“I assume there are a lot of people who are celebrating that I’m not tax chairman any more,” said Sen. Jeff Siddoway, R-Terreton. Asked why he was willing to give up the chairmanship of the Senate Local Government & Taxation Committee to become the Senate State Affairs chairman, Siddoway said, “’Cause they asked me to do it, and I’m just a soldier.”

Siddoway has become something of a gatekeeper, not allowing various tax break bills to get past his committee if they’d endanger education funding. “Education was my concern,” he said. “The pro tem called me in the office this morning, he said they had considered a lot of different candidates to be the chairman of the (State Affairs) committee, and they would like me to do that if I’d accept it.”

“I said, ‘OK, but I’m reluctant to leave the chairmanship of the tax committee because I don’t want to get into cutting taxes more than we can afford, and still do what we have to do for primarily education, but all of our state agencies,’” Siddoway said. “I have no wish to grow government, but if we’re going to hire people to run our schools and teach our kids, we’ve got to treat those people properly, and to do that, we’ve got to have the revenues available.”

However, he said, “I have 100 percent confidence in Dan Johnson, who’s now going to chair the tax committee. I know that we have similar concerns.”

Senate President Pro Tem Brent Hill, R-Rexburg, said, “He’s been on State Affairs for several years now, and I didn’t have a Curt McKenzie any more.” McKenzie previously chaired the State Affairs Committee, a leadership-heavy panel that tackles hot-button issues ranging from abortion, gun rights and discrimination to liquor and gambling. “He’s had the experience in State Affairs. … We didn’t want to shake it up a lot.”

Said Hill, “He did not ask to switch, but he was very willing to – a lot depended on who was going to take over.” Hill added, “He was particularly concerned with public education funding. I think he felt much better about it since we put in the five-year plan … and the Legislature stuck with that plan. It appears the governor and Legislature are committed to go down that road.” Idaho is in the third year of its five-year plan to improve education; this year includes a $58 million bump to teacher pay to continue phasing in a new career ladder.

Siddoway said, “I am concerned about that. There’s no question that I blocked a lot of tax cut proposals, no question about that.” But he said often, his full committee was with him on those decisions.

Siddoway said he’ll still be a member of the tax committee, and will continue to be active on tax policy issues.