"We're not some radical nuts" Really?

Gail Collins, New York Times:  “About 10 percent of a state legislature is composed of people who are totally loony. This is in a good state. It’s possible that in yours, the proportion is much, much higher. That is probably something to worry about, but not today.”

I’m willing to wager the Collins’ number for Idaho is a bit off. I’ll leave coming up with the actual number to you. It could be a fun drinking game.

While Sen. Monty Pearce (R-New Plymouth) suggests “We are not some radical nuts out in some left-wing field that are off base,” let’s look at what our state’s finest have going on these days.

The Pearce comment refers to the Idaho Legislature’s effort to ignore federal law, the Affordable Health Care Act, through “nullification.” Nullification was cast aside, in part, through a little squabble called the American Civil War where our nation confirmed that we are a union of states rather than collection of separate entities. The bill sponsors insist on ignoring this and moving forward despite a strong ruling from the Attorney General and an actual risk that passage would require Idaho sending buckets of federal money back to Washington.

How about ethics? A state legislator who openly refuses to pay taxes, but I bet still takes his state paycheck and health care (and not incidentally swipes state timber), is cleared by his colleagues of ethics violation because he gave up a vice chairmanship. In a new definition of irony, who gets punished in this funhouse mirror drama? The legislator who raised the ethics charge did.  He lost a committee seat.

How about teachers? I’m not going to defend the status quo with Idaho education because that’s what produced many of the folks in elected office right now, but there is a clear problem when teachers, the people most likely to serve as role models for our children, are so deeply devalued by government.  Without any question, the Idaho employees I know working hardest are teachers.

How about DEQ?  Okay, I’ll grant you many at DEQ are working as hard as any teacher as they try to deal with near utter contempt from many legislators and a budget on vapors.  Now a member of the “regulated” world has handed them legislation saying ‘this is how it will be.’ At least the lawyers will have jobs.

I don’t want my comments here to belittle the massive challenge our public servants face every day, with budget meltdowns and all.

But there is also some really crazy stuff going on. And they are not done yet.