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Cheers and Jeers: Disingenuous by Marty Trillhaase Lewiston Tribune, February 11, 2022

JEERS ... to Reps. Priscilla Giddings, R-White Bird, and Mike Kingsley, R-Lewiston.

Tuesday, they were among 15 Republicans who tried to pull Rexburg Rep. Ron Nate's personal bill lifting Idaho's 6 percent sales tax from groceries from the political coffin otherwise known as House Speaker Scott Bedke's Ways and Means Committee.

They're not wrong about the sales tax. Idaho is one of the few states that inflicts taxation on food, a cruel, regressive policy that hurts the state's working- and middle-class families.

But, as the Lewiston Tribune's William L. Spence noted Thursday, dragging a bill onto the House floor for a vote is challenging the power structure of Bedke, House leadership and the committee chairmen. It's doomed to failure. You don't have to like it. But that's the system and effective legislators learn how to work within it.

Unless, like these insurgents, all they care about is political theater. They want fodder for the upcoming Republican primary election.

Coating this political farce is a heavy syrup of hypocrisy.

Giddings and Kingsley must know better than anyone else Idaho no longer has $230 million to cover removing the sales tax from food. That ship sailed when the Legislature voted to hand out $600 million to wealthier individuals and corporations through income tax breaks.

Every Republican who played Nate's game -- including Giddings and Kingsley -- voted for that income tax cut.

So where would they find the money for a sales tax reduction? Are they proposing to freeze the public school budget?

How dumb do they think we are?

CHEERS ... to Lewiston City Councilor Rick Tousley.

What the city of Lewiston has to say about whether to breach the four lower Snake River dams will resonate across the state and region. So Tousley's right. There's no reason to rush it.

The process began Monday when members of Citizens for Preservation of Fish and Dams -- including Tribune columnist Marvin F. Dugger, Dick Sherwin and Dan Caldwell -- lobbied the council to endorse the status quo. However sincere they are about making their case, it's only one side. For instance, retired Idaho Fish and Game Department fisheries research biologist Steve Pettit and former Fish and Game regional manager Richard Scully have frequently challenged the veracity of the pro-dam lobby's scientific claims.

Moreover, Congressman Mike Simpson's $33.5 billion fish recovery plan has enormous implications for the Lewiston-Clarkston Valley, including money to replace lost hydropower production, build high-speed unit loader trains and assist the community and industry in adjusting to a free-flowing river.

Tousley wants to give Simpson or his representatives the opportunity to make the case for breaching.

If the city council truly wants to make a decision that is well-informed, represents a broader constituency and is credible, shouldn't it hear Simpson's side first?

JEERS ... to state Reps. Kingsley, Lori McCann, R-Lewiston, and Caroline Nilsson Troy, R-Genesee.

Monday, they put their own economic interests ahead of their constituents.

They joined a majority of House members in preempting the cities of this state from protecting Idaho renters from unscrupulous landlords.

In a tight housing market, some would-be renters are being gouged by excessive rental application fees. So the city of Boise imposed restrictions -- including a $30 cap on those fees and requiring landlords to make a unit available 30 days after they accept the fee.

At the behest of the Idaho Apartment Association, the House voted to strip Boise -- and every other city that may follow its path -- from doing anything of the kind.

Nevertheless, file this under IRA -- the Incumbent Retention Act.