Executive Director Main Street (12:45):

Yeah, we needed to hear that because Casey and I are studio tech. Were talking about, man, it's got to be tough being a teacher in these day and ages and what we see on TikTok from the same age group you talk about doesn't give us the most optimism about the future, but you're seeing a different crop [00:13:00] of kids. You're seeing homegrown Idaho boys and girls, you talk about what they're doing, the jobs they're going into. But what else is it that you see in the classroom? It gives you so much optimism about the future.

Representative Matt Bundy - District 8 Idaho (13:11):

Well, like I say, I've been doing it for 20 years, so I kind of jokingly say I left the Air Force as Lieutenant colonel and people say, Hey, how was the transition? And I say, well, the first time I walked into the classroom, no one stood up. I said, I knew I was in a different environment, but I'll tell you that the students, their ideas [00:13:30] and their desire to learn and to integrate new ideas into the way they do things, I think inspires me to continue to also want to learn new things or as I said earlier, learn new stuff. I guess sometimes I use the teenage vernacular, but I really enjoy sitting with them and talking with them and listening to what they assignment I do where I have them pick a historical or a political figure and talk about them. And people say, well, [00:14:00] should we coordinate who we're going to talk about? So we don't talk about the same person? And I'll be honest, out of the class of 25 to 30, very rarely do they pick the same person. So they're picking different historical or social role models or people from society. They tend to pick different people, and it's really a fun thing to sit and listen to 'em, identify with something that someone's done or ideas that they have or how they're going to take other ideas into the future anyway, but that's [00:14:30] a ton of fun.

Brennan Summers - Executive Director Main Street (14:31):

You got to give us some examples. What are some of the people that they choose?

Representative Matt Bundy - District 8 Idaho (14:36):

Well, you're always going to get your George Washington's and your Ben Franklin's, but you're going to, I get Rosa Parks and I get Joshua Chamberlain from the Civil War, or I will get somebody that has what I really like it is when somebody will choose like their grandfather, how they survived or that now would be more of [00:15:00] a great grandfather, how they survived the depression, or I've had students bring in parts of a journal from someone that they've known in the past, and I've actually had students talk about other fellow teachers, which is always a lot of fun. So it's interesting, maybe more so now than when I was a kid, a lot of these students are interested in their past and the people that have kind of paved the way for them. So I think, I don't know if it's a generational thing, but I have noticed that a lot of students are interested [00:15:30] in their relatives and they talk more about their relatives and things like that, and those that have done things that have been very, very inspirational and that we would've never known had they not had the opportunity to talk about 'em.

Brennan Summers - Executive Director Main Street (15:43):

Now, you were chosen as Idaho Civics teacher of the year for 20 19, 20 20. Congratulations on that. Thank you. And my concern among others is we talk about politics and voting and we're gearing up towards a primary season [00:16:00] and then a general election in November, man, voter turnouts, low representative, I mean a Republican caucus. We had less than 10% of people are making a decision about who they think should lead our country. We get into Republican primaries in Idaho where in most places the Republican primaries determining who's going to carry the ballot through November, and it's still significantly less than 50%. You see a third of the people in Idaho are deciding who's leading as a civics [00:16:30] teacher. I imagine that's frustrating. Do you see a solution?

Representative Matt Bundy - District 8 Idaho (16:35):

I think historically that 18 to 25-year-old demographic has been low voter turnout. And so I always do, usually in the fall and in the spring, I do a voter registration where I talk through how to register as a voter in Idaho and explain the various facets of how to do it. And I think that I've had students and [00:17:00] kind of the beauty of living in a smaller town is I'll be sitting maybe on my park bench in my park. I always like to tell everyone that Legacy Park is Mr. Bundy's park because it's right by my house. And I did a lot of work on it when I was in city council, but over the past year, I'll just be sitting there and I'll have somebody walk by and they'll stop and they'll say, Mr. Bundy, do you remember me? And I do, I've been teaching for 20 years, and if you do the math, it's about 3,500 students.

(17:28):

But a lot of them, and I've noticed a trend [00:17:30] here is they say, well, they'll think back as they get to maybe 25, 26, maybe 30, and remember something we didn't in government class. So sometimes the benefit of civics instruction may not be immediate, but it might be five or 10 years down the road. And I've had quite a few students and it's really humbling. Someone remembers what you did 10 or 15 years ago. But my point there is I think a lot of times when we put that spark in 'em as 17 or 18, it may not [00:18:00] catch fire for a little while, but I've been pleased to know of a lot of students that at some point later in the next five to 10 years or so, they become politically involved, they become voters. So that's how I treat it is I'd like you to vote right now, but if this ember doesn't take spark for another few years, I'm glad that I was a part of it even five or 10 years later. So it's kind of a longer answer to a short question, but you're correct that [00:18:30] we do need to increase our voter and make voting accessible too.

Brennan Summers - Executive Director Main Street (18:36):

I like the idea of this though. That's some good insight about investing in these young minds that may not pay dividends until later when it kind of clicks that they need to participate. But you're still doing the Lord's work there in the classroom, getting these kids to understand and to want to care about things that really do matter. So that's noteworthy, I imagine. So yet 20 years, we're still going to 20 years in the classroom, but we haven't had 20 years in the legislature. So [00:19:00] I'm just assuming that there were probably some pain points as a teacher that sparked your decision to get involved. Now, you were a city councilman before joining the legislature, but were there some things that you saw that the Idaho legislature maybe could do better when it comes to education that you and the teachers chair thought, man, they're just not quite seeing this?

Representative Matt Bundy - District 8 Idaho (19:21):

Well, actually, so I started teaching in 2004, and [00:19:30] then I coached for 10 years. So I was a baseball and a basketball coach, and the mayor of Mount Home about 10 years ago called me and said, Hey, I heard some good things about you. Would you like to get involved in one of our economic development committees? And I said, that sounds great. And I really was not that in tune with economic development at the time, but I did, and we did some great things. We did a downtown renovation and I was able to, we worked with the Department of Commerce and ITD so that we were able to combine forces [00:20:00] and save a lot of city taxpayer money by using outside grants and type of things like that. And so I started to get to see and to know how you can integrate the city government, county government and state government to get a much better product and at a much better cost savings for taxpayer.

(20:22):

And so I was doing that and just loving it. And then there was a city council opening, and some folks came and said, Hey, we think that you'd be a great candidate [00:20:30] for city council. And so I said, I'd love to because I want to continue to grow the downtown and to grow that mountain home economy. And so I was serving in city council for about four or five years, and then a similar thing happened where the incumbent decided to run. So it created an opening in the state legislature, and I was encouraged to run for that. So I basically entered into these various levels of government responsibility [00:21:00] when folks had a need and they thought I might be the guy that could be able to fill that. And so it's always an honor to have people say, I think you would be good at this. And I've been very glad that I've been able to over the course of the last decade, work in public service. So it's not that I saw anything I wanted to do differently or change, it's just the fact that people showed confidence in me and I appreciated that.

Brennan Summers - Executive Director Main Street (21:23):

As a rural high school and as a rural high school teacher, I'm sure you wrestle [00:21:30] with, as you mentioned before, issues with school facilities with public funding of education, and as you gear up for another election cycle, are those issues that you still think there's work to be done on?

Representative Matt Bundy - District 8 Idaho (21:43):

I do. And Mountain Home is not just because I live there, but for many reasons it's unique. We have the Air Force base, and that's what brought me here in 1999. So I've been in Idaho for 25 years, is about 40% of our students are affiliated with the base. [00:22:00] So we're a rural school where we have a ton of agricultural kids, but we have a lot of kids associated with the military. And so when I moved here, my daughter was a junior and I had a young son that was a ninth grader and another son that was a fourth grader. So we came here after moving around the country for a long time. We did 10 moves in 20 years. And so we're rural, but we're also very diverse. And so that's kind of a little bit interesting about our rural school, [00:22:30] but also a mountain home.

(22:31):

One of the buildings that we use is over a hundred years old, but I think in facilities, people may, I'm sure everybody knows that it's expensive to maintain and keep up to code a building that's a hundred years old. Our high school is 70 years old. We use the a hundred year old building as kind of our alternative high school. But when you have to repair a 70, 80, a hundred year old building, that money tends to come out of your general fund that you can't use for other educational [00:23:00] purposes. And we're not unique. Mountain Home is not unique that we're using buildings that are 70, 80, 90, a hundred years old, and that's where we tend to get in trouble because it's difficult with the super majority to get a bond through as it should be because you're expending taxpayer funds. But then we end up with the 70 and like I say, very old buildings that we have to maintain.

(23:22):

And we also, a lot of folks don't know that we have an elementary school out on the Air Force base, so the Air Force School [00:23:30] is run by Mountain Home School District, and that building is also getting old, and we're working on how to upgrade that facility also. So we do, I think a lot of rural schools are having difficulty with the super majority on the bond, and I think this facilities money that we're putting in place right now and some of the other money that we're putting towards the bonds and levies that are out there will help property taxes reduce and hopefully let us get our buildings where they need to be.

Brennan Summers - Executive Director Main Street (24:00):

[00:24:00] Yeah, yeah. We had Senator Lent on here talking about the same thing, and he said people would be really surprised how much it costs to build a new building. Just as you pointed out, I think we'd all be surprised how much it costs to keep a hundred year old building up to code and go. And I think I had a neighbor and she was a hundred years old, and it was new hips and all sorts of things. I mean, people aren't cheap to keep updated at that age, so buildings are just as bad.

Representative Matt Bundy - District 8 Idaho (24:24):

Yeah, we are definitely giving those buildings new hips. That is a good analogy.

Brennan Summers - Executive Director Main Street (24:28):

Thank you. Thank you. Now then, you [00:24:30] talked about how you kind of stumbled into the legislature through a bunch of optimistic and opportunities that opened doors for you at good points in time, but you've got public service in your blood. In fact, you had an ancestor that served in a legislature. Do you mind sharing that story with us?

Representative Matt Bundy - District 8 Idaho (24:46):

That's funny. It's funny. Some of the students were talking about some of their ancestors, and I knew my heritage on some level. On my mom's side, they immigrated from Germany. So on my mom's side, I'm first generation [00:25:00] citizen here, born here. But on my dad's side, I knew it went way back to North Carolina. And so sometimes there's a gap in your genealogy. Well, it got filled over the last couple of years, and I was able to figure out that on my dad's side, directly back all the way to 1650, a guy named William Bundy came from England to North Carolina, and he was a Quaker. And so he had a son whose name was Caleb, so Caleb Bundy. And I found the documents when I saw something and I went back into the [00:25:30] North Carolina Colonial Archives. And so in 1703, Caleb Bundy, direct descendant, just boom, boom, boom, boom, boom.

(25:41):

Straight back was a member of the North Carolina House of Burgesses. And like I said, they were Quakers. And so when they got a new queen in 1703, they made a law in Parliament that you had to take an oath to the Queen. And if you remember your Quaker history, they don't take oaths. And so it was a big deal [00:26:00] where Caleb and a couple of his other Quaker legislators signed a letter saying that they would not sign an oath to this new queen based on religious ideas. And so it's kind of a cool story back in 1703 ish that Caleb Bundy, a direct descendant of mine, was in the North Carolina House of Burgesses. And so people ask me what my takeaway from that is. And my takeaway from that is about every 300 years somebody in the Bundy line is full-hearted enough to [00:26:30] want to be in the state legislature.

Brennan Summers - Executive Director Main Street (26:33):

That is a wonderful story, and I hope that that is the ancestor that they remember. That's the Bundy name we want people to associate you with is that legislature. And I also would point out that there's probably a lesson to be there about swearing allegiance to things other than voters. I imagine that you often get asked to swear allegiance to all sorts of groups and associations, and I assume your allegiance still falls to the voters.

Representative Matt Bundy - District 8 Idaho (26:55):

I think it's interesting that we always talk about people came to [00:27:00] the colonies for religious freedom and then even in the early days, they struggled with religious freedom. So it's a religious freedom, freedom of ideas are things that even three centuries later we're dealing with now. And so yeah, there's a lot of lessons to be learned in that very short story that I found in the history of North Carolina that I'm associated with. But it is kind of fun to think that on one side of my family, I'm [00:27:30] first generation born in America, and on the other side of my family I go straight back to 1650 coming here from England. So I've got really both sides of that whole immigration pattern.

Brennan Summers - Executive Director Main Street (27:41):

Yeah, I love that. And there's definitely something to be said about getting in touch with our roots in England. They've got on their two pound coins on the room of it, it says standing on the shoulder of giants. And I often think back to people came before us that helped us get where we are today, and we need to remember that. So I think that's a wonderful story of your ancestry. Now, [00:28:00] I would be in trouble if during this podcast we didn't spend some time talking about your days as a combat aviator. Is it as cool as it sounds representative?

Representative Matt Bundy - District 8 Idaho (28:12):

Well, I joined my commissioning program in 1982. I was very, very young at the time, so if you're doing the math in your head, I'm just kidding. But 1982 was a different time than 1995, 2005, and even [00:28:30] 2020, it was not, it wasn't as popular. It wasn't as well accepted to join the military in the early eighties. We're still in kind of the Vietnam hangover. And so I joined in 1982. My dad was a wonderful man. He was a public school teacher for 33 years, but I didn't grow up. My dad didn't serve in the military. He would've loved to, but the circumstances just didn't warrant it. So I just kind of on a, trying to figure out what I wanted [00:29:00] to do with my life, I decided that I would go through ROTC at the University of Utah, and I was offered an aviation slot. So the best way to describe it, if you've seen Top Gun, I was Goose. That was the weapons office.

Brennan Summers - Executive Director Main Street (29:14):

You're speaking our language.

Representative Matt Bundy - District 8 Idaho (29:16):

So I started in 1984 when I was commissioned, I went to flight school. I flew B 50 twos first, so my career is bookended. I started off with Nuclear Alert against the Soviets where we would be on alert [00:29:30] with a jet loaded with nuclear weapons for deterrence. And that is an interesting historical conversation. And then at the end of my career, I had transitioned to B one about 1990. I did a combat deployment post nine 11 into Afghanistan and flew combat sorties against the Taliban. And so it was really fun. It was a lot of excitement, [00:30:00] something I could hang my hat on, but really all, when I mentioned Top Gun, that's when the attitude changed. All of a sudden before that, it was like, oh, you joined the military, couldn't find anything else to do. And then Top Gun comes out, and I think all we do is play volleyball on the beach.

(30:14):

And then everybody thought it was a really cool thing to do. Not that we didn't play volleyball on the beach in Guam when we would do a night sort and then we'd play volleyball the next day. But the Top Gun phenomenon really increased the awareness [00:30:30] of the military. And then of course, desert Shield, desert Storm. I was in Desert Shield over in Guam for a little bit, and then I came back to train in the B one and the Desert Shield Desert Storm kind of enhanced our pride in the military. 2001, I think galvanized it. And I think we're still a very pro-military country, which I think is awesome. But there's a lot of things. I moved my family 10 times in 20 years, so I think it was hard on them. And luckily, and I'm very, very blessed that my three children still like [00:31:00] me and my wife was hung by my side this whole time.

(31:04):

And both of my sons have served in the military and continue to serve in the National Guard. So I love the military and I would do it again, but I've also, I think the military experience in some ways has made me a better teacher. I'm not saying that everybody needs to serve in the military to be a teacher, but for me that combination worked. And so there's a lot of career educators that are wonderful, wonderful [00:31:30] teachers, and we're starting to see over, when I came into teaching 20 years ago, it was rare to see a second career teacher, but you're starting to see more of that. And I think that's a good thing to combine teachers that are in the classroom for 30, 35 years with other folks that have done something else for 10 to 15 years or five years and then come into the classroom. So that's kind of a neat development.

Brennan Summers - Executive Director Main Street (31:52):

In what ways did serving in the military affect the way that you view your service in the Idaho state legislature?

Representative Matt Bundy - District 8 Idaho (32:00):

[00:32:00] That's a great question. Sometimes I tend to be very friendly. I tend to be very congenial. So I think sometimes I don't meet the typical military stereotype. And part of that is because as an aviator in the Air Force, I did a lot of study of military history and leadership. And one of my, even though patent is stereotypical, he actually [00:32:30] was very well loved by his immediate set of advisors and a piece of advice that Patton gave his advisors. If everybody in the room is thinking the same thing, then somebody's not thinking. And so I've tried to take that into the classroom amongst other things where I encourage students to challenge my ideas, and I let them know that when I'm asking them a question, it doesn't mean I disagree. It means I'm giving them the opportunity [00:33:00] to explore their own thoughts and to be able to adequately discuss their ideas.

(33:06):

And so I think that when you're an officer in the military and you're doing strategic thinking, you need to analyze all of the different avenues that you might have to pursue, and you have to come to an agreement, reach a consensus. And I think that type of thinking is very prevalent or needed in the Idaho legislature where you have to understand that there's a diverse [00:33:30] group out there, diverse needs, and you need to come together and let people know when you have a different idea and if you can move an idea or making an idea better.

Brennan Summers - Executive Director Main Street (33:43):

Yeah. Well, I think we're going to have to have you on at some point just to talk about your career in the military, introduced us to some stories that are going to be coming, and we'd love to dig in more on that. But we've got a tradition before the podcast ends today that anyone, first time [00:34:00] interviewees join the podcast. There's two really tough questions we throw at 'em. Okay, so buckle up. The first one, and this is going to be perfect for you as an educator, is if there was a book that you've read in your lifetime that you would recommend everybody else needs to flip through, what book would that be?

Representative Matt Bundy - District 8 Idaho (34:18):

I just finished a book about Joshua Chamberlain on Great Fields, and we tend, if you're familiar with Joshua Chamberlain, he was 20th, Maine, little round top Gettysburg, [00:34:30] but that was just a small portion of his life. The other things he did as a minister and as a college professor and as a governor of Maine, and there's a story in there at the end when he's the governor of Maine, that there was an armed insurrection or an armed rebellion that wanted to take over the capitol. And the way that he handled it and the way that he addressed it, I think is a lesson that we can learn, that you can have [00:35:00] disagreements and if the right person is at the place at the right time, he diffused it. And it's a nice lesson for history. And it also talks about, and maybe part of the reason that it resonated with me is because he was a teacher and a military man also, as you try to juggle those two divergent ways of thinking, but they're actually very similar in nature. So it's a great on great fields about Joshua Chamberlain.

Brennan Summers - Executive Director Main Street (35:26):

Perfect on Grateful. That's piqued my interest because no, I'm not familiar with Joshua Chamberlain, but [00:35:30] I will be. You've made the book list so excited about that. Now the second question's, even harder representative, you've got a great district there that you represent. If I'm driving through your district, where is somewhere I need to stop if I need to get a meal?

Representative Matt Bundy - District 8 Idaho (35:45):

Well, let's see. I've got Elmore County, Boise County, valley County and Custer County. So there's Elmore County, there's a place called S Stoney's on Main Street. That's a lot of fun. And it's [00:36:00] a local venue on your way up to Donnelley. It's called the Cougar Cafe, I believe it's right there kind of outside of Donnelley. And so there's some fun places up there. I would go there. I was just yesterday I got to drive 500 miles to a chalice back and forth. So it was about almost 10 hours in the car and I got to go through craters of the moon, Arco on my way up to [00:36:30] Mackey, and we did a little event, a place called Living Waters up there. It was really nice. So I've got the largest geographic district, so if you're driving through my district, it's either a week long trip or you're specifically going there. So

Brennan Summers - Executive Director Main Street (36:45):

Those are some good recommendations and any that are not mentioned, we hope that you didn't lose their votes, I'm sure.

Representative Matt Bundy - District 8 Idaho (36:50):

Correct. They're all

Brennan Summers - Executive Director Main Street (36:51):

Good. They're all good. We'll qualify that representative. We've talked through a lot of your titles today. We've talked about you as a representative legislator. We talked through you as [00:37:00] Mr. Bundy talked to you as a lieutenant and even Goose, and we appreciate you walking us through not only what's going on in the legislature, but kind of how you got there and the way you envision things. We're hoping for the session to end this week and that we can have you back on to kind of recap everything that finished and what we're looking forward to in the coming years.

Representative Matt Bundy - District 8 Idaho (37:24):

Well, I appreciate that. And you said earlier, I kind of want to think of it, maybe I was led into the legislature, [00:37:30] not that I stumbled into the legislature, so I'm just kidding. This has been an awesome opportunity and I appreciate the ability to chat with you for a few minutes.

Brennan Summers - Executive Director Main Street (37:40):

Absolutely. We're glad you're in the legislature and we know you didn't stumble there. That mistake is on me, but we'll get that one fixed in post-production. We'll see if Casey cuts it. No, we're fine. Thanks for joining us today.

Representative Matt Bundy - District 8 Idaho (37:51):

Alright, you have a great day.

Agenda and Budget Negotiations

Main Street Town Hall Episode 12—Representative Britt Raybould

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Returning to the podcast is Representative Brit Raybould out of District 34. She joins us straight from the House floor to discuss the current policies up for debate. Raybould sheds light on what her constituents from Madison County want accomplished in Boise, as well as her work trying to solidify budgets for the Joint Finance-Appropriations Committee (JFAC).

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Follow Along With The Transcript

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Brennan Summers, Main Street ID Executive Dirctor (00:00):

Welcome to Main Street Podcast, an opportunity to talk to I Idaho's elected leaders about the issues that matter to you. Welcome to the Main Street Podcast. I'm your host, Brennan Summers. We're here with the representative out of district 34, Madison County, representative Britt Rayd representative. Thanks for joining us.

Representative Britt Raybould, District 34 Idaho (00:22):

Hey, Brandon. It's good to be with you.

Brennan Summers, Main Street ID Executive Dirctor (00:25):

We know you came off the floor just barely lively debate, some exciting bills going on. It seems like it's never a dull moment over there.

Representative Britt Raybould, District 34 Idaho (00:33):

So it's that time of the session when March Madness applies not only to college basketball, but the Idaho legislature too.

Brennan Summers, Main Street ID Executive Dirctor (00:40):

Are there brackets floating around?

Representative Britt Raybould, District 34 Idaho (00:43):

There are brackets floating around currently. There's the women's teams that are making the rounds, but I have no doubt that the men's teams will be not far behind.

Brennan Summers, Main Street ID Executive Dirctor (00:52):

Love it. Are there brackets that include bills of what you think will get eliminated, which bills will get your time and attention

Representative Britt Raybould, District 34 Idaho (01:01):

As the month goes on? It won't surprise me at all if something like that doesn't show up on the floor. Right now we have bingo cards. The bingo cards were distributed the other day, and so now we get the opportunity to see how often our colleagues use certain phrases.

Brennan Summers, Main Street ID Executive Dirctor (01:14):

Oh, can you give us a little insight onto what phrases may be on those bingo cards?

Representative Britt Raybould, District 34 Idaho (01:21):

I did happen to see on one bingo card facts don't matter, which struck me as an interesting bingo spot, second Amendment precedent. What else was that popped up on there? There's just a few, but there are definitely phrases that we all end up using in our debate on a more than regular basis, and so it makes for pretty easy pickings when you want to play bingo.

Brennan Summers, Main Street ID Executive Dirctor (01:41):

Oh, that is fantastic. We give Representative Wheeler a hard time with how often he references CTE.

Representative Britt Raybould, District 34 Idaho (01:47):

Well, in fairness, representative Wheeler CTE is incredibly important and so I'm all for bringing that up whenever the opportunity presents itself.

Brennan Summers, Main Street ID Executive Dirctor (01:56):

Yes, we agree. We're big fans of career technical education Now representative, last time we spoke, you were gearing up towards the session. We were able to talk about a lot of things you were hoping to accomplish. Now as you mentioned March Madness, the session in theory is drawing to a close as you prepare to end the session. If you had to grade the legislative session based on efficiency, what would you give it?

Representative Britt Raybould, District 34 Idaho (02:20):

Well now Brandon, you're painting me into a corner. I've got to talk about how things are going and things aren't quite done yet. I think this session's been a struggle when you want to look at how effective we've been at getting things done, and I think in large part it's because there isn't consensus on some of the bigger issues. So for instance, if we're talking about potentially redoing the funding formula for our K through 12 schools, we haven't reached consensus on that, and yet we still need to ensure that we're fully funding our public schools and that requires us looking at not only the 330 million that was passed during the special session back in 2022, but also accounting for the fact that there are just fewer support units that are in the formula. So there's the possibility that it's going to look like we're sending out less money to our school districts, but in reality we just have had a shift in what public schools look like. And that's really put some pressure on the need to update that funding formula

Brennan Summers, Main Street ID Executive Dirctor (03:12):

Is the hope that next session or even before the end of this session, that consensus will be found on some of those issues.

Representative Britt Raybould, District 34 Idaho (03:20):

I want to applaud Superintendent Critchfield. She spent a significant amount of time with a working group during the interim last time and they worked through a lot of things and they pulled together a lot of really important data to help us better understand how we can support students within these districts. I am optimistic that we are getting closer. We've had a lot more of the unknowns addressed and answered. Now it becomes a case of how do we best put it together to get to a solution.

Brennan Summers, Main Street ID Executive Dirctor (03:45):

Yeah, my Bingo card is full of applauding Debbie Critchfield. We're huge fans of her and whenever she's on the podcast, she updates us on all things that education related. Now you have a reputation with your colleagues as being somebody who does her homework and that isn't afraid of digging into the policy and to the details and to the data. And would it be safe to say that you love policy and tolerate politics?

Representative Britt Raybould, District 34 Idaho (04:10):

No question. Policy is the area where I'm most comfortable in large part because there are so many opportunities to figure out solutions. I don't think there's such a thing as a one right answer when it comes to policy. There's a bunch of different ways that we can look at a problem and come up with solutions, and that's part of what makes policy so powerful and so important. There's these avenues that we can get to areas of common ground and we can work together. I think there's this misconception that sometimes it comes down to, oh, well you guys, you can't agree on anything and well, no, we have agreement about where we want to go. The disagreement often lies in how we get there and that's where those policy discussions become really useful.

Brennan Summers, Main Street ID Executive Dirctor (04:51):

We think most of our listeners view a lot of what's done through a lens of politics and policy tends to be what a lot of what you are doing. Walk us through the balance of why the politics is so important to get the policy done.

Representative Britt Raybould, District 34 Idaho (05:09):

Well, politics matters because I can't assume that the priorities in every district mere my district. And so if I'm thinking politics, that's what it comes down to is what are the priorities for my fellow legislators in their districts. Sometimes those priorities line up with my own, but a lot of times they don't. And so if I'm proposing a policy solution that doesn't fit within the politics of another district, then it's going to make it hard for me to get those 36 votes I need in the house. So that's why paying attention to the politics matters is that I have to have respect for the fact that there are different needs that each legislator brings to the table. And by being responsive to that, I increase the likelihood that I can gain support for the policy initiatives that I care about.

Brennan Summers, Main Street ID Executive Dirctor (05:48):

Yeah, I like that a lot because a Madison County Republican doesn't necessarily look the same as a Coney County Republican or an ADA county Democrat.

Representative Britt Raybould, District 34 Idaho (05:57):

Yeah, that's the reality of it is that we all have our own districts that we're representing and the politics allows us to help navigate to that point where we can find agreement.

Brennan Summers, Main Street ID Executive Dirctor (06:07):

When you've made it a priority in your political career to stay in touch with what those priorities are in your district and you keep in close contact with whether it's your mayor or your superintendents and then your town halls and just the everyday neighbors and voters, what are a few of the things that the voters in Madison County really want accomplished in Boise?

Representative Britt Raybould, District 34 Idaho (06:28):

So for Madison County, we've had significant growth and one of the questions that comes up on a pretty regular basis is help us figure out a way to pay for growth in a sustainable way that doesn't put the burden on the people who are already here. So there's a lot of discussion that circulates within our local officials about this idea of how do we reach some sort of solution that provides us with a local option tax. Now, I haven't yet seen a particular proposal that I think makes a ton of sense, particularly from a statewide perspective, but I appreciate those discussions and what our local officials are bringing to the table on those issues. Just today we had a meeting with our local Chamber of Commerce. They brought questions to the forefront about, well, what's happening over there? Can you give us a little bit of insight into how this legislation might impact our county?

(07:11):

Can you help us have a better understanding of where this is at in the process? So for example, house Bill four 15, which was the piece of gun legislation that involved concealed carry within Idaho schools. It passed the Idaho House, it went over to the Senate and there were negotiations about making some changes to that. That would've created a provision for local schools to come up with their own plan that would've allowed for training and some other amendments to that. It ended up getting held in committee. That's an issue that was brought to our attention by our locals that they indicated they had some concerns about and wanted to provide us with feedback. And today I was able to go back to them as part of that conversation and get them up to speed and give them additional insight into where that bill sits, that kind of back and forth, that exchange, that engagement. That's what our locals are counting on from us, from their elected officials because they can't be over here in Boise. We've got to do our part to get that information back to them.

Brennan Summers, Main Street ID Executive Dirctor (08:04):

Yeah, it's so refreshing when feedback doesn't just exist during a campaign, doesn't just exist when it comes time to beg for votes. And so I love the communication that happens with thoughtful legislators. Now, a lot of what you're able to deliver for your community largely comes from your work on the committees. So you serve on four committees, correct?

Representative Britt Raybould, District 34 Idaho (08:25):

Technically three. So one of my committees is a joint committee, the Joint Finance and Appropriation Committee, and then I'm on resources and conservation and then the Environment Energy and Technology Committee.

Brennan Summers, Main Street ID Executive Dirctor (08:37):

Okay. Now how much of your workload of that, how much of that time is spent on J FAC or the appropriations committee?

Representative Britt Raybould, District 34 Idaho (08:46):

I would say probably half to two thirds of my time is JAC related. And then as far as the additional work, it's not so much the committees themselves, it's any additional legislative work that I'm involved in. So for instance, tomorrow morning I'll have two bills up in House Health and Welfare. They both deal with the foster care system. One of 'em deals with creating some sideboards around the short term stays that have been happening at Airbnbs for foster kids. The stories that we've heard come out related to that have just, they've been troubling. I mean, that's the kindest thing I can say about them. And there's legislation that addresses that and requires the director of the department to be much more heavily involved in the decision about kids ending up in those situations. And then the second bill and one that I just think is absolutely vital for protecting kids in Idaho involves the creation of an ombudsman office for health and social services.

(09:39):

And we're starting with the foster services as being the individuals who can file complaints. This office is independent of the agency. It's funded using dollars that we will have moved from the agency itself along with ftp. So it's a net neutral in terms of what the cost is to the state, but it's for the first time individuals who are in the foster care system are going to have an avenue that they can pursue for independent review of complaints that are related to whether they are a child who is a recipient of foster services, they're in the foster care system, they're foster parents, their biological parents. The stories I have heard where whether it's the child in question or the foster families or any of the other individuals involved in the process, and they feel like there's not only retribution if they complain, but there's clear evidence that in some instances children are being removed from homes. When foster parents stare speak up and they're told that because of the complaint they'll never have a child in their home again. It is both alarming and just absolutely heartbreaking to hear the stories from these families. And I am just absolutely thrilled that there is an avenue available through this legislation to help give them some redress for their grievances.

Brennan Summers, Main Street ID Executive Dirctor (10:53):

I mean, as I've been following this issue, it just seems radical that this hasn't already existed as a reasonable check on the system. Is Child Protective Services concerned about this legislation?

Representative Britt Raybould, District 34 Idaho (11:08):

No one from the agency has come and spoken with me directly. I think if I had to guess in some respects, I think it does remove some of the burden from the agency to take this out of an internal agency action. While they may feel that they're operating in the best interest of the child and doing their job to the best of their ability, putting them in the position of being both judge and jury and also the executioner in terms of carrying out these actions that carries its own burden. And so by separating out this particular piece of the process, we're frankly putting them in a position where they can just focus on doing their job and not only doing their job, but doing so in a way that meets both the intent and the spirit of the law. And I would hope that knowing that there's going to be independent eyes looking at their actions, give them pause when they start to make some of these decisions and say, what am I really doing? What's in the best interest of the child?

Brennan Summers, Main Street ID Executive Dirctor (12:01):

And for those listening that haven't dealt with the foster care system, these are just the most vulnerable little souls that they're dealing with. And the goal is to reunite families in a healthy unit. But when that's not possible, adoption comes. But none of this is done quickly. And I guess what you're doing here is key in helping whatever the process ends at ensuring that these kids are protected throughout that process. Representative tell us

Representative Britt Raybould, District 34 Idaho (12:27):

An obligation. I mean, that's just ultimately it. The state has an obligation to these kids.

Brennan Summers, Main Street ID Executive Dirctor (12:31):

Yeah. Where do you see the legislation moving?

Representative Britt Raybould, District 34 Idaho (12:36):

Well, like I said, it has a hearing in a house committee tomorrow. It's already passed through the Senate with only four no votes on the floor. I am going to choose to be optimistic that my colleagues will see the need to protect kids and to ensure they and their foster families have a way to make sure that they're protected in the system.

Brennan Summers, Main Street ID Executive Dirctor (12:53):

Look at you being optimistic. I love that.

Representative Britt Raybould, District 34 Idaho (12:55):

Can't help myself when it comes to doing good for kids and families.

Brennan Summers, Main Street ID Executive Dirctor (12:59):

Agreed. That'll be a fantastic one that we'll look forward to the governor signing when the day comes. Let's circle back to your work on JAC with these budgets. Where are we at? Are we getting close to being all done?

Representative Britt Raybould, District 34 Idaho (13:12):

So we're really close. I anticipate that by next week we should have most of the main budgets set. Now, once the main budgets are set, there may still be a need for us to meet as a committee to do what we call trailer bills, which is the funding that follows with any legislation that passed during the session that also requires funding. But in terms of the big standard budgets, everything should be set by next week. At least that's the current schedule and plan.

Brennan Summers, Main Street ID Executive Dirctor (13:38):

Okay. Is launch teed up to be funded for This

Representative Britt Raybould, District 34 Idaho (13:42):

Launch came through the jfa committee with a 16 to four votes. It came through clean. There's no language attached to it. I have every confidence that the legislature will meet the obligation that's currently on Idaho's books and will fund this program separately in the Senate. There's a piece of legislation moving that provides a clarification around the definition of what an in-demand career is. I think that will go a long ways to helping address some of the concerns that I've heard raise that somehow we're not really dialing in on the kinds of students and careers that we were talking about when we initially debated the program. This basically puts in place the ability for the Workforce Development Council to build out a matrix. That matrix takes into account the length of the program, the need for the program, the transferability of skills. We would be funding any careers that required a Master's degree or more in order to be considered a career,

Brennan Summers, Main Street ID Executive Dirctor (14:32):

Which is nice because advocates of Launch, like you aren't just writing a blank check and saying, Hey, let's just hope launch works, but you're following it. Having accountability, ensuring that what it was intended to do is what it does. And if it doesn't do that, then I mean already we're making adjustments to make sure rather than just scrap the whole program, ensuring that it accomplishes what the policy was designed to do. That's great.

Representative Britt Raybould, District 34 Idaho (14:54):

Yeah, exactly. I mean, it's an iterative process. I want to see the data. I want to see what comes out of this year. I want to see how many students who not only applied for the program and received money, where are they at a year from now? Are they still in their program? What's their progress look like? And the more information that we can collect inform as part of this process, the better we are going to be able to refine launch to ensure that it's meeting the intended need.

Brennan Summers, Main Street ID Executive Dirctor (15:16):

Okay. So on my Bingo card for you representative is of course, I want to see the data. We know that you are known for not being afraid of numbers and being a data-driven legislator. As you're in a unique seat on the Joint Finance and Appropriations Committee, you deal with a lot of data. Are there data points that you see that kind of spark your interest, whether they excite you about the future of Idaho or concern you about what's coming? What have you seen data-wise that you think Idahoans should be aware of?

Representative Britt Raybould, District 34 Idaho (15:49):

When I'm looking at the numbers, the things that I'm paying special attention to are how our economies diversifying. So agriculture has played a critical role in our state, and I anticipate that it will continue to do so going forward into the future. But I can ignore the fact that technology continues to play an important role as does healthcare and as does education. These are all elements that contribute towards a diversified economy for our state and frankly just ensure that we have a strong economy overall. So I'm looking at that piece. I'm also looking at the demographics of what's happening in our state. If I'm concerned about ensuring I've got a workforce, what matters to me is whether or not I've got work age individuals in the state. There's quite a few people that have decided that for their retirement, they want to come to Idaho and be in Idaho.

(16:33):

And that's fantastic and I welcome them with open arms. But ultimately we're going to have to ensure that we have enough work age individuals who are here to provide the services to ensure that we are able to meet the demands as there's increased population. So I'm tracking those demographics very carefully. And I'm also looking at when we're talking about state revenues and what those numbers are doing, are we keeping up when new people come into the state? That means that there's going to be increased demand. If we're talking about young families, that means ensuring that there's enough access in the classroom. If we're talking about older Idaho Idahoans, it's ensuring that there's access to good roads and safe communities so that they feel like the thing that they came here for is being maintained and looked after. All of these pieces come together and help paint a really complete picture of what our state needs going forward. And I think we have to be really careful to not get focused on any one thing and just ensure that we're taking all of those pieces when we're making decisions for the state,

Brennan Summers, Main Street ID Executive Dirctor (17:30):

Which is a hard balancing act because you talk about diversifying the economy, which you just made a very clear and wise argument of why we need to do it. But also as the former president of the National Potato Council, you're also a strong advocate for making sure we don't lose our agricultural roots. And we're all very familiar with what Rexburg and Sugar City do for feeding the world. So what are you doing in the legislature to ensure that the family farmers can still continue to keep it?

Representative Britt Raybould, District 34 Idaho (18:02):

I think there's some important legislation that moved through this session. Representative Raymond put together a grazing management act that ensured that we would have the framework available to us that we could support when the funding is available projects to protect our grazing lands. There was another bill that went through that addressed some of the concerns that have happened about agricultural land being converted for development purposes. And the questions around how easements are managed and how those lands get converted, the ability for us to stay in touch with our heritage while at the same time acknowledging that change is happening, I think matters. And that's why you also saw some water legislation moving through just today. In fact, I carried a piece of legislation that dealt with ditch easements. Why do ditch easements matter right now? Well, if I'm someone who's using my ditch to convey water to where my property is, I've got to make sure that that route remains unimpeded and clear.

(18:56):

And as development increases to come up next to these ditches, we've got to maintain the easement for the purposes of not only the maintenance of the ditch itself, but ensuring that the water flow remains unrestricted. And the legislation I carried today cleaned up what was frankly antiquated language and ensured that the water user still has the ability to go in and maintain access to their water because of prior language in in the law. It was meaning that some of these situations were ending up in the courts when they really didn't need to be because the access needed to be maintained. So things like that, maintaining access to our resources, ensuring that we're staying on top of things and being proactive in that regard. That's how we maintain our agricultural heritage is that we not only engage with what we have now, but we look down the road to the future to make sure we can continue it.

Brennan Summers, Main Street ID Executive Dirctor (19:47):

And I think this brings up an interesting point because you don't lend yourself to necessarily the trending issues on social media. There are a lot of social issues and cultural issues that eat up a lot of oxygen in the room that are absolutely going to take the headlines. Ditch easements is not one of them, but I mean I understand and I think most do, but why don't you speak to the fact of why you choose to take on ditch easements rather than the most evocative issues that might not move the needle?

Representative Britt Raybould, District 34 Idaho (20:18):

I think the state legislature is the form of government that is genuinely, I won't necessarily say closest to the people because that's your city councils, your county commissioners, but if I'm comparing the state legislature to what goes on in Washington dc, the things that we do in this building on a daily basis have the greatest likelihood of having an impact on your or anyone else's life in a more direct way than anything that happens in Washington dc. And so from that standpoint, I weigh my actions and where I invest my time and energy from the perspective of is this going to have a net positive impact on the lives of the people I represent and everyone who lives in Idaho? And that's where I invest my time and energy is focusing on those issues that I know will have a meaningful difference in people's day-to-day lives.

Brennan Summers, Main Street ID Executive Dirctor (21:02):

Well, and we know that one issue that has constantly come up, it actually goes back to when we first spoke a few months ago, you talked about how to be a fiscal conservative. You have to invest money at the right time so that you're paying for things before they become too expensive. And how it's this strange dichotomy that sometimes spending money is actually the best way to save money. And we're seeing that with what governor Little wants to do with school facilities. I imagine you're a pretty big fan of what he wants to do to update some of these antiquated facilities.

Representative Britt Raybould, District 34 Idaho (21:39):

I think about the stories we've heard from some of these school districts and the workarounds that they've had to put in place to address the fact that they have facilities that are years, if not decades behind the curve in terms of where they're at in comparison to other buildings in the community. And the frustration that I hear from folks about their inability to ensure that they've got working HVAC systems, that they've got enough space for students that they have to keep bringing in modular units to make sure they've got space. I understand the frustration because the only avenue that the legislature has left open for school districts to fund school facilities is through property tax. And what did we hear all last session long? What was I want lower property taxes. So we have this conflict and this tension between this is the avenue that's available to schools for funding their facilities, and yet at the same time, they know that their patrons are frustrated with the rate of property taxes.

(22:36):

And so 5 21 does present an avenue a formula to help alleviate some of that. Now, I want to stress House Bill 5 21 does not solve the school facilities problem. It just doesn't. The reality is is that for most school districts, the cost to bond for a school will not be covered by the funds that they'll receive through 5 21. So I think the legislature needs to stay engaged. We need to continue working the problem and figure out how we can help some of our school districts, particularly in our rural communities that have struggled to bond for new schools, figure out a way forward that doesn't place all of the burden through the property tax system.

Brennan Summers, Main Street ID Executive Dirctor (23:18):

Well, that wasn't the most optimistic, but it's a step in the right direction.

Representative Britt Raybould, District 34 Idaho (23:23):

And this is the thing about government that I think people sometimes lose sight of. We don't swing for the fences all the time because frankly that's not very practical. Instead, we come in and we take it a bite at a time, and the idea that forward progress is somehow not good enough because it didn't get us all the way there. I think that's why people end up getting so frustrated is they think how it should be. And instead, this is just the normal way of going about fixing things, right, is you take it one step at a time, you take the progress you can get, and then you come back and you keep working towards that next step in the process. The only time you're losing is if you refuse to believe that you can't take that next step.

Brennan Summers, Main Street ID Executive Dirctor (24:04):

Yeah, step by step incremental improvements. We love that. Now let's talk about something that could prove problematic. You've said you have concerns with the joint resolution four related to elections. I don't think that's on a lot of people's radar right now. Why don't you briefly just give us some background on what this resolution actually does.

Representative Britt Raybould, District 34 Idaho (24:26):

So as some of you may know, there is an initiative circulating that would put rank choice voting on the ballot. This proposed constitutional amendment would also appear on the ballot if it had gained enough support. And what it would've done is essentially removed the mechanism that drives rank choice voting. Now, the resolution itself specifically calls out elected offices, but it also included judicial elections. And I don't think most people know that we handle judicial elections differently than we do other elections. First, they're nonpartisan, which means no judge runs under a particular party banner. And second, the way that it works is that if there is a challenge, so however many candidates run for a judicial seat, they appear on the May primary ballot, and then if an individual doesn't receive a majority vote in the May primary, then the two top vote getters advance to the November general election.

(25:26):

And the reason that that process is in place is to ensure that a majority vote is required in order for a judge to end up sitting on the courts. Now, I personally think that's really critical, right? We can't have judges ending up on the bench with just a plurality of the vote and the way the amendment was worded is it would have allowed for that outcome. And so a number of others voted against the amendment not because of any strong opinion on rank choice voting, but because of that particular piece that included judicial elections in this process, because we've got a really great system currently in place for the election of judges, and it doesn't require special elections, it doesn't require runoffs. It just basically says in May and November we're going to ensure that for judges to end up on the courts, they will have had to have secured a majority vote. And so for that reason, I said I couldn't go there regardless of what it may have meant for other elections as it related to rank choice.

Brennan Summers, Main Street ID Executive Dirctor (26:24):

Yeah, there's some good background there. And is that, where does that exist right now? You voted against it. Is it in the Senate?

Representative Britt Raybould, District 34 Idaho (26:31):

So for a resolution that's a constitutional amendment. To end up on the ballot, it has to secure two thirds vote of the body in both the House and the Senate. It fell short of securing that two thirds majority in the house. And so for now, that resolution has been set aside.

Brennan Summers, Main Street ID Executive Dirctor (26:48):

I love all that we get to learn. It's like being back in government class, but a little bit more engaging. So that's helpful.

Representative Britt Raybould, District 34 Idaho (26:53):

Hopefully a little more interesting than high school government.

Brennan Summers, Main Street ID Executive Dirctor (26:56):

It's a little bit, I'm at least paying a little bit more attention now. Representative, we've covered a lot of policy. We've talked a little bit about politics, but I want to get personal now if that's okay. Since we talked last, somebody who's been a great mentor to me and you had passed away and everybody who in eastern Idaho who's dealt with anything in the Republican party, interacted with Bob Jones. And Bob and Carmelita have been strong advocates, veteran of foreign wars and a number of other things. But because he was just such a larger than life figure in Madison County, I wanted to give you a little bit of time to talk maybe about Bob and what he was able to do to you as a legislator, but also to so many in the community who are going to be listening to this, who knew and loved him.

Representative Britt Raybould, District 34 Idaho (27:41):

So Bob Jones was the guy who was always at a Republican event. First there was something scheduled, you'd show up. Bob was already there. And oftentimes the reason Bob was there is because he had arranged for an honor guard in order to do the flag presentation. Bob felt really strongly about the importance of honoring our nation and doing so in a way that did it justice. And so Bob was often the guy who made the effort to get folks there to ensure that there was the right procedure and process in place for that to happen. And along with that, he always brought just such a high level of enthusiasm to everything. One of his common phrases when you greeted him was, it's a beautiful day in Rexburg, or it's a beautiful day in Madison County, and you of course adapted it based on where he was at and just his utter belief in the ability for there to be good in the world set Bob apart.

(28:41):

He was one of the first people that I spoke with when I decided to run for office back in the day. And he was supportive, but he was also very blunt. And I could always count on Bob to give it to me straight. And I have so much appreciation for him and for his wife, Carmelita. It was a loss. Bob meant a lot, not only to the community, but I think to the state, given all the work he did for veterans. He just was one of those people who I think woke up in the morning and just said to himself, what can I do to make the world better? And Bob went and did it.

Brennan Summers, Main Street ID Executive Dirctor (29:15):

Yeah, and one of just the many greats. I think there's something in the water up there because not only has Madison County produced the Bob Jones' and your grandfather Del Rebel, but people that have mentored me like Kimber Ricks and there, there's just so many good people coming out of there. As you think about your legacy representative, Ray Bold, what is it that you hope when somebody long after us is on a podcast talking about how Representative Raybould is no longer with us, are the things you hope they say about you?

Representative Britt Raybould, District 34 Idaho (29:44):

Oh man. I think, I hope they say less about me and more about what I showed them could be done. I hope people look at the time I've spent over here and see the value, understand that there is a direct benefit to taking the time to serve in a position like this, and that it matters for our community to have someone over here speaking up. I hope at the end of the day, I've done justice to my district and to my community, and that they feel like I have represented them in a way that, well, they may not agree with me on every issue. They can, at least in the spirit of things say yes. She stood up for us when it counted the reality of this job. And I think about this often in the hallways, there's pictures of prior legislators and they're arranged by the term that they served.

(30:31):

And you walk down the hallway and you see these legislators from going clear back to the early 19 hundreds. And it is a reminder that we are all here on a very temporary basis because I look at some of those names and until I get up to the 1990s, I can't tell you that I really recognize a ton of those people. And so it's a lesson in humility to see that there are plenty of people who have come before and there will be plenty of people who come after. And the only thing that we can do right now is manage for what can be done in this moment and represent our best selves and represent our districts to the best of our ability.

Brennan Summers, Main Street ID Executive Dirctor (31:13):

Yeah, very well, very well put. We know that you are busy and you still have a lot more work to do in Boise, but you are chomping at the bit to get done and to get back to Madison County representative Ray Bold out of District 34 loves policy tolerates politics. That

Representative Britt Raybould, District 34 Idaho (31:28):

Sounds great, Brendan. I appreciate it. Thank you so much for the time.

Brennan Summers, Main Street ID Executive Dirctor (31:32):

Thank you.

Shaping the Future Through Education, Agriculture, and Conservation

Main Street Town Hall Episode 11—Representative Jack Nelsen

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Our first time guest, Representative Jack Nelsen from District 26, joins us from the Boise Capitol to share his current role in the Idaho Legislature. Executive Director and host, Brennan Summers, learns how Nelsen is actively impacting Idaho law in education, agriculture, and conservation. Nelsen also gives his insight into center-aligned politics in a polarized political bubble.

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Brennan Summers, Executive Director Main Street ID (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 the Main Street Idaho podcast. I'm your host, Brennan Summers. We're here with a first time guest out of District 26, representative Jack Nelsen live from the Boise Capitol. Jack, give us some adjectives today to describe the legislature.

Representative Jack Nelsen, District 26 Idaho (00:28):

Absolutely never a dull moment and every time you think you might be a little bit bored, you need to think twice because you're missing something quite the privilege to get to do it and it's, my gosh, the mental drain on you through the day is just trying to stay up with everything. It's quite the challenge

Brennan Summers, Executive Director Main Street ID (00:52):

And you've got not one, not two, but three committees you sit on and three pretty important committees in education, agriculture, affairs and conservation and resources. So maybe briefly just tell us some of the big stuff happening in those committees.

Representative Jack Nelsen, District 26 Idaho (01:08):

Well, issues really dear to my heart that came through education and the whole, it's not just through education, it's come through lots of people in the capitol, but that's simply the launch program launch to my constituency I think is probably one of the more important things that we've done. This is the first time that to me, the trades have gotten any respect at all and being able to put up a scholarship program for kids that come out of high school and they want A-C-D-D-L, this is the perfect avenue to get for them and I really like the launch. I think it pays 80% of the cost. There's a little skin in the game, 20%, so I am expecting huge things. I think the first round of launch 300 and some kids from Mike legislative district applied for it, so it's super important to the people in the trenches in my community, healthcare, all the trades, truck driving, things like that. This is kind of the first time legislation with scholarships has really addressed those people. I was, for six years, I was a board member of the College of Southern Idaho. A really neat portion of the college is their career technical education from welding to you name it, all the things that they do and to me that's a really important part of a community like the Magic Valley that we've done to actually support them.

Brennan Summers, Executive Director Main Street ID (02:46):

Yeah, we talked with Representative Wheeler last week and his favorite three letters are CTE. Right. And as you mentioned, career technical education. Help us understand why career technical education is getting so much attention right now and why it's so important to representatives Wheeler, you other people

Representative Jack Nelsen, District 26 Idaho (03:07):

In a general view. I think the respect and everything has gone to bachelor's and master's and doctorates and maybe those are all really important, but maybe they got a little bit overhyped here and they've certainly become overcharged. You look at in just a manner of speaking, you look at all the people that have huge debt, college debt that they can't pay. To me, that's a little bit of what you paid for. Yeah, you got took because you can't make cashflow payments on your debt and it's, I think now maybe taking a little bit of focus off of degrees and putting it on skills. For me that makes really good sense. When you're operating system and a food plant gets the flu, you don't really care what credentials the person that fixes it has. You just want the thing fixed, and same with when you want your personal computer fixed.

(04:05):

I've never gone in and just, well, what are your credentials? Either they can fix it or they can't. So launch is really important and it's certainly not an issue of money. Some of these trades now are out paying degree jobs and if you click on really for user, for ease of use if you're a student or a parent, if you click on the launch site, it's the Workforce Training Council is the supervising agency, but on the first click it shows what are in demand jobs, but click on the second one and it shows you what the average wages in Idaho for those jobs and everybody should do what they love, but if you love something that simply doesn't pay, maybe you could look at a profession that's beside it that would be just as good for you.

Brennan Summers, Executive Director Main Street ID (05:03):

Yeah, I should probably get on there, Jack, my modeling career is not paying what I thought it would, so we may need to start over and I'll end up in a food processing plant making a lot more than I would be as a model.

Representative Jack Nelsen, District 26 Idaho (05:14):

Somebody might've led you astray there. Kids

Brennan Summers, Executive Director Main Street ID (05:16):

I got took, as you would say, right? I got took. So we love hearing about launch. We're excited. I think what can bring down the temperatures of a lot of people is the idea that we're going to look at how this plays out and it's got an opportunity for some changes based on what we need to change. This is a first time thing, so we're all excited. We know you've been a big advocate of that, so that's eaten up a lot of space in the legislature. You're also, as I mentioned, sit on agriculture affairs and you've got an interesting background in ag, you know your way around the farm and a pitchfork in hay. Talk us through some of the issues you're wrestling with in that committee.

Representative Jack Nelsen, District 26 Idaho (05:55):

From a real general sense, I've always thought of Idaho as a really ag centered state. You look at Southern Idaho Magic Valley, Eastern Idaho ag is quite a driver in our communities. You come up to the legislature and there really aren't very many people that have spent their life in production agriculture. It's crazy how important it is to our communities and everybody means really well in the legislature and they try really hard, but there's a little bit of a difference I think if you grew up around ag or you actually didn't, and it's just a little bit different perspective up here than I would consider down in the Magic Valley.

Brennan Summers, Executive Director Main Street ID (06:40):

Well, and you're kind of a die breed in the legislature. There was the day where it was a lot of cowboy boots in committee and now we have the Senator Harris's and we have the Burton Shaws and we have the Raymonds and the Nelsens, and there's a few of you still left. Why is it so important that there are people who have had firsthand experience in agriculture helping draft the policy that affects our farmers and ranchers?

Representative Jack Nelsen, District 26 Idaho (07:11):

Not to degrade anybody, but just the way the general public looks at all the ag issues is kind of what's been fed to you on your social media account. And we all know social media is wonderful, but sometimes social media really doesn't have its roots in the truth or what makes things happen, and it's hard to just keep pulling things back to a really ground level view of how that affects us and stuff.

Brennan Summers, Executive Director Main Street ID (07:41):

Yeah, we get that. It's an issue where Idaho, so much of Idaho's economy is dependent on agriculture, which means that so much of the issues you wrestle with in the State House is dependent on agriculture. Do you think that our policies headed in the right direction when it comes with protecting family farms and ensuring that Idaho can still feed the world?

Representative Jack Nelsen, District 26 Idaho (08:04):

That is so hard. I spent 20 years on a Jer County planning and zoning commission, and I guess the good way to describe growth in Idaho has been pretty much urban sprawl. We've splattered people out all over the place and real production agriculture, it always loses every time somebody lives next to an ag operation, whether it's time of day, smells, chemicals, all the things that are tools that production ag has to have. Nobody really likes living around them. They were all sure when they moved out there, man, I got to get out there in the countryside. Well, when they get there, they're not so sure. They like some of those uses and it's really hard to get the two sides and they both need respect, but how you get those together without doing a lot of damage to ag.

Brennan Summers, Executive Director Main Street ID (09:03):

Well, you talk about urban sprawl and how things have changed. I think now is a good time to pause and go back to the beginning. You grew up in the Wood River Valley. Now people have heard of the Magic Valley, the Treasure Valley, the Snake River Valley. Probably the average Idahoan may not have heard of the Wood River Valley. Walk us through where it was that you grew up and what it was like.

Representative Jack Nelsen, District 26 Idaho (09:26):

Well, I'm a third generation northeast of Jerome Farmer dairy farmer, but I was lucky enough when I was a kid, I had a grandmother that lived up by Easley. It's about 10, 15 miles north of Ketchum. She lived up there in a cabin all summer and we were lucky enough to get to go and visit my grandma. That's kind of where I picked up my fishing sickness on the big wood up there, learning to fish and just appreciation of love for everything up there. But since I was just a little kid, I've been on the farm and working, grew up doing that.

Brennan Summers, Executive Director Main Street ID (10:07):

I'm sure the farm's changed in the last few years since you started on it in terms of technology, in terms of workforce and how they've managed all that. As your community evolves, as it grows, as it changes, what are the things that concern you in how you represent them in the capital?

Representative Jack Nelsen, District 26 Idaho (10:28):

It's hard because everybody has a little bit different view of what should happen depending on their background and what they do. It's interesting the community of drone having an ag base all my life now, one of the main drivers economically are the food processing plants. Drones lucky enough that Trus beef has built a plant there. We've got large dairy processors and it's a whole different steady stream of jobs for people and input to the community that there really wasn't there for a long time. I think I'd also add I think the world of my community and I'm a huge advocate of local control and it's always been hard for bedroom communities that house the workers, if you will, and everybody drives somewhere else. Jerome, for most of my life, my opinion has been a bedroom community. If you weren't working on the farm, you drove to Twin or someplace to work and that dynamic has changed a bunch now and you can see it in the ability of the local organizations to fund the things that they want to do.

Brennan Summers, Executive Director Main Street ID (11:40):

And your deep love of your community has been seen since really you hit the campaign trail. I know when elected, you said it was your priority to build meaningful connections with your constituency and once in the Capitol you made a comment about how you were going to leave ideology at the door and that your number one job was to represent your community. But we hear about ag and we hear about production and everything going on in district 26, but you have a very interesting constituency that you represent. You won in what might've been the closest election by less than a hundred votes. You beat your democratic opponent by what did such a close election tell you about how your community wants to be represented?

Representative Jack Nelsen, District 26 Idaho (12:28):

Well, if it ever wasn't there, I think it was, but humility I'd say wears well on everybody and our Jerome Lincoln Blaine or Blaine Lincoln Jerome, our communities by their voting record, it's just about did he between R's and D's, the only guy who lost on less votes than me was my Democratic Ned Burns who sits in the other seat from District 26. I think I won by a little over 80 and Ned won by a little over 30. So it tells you that our community, they see things a lot differently and what's really on the people's mind in Kechum and Sun Valley might not be what's on people's minds in Valley and Dietrich.

Brennan Summers, Executive Director Main Street ID (13:18):

So a lot of your constituents aren't going in blindfolded and just checking donkeys and elephants. They're looking at the issues and they're looking for somebody that they know who's going to represent them. How do you gather enough information to know that your constituency is not just incredibly homogenous and that they say, this is exactly what we want and every time we want it now you go do it and we'll be okay? You've got a little bit more complicated of a job.

Representative Jack Nelsen, District 26 Idaho (13:47):

Personally, I think everybody ends up being you're balancing your constituency with what your basic beliefs are. I always have loved that saying that we're spending someone else's money. It needs to be done transparently, reasonably and very carefully, and I've taken a few pretty lonely votes. I have a hard time voting for a law that's a cookie cutter from across the nation. It's in core everywhere. And to jump in there and say, man, we got to pass this in Idaho and spend a bunch of hard earned tax dollars. From my view in court, if you will, coupled with that as a really strong belief in local control that it's been a little bit of an issue for me personally of where you come down on it in the community. Up in Blaine County, the Blaine County School Board has not had public testimony coming through Covid.

(14:48):

They went to a written policy and the school board is really, they like it on the other side. I've had a bunch of people in the community talking to me, they think that's bad news that a public board simply doesn't allow public testimony. A bill started in the Senate. I asked if I could be a sponsor on it and simply to help get to be in the kitchen, if you will, and help from the idea to get with the bill. That doesn't really do harm and I think it's headed for the house now or excuse me, it's headed for the for the house floor. It came through the House committee and the hard part, I'm torn both ways. You have to respect your local community. If an issue is, it can be decided just as well in a county commissioner or a school board meeting as it can be decided on the floor of the house. I think we should stay out of that. This one, the bill, it's hard for me as local control guy to vote for this, but I like it. It doesn't say how you have to do it. It just simply gives the local board a little bit of a nudge that you need to have some testimony by your community.

Brennan Summers, Executive Director Main Street ID (16:10):

Yeah, so we've seen on a national level, a lot of politicians who find themselves somewhat in the center, their center left or center right, they're kind of bowing out of politics because the primary system makes it really difficult for somebody who leans to the center to be able to win in a primary race because the primary intrinsically favors more base core voters. Do you ever fear that you're becoming more and more extinct because you're not a deep red ideolog or you're certainly not a blue Democrat As you lend to independent thinking in the legislature and take what you describe as lonely votes, does it weigh on you that you may not have a path forward?

Representative Jack Nelsen, District 26 Idaho (16:56):

Of course, it weighs on everybody, but frankly, I'm going to run, I'm running for reelection. I filed the other day, but I didn't come up here to be a career politician or to do what? One side or one group that rates people on. Oh my gosh, we're going to give you a bad rating. I'm kind of a knock yourself out kind of guy. I vote with my community and my beliefs and the voters will have to sort that out. But you're right, a closed primary, it tilts the vote one direction, and then in my district you open it up to a general election and it absolutely tilts it the other way. So unless it's tomorrow, I probably won't die in office. But it's quite the privilege to get to do this

Brennan Summers, Executive Director Main Street ID (17:43):

And at the end of the day, it will be your community that decides whether or not you get rehired. And that's the beauty of democracy is you get to represent them and you get to represent the votes. Now, I had to make sure I got through the three Ls in this interview. So you'll notice number one was launch. Number two was local control, and number three is Lava Ridge. So speaking of issues that are important to your community, so many in your constituency has been very vocal in opposition of the Lava Ridge Wind Project, but there are some in Idaho that probably aren't familiar with it at all. Can you briefly tell us what is the Lava Ridge Wind Project and where are you at on the issue?

Representative Jack Nelsen, District 26 Idaho (18:22):

I'm adamantly opposed. I co-wrote and co-presented through the house committee, house floor and Senate committee. The resolution that we passed last year of how anti lava ridge we were, and in my perspective, the community should be really upset about this. From my view, it's being rammed down their throat with absolutely no consideration for the impacts on the local community. If you own a business and these small rural communities and they're going to bring in 2000 temp workers for a couple of years and then pack up and leave, we don't have places to live now or can afford the places that we have, what in the world is going to happen then little school districts that graduate maybe 30, 40 kids, what do you do when here's 40 kids shows up, show up at the door and in a year or two they're all going to be gone.

(19:22):

It's just all these issues and maybe the I'd like to circle back with you and do one, possibly get one of Representative Simpson's reps here on your program. But Representative Simpson put a writer on a budget bill and it passed the house and the Senate, and I believe President Biden signed it. So it says that the BBL M has to come back, talk to the local community and then report back to Congress. And the thing that would help my community the most is the guidelines of what's fair to comment on and whatnot. If you haven't been around the desert very much, most people look at desert and just say, ah, it's that old ugly sagebrush desert. Frankly, a lot of us down there, we really like our desert looking Sagebrush Desert Lava Ridge project. If there weren't federal incentives behind it, my opinion is it would never have shown up to be a project.

(20:24):

But the original proposal was 400 windmills that are the largest, I think about the largest they have to put on land 400 and or 570 feet. We have a restaurant in twin elevation 4 86. It's 486 feet I believe, above the canyon floor. So if you dropped one of these windmills in the canyon beside the Prine Bridge, there would still be over a hundred feet of windmills sticking up above the Prine Bridge to go in and put 400 of these in four to 500 miles, excuse me, four to 500 miles of roads that they're going to put in. They have to blast holes about 45 feet deep for concrete to anchor the things. If you've been down there, I guess the easiest example would be if you drive north out of Shoshone, there's a bowling alley on the north end, and right beside the bowling alley is this huge air bubble back in the day that popped, if you will, when this country was setting up the yellow tone.

(21:31):

Blowtorch geologically we're a pretty young substrate or land down there north of Jerome. If you drill wells, it's almost a flip of the coin. Are you going to hit a layer of senders and have to case the well down or are you going to just be able to get away without doing that? Canal companies blasting canals and altering, they've had to go in and replace a bunch of domestic wells. If you've ever served on planning and zoning for my opinion, when the approved stamp goes on something you don't walk in later and say, oh, by the way, here's a problem that you caused. We'd like you to fix it. Well, of course local citizens can go to court, but unless it's actually in the permit that if the aquifer has issues that the company would've to be responsible for it. So those are kind of some highlights and I think the grumpiest part is just walking right over the top of the locals and assuming this is going to happen, the Japanese internment camp minidoka out there, all the people that relatives, there's still a few survivors that were interned there, and the disrespect of slapping those right up next to 'em just could really, the challenge would be in my community to find anybody that is for Lava Ridge.

Brennan Summers, Executive Director Main Street ID (23:01):

Yeah, I was going to say there may be somebody in the state is for it, but I haven't heard from him. And Congressman Simpson has certainly on the DC level, been doing everything he can to pull funding and to kind of halt the brakes on that one. But again, it goes back to your point of local control of what's going up in your backyard and how the local have a say. Now we know you're pretty busy representative, but we have a tradition here we got to end with. Everyone that comes on the podcast gets asked two of the toughest questions. The first question is, if there was one book that you've read in your lifetime that you would recommend to our listeners, what is a book that you could recommend?

Representative Jack Nelsen, District 26 Idaho (23:38):

Boy, that's tough. I

Brennan Summers, Executive Director Main Street ID (23:40):

Told you they were tough questions.

Representative Jack Nelsen, District 26 Idaho (23:41):

I have a sickness of fishing I some fly time books and some websites would be really great, but maybe the one that made the biggest impact on me was probably Fever in the Heartland. It goes back to the age of the Ku Klux Klan in the upper Midwest and what led to the fall of the clan, if you will, why it went sideways and how many people bought into something that later they were pretty ashamed of.

Brennan Summers, Executive Director Main Street ID (24:13):

Yeah, that's a Timothy Egan. Great. We love his books have been recommended a lot by your colleagues over there. I thought you were going to say River runs through it, but we'll take fever in the heartland. That's a good one. Now the second question might be a little easier in your district, beautiful district 26, I'm driving through there, what's one place you'd recommend I need to stop and grab something to eat?

Representative Jack Nelsen, District 26 Idaho (24:36):

I'd say without picking one out in particular, I'd get in tons of trouble on that, but we have some of the neatest Mexican restaurants that have wonderful food anywhere. It's always sad when I travel and somebody says, Hey, we got this great Mexican restaurant. So we go in there and it just simply doesn't compare with the neat choices we have in Jerome. So absolutely all of our restaurants, we don't have a lot of tourists coming through Jerome, if you will, and for a place to be in business, they have to have great food. The flip side is quite the opportunity to go up to Kechum, sun Valley and all the vast array of restaurants that are up there. So I'll step around that as a politician. That

Brennan Summers, Executive Director Main Street ID (25:25):

Was a really clever step around,

Representative Jack Nelsen, District 26 Idaho (25:28):

I'm a certified seafood guy. If I see it, I pretty much eat it.

Brennan Summers, Executive Director Main Street ID (25:34):

I love it. So you got Mexican food a little bit better than Taco Bell and some other great classics representative. We really do appreciate your time. We've talked about everything from Launch Local Control, lava Ridge, and everything in between. So we appreciate what you're doing there. We're going to have you back once this session winds down and ends, and we can talk about everything that was accomplished and what you're looking forward to in an upcoming session. But until then, we wish you well.

Representative Jack Nelsen, District 26 Idaho (25:59):

Thanks for all that you do. It's quite the pleasure to be here.

Brennan Summers, Executive Director Main Street ID (26:03):

Thanks, representative.

The Values and Visions Shaping Idaho

Main Street Town Hall Episode 10—Representative Josh Wheeler

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Representative Josh Wheeler from District 35 comes back for another episode with our host and Executive Director, Brennan Summers. Josh breaks down his own core values and motivations for leading in the Idaho Legislature, as well as his own efforts to pass provisional licenses for internationally trained physicians.

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Protecting Idaho’s Borders

Main Street Town Hall Episode 9—Representative Kenny Wroten

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Joining us from the Idaho State Capitol is Representative Kenny Wroten from District 13B. Wroten comes straight from the Judiciary Rules Committee to talk about the latest topics affecting Idahoans. Among them, human trafficking through Idaho borders, the enactment of fentanyl mandatory minimums, and potential concerns for school choice tax credits.

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Idaho’s Success

Main Street Town Hall Episode 8—Senator Treg Bernt

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Senator Treg Bernt from District 21 returns for another round of legislative updates from the Senate floor. Bernt walks us through his daily routine at the capitol building, the current bills he’s supporting within higher education, and his advocacy for updated school facilities throughout Idaho. He continues to break down the continuing success of the Idaho LAUNCH program and a behind the scenes look at legislation to come.

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