Who is steering our conservative ship Idaho? Captain Bligh?
It is seldom that we see governors recalled, although two have been recalled successfully in U.S., with the most recent being Scott Walker of Wisconsin who was victorious in a recall election with the Mayor of Milwaukee. The second was Gray Davis from California in 2003 after he was blamed for the state’s electricity crisis and the overall economic recession and was not reelected. We believe with a strong grassroots push, it is highly possible to unseat Governor Little, who has proven by his actions that he is not the conservative leader Idahoans thought he was.
He is in fact a man who has taken sole control of our state with his emergency powers and has refused to reconvene the legislature during this emergency. These are not the actions of a conservative politician and we believe that the people of Idaho have seen him for the power-grabbing governor he really is. The federal government has given the state $1.25 billion for this COVID virus emergency to prop up our economy, but it is the governor who along with his unelected cronies will decide how that money is distributed. He had an opportunity to call the legislature back into session, but the thought of sharing the distribution of such a huge sum of federal booty was just not on his agenda. He instead brought in his “Own Team” of cronies to do this distribution.
There have been many opportunists who have governed Idaho, but in recent years the names Otter and now Little stand out as the most disdainful of the public trust. Do you remember the Wi-Fi scandal costing tens of millions or the CCA scandal costing millions more? How about the 25-cent per gallon gas tax passed at midnight or the renege on the repeal of the grocery tax? Both of these men had strong ties to IACI and the elite group that they represent in industry.
We do not blame these two leaders of our government for taking advantage of the people because that is what they were groomed to do. What we must look at is the electorate who put Otter in office for three terms and now have put his protégé Little at the helm of the good ship Idaho. Little took over after winning the republican primary by a mere 4.7% plurality in a three-way race with opponents Tommy Ahlquist and Raul Labrador as democratic candidate Paulette Jordan was no real threat to him in the general. Labrador was a proven staunch conservative who served three terms in congress while Ahlquist was a doctor turned developer turned gubernatorial candidate. Labrador should have been a shoo-in, but Tommy Ahlquist—a man who is still making up his mind who he wants to be—took many of Labrador’s votes away.
In any case, when you look hard at why Idahoans have been so tolerant with their lobbyist loving heads of state, one must ask the question, are Idahoans getting the real story from the media or just the parts that the media wants them to remember before the next election? We believe Idahoans are beginning to learn that their tax money is nothing more than a piggy bank for free-spending special interest groups who make up most of the problems we have in our state. This is why our legislators have been voting so poorly in favor of bills that will enhance the governor’s and their opportunities for reelection by using gobs of campaign contributions from lobbyists to destroy their opponents.
If this emergency power used by Governor Little doesn’t give every Idahoan a true picture of who he is, there is no hope for our future. When someone has the power to make decisions that change your life and he abuses that power, it is time to say STOP.
We have seen what our governor is like under pressure and it is not good, as he has turned to a group of advisors who were not elected by the people and accepted their advice in this crisis over that of our elected legislators. Instead of reconvening our legislature, he took total control of our state and became Idaho’s first dictator—calling for a shut-down of all non-essential businesses and telling citizens to stay at home and apply for unemployment insurance. Deciding which businesses were essential and which were not. Making life-changing decisions for many of our small business owners who will be hard-pressed to come back from this shutdown. Taking Idaho’s thriving economy with 3 percent unemployment to a soaring 11-plus percent in a matter of weeks. Keeping over 30 counties shut down while there were no more than 10 cases for over half of those counties and no cases for the others along with no deaths from the virus. If these are not reasons for recalling this governor, we don’t know what are.
The people of Idaho were deceived in the last election and have hopefully discovered a political wolf trying to hide as a proverbial sheep rancher. As we mentioned at the beginning of this article, we want you to think about the 1.25 billion dollars that the Federal Government has given Idaho to weather this economic storm. The big question is why the Governor hasn’t recalled the legislature to help in the distribution of this huge sum of money which is one-fourth of Idaho’s budget. Who will benefit and who will suffer from these decisions? We no longer have a representative government in Idaho; we have one man and his unelected advisors making decisions for our state and its people.
“We Get the Government We Deserve” and it is up to us to stop this abuse of power.
Recall Governor Little now. Sign the petition. Go here for information.
