It is past time for change in Idaho, and I am one of many who are trying to bring it.
Every district this year has at least one Dem legislative candidate. We don't want Rs running unopposed any more. My district has all three seats challenged! Myself, Letishia Silva, and Shana Tremaine are carrying the Dem flag.
The last time we had a Democratic governor in Idaho was 1995. There had been a 20 year period of Democrats Cecil Andrus and John Evans, and Idaho was a fairly sensible state overall, with some pockets of nutty especially up north. The lieutenant governor is elected separately from the governor, and was a Republican. Since then both have been Republicans.
In the current legislature the Senate is 28 R, 7D. The House is 59 R, 11 D. On that thin blue line rests what success we have eked out, of opposing bad bills, but rarely getting good ones. Citizens have passed initiatives to expand Medicaid (which the legislature did its best to stall and water down, but it went forward nevertheless) and to help fund education (which the governor called the legislature into special session to pass a bill to kneecap the initiative before it passed). We are currently working on an initiative to have open primaries and ranked-choice voting, since the Republicans closed their primaries and have tacked even more to the extreme right since then.
It is past time for a change. Thirty years of Republican governance have given us the worst funded schools in the country, constant attacks on our initiative rights, one of the most extreme abortion bans in the country, and growing extremism. It took a collaborative investigation from the Idaho Statesman and ProPublica, making a national issue of our crumbling school buildings, to shame the governor into calling for the legislature to fix the law. And what they have passed this session will barely make a down payment, and makes the inequality of rural and urban school districts still worse.
There are bills on the governor’s desk to misgender trans people and make libraries hide books in an “adults only” section (which most libraries don’t have and can’t easily build!) on the complaint of any one person. No review. They are trying to undercut our initiative rights practically every session. And they wouldn’t even hold a hearing on the harm their extreme abortion ban is doing, because Republicans got their feelings hurt when Democrats called them out on it. AWWWWW!
The longer one party holds power, the more unaccountable it becomes. Especially if it’s a party that really never wanted to listen to voters anyway.
As a protest sign in a recent diary said, “You Know It’s Serious When The Introverts Show Up.” Well, I’m showing up, along with many more Idaho Democrats, because it really is serious. I’m running for House seat 10A, challenging Mike Moyle, the current Speaker of the Idaho House. The legislative record is certainly full of ammunition.
My campaign website is parkerfor10.wordpress.com, and I am posting position statements as fast as I can now.
If you can help out, here is the link: secure.actblue.com/...