Eye On Boise

This is my last post here, but starting Monday, I’ll be blogging at idahopress.com/eyeonboise in my new position as Boise bureau chief and state capital reporter for the Idaho Press-Tribune and Adams Publishing Group. This blog – with its full archives going back to 2004 – will remain online, and I hope you’ll find it a valuable resource...

When six GOP candidates for Idaho’s open 1st District congressional seat faced off in the “Idaho Debates” last week, much of the fireworks – and the humor – came in the closing statements. First, Rep. Christy Perry, R-Nampa, lit into rivals Russ Fulcher and David Leroy...

U.S. Sen. Mike Crapo, R-Idaho, has admitted to federal election officials that he used a lobbyist-owned Washington, D.C., townhouse 81 times over a four-year period at no cost, including as recently as February. The new details from Crapo's re-election and leadership committees came in a response to a Federal Election Commission inquiry...

On tonight’s “Idaho Reports” on Idaho Public Television, I join host Melissa Davlin to discuss the events of the week with Idaho Statesman reporter Cynthia Sewell, Idaho EdNews reporter Kevin Richert, and Idaho Reports producer Seth Ogilvie. There are also clips from the four final...

After years of gathering annually at the National Interagency Fire Center in Boise to decry “fire borrowing” – the situation in which the Forest Service, each year, shifts millions from other programs when the costs to fight the West’s escalating wildfires balloons, thereby cutting prevention...

Idaho gubernatorial candidate Paulette Jordan labeled her Democratic challenger A.J. Balukoff as out of touch in their second and final televised debate on Monday. The 38-year-old Jordan's attack stemmed from 71-year-old Balukoff's promise to work toward eliminating the gender wage gap in Idaho — an issue that has become a priority for the Boise...

Idaho Republican gubernatorial candidates Raul Labrador, Brad Little and Tommy Ahlquist continued to exchange jabs Monday in an otherwise familiar primary debate that covered education, health care and prison reform. Little — a three-term lieutenant governor — maintained Gov. C.L. "Butch" Otter had successfully led Idaho out of...

Tommy Ahlquist, a GOP candidate for governor of Idaho, was endorsed by two prominent millennial Trump supporters today – Charlie Kirk, who was the millennial director of the Trump campaign, and Candace Owens, a conservative commentator and YouTube star who rails against the Black Lives Matter movement. “We have a disruptor in D.C. – now we need...

Former state Rep. Kathy Sims, R-Coeur d’Alene, is being removed from the ballot in her bid for a comeback in a Post Falls district, after the Idaho Secretary of State’s office determined that she had just registered in her new district in February. Under the Idaho Constitution, candidates for the Legislature must have been registered in...

Backers of the Medicaid expansion initiative announced today that they have more than enough signatures to get the measure on the November ballot in Idaho. “We are overjoyed by the outcome of this petition drive,” said Luke Mayville of Sandpoint, co-founder of “Reclaim Idaho,” the...