U.S. Sens. Mike Crapo and Jim Risch addressed the Idaho House and Senate today, with both proclaiming that the Trump Administration is being successful in Washington, D.C. in pressing a conservative agenda. “I spent most of the last 10 years fighting against bad ideas that I thought were harmful to the country,” Crapo said. “I’ve spent the last 14 months fighting for things that I think are good for the country.”

However, Crapo said that in the U.S. Senate, “I don’t know that I’ve ever seen it more contentious and partisan. I believe it’s an effort primarily focused to stop the Trump Administration from even standing fully up, let alone achieving its agenda.”

Crapo said much of the Senate’s floor time is being taken up with fights over appointments, leaving little time for legislation. “It is becoming a real problem,” he said. But he said as chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, he’s working on major, bipartisan legislation – with 13 Republican co-sponsors and 13 Democratic co-sponsors – to reform the Dodd-Frank law on regulation of the financial industry. “There are many Republicans and Democrats that are … working in a bipartisan way on issues that we can find common ground on,” he said. Crapo said he hopes the bill will come up for a Senate vote in the next month, “as Mitch McConnell tries to figure out a way to fit it in between nomination votes.”

Risch said he tells folks in Washington, D.C. that they ought to bring the Idaho Legislature back there. “They’ll straighten this thing out in 30 days if you turn them loose,” he declared.

Risch enthused, “President Trump in his first year in office had a year in office that would be the envy of almost every president that has ever served. You don’t hear that in the news.” He pointed to the appointment of Neil Gorsuch to the U.S. Supreme Court; the tax-cut bill that passed and became law; and “energy independence – we are now going to be able to drill in ANWR (Alaska National Wildlife Refuge). We’ve been after that for 45 years,” he said. Risch also boasted that the administration has been repealing lots of regulations. “We’ve made substantial progress in getting rid of the regulations that really have been causing difficulty for American businesses,” he said.