It ain’t easy being a Democrat in the Idaho Legislature | Opinion

Do you know how easy it is to serve in the majority party of a state legislature? I do, because I didn’t.

That is, I served in the Republican minority for eight years in the Illinois Senate, where I saw how relatively easy it was for a member of the majority party to get a favorable vote on a bill out of committee.

Ever think about what it must be like to be on the other side of the aisle, in the minority party? Unlike Idaho’s small Democratic minority, my minority party status was only a couple of seats away from taking the majority. When it’s just a few seats that separate the two parties, the majority is more likely to concede to the minority, knowing the majority could be the minority in the next election.

That is not the case in Idaho. The state Senate has 35 members, only six of whom are Democrats. The Idaho House has 70 members, only nine of them Democrats. That stark difference between two opposing views of how Idaho should serve its citizens doesn’t appear to be in for much of a change.

The Idaho Statesman recently reported from voter registration data and the Boise State public policy survey that Californians moving into Idaho will add to the Republican majority. Over 17,000 Californians moved to Idaho in 2023, the most recent year tracked by U.S. census data, and they are mostly conservative. About 77% of registered voters in Idaho who were previously registered in California were Republican, and 65% of Californians moving to the Gem State since 2015 identified as Republican.

Just showing up for work each day as a Democrat in the Idaho Legislature requires an inner strength of mind and spirit, knowing that what you and your constituents believe in and what you stand for can be negated by the whims of the majority, just knowing that your remarks on a bill up for a vote can be ignored all too often with the Republican majority in charge.

Serving as a Democrat elected to the Idaho Legislature is cut out only for people dedicated to good government and devoted to protecting citizens likely to be harmed my powerful majorities — who too often do not give a hoot about pleas of compassion and justice for those less fortunate.

Then there’s the sloppy factor. Overwhelming majorities, as we’ve learned from the experience of the Republican-controlled U.S. House of Representatives, often overplays its hand and engages in lawmaking that caters to the ultra-rich and hurts so many others. (The Big Beautiful Bill comes to mind.) It takes a loyal opposition to catch the pranks congressional Republicans will play to make nice with those special-interest lobbyists who fund their campaigns.

The majority party in any legislature, federal or state, also constructs committee membership to guarantee that the minority party remains just that — a party lacking the votes to advance a bill to the chamber’s floor for a vote of the entire body.

That task is even more difficult in Idaho given, that Democratic members are such a small percentage of the legislative body. In 2022, House Speaker Mike Moyle, R-Star, cut the number of Democrats serving on the Joint Finance and Appropriations Committee (JFAC) from two to one.

Once the votes are counted, the only protection Idahoans have from measures that attack personal freedoms and hurt Idaho’s most vulnerable citizens is Gov. Brad Little. He makes occasional half-hearted attempts to stave off the very worst of the right-wing’s legislative victories, but he is limited by his interest in getting reelected without a serious primary challenge from extremists.

Given how unlikely it is to slow down the Idaho Republican Party’s drive to the far right with the governor’s veto pen, it’s left to the Democratic minority voices in the Legislature to try to check the work of a majority increasingly influenced by the Idaho Freedom Caucus devoted to driving the party’s legislative majority to extremes.

One of the latest examples of enhancing the interests of those who least require special protection from a legislative body is the attempt by Rep. Jeff Ehlers, R-Meridian, to pass into law all of the tax deductions of the Big Beautiful Bill passed by Republican majorities in Congress last year and signed by the president.

According to a report by the Idaho Capital Sun, Ehlers claims the cost to the state budget to be $155 million, but Rep. John Gannon, D-Boise, pointed to estimates from other states, including an analysis of the nonprofit Tax Foundation, claiming heavier hits to the state budget.

So much of the Big Beautiful Bill was about special interest tax breaks for favored industries, but if Republicans keep harping about tax relief without explaining how the tax breaks go to the wealthiest among us, they will be playing one of the oldest and most deceitful tricks in American politics.

A politician of any partisan stripe knows that the call for tax relief is the surest way to winning an election. But tax relief comes at a cost to providing essential services to citizens, and that’s where the deceit comes in.

Over recent years, with the Idaho Republican Party calling for tax relief in every legislative session and taking credit for cuts to essential services, they pay little or no attention to the impact on the delivery of services. Then they issue the call for more state budget cuts, which are caused by their irresponsible and deceptive tax cuts in previous years, or their newest con game, handing out taxpayer dollars to private schools. And then claiming it won’t hurt public education in Idaho.

Kermit the Frog says it “ain’t easy being green,” but Kermit ain’t seen nothing yet. Wait ‘til he sees Idaho Democrats showing up for work each legislative day trying to defend our personal freedoms and defending a state budget about to mimic the Big Beautiful Bill that serves Idaho’s most powerful and wealthy interests.

Now that’s what “ain’t easy.”

Bob Kustra served as president of Boise State University from 2003 to 2018. He is host of Readers Corner on Boise State Public Radio, a regular columnist for the Idaho Statesman and a contributing columnist for the Chicago Tribune. He served two terms as Illinois lieutenant governor and 10 years as a state legislator.