Charlton Heston played one of his most effective cameo roles in Idaho - and it wasn't in a film.
Heston, who died Saturday at 84, was a critical figure in Idaho's Right to Work law, approved by voters in 1986 after the most expensive ballot-measure campaign in state history.
Heston's TV ad in support of a law that weakened union membership ran for five months.
"It really did get people's attention," said Lorna Auld, co-chairwoman of the campaign. "His voice was so memorable and for him to stand there like Moses and say, 'This is what I believe,' was good for us and good for Idaho."
Jim Kerns, then president of the Idaho AFL-CIO, disagrees about the policy impact. But Kerns said Heston peeled blue-collar voters away from unions and helped affirm the Legislature's enactment of Right to Work in 1985.
"He solidified the conservative base of people that in one pocket carried a union card and in the other pocket an NRA card," Kerns said. "I think he made them choose whether to stick with their union or go with him."
Gary Glenn, who ran the Right to Work campaign, said a post-election poll found Heston the most influential figure on either side of a $3.8 million campaign.
Glenn said Heston "deserves much of the credit for the fact that today, no Idahoan can be discriminated against and fired merely for choosing not to join or financially support a private labor organization."
Right to Work prohibits "security agreements," barring unions and employers from agreeing to collect dues as a condition of employment.
Since Right to Work, union membership in Idaho has fallen from about 1 in 10 workers to 1 in 20, contributing to the decline of Democrats and sparking an unresolved debate about the economic impacts of the law. Idaho has been among the fastest-growing states, but per-capita income hasn't kept pace.
More than 20 states have Right to Work laws, often bitterly fought over at great expense by business and labor.
There's no disagreement Heston boosted Right to Work forces. He appeared at Capital High School in Boise 17 days before the election, and a 30-minute excerpt of his visit played on TV across Idaho.
"He was a rallying cry for the hard core," Kerns said. "He gave them something to cheer about and momentum coming into Election Day."
Kerns said union forces almost landed their own celebrity - rock star Bruce Springsteen - in the final days. "We had him really close. That would have been the counter in embroiling the labor base."
Instead, Heston had the field to himself, and the referendum backing Right to Work passed 54 percent to 46 percent.
But Heston's relationship with Idaho didn't end. In 1992, he cut another TV ad, this time for Glenn, who was running for the U.S. House against Mike Crapo. Crapo won the open seat and is now in the U.S. Senate.
Heston's leadership of the NRA made him popular with Idaho voters. He helped Sen. Larry Craig, an NRA director, raise money for Craig's last campaign, in 2002, appearing at Craig's birthday party at Tree Top Ranches in Parma.
I met Heston in 2000, when he was the keynote speaker at the Idaho Republican convention in Pocatello and decried the "Orwellian tyranny" of the Clinton administration.
Republicans gave Heston a giant gavel as a souvenir, which his longtime spokesman, Bill Powers, has in his office still.
Powers is a graduate of Capital High and BSU and worked for the Idaho GOP and the NRA. It was Powers, speaking on behalf of the Heston family, who announced the Oscar-winner's death to the world Sunday.
Now a consultant in northern Virginia, Powers said Heston wasn't just a celebrity dabbling in politics. Public life was a critical piece of a complex personality. "I really believe he was destined to fulfill iconic roles, on screen, in the political scene and in the cultural scene of this country."
After the Pocatello speech, Heston appeared in Idaho Falls with his wife, Lydia, where they performed A.R. Gurney's "Love Letters." Before the play, he spoke with me, wearing NRA-logo socks and flashing his famous ice-blue eyes. Heston walked with a bit of a limp and showed some of the shakiness that two years later prompted him to disclose he had symptoms consistent with Alzheimer's disease.
Heston was a far more complicated man than many detractors believe. He helped integrate lunch counters in Oklahoma City in 1962 and marched with Martin Luther King Jr. in 1963; led the Screen Actors Guild in the 1960s and helped integrate Hollywood technical unions; advocated preservation of rivers; and fought for federal arts funding when Republicans took over Congress in 1995.
Perhaps most important of all, he urged us to respect differing views and challenge our assumptions.
"Dare to consider both sides of an issue and find the courage to question authority ... even Charlton Heston," he said during his Idaho visit in 2000.
Profound advice, I say, even if it hadn't come from the man who played Moses.
Dan Popkey: 377-6438
