The Idaho Supreme Court earlier rejected a lawsuit from 10 individuals and the Idaho Republican Party seeking to toss independent candidate Rex Rammell off the ballot for the state’s open U.S. Senate seat, offering a speedy ruling as counties were about to print their ballots…
2nd District Congressman Mike Simpson said today that his vote for the financial bailout bill was “not to protect the fat cats on Wall Street, but to help Main Street by stopping the decimation of saving and investments, and the inability for businesses to borrow…
The House has killed the $700 billion bailout bill on a vote of 206-227. It's not clear what will happen next.
Idaho Sen. Mike Crapo voted against the big appropriations bill in the Senate over the weekend, after touting the millions in North Idaho research projects that he helped get included in the bill. Crapo released this statement: “Congress has once again failed to fulfill its…
Gov. Butch Otter has ordered a 1 percent holdback in the state budget, cutting $27.3 million mid-year. "Acting in moderation now is the prudent and fiscally responsible thing to do," the governor said at a news conference. He ordered state agencies to hold an additional…
Independent Senate candidate Rex Rammell is going after Republican rival Jim Risch again over Risch’s order to kill elk that escaped from Rammell’s elk farm in 2006, when Risch was governor; he's already filed a civil lawsuit. “The attorneys have just stumbled onto some law…
Idaho U.S. Senate candidates Larry LaRocco and Jim Risch weighed in on the national financial crisis yesterday, LaRocco calling a press conference and detailing his favored solution and Risch, in Washington, D.C., responding by phone to questions from a couple of Idaho reporters.LaRocco, a former…
Matt Ellsworth, campaign director for Jim Risch’s U.S. Senate campaign, had this response today to the Idaho Democratic Party’s FEC complaint against Risch: “This is a desperate act of a desperate party with a candidate who is 28 points behind. When voters are turning away…
And in yet another poll, yet another result: Daily Kos has published a poll of 400 likely Idaho voters in the 1st Congressional District, taken Sept. 17-18, that found GOP Rep. Bill Sali leading Democratic challenger Walt Minnick, 46 percent to 35 percent; here’s a…
A Pocatello man has been sentenced to 45 days in jail, $21,450 in fines and restitution and 10 years probation for poaching, plus he’s lost his hunting and fishing privileges for life. Russell D. Mee, 53, was sentenced for illegal killing and wasting of deer,…
Rex Rammell, independent candidate for the U.S. Senate seat now held by Larry Craig, has released further results from a poll he commissioned in late August in the race, in part to dispute a national Rasmussen Reports automated poll on Sept. 9 that showed Republican…
Deputy Idaho Secretary of State Tim Hurst confirmed this morning that 1st District state Senate candidate Lew Langness isn’t on the ballot, having withdrawn in a June 18 letter to the Secretary of State. “We made a mistake and didn’t take him off the database,…
Wayne Hoffman, campaign spokesman for 1st District Rep. Bill Sali, confirms that the footage used in Sali’s new campaign ad – the incumbent’s first television spot of the campaign season, though his Democratic challenger, Walt Minnick, has been blanketing the airwaves for seven weeks –…
Lew Langness of Bonners Ferry was a little surprised to get queries about his stands on issues and why he’s running for the state Senate against Sen. Shawn Keough, R-Sandpoint, because, Langness said, “I’m not really a candidate.” Lew’s wife, Linda, the Boundary County Democratic…
I’ve gotten a few questions from people wondering why any Idaho candidate who’s a Republican would be interested in cross-party support, since the R’s hold such an overwhelming advantage in the state (“Candidates tout cross-party support”). Here’s why: There’s no political party with which a…
Gov. Butch Otter says he's "hoping for the best" - that a mid-year budget cut won't be necessary after all. But, he said, he wants to be prepared for cuts if they're necessary. State agencies have until next Wednesday at 10 a.m. to get him…
With Gov. Butch Otter poised to order his first mid-year cut in the already-approved state budget, here’s a look at the most recent such holdbacks ordered by Idaho governors: 2003: Gov. Dirk Kempthorne ordered a 3.5 percent holdback on all state agencies except public schools…
Both candidates for North Idaho’s seat in Congress are now saying party labels don’t really matter, after Democrat Walt Minnick released a list of 60 “Republicans for Minnick” and GOP incumbent Bill Sali named a Democratic county commissioner as one of his campaign co-chairmen. “We…
There was good news and bad news on the financial front for the state Land Board this morning. On the positive side, the state made $8 million on timber harvests on state endowment lands in August, one of the highest August levels in the last…
Idaho’s top state officials, meeting as the state Land Board, have voted unanimously to auction off the state office building that now houses the Idaho Public Utilities Commission’s offices, along with two other tenants. The office building, called Central Washington Place, is at 602 N.…
Gov. Butch Otter’s office issued this statement this afternoon on two controversial personnel rule changes his administration imposed on Aug. 24:“The changes detailed in the temporary rule represent responsible stewardship of limited taxpayer resources and are consistent with best management practices in any large organization…
Two different polls were released yesterday in Idaho’s U.S. Senate race, the hot race for the open seat created by the retirement of Sen. Larry Craig. But the results were so different as to suggest they were for different races.Independent candidate Rex Rammell released results…
Idaho state employees who become seriously ill and go on disability now will be laid off after 12 weeks, rather than the previous six months, the Otter Administration has decided. The unilateral change in rules for state workers, one of several implemented by Gov. Butch…
Here’s a link to the video of today’s arguments in Idaho Sen. Larry Craig’s appeal to the Minnesota Court of Appeals to withdraw his guilty plea in an airport men’s room sex sting, and here's a link to my full story in today's Spokesman-Review. In…
Attorneys for Idaho Sen. Larry Craig have just finished urging a three-judge panel of the Minnesota Court of Appeals to let Craig withdraw his guilty plea to disorderly conduct charges in a 2007 airport men’s room sex sting. “He looked in the crack. … He…
News, happenings and more from the Idaho Legislature and the state capital.
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