Dear Friends, The news cycle moves fast. A legal victory one week becomes old news the next. An arrest that took months of investigation gets buried under whatever controversy dominates the headlines. I understand that. But I also think you deserve to know what your Attorney General’s office accomplished this year, even if some of […]
How Idaho’s Fiscal Discipline Collapsed Idaho policymakers face an uncomfortable question: how does a state transform a $496 million surplus into deficit projections within a single budget cycle? The answer reveals fundamental weaknesses in fiscal oversight and political incentives that govern public spending. Idaho’s experience offers a case study in how even traditionally conservative states […]
There are always two sides to a story. Such divergence of opinion on one story has surfaced between one former Idaho legislator, and one current legislator. Sen. Glenneda Zuiderveld posted an article, Understanding the IACI Endorsement, discussing the Idaho Association of Commerce & Industry (IACI) and its political influence over elected officials and policy. In […]
Last February there was an apparent coordinated effort to disrupt a Republican Town Hall event featuring local legislators. The guests were advised by me and the Master of Ceremonies that good behavior was expected and that people who refused to respect the rights of others would be removed from the venue. Despite the warnings, the […]
How big a mess? No one really knows, because those running the bureaucracy—and those supposed to cover it in the press—have shown remarkably little curiosity about what is happening inside our state government. The LUMA accounting system, for example, has been associated with serious implementation problems, including duplicated payments and delays in reconciling transactions across […]
As we hear the cry from many Americans about how unaffordable America is, we need to ask ourselves how this came about. Well, I would suggest that opening our borders and allowing 10 or 15 million illegal aliens to migrate and scatter to every congressional district in the country has caused a serious strain on […]
Dear Friends, Last month, our entire office gathered at the Idaho State Capitol for our annual Office Wide Meeting. Every November, we bring everyone together to look back on the year’s work and recognize the people who made it happen. My Chief of Staff Phil Skinner kicked things off with updates from every division on […]
IDAHO FALLS, ID — Attorney General Raúl Labrador recognized Detective Jared Mendenhall of the Idaho Falls Police Department and Detective Korey Payne of the Bonneville County Sheriff’s Office for reaching 100 combined arrests through the Idaho Internet Crimes Against Children (ICAC) Task Force. The milestone represents years of investigations protecting vulnerable children from online predators across […]
Reprinted with permission of the Idaho Freedom Foundation It’s no exaggeration to say that Idaho taxpayers spend millions of dollars every single day on wasteful and sometimes unconstitutional state-run programs. The Idaho Freedom Foundation’s (IFF) goal is to find and eliminate as many of these programs as possible. To this end, the IFF has submitted recommendations on […]
Don’t you love Election Day? I’ve always enjoyed watching the returns come in, digging into the numbers, and seeing what’s happening beneath the surface. Like any sporting contest, every Election Day has winners and losers. I’ve been on both sides. Winning is certainly better than losing, but anyone willing to put their name on the […]
You know, I think I’ve traveled more in the three and a half years since I was elected chair of the Idaho GOP than ever before in my life. In that time, I’ve visited nearly every county in Idaho—sometimes crossing from one end of the state to the other in the course of just a […]
Idaho is growing faster than most of us can keep up with. New subdivisions appear almost overnight. Cities expand their boundaries. State lawmakers celebrate population increases as a mark of success. Growth has become the headline. But in the middle of this boom, something deeper is being forgotten: the difference between growth politics and governance. […]