Boise Democrat wants to return to Idaho Senate. Here’s the Statesman recommendation
Democrat Ali Rabe is seeking her second Senate seat, but this isn’t a reelection campaign. Rabe moved out of her previous legislative District 17, where she was elected to the Senate, and now lives in District 16.
She is running for the open District 16 Senate seat being vacated by retiring Sen. Grant Burgoyne, a Democrat who is endorsing Rabe.
We share Burgoyne’s endorsement of Rabe, who proved to be a capable senator in her short time in office.
Rabe’s opponent is Republican Dennis Mansfield, who declined to interview with the Idaho Statesman editorial board because, he complained, it wasn’t a live, public debate. We encourage live, public debates, but editorial board interviews are just that: interviews. The Statesman won’t endorse a candidate who will not interview with the editorial board.
Rabe is uniquely qualified to continue her work in the Senate.
Rabe, a lawyer, is the executive director of Jesse Tree of Idaho, a nonprofit organization that helps renters avoid eviction and homelessness.
Her experience and knowledge in this field put her in an ideal position to work on legislation surrounding one of Idaho’s most pressing issues: affordable housing.
Before she left the Senate in November 2021, she worked on a plan to use $50 million in federal coronavirus relief funds to create a workforce housing program to provide gap financing for affordable housing projects. That funding was approved in the 2022 session.
She also introduced a bill that would have required rental fees to be transparent and reasonable.
She secured two Republican cosponsors for the bill, which passed the Senate, 26-8-1, but failed in the House.
Rabe, whose mother was a schoolteacher in Middleton for 30 years, also lists public education as a top priority.
She said she would push back against efforts to defund public education and the vilification of librarians.
She favors raising the homeowners exemption to bring relief to residential property tax payers and expanding the state circuit breaker program that offers property tax cuts to senior citizens, homeowners with disabilities and veterans.
As a Democrat in a Republican-dominated Legislature, Rabe said she’d find ways to work across the aisle, particularly with moderate Republicans, just as she did in fighting against a permanent ban of medical marijuana in Idaho, removing specific language in her bill on rental fees, creating the workforce housing fund and fighting against further limits on the circuit breaker program.
“I have learned to make friends with everyone first,” Rabe said of lessons learned from her time in the Legislature.
She pointed to her experience growing up in rural Middleton in a “mixed-political-view’‘ household as training grounds for working with Republicans on “real problems.”
“I’ve learned to get to know people, despite their political views and to build relationships,” she said. “And then from there, finding common ground and our values and things that we believe in and then also just being able to have really frank and tough conversations, which are a lot easier if you have that foundation.”
Rabe said she would have voted in favor of House Bill 1, the education and tax cut package approved in the extraordinary session in September, even though she didn’t approve of the corporate tax cut, personal income tax cut or the flattening of Idaho’s income tax.
She supports a repeal of the state sales tax on groceries and is opposed to the constitutional amendment allowing the legislature to call itself back into session.
Rabe doesn’t support legislative restrictions when it comes to the decision on whether to have an abortion, and her voice will be important in the debate on what Idaho’s abortion laws should be.
Voters in District 16 should send Ali Rabe back to the Senate.