Challenges for Idaho Farmers

Podcast with Representative Jerald Raymond

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The agricultural industry has been a cornerstone of our state's economy for generations. However, as Idaho grapples with the challenges of a growing population and shifting values, the future of agriculture in the state hangs in the balance.

In this week’s NEW Main Street Idaho podcast, Representative Jerald Raymond explores the hurdles the ag industry faces, and the pivotal role that public lands and conservation efforts play in ensuring the industry's sustainability.

The agricultural sector not only provides employment opportunities for thousands of Idahoans but also contributes significantly to the state's revenue. As urbanization encroaches on rural areas, preserving the identity and traditional practices of agriculture becomes increasingly challenging. A significant challenge that the industry faces is the shortage of skilled labor. To ensure the sustainability of agriculture, there's a pressing need for education and career technical training programs that prepare young people for careers in farming and ranching.

Public lands in Idaho are a valuable resource for both agriculture and recreation. The multiple uses of these lands, from grazing to outdoor activities, necessitate a delicate balance to ensure sustainability. Farmers and ranchers depend on access to public lands for grazing, while outdoor enthusiasts seek recreational opportunities. Striking the right balance is crucial to maintaining the health of these lands and the industries that rely on them.

Addressing the challenges facing agriculture in Idaho requires a collaborative effort. Farmers, policymakers, and the community must work together to find innovative solutions to labor shortages, land use conflicts, and environmental threats. By fostering strong partnerships, Idaho can pave the way for a sustainable and resilient agricultural future.

The preservation of agriculture in Idaho is not just about safeguarding an industry; it's about securing the state's heritage for future generations.

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The agricultural industry has been a cornerstone of our state's economy for generations. However, as Idaho grapples with the challenges of a growing population and shifting values, the future of agriculture in the state hangs in the balance.

In this week’s NEW Main Street Idaho podcast, Representative Jerald Raymond explores the hurdles the ag industry faces, and the pivotal role that public lands and conservation efforts play in ensuring the industry's sustainability.

The agricultural sector not only provides employment opportunities for thousands of Idahoans but also contributes significantly to the state's revenue. As urbanization encroaches on rural areas, preserving the identity and traditional practices of agriculture becomes increasingly challenging.

A significant challenge that the industry faces is the shortage of skilled labor. To ensure the sustainability of agriculture, there's a pressing need for education and career technical training programs that prepare young people for careers in farming and ranching.

Public lands in Idaho are a valuable resource for both agriculture and recreation. The multiple uses of these lands, from grazing to outdoor activities, necessitate a delicate balance to ensure sustainability. Farmers and ranchers depend on access to public lands for grazing, while outdoor enthusiasts seek recreational opportunities. Striking the right balance is crucial to maintaining the health of these lands and the industries that rely on them.

Farmers, policymakers, and the community must work together to find innovative solutions to labor shortages, land use conflicts, and environmental threats. By fostering strong partnerships, Idaho can pave the way for a sustainable and resilient agricultural future.

The preservation of agriculture in Idaho is not just about safeguarding an industry; it's about securing the state's heritage for future generations.

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Brennan Summers, Executive Director Main Street ID:

Welcome to Main Street Idaho podcast, an opportunity to talk to Idaho's elected leaders about the issues that matter to you. Welcome. Welcome. We're here with Representative Jerald Raymond out of district 31, which is a big district.

Representative Jerald Raymond:

It is a big district.

Brennan Summers, Executive Director Main Street ID:

It's Tell us what counties that covers.

Representative Jerald Raymond:

So we represent Clark Fremont, Jefferson, and Lemhi Counties.

Brennan Summers, Executive Director Main Street ID:

Fantastic.

Representative Jerald Raymond:

In Eastern Idaho.

Brennan Summers, Executive Director Main Street ID:

So you didn't have too big [00:00:30] of a commute over here today?

Representative Jerald Raymond:

No, no. This was nice.

Brennan Summers, Executive Director Main Street ID:

It's not like driving to Boise. No, it's

Representative Jerald Raymond:

Not. It's not.

Brennan Summers, Executive Director Main Street ID:

But we appreciate being here. It's a

Representative Jerald Raymond:

Great district. I just want to tell you that. It is a great

Brennan Summers, Executive Director Main Street ID:

District. Yeah. A lot of good people. There are My roots come out of that district. Oh, really?

Representative Jerald Raymond:

Yep. I didn't realize

Brennan Summers, Executive Director Main Street ID:

That. So I want to start with the end here. We're going to go to, long after you and I are gone. You have 24 grandkids, correct? I do, I

Representative Jerald Raymond:

Do.

Brennan Summers, Executive Director Main Street ID:

I want you to think about the time when they're raising their grandkids, [00:01:00] their grandkids in Idaho. What concerns you the most about your grandkids future in Idaho?

Representative Jerald Raymond:

You know what my greatest concern is that Idaho will change. We have so many people coming into the state right now and good people. I'm not saying that they're not good people, but their ideas are different. Some of them are different than what we have experienced growing up. Having neighbors closer is different than [00:01:30] being spread out like we are now. So my major concern is that Idaho change.

Brennan Summers, Executive Director Main Street ID:

Well then let's flip it and have a little more optimism here. What excites you most about the future of Idaho when you think about the world and the state that your grandkids will get to lead in?

Representative Jerald Raymond:

So what excite excites me the most is that maybe Idaho won't teach. Yeah. With the right leadership, we can keep Idaho, Idaho. I think that's very important. [00:02:00] We're kind of an island in some respects when you look at states around us, for example, at legalized illicit drugs. If we stay strong, we can keep Idaho, Idaho in many, many respects.

Brennan Summers, Executive Director Main Street ID:

Right now, we have changed quite a bit. I want you to tell us a little bit about what it was like growing up in Manan in the sixties.

Representative Jerald Raymond:

Well, if you want to know the truth, it's probably a lot. Growing up in [00:02:30] 2023, really Manan hasn't changed a lot. I mean, there has been an influx of people moving in, but we still feel isolated, kind of like we're in a bubble in some respects. There's nothing like being raised in a rural community. It's such a good experience. And actually, I wasn't raised in Manan. I was raised outside of Manan in the country. And [00:03:00] so where I live today, our neighbors aren't, we're close as neighbors, but in proximity, we're not close. We still have neighbors that live right under our doorstep and that's nice. But

Brennan Summers, Executive Director Main Street ID:

It's got to be small town us. It

Representative Jerald Raymond:

Is small town. Us

Brennan Summers, Executive Director Main Street ID:

Back then I picture Mayberry. I picture black and white. Walk us through a little bit for those that are from big cities who lock their cars, who don't just disappear at our home by dinner. And that's the rule. [00:03:30] What was it like in your home as a kid? Well,

Representative Jerald Raymond:

Just imagine being raised in a town where there's not a stoplight one gas station and a church. And when I was growing up, we had a couple of grocery stores. We don't have grocery stores in Menin now. We have a convenience store, but no grocery stores. It was interesting when I was young, when I was very young, we lived in Monan and then we moved out to [00:04:00] the farm and I would sneak out and hide in my dad's pickup so my mom wouldn't know. So I could go with dad. I was supposed to be at Cub Scouts or I was supposed to be somewhere else, and mom would have to come down to the farm and find me and we'd have to go through the rigamarole of getting back to where I needed to be, where I wanted to be. I always wanted to be on the farm, always wanted to be with my dad.

Brennan Summers, Executive Director Main Street ID:

It's in your blood.

Representative Jerald Raymond:

Yeah,

Brennan Summers, Executive Director Main Street ID:

Absolutely. Some melts that might be in your blood [00:04:30] politics, at least elect offs. Let's start from the beginning. Okay. Student body President Rigby high school class of 72, 73. 73. Yep.

Representative Jerald Raymond:

You're off a year.

Brennan Summers, Executive Director Main Street ID:

Yep. Okay. I tried. So as student by president, what was your first election? Was it a hard fought campaign like your last few?

Representative Jerald Raymond:

No, it didn't seem, seem like it actually ran against a good friend of mine who's now the former sheriff of Ook [00:05:00] County. Oh really? Yeah. Wow. He ended up being our class president. That's not

Brennan Summers, Executive Director Main Street ID:

Paul Wild, is it? Is it really? Oh, we love, love former sheriff Wild. What a great guy.

Representative Jerald Raymond:

I do too. I do too. Well,

Brennan Summers, Executive Director Main Street ID:

It's a good thing you defeated him and urged him into law enforcement.

Representative Jerald Raymond:

No, it was not a high stress election and I have no idea how close the election was. I'm sure it was fairly close because Paul's a good man.

Brennan Summers, Executive Director Main Street ID:

Paul's a great man. Paul

Representative Jerald Raymond:

Is a really, really good man. And [00:05:30] that was a good experience. But when you ask about the beginning, the beginning actually was before that. Really? Yep. I was nominated to be a representative from the area for the National Explorers, president's Congress, and I traveled to Washington DC when I was 16.

Brennan Summers, Executive Director Main Street ID:

So Manan to DC must've been a big difference.

Representative Jerald Raymond:

It was unbelievable. It was an experience of a lifetime, to be really honest with you. My father had served an LDS [00:06:00] mission on the East coast in his younger years and had spent a lot of time in Virginia and Maryland and Washington DC and shared with me his love of that area, love of the history he spent every spare second he could on the Capitol Mall and in the museums and the memorials. And I knew about those places. And that experience sparked a love for me of those places and the history and the process. And I've been back [00:06:30] to Washington DC many times since.

Brennan Summers, Executive Director Main Street ID:

Oh, that's great. Speaking of LDS missions, you were off in Norway serving your church the same time? My father was actually in Sweden. Oh my goodness. So the experiences that my father has told me about the difficulties of preaching Christianity in that part of the world at that time, I imagine it wasn't the easiest thing you've done.

Representative Jerald Raymond:

It was not.

Brennan Summers, Executive Director Main Street ID:

How does that shape you and prepare you for the leadership you hold now?

Representative Jerald Raymond:

Well, that's a very interesting question. [00:07:00] I love the people of Norway and I love the country. I love the land. It's one of the most beautiful countries in the world with some of the most beautiful people in the world. But quite honestly, those people were pretty, oh, I can think of the Norwegian word, but I can't think of it

Brennan Summers, Executive Director Main Street ID:

In English. Give us the Norwegian

Representative Jerald Raymond:

For, they were comfortable. They were [00:07:30] kind of lulled into a false sense of security because the government took care of everything for them. It was a very socialistic form of government. They had no needs. They were just very comfortable. And I learned a lot about socialism while I was there and vowed that I would do everything I could when I got home to make sure that our country didn't fall into that same trap.

Brennan Summers, Executive Director Main Street ID:

What a formative age too, to have [00:08:00] an opportunity. You were. I

Representative Jerald Raymond:

Was 19. I was 19 and 20.

Brennan Summers, Executive Director Main Street ID:

And then you were seeing kind of the negative effects of suppressing capitalism and providing it all.

Representative Jerald Raymond:

Yeah.

Brennan Summers, Executive Director Main Street ID:

That's interesting. So eventually, I want to jump to your time as a county commissioner. What prompted you to decide to run for the county commission in Jefferson County?

Representative Jerald Raymond:

Well, going back to my, my family roots, my grandfather was very service oriented. [00:08:30] My father was very service oriented, my grandmothers my mother, very service oriented. And my wife and I both served in various capacities both in the community and then church. So both her family's very service oriented as well. So it's not a shock, I guess, that when an opportunity came to serve our community, [00:09:00] we took that opportunity and it actually began before the county commissioner thing. I actually served on the board of the Mosquito abatement district in Jeffers. Oh boy County. And then when an opportunity came to serve as a county commissioner, I just kind of took it. I saw it as an opportunity to surf, to get back to my community. Timing was good. There was other things in my life that other responsibilities I was relieved of that would've made it harder. [00:09:30] And when those opportunities, when the opportunity came, I just took up.

Brennan Summers, Executive Director Main Street ID:

What did you learn as a county commissioner in terms of representing those with different views? Because I'm sure it was regular that people would come to you and want something and some people would want the opposite, lower the taxes actually increase 'em. So we can do this. I'm sure across your desk was plenty of opportunities to have to take kind of a pick in the balance. So something you [00:10:00] do now as well. How do you manage these differing views that come to you?

Representative Jerald Raymond:

Well, that's a great question, Brennan. It's not easy. It's not easy. And you oftentimes have to find the middle ground. You have to find the ground, where's workable. It was a shock to me a little bit when the requests, [00:10:30] the opinions were so stark. They were so different. They were so different to one way or the other. I learned very quickly though that county government, local government is where the rubber really meets their route. That's where the decisions really affect the citizens of your community and of the state. And so making wise decisions was very important to the entire commission. Not just me, but the [00:11:00] entire commission.

Brennan Summers, Executive Director Main Street ID:

We talk a lot about how people have their political views for sure, but at the end of the day, we want roads we can drive on. We want to make sure the snow and the road are clear. And something that's really important is safety. As the county commissioner, what was your relationship like with law enforcement, the sheriff's office kind of associates reports through you to walk us through what public safety was like as a county commissioner?

Representative Jerald Raymond:

Well, I had the opportunity to be a commissioner [00:11:30] with two sheriffs. We had Sheriff Fulson, we had Sheriff Anderson subsequently. And both of them have and do continue to have the best interest of the citizens in their hearts and in their minds. And budgeting for public safety was a very high priority for the commission for all of us. The men and women who serve, serve us [00:12:00] are dedicated. They love what they do, and they have a hard job. They really do. It's very difficult to serve as a law enforcement or even public safety in general. Fire, EMS, all of those things. So we were very fortunate that we had adequate jail facility. And so it [00:12:30] was, I guess that made it easier. If we had to struggle with having to build or create a jail facility, it would've been harder. But it was easier.

Brennan Summers, Executive Director Main Street ID:

Yeah. What was your relationship like with the other two commissioners?

Representative Jerald Raymond:

Very good. Very good in general. Yep.

Brennan Summers, Executive Director Main Street ID:

I asked because you seemed to work pretty well with others. When you've run all of your elections, you've run with your seed mates, you've run with Senator Burton Shaw [00:13:00] and Representative Furnace, which isn't common in Idaho for whole slates of people to run together because when you put your name and face on a flyer next to somebody, if Rod Rodder van says or does something silly, it'll affect you. Why don't we talk a little bit about them and maybe specifically let's start with Senator Burtenshaw. What is it about him that you look up to and that you've learned from?

Representative Jerald Raymond:

Well, that is a great question as well. You ask really good question. Thank

Brennan Summers, Executive Director Main Street ID:

You. I don't have any answers. I just have questions.

Representative Jerald Raymond:

[00:13:30] We have a very good working relationship, and I'll come back to your direct question here in just a second. But sometimes I suggest that maybe we have too much fun together. It's not unusual for us to travel together to salmon or some other place. And it's not unusual for just two of us to go either because we can't be everywhere all the time and sometimes we have to fill in the gaps somewhere. Senator Shaw [00:14:00] is a great mentor. He is a man with great integrity and he's a great friend. And ironically, the opportunity to serve in the legislature came because Senator Bur shall have vacated a seat in the house, moved to the Senate. And because we do have such a good work relationship, he suggested perhaps that I consider running to fill that vacant seat. And that's how I got into the legislature in the beginning.

Brennan Summers, Executive Director Main Street ID:

And you ran [00:14:30] the same time initially as Representative Furnace? I did first. Did you two know each

Representative Jerald Raymond:

Other beforehand? Oh yeah. Oh yeah. He's a few bit younger than I am, but he coached basketball, coached my daughter in basketball. We were both raised in Manan. I don't know if you realize that. I didn't. But yeah, we were both raised in Manan about a mile apart. So I've known Rod all of his life, all of my life essentially.

Brennan Summers, Executive Director Main Street ID:

Yeah. Well, and the way I see it is Senator Burtenshaw keeps you in line. Then I assume your jobs keep Rod in line, but if so, you're not doing [00:15:00] a very good job.

Representative Jerald Raymond:

Another thing though, we don't always agree,

Brennan Summers, Executive Director Main Street ID:

Sure.

Representative Jerald Raymond:

But when we disagree, we agree to disagree. And there's been times when we voted differently and I respect their vote and they respect my vote. But in general, we're all conservatives. We can all work towards the same goal of improving our conditions in Idaho. How we live here.

Brennan Summers, Executive Director Main Street ID:

Well, [00:15:30] agreeing all the time is probably not a good thing.

Representative Jerald Raymond:

I think you're right. I don't think it's a good thing to agree all the time.

Brennan Summers, Executive Director Main Street ID:

I think it's Congressman Simpson always tells us that to those that won't compromise or clearly they're never been married or needs to or have a different view in their as they do to governance. So you had an interesting experience where you ran and were elected the same time as Representative Furnace in 2018. Was that election you served two sessions one term, [00:16:00] and then you had a primary challenger and lost by about 150 votes. Yes. Emotionally. What was that experience like when you realized that you weren't returning to the legislature?

Representative Jerald Raymond:

There's an interesting story there. The night of the election, we felt really good about the way things were going there. There was a time close to midnight that we were confident that we had won the election. We were excited [00:16:30] about that. My wife and I were excited about that. The next morning early, I started going up and down the roads, collecting campaign signs because I don't like to have them out any longer than they have to be out. And about nine o'clock, I got a call from the Statesman wanting a statement on why I lost the election.

Brennan Summers, Executive Director Main Street ID:

That's how you found out? That's

Representative Jerald Raymond:

How I found out. And I said, I am sorry, but I don't know what you're talking about. And I said, well, you've lost the election. And [00:17:00] I said, I'm going to make a phone call to the Secretary of State's office and I'll call you back. So I did. Anyway, to make a long story short, we did lose by approximately 150 votes, a little less than that. It was a high, and then it was a low. It was like, oh wow, what just happened here? And I wasn't even home. I was out gathering up campaign signs. And it takes a while to process that emotionally, [00:17:30] really.

Brennan Summers, Executive Director Main Street ID:

And I think a lot of us can relate to circumstances to some extent of where we've had a crushing defeat, the buzzer beater shot that the other team makes, or even academically or professionally when we're right there at something and then it just slips away. You lost. You spent the next two years watching the person that campaigned against you serving the legislature maybe vote a little differently than you did. Why run again? Why come back and try after [00:18:00] all that time, effort, and money that you'd put into it? You a glutton for punishment or what?

Representative Jerald Raymond:

I'm a glutton, I guess I really am. Well, it goes back to what we've discussed already, Brennan, deep seated, love for the state, deep seated love for the country, deep seated love for my family and the future of the state, and really a desire to serve. I had an interesting experience during the campaign. [00:18:30] We were at an event and a gentleman came up to me and explained to me what he wanted in a candidate, what he wanted in a public servant. What he said was, I really need a patriot. I need someone who's really a patriot to represent me. And I ask him, what does that mean to you? What is a patriot? Is it the guy that's open carrying or [00:19:00] conceal, carrying all the time and brandishes that out in the public? Or is it the guy that's quietly amassing an arsenal and ammunition?

I think one's as patriotic as the other. And my dad was a very true patriot in my opinion. And then he says, well, maybe you don't understand. I really want a warrior. I want somebody that's going to fight for me. And so I said, so what is a warrior to you? Is it someone who stands on the courthouse steps or the capitol steps at [00:19:30] every rally or every protest? Or is it the person that's inside with their sleeves rolled up doing the work and I want to be the guy in the building doing the work. That's what I want to be. And that was the impetus to going back and serving is I really want to be in that building. I want to have my sleeves rolled up. I want to be part of the solution, not part of the problem.

Brennan Summers, Executive Director Main Street ID:

Well, I think at times a public servant has to choose, not all the [00:20:00] time, but at times they have to choose between making headlines and making policy. And it sounds like that's the difference in those two warriors is are you going to make headlines, you're going to make noise in your world. They might call it as, again, this is an old Mike Simpson quote that I'm still in is there's workhorses and there's show horses.

Representative Jerald Raymond:

Well, and sometimes making policy makes headlines and you don't intend to be in the limelight, but what you do in making policy sometimes puts [00:20:30] you there.

Brennan Summers, Executive Director Main Street ID:

Returning to the legislature as you prepared for that, many of your colleagues commented on why it was important for you to return is because of your unique work experience in agriculture. You own and operate a livestock enterprise. You're one of the few that still has dirty boots as we call it. Right? You do it. There was an article in Politico a little while back that referenced how California's federal lawmakers, they're members of Congress, a lot of them that [00:21:00] were experienced or had time in agriculture were leaving the leaving Congress. And that was a problem for the state's agriculture because the people, their voice wasn't in Congress anymore. It was people that had different views and had other priorities than farms and ranches in that respect. Why is it so important that in Idaho and in our representative government, we have people who understand and have lived in an agriculture community?

Representative Jerald Raymond:

[00:21:30] One of my great fears is that the people in Idaho are not aware, not truly aware of the impact of agriculture in the state. Economically, we are a huge driver of the state's economy, and it's not getting smaller. It's actually getting bigger. When you compare Idaho to other states and how we rank with other states as far as what we produce and how we go about producing [00:22:00] it, we're growing. And some of those other states are diminishing or staying stagnant, whichever the case may be. But I think it's important that we have agricultural people representing the state because we've got to protect agriculture as an economic entity in the state. That's very, very important to the overall state's economy. I also think that people involved in agriculture have a very unique, they have a unique sense, [00:22:30] they have a unique way of looking at things. And I think that adds value to the decisions that are made in the State House.

Brennan Summers, Executive Director Main Street ID:

When you serve on the Ag Affairs Committee, you're the vice chair, correct? That's correct. So your role in there is, I mean you're kind of the front lines to some of the big challenges, but more importantly, the big solutions that our farmers and ranchers need, the ones who are out hauling hay moving pipe. What are some of the biggest challenges [00:23:00] that Idaho's farms, and you do a lot with the FFA, our future farmers. What are the challenges that're coming towards them?

Representative Jerald Raymond:

Well, inflation affects us all, but inflation has really affected agriculture in the state. We've got to make sure that we address that. The biggest challenge that faces agriculture is the labor force. It [00:23:30] really is a, we're reaching a critical time and a critical place in our labor force in the state of Idaho is it relates to agriculture. And I would say that another challenge that is very overcomeable is as it relates to the labor force is education. It's important that we, equipment that we're using today [00:24:00] is not the same equipment we used 20 years ago. And it's become a very sophisticated way of even repairing equipment anymore. These tractors, newer tractors are very computer-based, and it takes a technical person to be able to do that. And there's such a need for the career technical education portion in our state to help our young people get into careers in agriculture. Not all ag careers are haul hay movement pipe. [00:24:30] A lot of them are technical, a lot of 'em are very professional based. And it takes some training to get to those things. And you can do almost anything in agriculture if you want to have a desire

Brennan Summers, Executive Director Main Street ID:

To. So when we talk about ag labor, why is ag more susceptible to labor challenges than Walmart down the street?

Representative Jerald Raymond:

Well, agriculture's pretty labor [00:25:00] intensive, pretty physically, labor intensive. And there's not a lot of people that want to do what we do from a physical labor standpoint. And so it's more difficult to find people that want to get up early and feed cattle before the sun comes up and bring calves in from the cold on a cold winter night and those kinds of things almost [00:25:30] it's in your blood. It's in your blood, but the costs have risen so high that it's hard for young people to get in to the agriculture these days.

Brennan Summers, Executive Director Main Street ID:

So a lot of farmers around the state rely on foreign born workforce to come in and help a lot

Representative Jerald Raymond:

Do,

Brennan Summers, Executive Director Main Street ID:

Whether that be green cards or visas. What happens if you as a legislature or more likely, Congress says, okay, no more. No more green cards and more visas because of the mess at our southern [00:26:00] border in terms of illegal immigration. We're not going to have these workers anymore. What does that do to Idaho?

Representative Jerald Raymond:

Well, let me just put it in

Brennan Summers, Executive Director Main Street ID:

Perspective. Please.

Representative Jerald Raymond:

If you were a dairyman and we're milking, let's just say 2000 cows and your workforce all of a sudden dried up, what would you do? How would you sleep at night? It wouldn't be much different [00:26:30] if your hay crop is ready to bail and you don't have anybody to operate that piece of equipment, or if it's harvest time and corn and you don't have a truck driver. And those stories are repeatable across the state. I've heard them, I've heard them from producers that have said, we have three trucks sitting idle because we don't have people to drive 'em. Boy, I'll tell you what, that would hurt production. That would be a major hit to production [00:27:00] in the state of Idaho. And we've got to do something. We've got to do something. And it is a federal issue. I understand that it's a federal issue, but we've got to bring people into this country legally to work.

Brennan Summers, Executive Director Main Street ID:

Yeah. Well, and so we're recording. This probably won't go out till after Thanksgiving, but I think it's just as the listeners think about their Thanksgiving meals, and we talked about the importance of agriculture, we don't always make the connection that it was potentially an Idaho potato farm [00:27:30] that those mashed potatoes came from, and the milk came from maybe a Twin Falls dairy, and maybe they're even having a beer from the barley that was grown here in eastern Idaho. It really affects how we feed the world.

Representative Jerald Raymond:

Absolutely, it does. And sitting on that aga affairs committee is such a privilege, and I learn a lot. But Idaho was very diversified. We raise, raise sugar, beets and potatoes and beef [00:28:00] and dairy and hops and mitt and seeds of all kinds. And I've told to your point, I've told guests in our home many, many times, as we've sat down to eat, everything on your plate was raised on this farm either out of our garden or out of our feedlot. And people need to realize, [00:28:30] with the exception of milk, because we don't milk us, but people need to realize where their food comes from and what an asset we have in this great state of Idaho, most of what we produce is exported out of the state. We feed and clothe the world. We literally do.

Brennan Summers, Executive Director Main Street ID:

I think it's important to note again that your work with the future Farmers of America, and I mean shout out to Rigby Fremont, [00:29:00] they've got great programs there. That's important to make sure that there are people to backfill when you're six feet under and can't run a cattle operation.

Representative Jerald Raymond:

Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely.

Brennan Summers, Executive Director Main Street ID:

So I want to talk a little bit about, we started with your district and how big it is, and you talked about how great of people are in it. I have a special place in my heart for a lot of the physical locations in your district. I grew up going to Island Park as a kid. So you've got Island Park, [00:29:30] you've got St. Anthony Sand, and of course Sam and Idaho. A lot of people in Salmon would not want us telling anybody how gorgeous it is there, but very special part of God's green earth that you represent. How do you manage when it comes to issues of a lot of it's federal land, some of it's state land, a lot of people live there because they like to hunt on those lands. They like to fish in those rivers and those lakes and they like to recreate with their ATVs and get out. How do you ensure that the people [00:30:00] of Idaho are able to use those lands, but that they're still there for the future? And I ask because conservationist has been a dirty term in the Republican party for so long, or it can be, and we have images of tree huggers, but also Republicans can serve as like yourself. They don't want to see high rise apartments all over Island Park. Yeah,

Representative Jerald Raymond:

So true. So [00:30:30] we have to work to make sure that our lands, our public lands are available to those who want to use them. But I believe very firmly in the multiple use doctrine that lands that are grazed by cattle can also be recreated on lands that have timber on them that we can harvest, also can be recreated on. But we have to be respectful. [00:31:00] We have to be respectful of the land of the resource. Obviously what is grown on those lands is renewable. We can't be destroying them with off-road vehicles that don't respect trails and roads and those kinds of things and just take off out through the middle of stuff. We had an interesting bill come before us last session that dealt with state lands, [00:31:30] and I learned through that process that our state endowment lands over 90% of those lands are accessible either by foot or by water or by motorized vehicle. And as a state, we want people to appreciate, we want them to hunt and fish and recreate, but they also need to be respectful so we don't destroy the resource. I think that's very important.

Brennan Summers, Executive Director Main Street ID:

Yeah, I agree. Fire is a big issue in your district as well. I'm sure that's [00:32:00] something, thankfully it wasn't a rough fire season up there, but it's always something I'm sure you're keeping your eye on.

Representative Jerald Raymond:

It is. Fire can be so devastating. I mean, it can ruin watersheds. It has an effect on people that graze. It has an effect on communities as a whole. Air quality is a big, big issue when you live in a fire in a community that has wildfires. So I think it's important that we prevent them, but when we [00:32:30] do have 'em, it's important to get 'em put out as quickly as we possibly can. We worked very closely with the Forest Service last summer with the Hayden Creek fire and the folks in that community very concerned, very concerned that if that fire continued, it would get into an area that simply would be an area they couldn't put it out. So we worked very closely with, and thankfully those folks invited us into their meetings and helped us. We discussed openly how to get that fire put out [00:33:00] in a timely manner.

Brennan Summers, Executive Director Main Street ID:

Speaking of working closely, I got to ask, how's your relationship with Governor Little

Representative Jerald Raymond:

Great. In my opinion, we worked together long before I was a legislator in public lands policy. I had the privilege of serving as president of the Catalyst Association, the Auto Catalyst Association, and we were together many, many times in many meetings and are like-minded when it comes to [00:33:30] livestock issues, public land issues. Perfect.

Brennan Summers, Executive Director Main Street ID:

Yeah. I just had to ask. So when it comes to the podcast, you've listened to this before, so some of these questions that are coming that we ask everybody, I'm going to throw one at you that we haven't asked everybody. Oh, really? Okay. Because you have such a soft spot in your heart for the Constitution. You talked about being in Norway and realizing the beauty of the American economic system. I want you to tell us who your favorite president is.

Representative Jerald Raymond:

[00:34:00] I would have to say it's Ronald Reagan. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. I think we kind of started in public service in similar ways. It had such a way about him of just putting people at ease and such a common sense approach to challenges that people in America faced at the time.

Brennan Summers, Executive Director Main Street ID:

Fantastic. Now, a book that you would recommend.

Representative Jerald Raymond:

[00:34:30] I will admit, I'm not an avid reader. I'm an avid listener because I spend so much time on the road that I listen more than I read. But there's one book that stands out to me, and that is the biography of Russell M. Nelson.

I had an interesting experience the very first day in the Capitol, when I served in 2019, there was a program that was sponsored by one of the education groups, [00:35:00] and they put on the screen a graph that I found very interesting. It started in the year 1820 and went to 2019, and it showed the growth, growth of societal evolution of how our society has benefited through education and learning. From 1820, clear to that present day, and Russell M. Nelson was part of that progress. He was a renowned [00:35:30] heart surgeon that actually invented bypass, the Heart bypass machine and other things along the way that help people live a better life. And his life history is just so interesting. I'd

Brennan Summers, Executive Director Main Street ID:

Recommend it. Is that the one by Sherry? Do? It is fantastic. That is. Yeah, that's great. Now, the tough one, a restaurant in your massive district that you would say, if anyone's driving through town, they have to stop and eat here.

Representative Jerald Raymond:

I can't pick one.

Brennan Summers, Executive Director Main Street ID:

[00:36:00] You can give me a couple.

Representative Jerald Raymond:

If I can. I will. Ashton has the Frost top, the five 11 V, and they've got Big Judds and Rigby. You've got, Rolands has a great d. Rolands

Brennan Summers, Executive Director Main Street ID:

Does. I don't,

Representative Jerald Raymond:

Don't know how many people know that, but they do. And you've got Papa Kelsey's, and in Salmon, you've got the Savage Grill, but there's one that many people may not know about, and that is in Baker, just outside of Salmon. There's an Amish community and they have a general store there, and they make [00:36:30] the meanest sandwich really? And the best fried pie

Brennan Summers, Executive Director Main Street ID:

That sounds healthy. A fried pie. Right.

Representative Jerald Raymond:

I didn't say healthy, I said good.

Brennan Summers, Executive Director Main Street ID:

What's the name of it again?

Representative Jerald Raymond:

I don't know the

Brennan Summers, Executive Director Main Street ID:

Name of it. It's just a bakery and salmon.

Representative Jerald Raymond:

No, it is in Baker.

Brennan Summers, Executive Director Main Street ID:

Oh, okay. That's where I missed it. It's in the

Representative Jerald Raymond:

Community of Baker, outside

Brennan Summers, Executive Director Main Street ID:

Of Salmon,

Representative Jerald Raymond:

And it's the Amish community that has built this store, and I think it's just the Baker Country store, I think is what they call it. You can't miss it. Okay.

Brennan Summers, Executive Director Main Street ID:

[00:37:00] Yeah,

Representative Jerald Raymond:

It's there. You see the sign that says Baker, Idaho, just look to your east and it's right there, right on the highway on Highway 28.

Brennan Summers, Executive Director Main Street ID:

Go get in line for a fried go

Representative Jerald Raymond:

Get line for a fried pie. You're the nicest people in the world.

Brennan Summers, Executive Director Main Street ID:

You're not missing anything in Manan. A place to eat there, like

Representative Jerald Raymond:

Valley White Co-op,

Brennan Summers, Executive Director Main Street ID:

Like Valley White Co-op. There

Representative Jerald Raymond:

You go. They make really good chickens. They have

Brennan Summers, Executive Director Main Street ID:

Something there. Yeah. Oh, that's fantastic. Representative. We started off today talking about your grandkids. You talked about a concern about Idaho changing [00:37:30] and not being the Idaho you grew up in, and you talked about the excitement of Idaho holding on to its values and principles when the rest of the country and world changes. Talked about your mission in Norway, your experience as a student body president, beating Sheriff, wild, your time as on the county Commission, what you learned there. So we went through your political career and the importance of having agriculture representation and then walking through your books, your president, all the favorite things you've gone through. [00:38:00] I'm curious, as we wrap up today, what are some of the most important things to you in life? What would you say? This is what I need to hold dear, and then how in the legislature do you try to protect that?

Representative Jerald Raymond:

Oh, that's a great question. God, family, country, those three things, every decision I make in the legislature ties back to those things. [00:38:30] I'm so appreciative of the fact that we begin every day with a spiritual thought, with prayer, with a pledge of allegiance to the flag of this country. I'm grateful for the Constitution. That's a guiding document that gives us the guidance we need to make good decisions. But ultimately, ultimately, I want this state to be a place that my grandkids can be. Our kids all live [00:39:00] in Idaho now. All of our kids are back in Idaho. Some left for a short time for educational purposes. They're all back. All of my grandkids have been or will be educated in this state. We need to make sure that that system is a system where they can learn and grow and achieve what they want to do in life. And we need to make sure that we protect them. We need to make sure that we have good law enforcement, that we have people that are willing to help [00:39:30] them. In that case of an emergency, we need to make sure that our learning institutions will give them the basis they need to learn so that they can be productive citizens as they move forward. And hopefully this state will be great for their grandkids too.

Brennan Summers, Executive Director Main Street ID:

Yeah, hopefully. Representative Raymond, good legislator, great grandfather.

Representative Jerald Raymond:

Oh, thank you.

Brennan Summers, Executive Director Main Street ID:

Great. Not great grandfather. Good grandfather. Awesome Grandfather. Thanks so much for being here. Thank you. We've learned a lot from you. We're going to have to have you back as we dig into [00:40:00] more of these issues. Good luck feeding the cows this winter. Thank you. Stay on top of that, will you? Okay. We'll have you back. Appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you.

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…

Main Street Idaho Podcast Episode 18—Representative Greg Lanting

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…

Less Regulation, More Innovation —Rep. Rod Furniss

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Businesses are the backbone of our communities.

In Idaho, we're cutting red tape and crafting a blueprint for businesses to prosper. Streamlining regulations means less paperwork and more innovation, allowing businesses to focus on what they do best.

Representative Rod Furniss is a first generation graduate from a four-year college (Idaho State University). After graduating, he started working in the banking industry, and from there he moved to the insurance industry where he was successful working with large companies with their life and health insurance. It was during this time that Rep. Furniss noticed there were many laws that were inequitable in the health insurance field.

As the motto goes, “see a problem, fix a problem” which is what led Rod into pursuing a spot in the legislature. Rep. Furniss was elected, and since then, he has led the charge on many pro-business policies to reduce regulations on businesses and improve the state's economy.

• Supporting candidates who comprehend both sides of a paycheck ensures legislation that aligns with the practicalities of entrepreneurship.

• Our state's economy is intricately tied to the Idaho National Lab, with its advancements resonating in everything from car dealerships to housing markets.

• The Idaho Launch program is an investment in Idaho's future workforce, steering students toward trades essential for our economic prosperity.

• Idaho's ascent to the top in teacher spending showcases our dedication to education and workforce development.

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Brennan Summers, Exec. Director Main Street Idaho (00:00):
Welcome to Main Street Podcast, an opportunity to talk to I Idaho's elected leaders about the issues that matter to you. Hello and welcome. It is Main Street Podcast and we're here with Representative Rod Furniss. Rod, how are you?

Representative Rod Furniss, District 31 (00:18):
I'm doing great, thanks.

Brennan Summers, Exec. Director Main Street Idaho (00:19):
And can I call you Rod? I feel like we're

Representative Rod Furniss, District 31 (00:20):
Friends. Yeah. Rod,

Brennan Summers, Exec. Director Main Street Idaho (00:21):
You look like a representative, but to me you'll always be Just Rod? No,

Representative Rod Furniss, District 31 (00:25):
Just Rod. Rod

Brennan Summers, Exec. Director Main Street Idaho (00:26):
District 31. Why don't you walk the listeners through what portion of the state you are responsible for? Yeah,

Representative Rod Furniss, District 31 (00:35):
It was 35, which included Butte County. We swapped Butte County for Lemhi County, and I represent Jefferson Fremont and Clark Counties. And I got to tell you, it's been a wonderful drive to Salmon. I bet we've probably gone there, I don't know, 15 times since the session's been out and we've gotten to know the people at Salmon. The leaders there are incredible and the community has some real needs there that we need to address, so we're thankful to be able to go there.

Brennan Summers, Exec. Director Main Street Idaho (01:06):
Yeah, that's fantastic. I want to start today with a topic that I know you'll be interested in sports.

Representative Rod Furniss, District 31 (01:11):
Okay.

Brennan Summers, Exec. Director Main Street Idaho (01:13):
We were talking before about most people may not know, not only did you play football at Rick's, you had an offer to play basketball, so a star out of high school, but you've also spent a lot of years, 15 years coaching boys and girls basketball. You're currently competing in the Senior Olympics and medaled there. What was it at a young age that got your heart so set on sports?

Representative Rod Furniss, District 31 (01:37):
I don't know. That's a good question. I had great friends that were athletic and I beat them in a race a couple of times. I thought I can compete and we had a great basketball team. I played quarterback on the football team, but our basketball team, we took state two years in a row when I was a junior and senior, and it gave you enough confidence and fortitude to think you could get through some hard times, and those were difficult championships, but we got through 'em and then played football at Rick's. Enjoyed it a lot. Just played one year. And the second year I came back, I decided I thought I'd get married to a wonderful woman and we now have five children, 11 grandchildren. We love that. The sports have been a big part of my life. I've been able to coach my children in eighth grade, ninth grade freshmen or I mean sophomore year and varsity. I've coached some varsity basketball, coached some football. So just a wonderful time. Great time to spend with children when you can do that.

Brennan Summers, Exec. Director Main Street Idaho (02:38):
Sure. Well, and it's good that sports has helped you get through tough times because as an Avid BYU fan, which we won't hold against, you've needed that. Yeah,

Representative Rod Furniss, District 31 (02:45):
Yeah. Have especially this year. Right.

Brennan Summers, Exec. Director Main Street Idaho (02:48):
So why don't you tell us how playing or coaching sports is similar to serving an elected office?

Representative Rod Furniss, District 31 (02:58):
That's a great comparison because you have to convince boys and girls that they're better than they are and that they can go out and they can do what you expect them to do and you have to persuade them to do that. And so the fact that I'm also an insurance salesman and I persuade people every day to look at their risks in life, it is helped me in the legislature be able to speak and compromise with legislators to get bills passed. And that's been a great help for me in the legislature to be able to do that. I'm sure sports had a big background. I'm competitive that way, but to be able to teach and to persuade is a great asset in the legislature.

Brennan Summers, Exec. Director Main Street Idaho (03:39):
Let's jump to your business. So you are a businessman, you've operated an insurance organization, you've got a lot of training, a lot of education in that you didn't have a whole lot of spare time raising a family, got grandkids. What was it that prompted you to enter the political arena?

Representative Rod Furniss, District 31 (03:57):
Well, that's a great question and back to my business. I'm a first generation graduate from a four-year college at ISU. Oh wow. And that got me into the banking industry, which moved into the insurance industry and I was able to be successful there working with large companies with their life insurance and health insurance. What moved me was that there are many laws that I thought were inequitable in my health insurance field. And so under trying to understand that, I moved into the PCO arena where moved up the ranks there real quick, and then they asked me to run for a seat that was an incumbent seat and that was a little scary and I really didn't know what I was getting into honestly. And I doubt anyone that runs for office really knows what they're getting into until they get there. But it's been a real life changer for me. I've always been a service oriented individual, and so when I'm asked to do something, I do it. And when they asked me to run, I was happy to try. I didn't know if I'd win, but I did. And I am so grateful for the opportunity to serve in the Idaho legislature. It is a privilege to be there. And every day when I walk into the capitol and I see the lights on the capitol, it's a surreal moment for me to know that I'm there helping Idahoans.

Brennan Summers, Exec. Director Main Street Idaho (05:16):
Yeah. What do you enjoy about serving?

Representative Rod Furniss, District 31 (05:20):
I really like to see things fair and equitable. I like to see people succeed and in my business, the more people succeed, the better I do in my business. And so if I can encourage them or help them succeed, that's a great motivator for me. And then to see laws that assist people succeed, that's incredible too. And then frankly in the last four years, well six years really that I've been in the legislature, we reduced regulations on business. I've been the vice chair of the business committee and we have reduced more regulations over those years than any other state. And we're the regulated state of the nation right now because of that, and I love being a part of that.

Brennan Summers, Exec. Director Main Street Idaho (06:02):
And so let's talk a little bit about that committee as vice chair on that committee. What are the big issues? You mentioned regulation and shout out to governor little for what he's done to cut the red tape.

Representative Rod Furniss, District 31 (06:15):
Every agency that we heard from in the business committee, I'm no longer on the business committee, but when I was there, every agency said that the governor has prompted them to reduce pages and pages of red tape. And they came in and thousands of pages were deleted in regulations in the statutes in the state of Idaho.

Brennan Summers, Exec. Director Main Street Idaho (06:37):
So translate that to the average person that owns a business in Jefferson County. What does that mean to them when you guys are cutting these regulations? Well,

Representative Rod Furniss, District 31 (06:46):
What it means is really we can cut red tape. There's already a tremendous amount of red tape when you start a business. You have FICA insurance, you have workers' comp, you have all the regulations that are there and for us to streamline those regulations or make it easier, more user friendly in those regulations, and by cutting some of those regulations, those businesses can thrive and be more successful and spend less time doing those things that are non-productive and do things more productive. And that's the goal of the business committee.

Brennan Summers, Exec. Director Main Street Idaho (07:17):
I think we've all been in a situation where we've had to say, this is stupid. Why are we doing this? And somebody says, well, we have to. And so it's nice to get rid of some of those. We have toss when we don't really have to,

Representative Rod Furniss, District 31 (07:30):
And those are some of the deep dives we do and we did in the business committee, do we really need this regulation? Do we really have to have 'em do that? I know that hairdressers were going through a hard time. We reduced regulations there. I know that electricians were having a hard time. We reduced regulations there. And so in order to make more blue collar workers more productive, and that's frankly what we'd even need in Idaho currently is we need more tradesmen. And so we've really concentrated on making those individuals more productive in the state of Idaho.

Brennan Summers, Exec. Director Main Street Idaho (08:00):
Let's talk about policies that help foster business in Idaho. What are some of the things that you see and that you can do that will enhance the ability of Idaho to be competitive?

Representative Rod Furniss, District 31 (08:11):
Well, Idaho's pretty competitive now. We've gone from being, we're 41st, if you will, in property tax where we've gone to money that we spend on teachers from being the bottom of the nations of the top of the nation. We're doing a lot of things right for individuals in Idaho. Businesses are seeing thriving in Idaho currently suffering because we can't find enough workers and especially in the trades. And so the launch program that the governor's put forth has really changed the momentum there and will in the future, change that momentum. The launch program only passed by one vote, but it's going to change the nature of Idaho. It's going to those students that maybe didn't think they could go on to college be able to do that, or those that were going to college are going to be able to finish quicker. And I think it will direct more people into the trades, the plumbers, the electricians, nurses, the things we really need in Idaho, HVAC welders. We're just so short on those that this launch program's really going to move that forward. You'll see businesses thrive in the next few years because of those programs if

Brennan Summers, Exec. Director Main Street Idaho (09:24):
It's going to be such a win. And we do hear so much about the good that it's going to do. What happened in the capital that made it such a close nail biting one vote victory?

Representative Rod Furniss, District 31 (09:36):
Yeah, I think it was really, there's some real influences in the capitol that people really watch scores if you will or whatnot. But I really think that they thought that this was a giveaway. And at the end of the day, when you look at the money we spend on four-year colleges and four-year degrees, we subsidized those degrees by tens of thousands of dollars. So to spend $8,000 on a trade was a drop in the bucket compared to what we spend on a four-year college. And I don't think that message got out that well. And so a lot of the individuals were confused. But at the end of the day, it did pass and it went through the Senate, the governor signed it, and we're seeing huge changes right now. I was able to teach the Hispanic Affairs course at ISU. We had, I think they had 400 Spanish kids come to ISU.

(10:29):
They attended a three hour class with me. I probably taught a hundred kids about the launch program. I went through and I asked those kids, every one of 'em, I said, what do you want to be? What do you want to do? And we would look up on the launch list and see if that was there. And it was most of those trades or that they wanted to do, some of 'em wanted to be orthopedic surgeons, right? But the basic two year program was there for them to start that, and they didn't know that it was there for them. And to see their eyes glitter and their faces warm up and their smiles come across their face, they gave them hope to be able to enter into those trades. That was impressive.

Brennan Summers, Exec. Director Main Street Idaho (11:05):
So yeah, it's opening up opportunities that these kids wouldn't have had.

Representative Rod Furniss, District 31 (11:10):
I don't know that for sure, but I could tell on their faces that it eased their burden.

Brennan Summers, Exec. Director Main Street Idaho (11:14):
Sure. Okay. Now when voters go to the polls, why is it so important that they look to vote for candidates that are pro-business? We can talk about why it's important to vote for those that are conservative, that are pro-life. Why is pro-business something that should also be on their checklist?

Representative Rod Furniss, District 31 (11:32):
Well, we have ranchers and farmers and they know business, and we have almost everyone in the legislature understands business. And so I think we have a pretty good cross section there already. But it's really important that they've signed the front of the check and the back of the check and so that they've seen both sides of the issue. And when they've seen that, they're able to look at those laws differently. When you've signed the front of the check, you look at all the problems and things that come through on a business nature. And it's important to understand that and to have that experience, to have to meet payroll, to have to borrow money to make money. We wrestle with those things in the legislature every day, should we have more FTPs in order to get a better service and a better outcome? And sometimes even the government has to invest to get a better outcome or to get a return on investment. And it's important that people understand that. So

Brennan Summers, Exec. Director Main Street Idaho (12:31):
Speaking of government investment, you also serve on energy technology, energy environment technology committee that deals a lot with issues related to Idaho National Lab, which it's been a big investment by the federal government to put that research facility out on the desert. You've got to spend quite a bit of time out there. What has impressed you about that facility?

Representative Rod Furniss, District 31 (12:52):
It's amazing. I serve as the vice chair currently of the Energy and Technology Committee. And with that title, I'm able to go out there quite a bit and to see the production that happens and the quality of people that live there and work there is impressive to me. I think they have more degrees than anywhere in the nation that work there. And so the quality of the people are tremendous. What they do there for our national security for innovation is the best in the nation. And to have those in Idaho and to be able to see that growth there is impressive. But it's such a boon to Eastern Idaho and we look at the growth there and the money that they bring to eastern Idaho, to the car dealerships, to the housing market, it just trickles down. And so the economy just does better with the site and the leadership there has been tremendous. They've been warm and friendly and they've opened up and they want us to understand their business so that we can work together. And we have, it's been a tremendous thing. Even though they're in Idaho, they're federally funded, Idaho regulates the site, and so we look at their oversight. They come in and present to us. They tell us what they're doing, what their goals are and their aspirations, and we work with them on that.

Brennan Summers, Exec. Director Main Street Idaho (14:13):
A lot of Idahoans that don't necessarily live in Eastern Idaho or many who do but are more my generation, struggle to see the value there of, well, number one, what is it that they're doing? And number two, why should I care? So to those that don't see the importance of that investment, what would you say to them?

Representative Rod Furniss, District 31 (14:30):
Well, just look at the small nuclear reactors that they're building someday will fit on the back of a semi and supply power to a Salt Lake city. Just that type of technology, the battery technology that's coming, our future is so much brighter with what they do at the site than without them. And even though we don't know what they do, we ask them what they do, they can't tell us or they have to kill us. So we really don't understand what they do a lot of times. But I've toured those facilities, I've seen their work. Good things are going to come out of there and it's going to enhance the young lives when you grow up because of the site, your life will be better.

Brennan Summers, Exec. Director Main Street Idaho (15:13):
You're assuming I'm going to grow up, but I refuse. You know me, you've known me longer.

Representative Rod Furniss, District 31 (15:17):
I said, when you grow up, if I grow up,

Brennan Summers, Exec. Director Main Street Idaho (15:20):
Rod, let's talk about some of the things you've been able to accomplish because you rocked up to the State House your very first term and got to work and actually where a lot of freshmen may not be immediately running legislation you did. So from that until now, what are some of the metaphorical legislative trophies that you have in your case where you can say, I'm proud of that I was able to help accomplish

Representative Rod Furniss, District 31 (15:42):
This? Yeah, that's a great question. I probably passed 60 bills since I've been in the legislature, which is if you know how to pass a bill to be able to take a bill into committee to take it to the floor of the house, to take it to the committee in the Senate, to get a senator to resent it, to get the governor to sign it, it's a tremendous lift just on one bill. So it's important to have that history behind us. But some of the things that I'm most proud of are we got a lot of uninsured motorists off the road my very first year they'd been working on that bill for 10 years. I was able to get that through and get that done. So

Brennan Summers, Exec. Director Main Street Idaho (16:19):
Walk us through that a little bit. What does that look like?

Representative Rod Furniss, District 31 (16:22):
What that look like was is that we had no way of tracking uninsured motorists until they got a ticket. And so a lot of people were going uninsured. We had many people contact us and say, I just got hit by an uninsured motorist, and they just drove off and there was no penalty, nothing could be done. So we tightened that up a little bit and now we do what's called a VIN matching, where if an uninsured motorist, if a guy buys a car and that VIN shows up in ITD, we also have insurance companies telling us what VIN numbers they've insured. We match those up and we can see any uninsured motorists that's out there. So we send 'em a letter and we say, we know you're uninsured, and if you don't get insurance within 90 days, you may lose your registration and it will cost you about 350 bucks to get that back,

Brennan Summers, Exec. Director Main Street Idaho (17:10):
Which is so much nicer than getting rear-ended and being in a situation where they simply say, I don't have insurance. I can't pay for that. What do you do?

Representative Rod Furniss, District 31 (17:18):
So it's a state law that you must have insurance. So this was just an enforcement piece that we put together. And we've seen tickets go from 11,000 tickets a month to 500 tickets a month. So we know that people are getting insurance. That's

Brennan Summers, Exec. Director Main Street Idaho (17:31):
Great.

Representative Rod Furniss, District 31 (17:32):
Probably the other biggest one, and I've done tons of 'em, affordable housing, but the other one was the teacher insurance bill that we put together that allowed teachers to be able to go on or allowed school districts to be able to go on the state employee plan, but also we allowed school districts, we gave them more money that if they didn't want to go on the plan, they could buy individual insurance. We left that autonomy there and they were able to supply, are able to supplement those teachers' insurance policies enough that many teachers called me and said, this is the first time in 10 years my children are on Medicaid or my husband's not on Medicaid. And each teacher probably saved that, had a family saved almost five to $900 a month in premium. So we were able to give a teacher a raise that's the best money spent on teacher raises because that's, and so to be able to do that on a pre-tax basis was important.

(18:30):
That's what the governor hooked onto. Without his help and support that bill wouldn't have gone through and we put all the numbers together for him. That's what I do in my private life as I do health insurance for large companies, the state plan is the best run plan I've ever seen. I've reviewed hundreds of plans and that's the cheapest plan that I've seen. So they run that plan really well. We'll see more and more schools jump on, and this year we were able to extend the deadline out a couple more years so the schools had more time to make that decision.

Brennan Summers, Exec. Director Main Street Idaho (19:01):
And you got to wonder how many teachers and the type of teachers that are coming to Idaho because of that or staying in Idaho, good teachers that we didn't lose to other states because they had an offer. Some of the school district, particularly ones in your district, they don't have a plethora of teachers that they can choose from. Sometimes it's tight to employ.

Representative Rod Furniss, District 31 (19:19):
It's interesting though. I've called the school districts that have gone onto the state employee plan and they tell me they're fully staffed. It's working well. Other districts are not fully staffed. Over the last three years though, we were able to give teachers about a $500 a month raise every year. So teachers from four years ago are making about $1,500 more a month than they were previously. We've gone from 40th in the nation to 10th in the nation, and it just came out and said that Idaho has the best rate of return on the money we spend for the grades we get.

Brennan Summers, Exec. Director Main Street Idaho (19:52):
Wow. When I was in high school, the teachers were really sour about what they were getting paid. And of course when they were giving me my poor marks, I thought they were overpaid. But looking back, it was crazy that we were able to hire teachers at that salary,

Representative Rod Furniss, District 31 (20:06):
Those teachers, and it is true today too, but teachers teach because they love children. They'll do it with money or without money, but when you do it with money, they stay. It costs about, we did an analysis, ISU actually did it for me. Excuse me. We spend about 13,000 to train a new teacher, and we were having almost 30% turnover in our teacher pool before we raised the wages. Now we're seeing less teachers leave, we're spending less on retention, and we're able to put that money back into health insurance and wage.

Brennan Summers, Exec. Director Main Street Idaho (20:45):
Perfect.

Representative Rod Furniss, District 31 (20:46):
That's a business concept that we have to go through. Right?

Brennan Summers, Exec. Director Main Street Idaho (20:49):
Yeah. You're running the government a little bit at the speed of business as they'd say. Let's talk about things that you haven't quite been able to go over the finish line yet. Last session, the period project came up. This is a novel idea and one that you've been kind of the face of. Walk us through what this looks like in Idaho.

Representative Rod Furniss, District 31 (21:11):
Well, I appreciate the question because this concept originated in Jefferson County really by a lady. It's a wonderful individual. Her heart's in the right place. She saw girls having what she called period poverty where they would go to school, not have enough money to buy their supplies. The family didn't have enough money to buy the supplies, so they were having issues. So she put together a volunteer group that made packets for schools and would deliver those packets to all the schools. I think there's currently 29 schools that she's trying to get packets to currently. But because of volunteerism that comes and goes, it's not stable. We had people testify in committee in the house of girls that would raise their hand. Teacher would let 'em out of class because they didn't understand that they were having their period. We had girls that would have to go ask the male teacher for period products because they didn't have 'em that day or they forgot 'em where they couldn't afford 'em. They would have to go to the principal's office and ask for period products. We have toilet paper, our, well, if you had to go ask for toilet paper every time you had to go ask, you'd have a problem. Well, girls have one more need. And so we hope to be able to bring that back. It sounds like it's a common thing. It passed unanimously in the Utah legislature. There was a one no vote in Utah on this exact same bill. So I was surprised that that happened. I really thought that it would pass.

Brennan Summers, Exec. Director Main Street Idaho (22:53):
What's the opposition?

Representative Rod Furniss, District 31 (22:55):
It was a $400,000 span for dispensers, a 300,000 ongoing for period supplies, which is a 0.00, nothing in the education budget, but the spend was thought of spending money needlessly, I guess.

Brennan Summers, Exec. Director Main Street Idaho (23:12):
So it was initially a $700,000 and then 300,000 after that in perpetuity to take care of these.

Representative Rod Furniss, District 31 (23:19):
And so the girls don't have an embarrassing moment, and every girl you talk to has had an embarrassing moment in their life with this, but a lot of the girls really, truly are being able to afford it even today.

Brennan Summers, Exec. Director Main Street Idaho (23:33):
Well, I think about how uncomfortable it's for you and I to talk about menstruation and female hygiene and as uncomfortable as this conversation might be, as we talk about periods that we're not used to compare that to what it might like as a young girl, a teenage girl, to go and try to have that conversation to a teacher. So it's coming back. You're going to take another swipe at it. What do you think will change this next go around?

Representative Rod Furniss, District 31 (23:57):
That's really the question. Will it come back? We haven't decided that yet. We've got to find one more vote, and so when we get one more vote, it'll come back.

Brennan Summers, Exec. Director Main Street Idaho (24:09):
Well, we'll start putting the screws on the no votes. Then there you go around. You're very active in terms of, you mentioned traveling to salmon over a dozen times. I would put a plugin for anyone that wants to know what you're doing. You're Facebook is very active, all the meetings you're going to and everywhere you're running around. As you go out and talk to so many voters and stakeholders, whether it's state or federal agencies, business owners, what are they telling you some of their biggest concerns right now?

Representative Rod Furniss, District 31 (24:37):
Well, it depends on the area. Salmon's biggest concern is opening up the forest and the mines so those people can go back to work and that town can flourish. That used to be a flourishing mining town, a flourishing forest town. We currently have a mill and salmon that's getting their trees from Montana and they look in their backyard and there's a whole forest right behind them. So some of those issues like that are very cumbersome and more federal, but important. And I'm working with our federal partners to try to help them with that. Clark County, on the other hand, so few people there and they're dwindling and their school's dwindling. We're going to have to come up with some kind of a formula for schools that has a minimum so that Clark County can continue to have a school there and continue to have a county there.

(25:25):
We're going to need to help them with that. Fremont County has lots of issues up in Island Park we're working on right now. I'm working on bills to try to help them put an auditorium district in if they want, or a local option tax. Right now, the bill says on an auditorium district that you have to have 3000 votes to terminate it. Well, island Park doesn't have 3000 votes in their district, so I'm going to help lower that down. So if they ever want to change their mind, they can look at it that again, if they want and they have other issues, we're looking at ITD issues that some people want a super two highway there. Some people want a four lane highway. As legislators, we've decided to help with the process. We want to make sure the ITD process is pristine and that the NEPA process goes through even though I hate it, and everything is done according to book. And then when they make their decision, that'll be their decision. The legislators don't make that decision, but we certainly want to make sure the process is correct. And then in Jefferson County where they're growing like crazy, we have speed limit changes. We have road changes that we need to do, and we're helping the commissioners with

Brennan Summers, Exec. Director Main Street Idaho (26:32):
Those. Oh, fantastic. So there's some questions that we love to ask all our guests that come on, and hopefully you're teed up for some of these because they're the tough ones of the day. So the first question I asked when we talked to Representative Raymond about this one recently, as somebody who loves the country studies history keeps up on current events and ask, when you look back on history, who are some political leaders that you really look up to and think, these are the type of people I would like to emulate?

Representative Rod Furniss, District 31 (27:00):
Well, Ronald Reagan had a big influence in my life and his Reaganomics was what we studied. When I took economics in college. I have a degree in finance and I have an advanced degree in insurance, but economics was so important. And supply side economics were where we cut taxes and we allow businesses to thrive. That's what needs to happen. And we've done that in Idaho. We've cut taxes three years in a row in Idaho. We've gone from a higher percentage to a lower percentage. We've done 192 million in property tax relief this year. We have cut taxes and balanced the budget. I'm a member of JFAC. We do all the budgets. There's 118 budgets that we look at every single year. And I just admire the crafters of the Idaho constitution that allow us to have a balanced budget. And we keep that promise in Idaho. We balance the budget.

(27:58):
This year we projected to have 250 million in cash at the end of the year. We had 460 million I think in cash. We balanced the budget, we added cash to our reserves. We have all of our cash reserves as high as they can be in the state of I Idaho, we're still refunding money. And you may see another refund this year. And if you're a member of the Idaho, someone that lives in Idaho, you received a check from the Idaho legislature for $300 or $600 depending on or more depending on what your income was. But we've done that, and that's a concept of Reagan to lower taxes, lower regulation, let businesses do business, and we'll make more money if we lower tax, they'll make more money and pay more tax. So that's the concept we love.

Brennan Summers, Exec. Director Main Street Idaho (28:48):
Yeah, novel idea and comparing that to what happens with fiscal policy in Washington. DC's just such a stark difference in what we're doing in the GEM State. And you

Representative Rod Furniss, District 31 (28:54):
Would know that you've been there. But here, when I go to national conventions, I'm a member of the National Association of Insurance Legislators, and we go there and we talk about all the national legislations coming through, but everyone comes up to me and says, we just don't understand how you do budgets in Idaho. How do you get people together and balance those budgets on every single agency? And we say we have a joint finance committee where we look at those, we dive deep into those budgets. We ask the hard questions, do you really need that car? Do you really need that extra employee? Do you need that snowplow? We ask those tough questions and we keep our budgets where they should be and we keep our cash reserves where they should be and we make sure we don't go over that. So

Brennan Summers, Exec. Director Main Street Idaho (29:40):
Speaking of jac, are you finding that some of the most challenging but also fulfilling the work you're doing?

Representative Rod Furniss, District 31 (29:48):
Just this past session, they've allocated budgets out. I'm on the Medicaid side. I understand that insurance and Medicaid portion. I used to sell Medicare insurance supplements, but that's going to be a tough budget. They've had some audit issues this year, and yet even though they've messed up on their audit, people still need the services. And so we're going to have to look at that and make that budget balance, and we're going to have to make sure the services continue and we have more people coming on. However, this year, because of the Biden administration, they would not let us take anyone off of the Medicaid roles. So our Medicaid roles ballooned and we had like 130,000 people on Medicaid. But once the epidemic was over, pandemic was over and we were able to take those people off. We're now seeing people convert to individual policies. In fact, Idaho leaves the nation in converting people from Medicaid to individual policies, almost a 30% conversion. And we're giving talks all over the nation now on how we're doing that and how we coordinated that. And so we're doing a good job of getting people off of the Medicaid roles, which will reduce our costs. And then we're seeing the ARPA money that came from the government during the pandemic. It was like a pig and a python. It was going through the budget system. We're seeing that finder come out and we'll be able to manage that better and see true up our budgets

Brennan Summers, Exec. Director Main Street Idaho (31:22):
Better. Yeah. See where we're at. Yeah. Next question. A book that you've read in your life that you think you'd recommend people read?

Representative Rod Furniss, District 31 (31:30):
Well, about the only thing I read are Bills in the Book of Mormon right now. But

Brennan Summers, Exec. Director Main Street Idaho (31:38):
We got to give you some more flu read. Yeah,

Representative Rod Furniss, District 31 (31:40):
I some more. I always read sales books. Really, the scriptures for me are where it's at.

Brennan Summers, Exec. Director Main Street Idaho (31:47):
That's changed it love that. A restaurant in your vast district that you think if anyone's driving through district 31, they definitely need to stop at to eat.

Representative Rod Furniss, District 31 (31:59):
Oh man, I love 'em all. If you're an island park, you want to do the Mexican restaurant

Brennan Summers, Exec. Director Main Street Idaho (32:06):
Cafes Cafe.

Representative Rod Furniss, District 31 (32:07):
Yeah. If you're in Salmon, you want to stop at the Amish. I hear

Brennan Summers, Exec. Director Main Street Idaho (32:14):
They got good fried pies. Oh

Representative Rod Furniss, District 31 (32:16):
My goodness. And they're vanilla peaches. Really good. And then of course, if you're an island park, you want to go to the trout hunter and have a hamburger.

Brennan Summers, Exec. Director Main Street Idaho (32:26):
Yeah. Yeah. Those are some great recommendations. So representative, we start today talking about sports, talked about what you've done and how you raised your kids through it and how it relates to the legislature. We got into a lot of the other things that you've done in your personal life with your business and how that's helped you as you went to the legislature and helped the governor cut regulation. What we've done to help businesses and the business community went through a lot of the different things that you've accomplished in your relatively short political career and getting uninsured drivers off the road to getting teachers, helping 'em be insured. Your role with the INL supporting that as we've gone through all these things today as we wrap up, I want you to think about what kind of legacy you want Representative Rod Furniss to leave what you hope when you're gone. When I'm gone, people remember you. Bye.

Representative Rod Furniss, District 31 (33:20):
That's a hard question For me. I would rather see those policies and remember it rather than me. Legislators come and go, but the policies we leave behind are what's important and how they affect people's lives. We want to keep people off the road that aren't insured. We want teachers to continue to teach. I'm okay if they don't remember Rod Furniss, but I want 'em to know that Idaho had an interest in teachers. We have an interest in business, we have an interest in the site, and if I can change the trajectory from bad to good, I'm okay. If they don't remember me, I want 'em to remember the policy.

Brennan Summers, Exec. Director Main Street Idaho (33:58):
Fantastic. I think that's wonderful words to leave us with. If anyone out there is trying to get ahold of you to tell you they're happy or hating you, what's the best way for your voters and kind of Idahoans in general to share their opinions with you? They're

Representative Rod Furniss, District 31 (34:14):
Welcome to call me. I have my number at the capital is forwarded to my cell phone. My cell phone. If you pull up Rod Furniss, you'll see my number, my address. You can write me a letter, you can email me, you can call me, I'll call you back. So happy to serve that way. And it is important to be kind. It's not that we don't have to agree, but we don't have to be disagreeable. And I actually like to hear both sides of every story, so I'm happy to hear your problem. I'm probably working on 20 bills that people have called and said, this is an unfair thing, or this needs to be fixed. And they see me as someone that can get legislation water to the end of the row. We have legislators that have been there for four years that have never passed a bill. We have legislators that are serving committees that won't bring a budget, and that's their job. So I would encourage your listeners to vet those candidates that can get the water to the end of the row and can do common sense legislation. Common sense legislation to me is legislation that passed the house, pass the Senate and the governor signed it. If he goes through all those steps, it's probably pretty good for Idaho.

Brennan Summers, Exec. Director Main Street Idaho (35:32):
Fantastic. Rod Furnace, district 31 effective legislator, unfortunately. A BYU fan. Yeah.

Representative Rod Furniss, District 31 (35:37):
Unfortunate. All right.

Brennan Summers, Exec. Director Main Street Idaho (35:38):
Thanks for joining us today, rod. We really appreciate it. Thank you.

Empowering Parents in Education with Debbie Critchfield

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Idaho's commitment to empowering parents is not just a promise, but a reality. Leading the charge is State Superintendent of Public Education, Debbie Critchfield.

One size doesn’t fit all when it comes to our kids, and that’s why Superintendent Critchfield is coming to the table with wise solutions to empower parents, strengthen local control and prepare our students for the workforce needs of a growing state.

Idaho stands at the forefront of a groundbreaking shift toward a parent-centric curriculum, acknowledging that parents are the architects of their children's success.  

• Idaho Career Ready Students Grant
A program to better prepare students for the workforce by providing funding for career technical education programs. The grant aims to support districts in developing skills and workforce abilities in students, allowing them to take advantage of opportunities in their local communities.

• Financial Literacy Graduation Requirement
Equips students with the tools they need to navigate the world of personal finance, including budgeting, saving, investing, and understanding credit. By making financial literacy a graduation requirement, the goal is to empower students to make sound financial choices and improve their overall financial well-being.

• Parental Bill of Rights
Reaffirms rights which are founded upon the principle that parents are their child's first and most important teacher and are the primary stakeholders for the upbringing of their children. Parents are responsible for the moral, emotional, and, if desired, religious development of their children and instill the qualities of good citizenship.

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Listen On Spotify
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Follow Along With The Transcript

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Brennan Summers, Executive Director Main Street ID:

Welcome to Main Street Podcast, an opportunity to talk to Idaho's elected leaders about the issues that matter to you. Welcome to Main Street, Idaho. We're here on the podcast with a very, very special guest today. State Superintendent of public Instruction. Ms. Debbie Critchfield. How are you, Debbie?

Debbie Critchfield:

I'm doing fantastic.

Brennan Summers, Executive Director Main Street ID:

Merry Christmas. Is your house all decorated?

Debbie Critchfield:

It is. That was part of the Thanksgiving week was to get that done, so I joined the Early Bird Club.

Brennan Summers, Executive Director Main Street ID:

Hey, good job. How's the Christmas shopping coming along?

Debbie Critchfield:

I'm not in the early bird club now. We'll get there. Thank heavens for online shopping.

Brennan Summers, Executive Director Main Street ID:

Do you know what Dale wants this year and has he been good enough to get it?

Debbie Critchfield:

Yeah, to jump into this world that we're in now? Absolutely.

Brennan Summers, Executive Director Main Street ID:

I love it. So I've interviewed, we've had a congressman on here. We've had a lot of state senators, state representatives. This is the first time we've ever had somebody on here that has their own podcast. So I'm a little intimidated because it's host to host right now and out of the two of us, I clearly have no idea what I'm doing, but let's do a plug for the Super Intent Podcast. Talk us through that.

Debbie Critchfield:

Well, let me say that I had some experience when I was the communications director in Cashier County school district. I started a podcast, oh gosh, I don't know, four or five years ago, just as an experiment for myself because I enjoyed them, and that is one of the things I wanted to bring with me. It is an opportunity in 10 minutes snippets to learn something to explore, something to highlight, to showcase anything about education. And it's really designed for anyone that has an interest in education. It could be parents, it could be educators, policymakers, my neighbor. And so there's some things that are real informational, like we want you to know and understand something, and then other things are just to talk about exciting things happening.

Brennan Summers, Executive Director Main Street ID:

Yeah, I love it. I've listened to all of them. You can find 'em on, I watched 'em all on YouTube, but they're on Spotify anywhere you get your podcasts, so I'll do a big plug for those. Now, your official title is the State Superintendent of Public Instruction. I think that may feel self-explanatory times, but there's probably a lot of people out there that have no clue what that entails. So as you're out, what is it? So when you're out visiting the schools, how would you explain your job to an eighth grader?

Debbie Critchfield:

Well, I talk about the constitutional role of the state superintendent that it is in the constitution. It dates back from the very beginning of when I Idaho gained statehood. And so it is an important and critical job in a number of ways. One of the things that I do is I am the advocate for the public school's budget. That's one of the roles that I have. And so monies that are appropriated by the legislature start in a process where you go and propose a budget. And so that is one of the assignments that I have. Another very specific assignment that I have is to be a member of the state landlord. And many people overlook that and forget about that, and then wonder why is the superintendent on the landlord? Well, all of the state land lands have an endowment, and those endowment dollars come into education.

It's double digits in the millions. And so the people who put that together a long time ago said, let's have the state superintendent sit on that. I also sit as a member of the State Board of Education, which is the governing policy board for all of education, kindergarten through post medical graduation or graduate programs. And so I've got my fingers in a number of things, and I'm also the administrator for the Department of Education. And then we serve to support schools. We work through all of the federal requirements. We make sure that districts have what they need, and if they don't, we help them find it.

Brennan Summers, Executive Director Main Street ID:

Let's talk a little bit about the State Board of education. So you sat on it for seven years now there's eight members of that board. Seven of them are appointed by the governor, and then one of them defacto is the state superintendent who is elected. That's just me showing off how much I know. Look at that. I did my homework, Debbie. Good

Debbie Critchfield:

For you. Good for you.

Brennan Summers, Executive Director Main Street ID:

But you sat there on that board for seven years. Help us understand how that happened since it wasn't something that you ran for.

Debbie Critchfield:

Right. In 2013, I think it was 2014, actually, I was first appointed to the board by Governor Otter. The individual that had served from my region at the time had taken another position. And I had a friend who knew I had a deep interest and passion for good education policy, and Idaho suggested that I put my name into the hat, so to speak. And I went through a process and ultimately was able to be appointed by Governor Otter. And then I was later reappointed by Governor Little in his first term. And I did sit as a member of that board and that experience, and I was able to serve as president of the board. And my president tenure happened during covid. And so I had this unique experience of managing schools in a way that we really needed some leadership. There were a number of other needs that were happening that I don't think I need to get into, but it sparked in me this interest to have a different role on that same board. The things that I really cared about, the K 12 space, things that I wanted to lead out on, I wasn't able to do as an appointed volunteer. And I thought I need that elected position. And so in talking with my family, I said, I want to change hats. I want to change seats at that same table and get to work.

Brennan Summers, Executive Director Main Street ID:

So it's kind of a tall task to say, I'm going to not just run for elected office, but I'm going to run for a statewide office and I'm going to travel from up near the Canadian border all the way down to the Utah border and talk to Idahoans about some controversial issues and throw my hat in the ring. Maybe briefly explain what that experience was like going from an educator, going from somebody who was known in the community, serving the state in the education, but not somebody who was campaigning statewide.

Debbie Critchfield:

I have toyed kind of jokingly, but at times I thought I need to write a book about that experience because it was incredible in every sense of that word. I put 55,000 miles on my car. I drove everywhere twice. I jokingly said, Hey, if I don't get elected, I'm going to hire out as a tour guide of this incredible state that we live in. I knew where every small town was. I knew all of the things, and that's how I wanted to approach this. I wanted people to hear from me in this day and age of social media where people can put out literally anything that they want and say things and create these narratives around candidates. I wanted to speak for myself. And at one point, one of my kids said, do you think you have to speak to every single person? And I said, no, but it sure felt like it. And so it was incredible in the fact that the personal connections that I made listening to people understanding what their concerns were, and even in cases where politically I may not have on paper aligned with people, I was able to create conversations and find those similarities where again, on paper, I had people support and vote for me that shouldn't have as you looked at things. But when you connect with people and share that you're coming from the same place, it's amazing how you can find common ground.

Brennan Summers, Executive Director Main Street ID:

Yeah, and I think the first time I met you was at a campaign event, and I was surprised to hear where I would typically at a campaign event, hear a lot of political platitudes and just kind of talking points quickly turn into, you had policy solutions for what you want to do if elected. And I was kind of taken back like, well, this isn't normal. We talk in generalized terms, not in specifically how are we going to solve this. So I want to go into a few of the policy solutions that you suggested you were going to take on in your campaign. We're only in year one of cracking away at this, but let's talk about how it's going. So first you talk a lot about outcomes. A lot of your lens that you view success by is outcomes. How is this actually going to affect what we're trying to get it to affect A big outcome or a big key indicator on outcomes for student success is parental involvement. Why is that?

Debbie Critchfield:

Well, hopefully people, as you ask that question, your listeners are already filling in the answers themselves. This is how I thought about, it's a three-legged stool, and you have the student who has to be engaged. I mean, learning isn't something that just happens through osmosis or just drops in. You've got to have an engaged student that wants to participate in their own learning. There is that student responsibility piece. And then you have the teacher, they're the expert in the classroom. They're the ones that have gone through the training. They have a professional license. It is their job to take the information and communicate that in a way that there's understanding that there's knowledge. And then you have the parent who's the expert on the child. And when you combine those three things, that's the perfect recipe or the formula for success. I personally had four children that went through the public school system, and I know that when I sat down with the teacher and I approached it in a respectful way, that they have the professional skills and tools to get the things done in the classroom that I would expect when I layer in the things that I know about my child.

And you combine those two very important pieces of information. You've created an environment where the teacher understands what your child needs or the learning style that your child has, and then you want to work with the teacher so that then they can take the skills that they have and help your child be successful.

Brennan Summers, Executive Director Main Street ID:

So you promised that you were going to better foster parental involvement where possible, and you introduced a parental bill of rights of sorts. What was the thought process behind that?

Debbie Critchfield:

It was to codify really what parents are already doing should be doing. One of the things that I've heard a lot about, I've been involved in education through being a substitute teacher to be on a local board, state board and now this for more than 20 years. And it was surprising to me when I would talk to parents who were frustrated that they didn't recognize or feel empowered. I know that word gets overused, but it really is a good word. They didn't feel empowered about their own child. And in having conversations with the teacher, they felt like it was a system happening to them where I want to create the feeling that no, you are an active participant in what's happening. And so we took my team, and really before I was even elected, I put out what I call a parent bill of rights. And it was not a copy paste. It was things that I had heard from parents, my own experiences, here are the things that you have a right to know to do to talk about. And it made parents feel like, oh, okay, even though they could already do those things, I'm not giving parents their rights. They have those. But it was a reminder to do that, and we were successful in getting that through the legislature.

Brennan Summers, Executive Director Main Street ID:

And so speaking of empowerment, you spent quite a few years serving on a school board in Kshe County. And how did that experience as a school board member kind of translate into Debbie candidate for state superintendent who was campaigning on a encouraging and strengthening local control?

Debbie Critchfield:

So I had this unique experience in Caja. It's a consolidated district that makes up really five unique major communities. And so countywide, you have a school board that comes together that's represented in different zones by different board members. But as someone coming from Oakley, I then had a perspective of how we had to work together to satisfy the needs and interests of all of the communities as a countywide school board. That experience served me very well going up to the state level because that was the same job and role that I had as president of the Board of Education are now as superintendent. We have unique characteristics that are specific to special needs in different communities, but we also need to look at it as a whole, how does one thing help or hurt individual districts? And so that was a great training ground for me in a small contained way to be able to get to the state level to understand the interests at a large scale. And really individually,

Brennan Summers, Executive Director Main Street ID:

Debbie, doesn't it seem counterintuitive for an elected leader to disseminate power away from their office? Doesn't that seem opposite of what a typical politician would do, is you're trying to push power more towards the school board to make those decisions rather than consolidating? It

Debbie Critchfield:

Might, but that's my approach on this, that my role and job is to advocate for the resources and then support informed decision-making at the local level, believe it or not, at the capital city, they don't have a clue of what it's like to be in Ledor on that school board and to know what those unique challenges are. And if you get into the north part of our state, Boise might as well be a million miles away. And so to me that the success that we have happens at that local level. And so we don't want the state to get in the way of that. There are standards and things that we expect. So parental rights as an example, you shouldn't have to feel like, well, I guess I'm lucky enough to be in this district to be supported as a parent. There are things that we want to have consistently around the state beyond some of those standards. We need the flexibility. Our local boards need that flexibility to use those resources and reflect the interests and the priorities of their local community. And I believe, and I'll get, I don't know how to do everything perfectly. I'll get better at this, but because of the experiences that I have, I feel that I am in a unique position to be able to do those things.

Brennan Summers, Executive Director Main Street ID:

Yeah, no, you definitely come with an interesting resume that allows you to touch so many different facets of education. One thing that I think the legislature kind of through your direction and the governor's direction has really taken up is this idea of better preparing our students for the workforce. That was something that was important to you as you were running for this. Talk us through what your office is doing to kind of better meet the demands of this state's economy.

Debbie Critchfield:

Well, we need to have measures. It's not just a test that a student takes in the spring, but to me, we want measures and evidence that we've been successful in the schooling process, that our high school diplomas need to mean something. And to me, that meaning is I can take care of myself. I can financially take care of myself. I'm prepared in ways that I can take advantage of the options that are in my own backyard. And so one of the three things that I harped on consistently during the campaign, but really even before that, was more attention to developing skills to workforce abilities and how we prepare our students. They want a jumpstart in high school. And so we were able to be successful again in the legislature in getting a $45 million one-time appropriation for what we're calling the Idaho Career Ready Students grant.

And we've been able to award dollars to districts. The whole point of it was to find something in your own backyard that fed a program, an employer, an industry that the state wasn't giving you money for. And of the $45 million, we have awarded 36 million already. The money just became available. July one, we've had $111 million worth of requests. So you want to talk about highlighting and showcasing. We knew there was a need. I've been talking about this for years. We have this need in the career technical education arena, $111 million in requests. We still have money to award. We're going to get more. My hope is that I'll be able to go back to the legislature in a year or two and say, look what we did with the investment that you gave us, we're now creating more pathways and more opportunities for our students in St. Mary's or our students in Amon, and this is how we're doing it, and this is where we want our dollars to go.

Brennan Summers, Executive Director Main Street ID:

Oh, that's fantastic. I'm going to be excited to see what those programs look like and how each district tailors 'em to their own needs. So I think that's fantastic.

Debbie Critchfield:

This will sound really greedy, but that could be another podcast. We could really talk about what we've awarded and the programs that are being created from forestry to fish hatchery to meat cutting, and how we're preparing our students. It's been so exciting and just so satisfying for me.

Brennan Summers, Executive Director Main Street ID:

Well, I'm going to get you on the record here saying you're going to come back to talk about that with us.

Debbie Critchfield:

I would love it.

Brennan Summers, Executive Director Main Street ID:

Okay. Two important things we definitely have to cover, and you knew they were coming. You talk about students graduating with skills. We hear over and over again, and we see the memes on Facebook that show I know what osmosis means, or I know that the mitochondria is a powerhouse of the sale, but I have no idea what a credit score is, or I don't even know if a 401k is a marathon or what. That means you campaigned and delivered on making financial literacy a graduation requirement in Idaho. Talk to us about that.

Debbie Critchfield:

I'm so proud of the effort and you were a part of the support. Listen, when a candidate or just anyone who wants to serve, and that's really how I see myself. I've got an opportunity to serve. When you can find that one issue that no one disagrees with and everyone supports, you run with it like crazy. And financial literacy, personal management skills was that thing. There wasn't anybody of any political flavor or color that disagreed that our students need to have that ability. And what was so cool to me was parents saying to me, not only does my kid need it, I wish I could go back and take that class. And as I got into this and learned that Idaho is now among one of the first states in the country to require this as a graduation requirement, it gives me just that. It gives me power in thinking Idaho can be a leader in so many other things.

And I had a mom at the beginning of the school year, right around registration. So August time, she had gone to register her senior, and we made it so, and we were so happy to have this be successful in the legislature in both of our houses, it had 105 yes votes, and of course signed by the governor. You don't find legislation like that ever. And so I had this mom who had been tracking that she was excited that her child would have to take the class, and she called me on the phone and she said, Hey, I took my son to register, and I did not see that on the schedule. What is happening in the school district? I thought this was a requirement. And it turned out that it was there. It wasn't called out in a way that she recognized it. I loved that parents were paying attention to that. And so as we see students become just more knowledgeable about not only future decisions, but we have so many students that are already making important financial decisions in high school. We have students that support themselves, that help support their families. The financial wellbeing of an individual or of a state starts with an individual, and we want them to feel good about that.

Brennan Summers, Executive Director Main Street ID:

Not to mention the moment they graduate, the first mail that will come to their mailbox will be credit card applications. And we live in a country where you can destroy your credit long before you even know what it means. But another thing we have, go ahead.

Debbie Critchfield:

Oh, I was just going to say one of the things that I learned from you and from others that are in the financial industry, that there are dozens upon dozens of people in departments that all they do is manage debt for people and manage poor financial decisions. And I have a son that's in the financial world. And when I hear some of the crazy things that people do, and it does come back to this training and preparation and really our emotional relationship with money, and I, I'm so excited that we're at the place where we are with it.

Brennan Summers, Executive Director Main Street ID:

Yeah, I love it. Briefly, we're also seeing you and the governor rolled out the Story of America curriculum. Quickly tell us what that looks like.

Debbie Critchfield:

This is a supplementary curriculum. And again, supplement districts have got their curriculum, but it's something that without any money expended, teachers that teach social studies in eighth grade and 11th grade can go to as a vetted quality addition to subjects that they're teaching in US History. We hear a lot of talk, sometimes it's controversial, but I think this is another area that we all agree that we want our students to have more exposure to factual, accurate, historical content. And we had an opportunity with expiring COVID dollars at the state level to invest in something that would be a benefit for all of our students. And so as the governor and I visited on what could we do, we believed that this was one of the most important ways that we can support good learning. It takes pressure off of teachers who are already supplementing their curriculum, but it puts in a teacher's hand a very modern, interactive, free online resources that I believe match where we are in Idaho on how we want to talk about history.

Brennan Summers, Executive Director Main Street ID:

Well, superintendent Kold, we love the optimism that's coming out of your office. You've surrounded yourself with some brilliant people. We didn't talk about funding formulas. We didn't talk about facilities, we didn't talk about. There's so many things we didn't get to cover. But I think it's a testament how busy you are that all of these different facets of education touch your job. As we wrap up today, why don't you tell us what you look forward to when it comes to Idaho? Being an educational leader,

Debbie Critchfield:

Educational leader, I want other states in our country to see the success that we have, the achievement, the growth, the way that we are aligning what our needs are in our state and what our needs are in our communities and with our students in a way that we're satisfying. We're checking all those boxes. And then they look at Idaho and they say, wait, what are they doing over there that's working? We want to do that here. How have they made their students so successful? We want to do that here. And it's not really about showing off in that way, but when you're a leader and you're out front, you are thinking differently. You're taking some thought out risks. And then the other part I think of being a leader is when you try something and it's not successful, you say, you know what? We thought that that would work.

It didn't work. We're going to pull back on that. And one of the things I think has happened over time is there's been a lot of great new ideas, and some of them are hamstringing us now because they don't match up with the context that we're living in. But it's maybe a line item and a budget from 10 years ago, and districts can't utilize that money the way they need to because it worked then, but it doesn't work now. And so the hope and the excitement that I have about education in Idaho, I hope that that will spread to other people and that they'll see that this is an exciting time to be a part of education. Yeah, there's a lot of things that we can fix, but gosh, the future is bright and I'm happy to be in the front lines.

Brennan Summers, Executive Director Main Street ID:

The Future is Bright State Superintendent Debbie Cri, thank you so much for joining us. We're going to have you back and cover a few of the things we didn't, I hope.

Debbie Critchfield:

I hope so. You'll get sick of me probably.

Brennan Summers, Executive Director Main Street ID:

And maybe just one day you'll invite me on your podcast.

Debbie Critchfield:

Consider that done,

Brennan Summers, Executive Director Main Street ID:

Debbie, Merry Christmas. Thanks so much for joining us.

Debbie Critchfield:

Thank you so much.

Building Idaho's Tomorrow: Business, Growth, and Opportunity • Senator Abby Lee

As a lifelong Republican and a conservative force for positive change, Senator Abby Lee stands as a beacon of integrity, guided by the principles instilled in her by her parents—a Marine Corps Captain Vietnam veteran and a first-grade teacher. Her parents valued hard work and education, and Abby experienced firsthand the profound impact those values can have on one's economic opportunities.

In the pursuit of economic prosperity and sustainable growth, Senator Lee champions the notion that businesses, not the government, create jobs. Attracting new business to our state – expanding the tax base not increasing taxes – is the way to increase investments in education to secure the future for our children.

In today’s NEW podcast episode with Senator Abby Lee, we discuss:

• Core principles that drive sustainable economic growth.
•  The importance of strategic infrastructure investment as a driver of economic development, creating opportunities for businesses and communities alike.
• Education's transformative power on individuals and entire communities.
• Why the Idaho Launch program is a game-changer for students and the economy alike.
• The pivotal role that community colleges play in unlocking diverse education and training opportunities.

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Follow Along With The Transcript

Brennan Summers, Executive Director:

Welcome to Main Street Podcast, an opportunity to talk to Idaho's elected leaders about the issues that matter to you. Welcome, welcome. We're lucky enough today to be joined by Senator Lee Abby, not Mike, coming out of District nine. Senator, how are you?

Senator Abby Lee:

I'm great. Thanks for having me this morning. It's good to be here.

Brennan Summers, Executive Director:

Well, we appreciate you joining us. We were talking before how this is our first time actually meeting, and so I have this long, long list of all these questions about you and we're going to try to get through as many as we can today.

Senator Abby Lee:

Great. I'm excited.

Brennan Summers, Executive Director:

So typically they say that people are a byproduct of the home they were raised in. And I want to start by talking about the home you were raised in. Your father was a Marine Corps captain that served in Vietnam and Mother was an educator, first grade school teacher, I believe.

Senator Abby Lee:

Yeah, she was a kindergarten teacher, first grade teacher. And she also, when I was in high school, taught home ec and family living classes at my high school. So she's done a variety of things and has a PhD and is just an incredible human being.

Brennan Summers, Executive Director:

So why don't you talk a little bit about what it was like being raised in the balance between war hero and educator?

Senator Abby Lee:

Yeah. My dad is who also is amazing. I think I come from a lot of blessings and privilege and I think that that creates a lot of responsibility and something that my parents really instilled in all of us. There's four kids in my family, this responsibility to make things better wherever we go. And my dad was a vice president at a large corporation and my mom was a teacher and has always been a teacher before she was even a credentialed educator. And so I think that, as you say, really shapes your upbringing and your view of the world. Both my parents are first generation college students and I've spent the bulk of my career as we'll talk about working in education. And so that really forms my outlook and how education is the great equalizer and it changes lives.

Brennan Summers, Executive Director:

So your mother was a first generation college student and went on to get a PhD.

Senator Abby Lee:

My mom was a first generation college student. She's one of 13 kids. My grandpa was a coal miner in West Virginia. She was the first to finish high school. She was number six in the family and she was the first to go off to college and she had a scholarship to go up to college. And so that was a big leap for her to leave a tiny town in West Virginia and to go to college. And then she has since went to get a master's degree and she completed her PhD. So she's a great, great role model and my dad was the first in his family to also go to college.

Brennan Summers, Executive Director:

Wow, that's an incredible story. So you come from a rich history of people that just figure out how to get it done.

Senator Abby Lee:

Yeah, really people who had other people cheering them on, obviously people who were supporting my mom and encouraging her to make a difference and to change her future. And I am the product of someone of people. I'm the product of people who really just chose to make their life better. And I can see dramatically the difference between what could have been my life and what is my life just because of the choices that my parents made specifically in getting more education and getting good jobs.

Brennan Summers, Executive Director:

So in England they have a coin that their form of currency is the pound and they have a two pound coin. It's kind of a bigger coin if you've been to the uk seen it and inscribed on the outside of it, it says standing on the shoulders of giants. And so as you're telling me this, I'm thinking of you had the opportunity to stand really on the shoulders of giants who were pioneers in the world to be able to get into education to and to get these great jobs.

Senator Abby Lee:

Absolutely. And I can see the disparity between what my life has been able to be because of my parents' choices and the opportunities that they created for their family and certainly some of my family members who have great lives, but just different. And again, I really speak from a place of blessings and recognizing that because my parents made hard choices and did hard things, my life was better and I have an opportunity, I had opportunities to do things that otherwise wouldn't have been able to. And I'm incredibly grateful. And I think that really through that lens creates an opportunity and a responsibility for me to create opportunities for other people.

Brennan Summers, Executive Director:

Yeah. So you mentioned that kind of not, I shouldn't ascribe the family motto, but make things better is something that your family's focused on. You've spent nearly 10 years, right? It's been nearly a decade since you first got elected to the Idaho Senate trying to make things better. Do you feel like since you've got there, you've made things better for our state?

Senator Abby Lee:

Oh gosh, that's a big question, but I do, as I look back, I think one of the areas that I'm incredibly proud of is the work that I've done in child welfare, the work that I've done in foster care reform in giving a voice to often the most voiceless and vulnerable in our state. I'm incredibly proud of the Republican platform where we really value families. That's something that obviously was instilled in me, and I think that my work to expand foster care resources for the most vulnerable in our state really embodies those values of our Republican party.

Brennan Summers, Executive Director:

Let's talk a little bit about the foster care work you've been doing. There's so many issues that an elected leader in Boise can get their hands on. It's impossible to prioritize everything. What was it about foster care that attracted you to the policy issue and got you involved?

Senator Abby Lee:

So as we say, we're all shaped by our experiences and our family had the opportunity to be foster parents for some family members for a couple of years. And so I came to the legislature with that experience and with some of the, I think, difficulties in navigating that and just walked into a policy window as we call it, working with then Representative Moyle and representative Christie Perry to really address I think some major concerns with transparency in that system. And so bringing my personal experience along with I think some gaps in the policy, the time was right. And so we really, I think brought transparency, accountability, and at the same time I brought additional resources to address those things. And I think I'm really proud that this legislature, we were able to pass some pretty significant reform and support that had fiscal notes as a fiscal note is a bill that has dollars attached to it.

We were able to expand foster care to age 21 unanimously through the Senate and the House after about six years of working on this, which is transformative to get folks concerned about a policy issue that typically doesn't get you reelected as you say, these are big issues, these are not really attractive issues like tax reform or some of those other things that people are buying for. And so I really saw an opportunity to work on an issue that other people weren't focused on and something that was going to really make a difference for Idaho. Idaho.

Brennan Summers, Executive Director:

And I think you bring out a point here that Congressman Simpson and I speak about extensively where sometimes voters and the public, we think it's absurd that an elective leader should spend more than a few years in any position, right? Go in and do your job and just get out. But to this point, for these vulnerable populations, for those in foster care, this would not have gotten solved if you said, okay, I'm going to do two terms in I Idaho Senate be done. Because the complexities, it's safe to say that it took a full six years and if you would've bailed out early, this might not have gotten done.

Senator Abby Lee:

And I think that's really the message that I tell constituents. And I also tell new legislators, let's take our small wins and move the ball down the field. We have that sports analogy all the time. It's not always a touchdown, but it's can we get that first down? Can we start having that conversation? And so we did have a lot of small wins along the way. So each year we would bring back a piece of policy and then we created a child welfare oversight committee that I co-chair with Representative Brandon Mitchell. And again, I'm about bringing accountability to our government agencies. I think that that's our responsibility, but at the same time, we've got to provide the support and resources to get the job done. And I think that that's been an important balance. And you've heard lots of, I'm sure policymakers talk about don't let the possible get in the way of the perfect, get in the way of the possible. Let's have some compromise. Let's have some discussions. But again, as you point out, I think it does take time to build credibility and to build trust. And I'm proud that when we have child welfare issues, whether it's adoption or foster care or other issues with the Department of Health and Welfare, that my colleagues see me as a real resource, as someone who's worked on these issues on the policy side as well as the budget side, as I served on the joint finance appropriation committee and really worked these issues from the resource side,

Brennan Summers, Executive Director:

And I mean your juggling issues. So it's not that your sole focus has been the foster care issues, education has been a big issue for you. We spoke last week, two weeks ago with Chair Yamamoto about the importance of education and she laid out the pretty clear argument for the constitutional case of public education and funding it and the role of the legislature in ensuring we have a successful education program in Idaho public education. But we often hear from our representatives about kind of the emotional cause or argument for education that this is the right thing to do, this is what these kids need. And I think a lot of the voters and public buy-in into, yes, this is the right thing. You agree to that I'm sure. But you also have talked a lot about the economic argument, which is one that I'm really excited to talk to you about. Walk us through your perspective on education and how you connect it, not just to the feel good kid in the classroom learning how to read, but to the community, to taxes, to jobs, and to everything else that goes on in society.

Senator Abby Lee:

Yeah, I love that you start with our constitution, right? That's the oath that we take when we become elected leaders in Idaho. And so we should be able to go back to that. That is our responsibility, but more than just being the right thing to do, it really is this economic driver. And as I said at the beginning, I can see that my life opportunities economically were dramatically changed by my parents' access to education and skills. And I think that's the exciting thing about the launch program. It's been interesting to have it be so heavily criticized that we are investing in opportunities for education in our state that we know translates to better jobs, to jobs that help take care of families and jobs that keep people in Idaho helping to grow the economy, spread that tax base, all the things that we talk about that we want.

And yet, somehow this investment in these opportunities has been really derided. I look at what is the proper role of government. We talk about what is the proper role of government all the time and the proper role of government is to do the things that the market cannot and will not do. And so you probably, I've seen some of the criticism of let the market do this, let the businesses take care of these things. I've spent my life's work in education. I'm an administrator at Treasure Valley Community College. I'm incredibly proud of the work that I've done there. And clearly the market isn't fixing this. We have students who are not going on to college, not going on to jobs, not going on to skills or leaving our state. And so I think it's a really innovative way to invest in the things that, the outcomes that we want to see. We do it across tax policy all the time. We provide tax rebates or tax credits or we tax things more to get the kinds of behaviors and to incentivize and reward or to disincentivize actions. And I think that we can look at our investment education in a similar way. We know it changes lives and we know it changes communities. And so I think we should do more of this.

Brennan Summers, Executive Director:

Yeah, great line there about the proper role of government is to do that, which the market can't or won't do. So you brought up Launch. We hear a lot about launch the ball, moving down the field, take the little, this was a big win that happened this last session for a lot of those who supported it, and a big priority for our governor. For those that are hearing about launch, they're hearing the criticism that it's wasteful tax dollars or they're hearing the support that it's helping out kids. Let's dig in a little bit more. What is it that Launch does that isn't already happening? Why is this such a need in Idaho?

Senator Abby Lee:

Well, I think some people are seeing this as a grand experiment of giving students dollars to incentivize them to go to college by really filling in that gap For students who don't qualify for Pell Grants, I mean, let's be real, if you are a very, very low income student, you have a lot of opportunities for financial aid and that's incredible. But if you are a middle income family, where do you get those additional dollars, especially in this economy to go to school? And so I think that it fills that need. It also fills the need for programs that don't qualify for financial aid. So as we look at commercial truck driving or we look at cosmetology or some of those other jobs that really are good wage earning jobs and create entrepreneurs, I think investing on that in the front end is going to pay huge dividends when these are individuals who are going to be able to pay taxes and invest in their community.

So I think it seems very innovative, and yet we're not ahead of the curve on this. There are a lot of states that have already done this Utah, and we have a little bit of a fun thing going in the Senate where every time we say Utah, we have to put a dollar in a swear draw. But Utah is an example of a state that not only has done huge investments in the dual credit, which is college credit in high school, where you already have a little bit of an opportunity to help students, but if you get your associate's degree in high school, then you can go on and complete your degree at any university in the state. So what does that do? That gets students staying in state, they're marrying people in state, they're getting apprenticeships in states, and they're investing in that state and staying in the state of Utah.

And I want to see some of those things happen in Idaho. Idaho is an incredible place to be. It's an incredible place to raise our families. It has been an incredible place for generations. So I appreciate new people coming here, but we've built a pretty robust economy and I think that we can look at other states as models, and again, we're not ahead of the curve on investing in higher education. And so we have the opportunity to learn from other states, and I think launch is an example of what we've learned from other states, and we've seen that it really does make an economic difference in the state.

Brennan Summers, Executive Director:

Yeah, I'm thinking back to my experience. So I went to Bonneville High School in OT Falls graduated, and there were two dual credit classes offered. So there was a history class offered that you could get credit through I Idaho State University, and then there was a math class offered where you could get college algebra credit through I think Northwest Nazarene. When I graduated high school and went to school, I went to Utah State and my cohorts in my classes that had been attending Utah High schools in 2012, most of them had their associates. They had a number of opportunities that I didn't have in high school. Idaho's kind of caught up to that in regards to dual credit classes. Now, if you walked into Bon Bonneville High School, there's a lot more than two dual credit classes and a lot of these kids can now graduates or associates.

So it feels like we have been a little behind and then this launch is an opportunity to catch up. So I think it's fantastic. The governor has said that his focus of everything he does is how does he keep Idaho and his kids and grandkids to want to stay here? So you bring up number one launches for those that don't qualify for federal aid, either due to the program or due to Pell Grant, their own status. Number two, this is supposed to fill jobs that the market is telling you that aren't happening. What are you hearing from businesses in your district and around the state about the need to fill some of these jobs?

Senator Abby Lee:

So I'm hearing a lot from plumbing and HVAC and some of those manufacturing jobs where again, if I go back to the criticism of the market should do this, if you own a small plumbing company, it's really difficult to get new workers and how do you spend the time training them when you're also trying to go out and finish jobs so that you can pay your own bills? I also come from an education background, and I think education and training is a profession and there is a way to educate and train people, and it's not necessarily just on the job by seeing and doing. There's an under respected profession, so let's let the educators, those who are trained and those who have been able to develop curriculum to specifically help broad education, not just put a widget in or peg in a hole kind of a thing.

We talk about the need for holistic education, and I think that's the piece that we really need to look at the professionals who are helping to train individuals. And it's not just on the job training, and that's what my companies are saying is we need people who can read. We need people who can do math. We need people who can communicate well. And they also, oh, by the way, need to help develop these skills and we need credentials and we need testing to make sure before they go out and produce whatever's work product there is that there is kind of a vetting of that. And I think our community colleges especially skilled in being able to provide that resource.

Brennan Summers, Executive Director:

Yeah, that's exactly where I want to go is community colleges. So excuse me, Idaho's go on rate has been abysmal and I think we're realizing more and more four year degrees not for everybody. The worst thing somebody can do is get into college without really having a path, and then they end up burdened with student loans and then they bail without the degree. And we're seeing that throughout the country. The pendulum has kind of swung all over the place of everybody needs to go to college too, maybe nobody needs to go to college and back and forth. That I think Idaho's trying to find a sweet spot. You mentioned your career has been spent at a community college. Talk us through your unique perspective of what the community colleges are doing to provide kind of a fix for this.

Senator Abby Lee:

So I'm a fan of all of our universities also, and I think they absolutely have a role. I'm completing my PhD and so I clearly am invested in education, but I think our community colleges were really born out of a need for open access and open door. And so helping every student who comes, I like to say that our community colleges are kind of the Ellis Island of higher education where whoever comes with whatever goal, we're going to help them meet that. I also am one that doesn't believe that every student should go to college, but I do believe that every student who graduates from a high school and I think people should graduate from high school. That's kind of our base constitutional requirement that you should graduate from high school, either job and career ready or college ready. And I think there's a mix of that.

So we can do a lot with apprenticeships in high school. We can do a lot with apprenticeships those first two years of college, and then if you want to go on to medical school or you want to go on to become a teacher with a bachelor's degree, we should scaffold all of that. But I definitely think that education, as I said, is that great opportunity provider and we know that there is an exponential return on our investment for every dollar that we spend in education. I've had debates with people about should we take federal dollars for education and what should we do and what is our responsibility? And I can tell you that we're investing a lot in other social services that could be solved when we have I think whole healthy educated families. I serve on the Judiciary rules committee, and so I look at a lot of those, as I said, from foster care to juvenile corrections to the Department of Corrections. And every dollar that we put in education I think is an incredible investment in reducing some of those risks or other social issues.

Brennan Summers, Executive Director:

Yeah, I'm thinking I had a conversation with some individuals that run the local jail here and that very similar conversations, it's triggered. But Senator, our conversations today have all been centered around policy and you mentioned following your mother's footsteps, you're completing a PhD. We talked before about, we just got the dissertations, all that's left, and then you're going to be not just senator, but Dr. Abby Lee, your PhD is in policy and administration. When people think of elected leaders and they think of their senator, oftentimes it's not policy that comes to mind, it's politics. So I was hoping we could have a little discussion about the difference between statutes and yard signs, right, of campaign buttons and laws and how you kind of balance the two of politics is kind of how you get elected policies, how you govern. But in the Idaho Senate and the Idaho legislature as a whole, sometimes politics is the order of the day and it's not policy. How do you balance the two?

Senator Abby Lee:

I love that question and I think those who know me would probably agree. I think I'm a really good policy maker. I really am someone who studies the details and I wrestle with those. I don't know that I'm a great politician because I don't do well with looking for headlines or looking for taking credit for things. And yet there is a balance. And I often say that we run the risk of applying reason and logic to a political process, which simply the two are very separate. And so for me, I try to understand and respect what my constituents want me to do. And when I think I disagree with kind of a headline position, it's my job to go back home at either town halls or community meetings or through newsletters and explain my position to constituents about as we launch is a great example about really looking at how this is an economic investment just as I'm using tax dollars for other things, whether it's roads and bridges, or whether I'm giving tax breaks for homeowners or those types of things, that this really is an investment that I think is going to be good policy for Idaho.

But it's tough and it's getting tougher, as you know with social media and memes and kind of the vitriol that is growing of your either good or evil, and yet reasonable minds can disagree. We can disagree on policy solutions and we can both be right. And that's what our founders wanted is this system that is fraught with tension and it's slow and it's deliberative, and we can have disagreements without being angry and disagreeable. And that doesn't necessarily mean that you have to be Pollyanna nice. But I do think that you have to be civil, and I think that that is kind of an ethical position that people are missing

Brennan Summers, Executive Director:

Reasonable minds can disagree. I think that's an important thing for all of us to remember. Senator Lent was here and taught us that. Well, he says he refuses to accept compromises a weakness, he views it as a strength in his political career and in his personal life, and he will always stand by that. But we live in a world where today, this whole episode could have just been, we could have boiled it down to the talking points of the day and to get real dark red about things that really can wind up the lowest common denominator of political issues. Why do you continually choose policy issues over political issues that might make your reelection easier?

Senator Abby Lee:

Because I think having that seat at the table, the reason that I wanted to run for the legislature is because I didn't feel like I was being represented. I was one of those naive individuals who I'd never run for office before, but I knew that the individual who was serving in the seat at the time that I actually was running against had voted against almost every education bill, most of the transportation funding. And what I always say is these are hard issues, right? And yes and no are simple answers to complex issues, and all we get in the legislature are complex issues. If they were simple issues, they'd be solved before they came to us. And so I really think we have to be thoughtful about what we do in Boise matters. It matters to the families, it matters to the businesses, it matters to our schools. It matters to the future of Idaho. And so I think that's why I care about policy because these aren't just simple. Yes and no. They're complex issues and I've got to vote on, but all I get to do is say yes and no. And I care deeply about the future. My girls are fifth generation Idahoans and I want them to live in Idaho, and I want them to have all the benefits and blessings that I think that I've enjoyed.

Brennan Summers, Executive Director:

I think it's obvious as you speak to the issues, it's clear your passion and love for the state, your passion and love for the district. I told you I wasn't going to ask too many difficult questions, but this is the part of the podcast where we always ask the toughest questions. Okay, the first one, we need a book recommendation from you. The one book. We always have to ask those on the podcast. If there was one book that you'd recommend everybody needs to read before they die, what would it be?

Senator Abby Lee:

I was just reading Democracy, and I'm stunned by, I don't have the author, so I'll have to get back with you on that. But also, another book that I think is fascinating for policymakers is Ken Meyers, the Politics of Sin. And it is a fascinating look at the rules and laws that we make around prohibition, around abortion, around murder, around all the things that we want to create for norms and morays and values in our community. It's a quick read, and he is a fascinating public policy scholar out of Texas a and m University. I grew up in Dallas, so Ken Meyers, politics of Sin. I don't know if it's the one book that everyone in their life should read, but I do think it's a great book for policymakers to read.

Brennan Summers, Executive Director:

Alright, democracy and the Policy of Sin. We'll put those both on the list. Now in your district, district nine, what is one place that you think, okay, this is a place everybody needs to eat?

Senator Abby Lee:

Oh my goodness, you're going to get me. I got tough questions, a lot of trouble, but I think everybody should go to Weezer Classic Candy. If you have not been out to Weezer, you've got to go out to Patrick. He's my candy man. He comes to the capitol every year when we do the buy Idaho, and he has the Velvet Mints that we sell on in the gift shop, and they have fantastic soups and sandwiches and res dairy, ice cream, and the best homemade chocolate. So come out to the Fiddle Festival and go to Weezer Classic Candy and see my friend Patrick.

Brennan Summers, Executive Director:

Yeah, you're speaking my language with Reeds dairy ice cream as a eastern Idaho boy. So okay, we'll put that on the list too. Senator, we started today talking about the unique family you grew up in, a war hero father, an educator mother, both of whom really have a compelling story of where they started and where they finished. Then we talked a little bit about the work you've done in the Senate in nearly 10 years with not just the foster care reform, but the work you've been doing with education. We got into launch, you explained how that's really paving the way for Idaho's youth. We talked about the proper role of government and that it can do what needs to do, what the market can't. We've got into all these different issues as we've come along. Senator, as we wrap up and run out of time here, what is the message you would like to leave to the listeners who might not be tuned into all the political issues of the day, who maybe vote here and there in presidential elections, but need to hear something from an elected leader?

Senator Abby Lee:

So I think get involved. Get involved and make sure that you vote and then get involved in your local elections. And if you don't want to run for office support, a candidate who is running for office, my best advice is you are your best candidate. You agree with yourself a hundred percent of the time, but unless you are running, unless you are that candidate, you've got to find a candidate who most closely aligns with your views and values. You're not going to find someone who agrees with you a hundred percent probably in your family, and certainly not in the legislature, but find somebody and then support that person financially or with a yard sign, or just send a kind note, Hey, I really appreciated your stand on that. It is a lonely proposition to be in these jobs, and I don't say that to get any sympathy, but I say that from a human perspective of if you see something that you support, send a note that buoys that individual incredibly. So again, you're your best candidate. If you're not running, find someone who is and support them.

Brennan Summers, Executive Director:

Oh, fantastic message. Fantastic. Well, reasonable minds can disagree as you taught us today, but on that we agree. Senator Lee, thank you so much for joining us. We're going to have you back. Okay,

Senator Abby Lee:

Thank you. Thanks for your time today. I appreciate it.

Brennan Summers, Executive Director:

Thank you so much.

The level headed legislator talks private property rights, the future of family farm and public service - Senator Mark Harris

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In the vast expanse of Eight Mile, where the average is four people per square mile, you can find Senator Mark Harris. A rancher himself, he understands the rhythm of the land, where hard work is not just a phrase but a way of life.

In the spirit of sweat and dedication, Senator Harris is steadfast in serving Idaho. He recognizes that agriculture, the lifeblood of Idaho’s economy, thrives on secure private property rights, and Idaho's Constitution guarantees the right to possess and protect property.

Harris is resolute in preserving this foundation for generations of Idahoans to come.

We hope you enjoy this NEW episode of the Main Street Idaho podcast with Senator Harris  and Brennan Summers, the Executive Director of the Main Street Idaho podcast.

Mark doesn't just stand for Idaho; he walks the fields, herding the ideals that make us proud. In his words and actions, Senator Harris is a steward of our way of life, tending to the seeds of Idaho's future.

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Follow Along With The Transcript

Brennan Summers (00:00):

Welcome to Main Street Podcast, an opportunity to talk to Idaho's elected leaders about the issues that matter to you. It is the Idaho Main Street podcast. This is Brennan Summers here. I keep getting in trouble for not saying my name, but nobody caress who I am. It's always the guest we're here for, so we are lucky enough to be here with the good Senator at a district 35. Senator Mark Harris. Mark, how are you? I'm

Senator Mark Harris (00:29):

Good. I like to be here. Thank you. The

Brennan Summers (00:30):

Most important question we have to ask is, did you get the cows fed before you came in today?

Senator Mark Harris (00:35):

Didn't have to feed him. Not yet.

Brennan Summers (00:36):

You haven't fed 'em yet. You feed 'em later in the day.

Senator Mark Harris (00:38):

Well, the snow level hasn't come down quite to hit us yet, so they're

Brennan Summers (00:42):

All out.

Senator Mark Harris (00:42):

Just we're watching

Brennan Summers (00:43):

It. You're not throwing any hay down for 'em. They're

Senator Mark Harris (00:45):

Good. Not yet. Hay's too expensive. Well, not this year, but it's a cost that we don't want to blow right away.

Brennan Summers (00:52):

Sure, sure. You got to save that. Bruce, you have some pretty harsh winters where you're at.

Senator Mark Harris (00:55):

We do, yeah.

Brennan Summers (00:56):

Yeah. I'm excited. We're going to talk a little bit about where you're from and what you're doing, but we have a few things in common. We both went to Utah State and got political science. Oh, awesome. Yeah. Go Aggies. Are you a true Aggie?

Senator Mark Harris (01:06):

I

Brennan Summers (01:06):

Am not. You're not a true Aggie. I'm not,

Senator Mark Harris (01:08):

Are you?

Brennan Summers (01:09):

That's a very personal question. I do the questions

Senator Mark Harris (01:11):

Here, mark.

Brennan Summers (01:12):

Okay. You and Cheryl need to get down to Logan to become true Aggies. I

Senator Mark Harris (01:14):

Know. I keep telling her that she finds some excuse not to

Brennan Summers (01:18):

Go. We've got a lot of people right now that are Googling. Utah State owes us for that one, but when I was little, my dad was on the city council in Yukon, which is in New District, and so I would go to city council meetings with him and I mean, I'd go to these Lincoln days and it opened me up to this whole different world. You had a similar experience that got you involved in public service and getting involved in your community. Maybe talk a little bit about what your grandparents and your parents did to help you get to be a senator now.

Senator Mark Harris (01:47):

Sure. So my great-grandpa was actually a representative, and when Idaho is just a newly formed state, and I kind of always knew that, but really didn't pay much attention to it. My dad is actually the one that got me involved in politics as I was a little kid, as he would spray weeds with his pickup and I would have to start the pickup going, driving it when I was real little, and so he could start the sprayer and get it going. Then he would run and jump in the cab and we'd take off. He would always listen to the radio and Paul Harvey and the news. The news was big to him, and I could always remember him griping about Jimmy Carter. He did not like Jimmy Carter. Then when Ronald Reagan became the president, that was the happiest day of his life really. That's when I started paying attention to what was going on, mostly on the national level, because that was what was sexy at the time. But yeah, that's kind of what got me going. Both him and mom were involved in the Bear Lake County Republican Party, and so I started going to Republican conventions at real early age.

Brennan Summers (03:06):

And you caught the bug.

Senator Mark Harris (03:06):

I caught the bug.

Brennan Summers (03:07):

Well, I'm sure dad didn't love filling up that truck during the Jimmy Carta era.

Senator Mark Harris (03:12):

He didn't. Right? He didn't.

Brennan Summers (03:13):

Oh, that's such a fun antidote. Now, what was great-grandfather's name?

Senator Mark Harris (03:18):

My great-grandfather's name was William McGee.

Brennan Summers (03:20):

William McGee, okay. William McGee Harris. So you've got a rich history of Berto. Do you know what kind of legislator he was? If he was a bomb thrower or if he was,

Senator Mark Harris (03:29):

He was known as the hardheaded gentleman from Bonneville County. Oh,

Brennan Summers (03:32):

Really? A title that you've managed to shake off? Yeah. Yeah. That's all right. Now you're not from Bonneville County. You're out near Soda Springs and you describe it as, it's an area called Eight Mile that's between Soda and Georgetown, which is funny. Most people hear Eight Mile, and I don't know if you're familiar with the Detroit, but eight miles a portion where the rapper Emine M grew up. Oh, no, I'm not. And it is notorious for the, I won't go into the details, but for crime and things like that, got to be very different than the eight mile you live

Senator Mark Harris (04:05):

In. Oh, yes. There's no crime in Eight Mile where I'm

Brennan Summers (04:08):

From. Yeah, what's it like out there?

Senator Mark Harris (04:11):

It's a good place to raise kids. That's where I grew up and was raised. The winters are harsh, as you've mentioned. The springs are beautiful but short and the summers are hot. Not as hot as other places, but the falls are beautiful,

Brennan Summers (04:32):

And so you're right there and Soda Springs, that's the closest city where you can stuff.

Senator Mark Harris (04:37):

Yeah, we're eight miles south of Soda Springs, coincidentally,

Brennan Summers (04:40):

That's the name. There we go. We're figuring this out. I'm a slow learner, but I'll get there. Now you've got an interesting district though, because there you are embedded in the heart of Eight Mile right there by soda, but your district runs all the way up to Teton along the Wyoming border comes down, you go through Driggs all the way through Swan Valley, Palisade, even over to Yukon, my old stomping grounds, and then it cuts all the way down straight to Bear Lake, bear Lake, Utah border,

Senator Mark Harris (05:09):

And then goes to McCammon and Ham.

Brennan Summers (05:11):

Yeah, that's got to be one of the most wild districts drawn

Senator Mark Harris (05:16):

Up. We kind of kid that was the district that was made up after all the other districts were formed. They just kind of hodgepodge that one together. But yeah, it, it's an interesting district, but it's full of good people.

Brennan Summers (05:32):

Different

Senator Mark Harris (05:32):

People, different people, but good people.

Brennan Summers (05:34):

So you've said before that as an elected leader, you're going to represent everybody whether they voted for you or not, whether they agree with you or

Senator Mark Harris (05:43):

Not. That's my job.

Brennan Summers (05:44):

That's your job, man. There's different people that exist in Yukon and different people that exist in Driggs and all over the place. How would you go and vote or how when you go and sit on your committees and write legislation, do you keep all those different views in mind?

Senator Mark Harris (06:03):

It's difficult. As you can imagine, the constituency in Driggs is quite a bit different than the constituency in Bear Lake County. I receive quite a few emails from Teton County. They're very politically inclined, very politically motivated. But as I sit down and get ready to vote on a certain bill, I have to rely on my principles, common sense, what I think will help the majority of the district, and then I vote that way and if that's what happens. Sure.

Brennan Summers (06:45):

Let's talk principles. You've been described as a levelheaded legislator, and I practiced all morning to make sure I got that right. Levelheaded legislator. How is it you've managed to also, you've been endorsed by some very conservative organizations for your way to stand up for Right to Life or your falling to the Constitution and that organization surrounding those type of endorsements. How do you keep this levelheaded mentality as a pragmatist and stay very conservative without losing your head over there?

Senator Mark Harris (07:24):

I dunno. It is something that it doesn't keep me up at night. I do what I think is best and let the consequences follow. Basically. Usually if someone disagrees with me or with the way I voted, I'll try to call 'em and walk 'em through why I voted the way I did, and usually that will suffice. If it doesn't, they'll say, well, we agree to disagree and we'll try the next time. But I do try sincerely try to follow what I think is right, what the Constitution, what I think the Constitution allows us to do and what will help my constituents, and that's the best I can do.

Brennan Summers (08:20):

And we try to humanize the politician on this podcast. We try to take away the power distance of the title. And one thing you've done that I think it's important for listeners to understand, it's your phone number's out there and you've encouraged people to call. We were talking before about how you'll receive a lot of calls on certain issues, and when they call, oftentimes if you're out and about your secretary in sir quotations or so they think you have a receptionist. It's actually shero your wife. It's wife for your employees that are taking the call. Right?

Senator Mark Harris (08:51):

Right.

Brennan Summers (08:52):

I mean, that's going to blow some people's mind that they could literally call up the home phone of their senator and get the wife or get the senator and leave a message about how they feel. That doesn't seem crazy to you.

Senator Mark Harris (09:05):

No, it doesn't. That seems Idaho to me. Idaho is a part-time has a part-time legislature. We all have our real jobs when we go home, and I think that is crucial to what Idaho is, is that we need to keep that part-time legislature mentality. We need to keep that connection with people at home. And I think that's important to be able to have my constituents call my house and say, Hey, I've got a problem, and be able to talk to 'em.

Brennan Summers (09:35):

That's fantastic.

Senator Mark Harris (09:37):

It's a necessity.

Brennan Summers (09:39):

Yeah. So you're still a firm believer. Part of your principles are your constituents and your voters need to be able to reach you even if they don't agree with you,

Senator Mark Harris (09:47):

Even if they don't agree.

Brennan Summers (09:48):

You've had some crazy calls in the past. I

Senator Mark Harris (09:50):

Have, and especially on the wolf issue that we had some wolf legislation a couple of years ago that went through, we had quite a few calls late at night, odd hours of the day from some very disgruntled people all across the country in the world in fact. And we finally had to tell the kids, don't answer the phone unless you recognized the number

Brennan Summers (10:17):

And he 2 0 8 on it.

Senator Mark Harris (10:18):

And we had to kind of calm down on that, but

Brennan Summers (10:22):

Let's talk about that wolf issue. Okay. So congratulations. You were quoted in the New York Times. That's the positive side of it. The negative side of it is they were pretty critical of you regarding this wolf issue. What was all the fuss about Senator?

Senator Mark Harris (10:37):

The fuss was an offhand comment that was made in committee about how the sponsors of the bill wanted to kill 90% of the wolves in Idaho. That was the furthest thing from the truth, because I mean, if we do that, the wolf will be listed again and we start the process all over again. I mean, we don't want to do that. But the fact remains, by the numbers of the fishing game gave us, the wolf population was growing and it was like 1,550 wolves, if I remember correctly. And our target was way below that. Even with the hunting season that we had, that the fish and game had implemented, the population was still growing. And so basically the legislation that we had was to allow year-round trapping on private land would allow other people beside it, well, contractors besides government guys to go out and kill the wolves. Anyway, those things were the triggers of the comment of you want to kill 90% of the world's in Idaho, and this was the furthest thing from the truth, but that's what riled everybody

Brennan Summers (11:51):

Up. But you led the, that was trying to control this population that was exploding, correct?

Senator Mark Harris (11:56):

Right. My name was on the bill.

Brennan Summers (11:57):

Yeah. There's some people that are new to our state might be listening who wolves are cute creatures to 'em. They see 'em from a distance, they read 'em about 'em in schools. What is it that they need to understand about this species when it comes to the Idaho way of life?

Senator Mark Harris (12:13):

It goes beyond just the wolf itself. The wolves have been killing cattle and livestock, sheep, horses, domestic dogs, several things around the state. And the livestock producers mostly are beside themselves. Their cattle come in way underweight. They come in open, not pregnant, which is a killer in the livestock industry. It's bad. So there's that aspect of it. But also on the wildlife side of it, we're finding the wolves are driving the elk herds down into the lower country, and when the elk come down, they destroy crops in the lower country, hay crops, corn crops, whatever the elk should be in the mountains. And so there's a compounded problem there with elk depredation where there shouldn't be, plus the added livestock depredation when the wolves will kill 'em.

Brennan Summers (13:14):

And you can speak to this issue because not only do you have a cattle operation that you run with your brothers down there, if we're talking about like a thousand head, I mean it's a significant operation, but all your friends and neighbors, that's their way of life as well.

Senator Mark Harris (13:28):

That's their way of life. They're growing

Brennan Summers (13:29):

Hay, they're raising cows. Your experience in ag is unique, right? So you started on the Farm Bureau and the Idaho cattle cattlemen. You served there and you brought your experience from the field into the policy realm. And then as you've been in the Senate, you've been able to lead out on a lot of these ag issues. Why is it so important that we have elected leaders in Idaho that not only understand agriculture, but their livelihood is agriculture?

Senator Mark Harris (14:03):

That's a good question. Agriculture is a critical part of the I economy. I think it's like 13% of the GDP, but it's just more than that. Agriculture, it's a way of life. It's a legacy for a lot of these families. And in my view, I need to do everything I can to protect that legacy in that way of life for future generations. And what we're seeing now during this time is a large population growth in the state of Idaho. We're seeing it in our infrastructure, our resources, and our ag land. And it's come to the point where a beginning farmer, a kid that wants to start a farm, cannot afford to buy land to start a farm. They have inherit that or have some kind of agreement with their parents to buy it. And so what we're seeing is the loss of the family farm, and that's a threat. Yeah,

Brennan Summers (15:20):

Funny. I had a college roommate down in Utah State who grew up in Bear Lake, went to Bear Lake High School, and he's in that situation right now. He's got a young family and he wants more than anything to raise cows, to grow crops and to get in that lifestyle. And culturally, it's more than just the finances that comes in Idaho from our big farms. It's the culture part of it that we've got to protect. So what are some of the issues, you listed some about the growth and the infrastructure and the challenge to keep the family farm. What are some of these big issues that agriculture's facing in Idaho right now that you've got help with in the Senate?

Senator Mark Harris (15:56):

Well, the big issues I think are a lot of the problems come from the federal, on the federal level. For example, waters of the United States, the wilds, and that was implemented or introduced in the Obama administration and kind of went away during the Trump years. And then it come back with the Biden administration, the several states, attorney generals have filed suit. And as far as I know, that's still pending. But the Sacket situation in northern Idaho with their win in the Supreme Court has kind of forced the EPA to go back and re-look at that, which is good. The other thing that's floating around out there hovering is what they call the 30 30 project, which has been introduced by the Biden administration. Again, it's a global initiative basically to put in reserve 30% of the land and 30% of the water by the year 2030. And that is also a threat to agriculture because as I said before, population's growing. We've got to eat and somebody's got to grow the food and we have to have places to do that. And so there's

Brennan Summers (17:15):

That issue. Yeah, regulation by the federal government's kind strangling you. And there's a lot of people in DC who they'll put out policy. It sounds like a good idea, but it's very different when it comes down to the guy whose boots are in the dirt.

Senator Mark Harris (17:25):

Yeah. When it hits the ground, it's a problem

Brennan Summers (17:27):

Now. So there are some things thrown down from the federal government that make it a real challenge. And there are some things that just kind of happen. So recently we saw an invasive mussel species pop up in some Idaho waters, the governor and the Idaho Department of Ag. They wasted no time to do the full core press, try to get rid of this thing again. What's the big concern about this invasive species and why should we all care about a mus that I can't even pronounce.

Senator Mark Harris (17:53):

The qua mussel. Yeah,

Brennan Summers (17:54):

Qua.

Senator Mark Harris (17:54):

There go. It come from Ukraine, I believe, and has infested the Great Lakes. In fact, the only states in the country that hasn't been touched by it are Idaho, Washington, Oregon, Montana maybe. So we've been trying our best to keep the quagga mussel out. And years ago, the Department of Ag implemented check stations and everybody's probably seen them on the border, boat check stations. The process kind of got stale. And so we revamped it in 2017, I believe, and added some more funds to the stations to add 'em so they could run longer hours. We've been crossing our fingers hoping we didn't ever get 'em. And lo and behold, we did in the Steak River. And Twin, as you mentioned, just popped

Brennan Summers (18:50):

Up, what, a couple months ago maybe it

Senator Mark Harris (18:52):

Popped up. And we don't know where they came from. And that's concerning. I

Brennan Summers (18:55):

Blame the Californians. It's the easiest thing to do, right?

Senator Mark Harris (18:58):

It's the easiest. But it could have come in and an inflatable raft, a rubber duck. I don't know. It could have come in anything. And the problem with those, they multiply so fast and they're so thick that they could potentially cause hundreds of millions of dollars of damage to IDs, infrastructure, the power generation, irrigation systems. We've seen pictures of them. Clogging center pivots so bad that the center pivots get heavy and collapse. They just constrict the water flow. They grow on rocks, on the beaches and make it so people don't want to go there. It's a bad creature.

Brennan Summers (19:47):

That's the bad news. What's the good news?

Senator Mark Harris (19:49):

The good news is, as you said, the governor and the Department of Ag, department of Transportation, fish and game, several state agencies, some federal agencies, it was a phenomenal response when it was discovered that we had it in Twin Falls and the river. The response was terrific, and I think it's something that we'll look back on and try to emulate if we ever get it again. But I have nothing but praise for the Department of Ag and how they reacted to this issue. And basically what they did is they put a copper compound in the river, chelated, I believe, chelated copper that will stick to stuff. And it was in the water for 90 some odd hours and killed the muscle that they did find. They did find one killed the villagers, the little mussels, and killed a few fish, which was a concern. But a lot of the fish that died were trash, fish, carp, and a few sturgeon. But we were basically a fish game said, we can replace those, it'll take a while, but we can replace 'em. But the muscle that they were watching that they did find was dead, which is a good sign. So we're crossing our fingers now because they'll go dormant during the winter basically. But we'll continue to monitor that. ISDA will and fishing game, and we'll see what happens next spring. So we're keeping our fingers crossed to make sure that we've got 'em cleaned out.

Brennan Summers (21:36):

So hats off to the governor, hats off to the agencies, but also hats off to those in the legislature who funded the organizations, the agencies, because if they were gutted and were operating on shoestring budgets, they probably wouldn't have been able to respond the way they did.

Senator Mark Harris (21:48):

And like I said, in 2017 or 2000, when I came into legislature, I think the budget for the invasive species program was 1,000,002 or something like that. It was getting its money from boat tags, boat registration. We upped it considerably in 2017. And with the help of several legislators, Sean Keel from North that Idaho was the chairman of J fac at the time. She was instrumental in that effort and the Governor Otter. And anyway, I think it's time for a refresh and I expect some legislation to come this session to further that fight against the qa. It's

Brennan Summers (22:34):

Got to be one of the most abnormal issues that matter so much. It's one of these things that why should we care? I think you explained it very well. This is an issue we really all should care

Senator Mark Harris (22:45):

About. We should, yeah.

Brennan Summers (22:46):

Another issue that we all should care about that not enough people talk about but plastered all over, whether it's your campaign websites, whether it's your speeches you give in Boise, you care a lot about personal property rights, and that's not typically a campaign talking point for a lot of people in Idaho. But that's kind of been something when we talk about you voted with your principals, it's almost really important to you. Help us understand what is it about personal property rights that it's so important to you?

Senator Mark Harris (23:14):

Private property rights and personal property rights are key to what makes this nation what it's, it's key to what makes Idaho, Idaho. And it's just, it goes back to the rugged individualism type and type mentality of this is mine, I can do with what I want, and I don't want anybody to come tell me what to do with it. It's private property is, like I said, a key to what makes the United States what it is for your

Brennan Summers (23:49):

Country and connect so closely with a lot of the other issues you work on with your deep understanding and fight for protecting agriculture and the things they're on. And we're going to have to have you back, just talk about ag issues. I know there's a long list of things we didn't cover from everything with the workforce shortage to protecting ag land and water's an issue for everyone. So we will get our time to get into that, but we make sure we ask. Everyone that comes on the podcast, they get a couple of questions. I don't know if they like 'em, but people listening tend to love 'em. So the first question, it's a book, a book you've read in your lifetime that anyone listening, you can say, look, before you die, if you never read anything else again, if you don't even know how to read and you just want to learn how to read, do it for this book and this book alone.

Senator Mark Harris (24:29):

That is a tough question. I am an avid Tom Clancy fan.

Brennan Summers (24:35):

Okay. Hey, that's good. We'll take that recommendation. Anything Tom Clancy you're saying?

Senator Mark Harris (24:39):

Anything? Tom Clancy. I read a lot of Tom Clancy books in college and after, and the words that he uses that he used, he's deceased now. But my vocabulary went crazy and I'd have to look up some of the words to see what he meant. But yeah, I'm an avid Tom Clancy fan.

Brennan Summers (25:03):

I love it. Now, do you have a place, now your seatmate representative Wheeler really struggled with this question because your district is so big. I'm going to hold you to it. Can you pick a place or maybe two, the best places to eat in your district if anyone's driving through that massive district of yours, where should they stop and eat?

Senator Mark Harris (25:22):

Home

Brennan Summers (25:23):

Cheryl's cooking. Yep.

Senator Mark Harris (25:24):

That's

Brennan Summers (25:25):

A great answer. What does your wife make that when we stop by? We should get

Senator Mark Harris (25:28):

Roast beef mashed potatoes.

Brennan Summers (25:30):

Man. Spoken like a true Idaho country boy. There we go. Senator, we started today talking about your grandparents, your parents, your great grandfather, representative McGee, the hardheaded guy from Bonneville County, and talked about how you got introduced into politics. We've covered a lot of issues today from invasive muscles, personal and private property rights to issues ags facing. We've talked a lot about your love of agriculture and how you're fighting to make sure Farms can stay in the community. I think everybody in their mind is now wanting to drive out and spend some time in eight mile and see what God's greeting the earth looks like out there. As we're wrapping up here, you've got four boys. These boys have watched you from a young age serve in the Senate. They've watched you feed cows in the winter. They've helped answer the phone When angry people about wolves call. What is it that you're hoping that legacy you're going to leave as Senator Harris for your boys?

Senator Mark Harris (26:24):

I hope that they see the value of public service. If not, if they can't serve in the public disservice in their church service, in their community service anywhere. We have some phenomenal people in this district. Cheryl and I, for example, to a Presbyterian bazaar last week and just great people. It was just fun to be there and intermingle with them and participate in their fundraiser. And that's what I like to do is do those kinds of things and see my people. That's why I do it, and I hope that they learn the value of that and following those footsteps

Brennan Summers (27:12):

Well to the level-headed legislator from District 35. We appreciate your service. We appreciate your time. We're going to have you back so we can get through all the other things we cover. Sounds good. Thanks so much. We'll let you get home to Cheryl and the cows. Okay, sounds good. Thanks so much.

Empowering Idaho Students - Representative Julie Yamamoto - Episode 13

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An educated citizenry is not only desirable, it is paramount to the wellbeing and continuance of our constitutional republic.

Education is the key that unlocks the door to freedom — It equips individuals with the ability to think critically, to question, to make informed decisions, and to safeguard their rights.

Ultimately, education is the catalyst that allows each of us to reach our fullest potential. It's the embodiment of the American Dream – the idea that with hard work and education, anyone can achieve greatness.
Today’s podcast guest, Representative Julie Yamamoto  currently serves as Idaho’s Chair of the House Education Committee. She received her Educational Specialist and Doctor of Education from the University of Idaho, and knew from an early age that she would be a teacher.

Rep. Yamamoto's commitment to guiding students towards becoming virtuous citizen leaders is  inspiring. In today’s episode, she emphasizes the need for teachers to guide students through their educational journey and raise virtuous citizen leaders.

Yamamoto aims to create a collaborative lawmaking environment and push forward  legislation to serve Idaho's students and families.

In this NEW episode, you’ll discover:

How Idaho plans to invest in its young minds through the new Launch program.
Current hot topics, from school choice to building maintenance to the library bill.
How faith plays a significant role in her approach to governance, and how she finds common ground with those who may not share her views.

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Follow Along With The Transcript

Brennan Summers (00:00):

Welcome to Main Street Podcast, an opportunity to talk to Idaho's elected leaders about the issues that matter to you. Welcome. It is Main Street Idaho's podcast. And here we are with Representative Julie Yamamoto out of District 11. She had to correct me, right? I had 10 earlier, but we had a change in districts. But representative, you're coming out of Caldwell today, correct?

Representative Julie Yamamoto (00:26):

Correct.

Brennan Summers (00:28):

Well, we appreciate you joining us. Now, you chair the House Education Committee, so you can imagine we're going to talk a lot today about education.

Representative Julie Yamamoto (00:37):

I would expect that

Brennan Summers (00:41):

This will be a great experience for me who's followed your career for a while. A lot of issues came up. We had Senator Dave Lent earlier this year come and talk to us about some education issues. That was fantastic. So we're excited to get the house perspective on some of these issues. Now, you were a seventh grade school teacher, a first grade school teacher, and then you went on to become an administrator. You helped start a charter school. You're on the board of a charter school. You have a doctorate in education too, I believe. So first question, representative, what is it about education that you find so

Representative Julie Yamamoto (01:16):

Impactful? Well, I knew from a very early age that I was going to get to be a teacher. I knew it from before I was six years old and started school myself. And I knew that there is just something about when you are working with young people, whether it's teaching them to read, which is just an incredible experience, or if it's guiding them through middle school years, which are just when you ask them why they do things and they say they don't know, they mean it, they don't know. And then as they're working with them in their high school career and what is going to come beyond, you are not their parent, but you are with them with the better part of their waking hours. And so it's important for you to know that an educated electorate, Thomas Jefferson wasn't wrong when he said that's what the Republic, a constitutional republic is going to be dependent on people being educated and knowing what they stand to lose and what it's all about and how to be a part of that. So I always thought from the very beginning that we were raising virtuous citizen leaders. They were going to go forth and keep things moving in a good direction for not just Idaho, but the United States and really the world.

Brennan Summers (02:36):

It's safe to say that if you're one passion in life, you had to choose one is education.

Representative Julie Yamamoto (02:41):

Oh, yeah. It was given to me as not just a job, it was a vocation and an vocation. I felt like it was my joy for it to be my life's work.

Brennan Summers (02:53):

So maybe walk us through how it felt when you first found out that you'd be chair of the House Education Committee.

Representative Julie Yamamoto (03:00):

Well, that was overwhelming and actually went back to Speaker Mole before the announcement was made and asked him if he was sure that was what he wanted to do, because I recognized that we'd had such a turnover in the house and for somebody who was in their second term, there were a couple of us who were tapped to be chair of committees, and that's unusual. Usually somebody has been there quite a bit longer, and so it was overwhelming. But Dave Lent, who chairs the Senate ed, we had decided early on that we would work together and that presentations that we would have on Mondays in the house in the afternoon, we would have the same presentation in the Senate so that the two committees were working somewhat in tandem looking at what are the big issues, what are the things that are going well? How do we help move those things forward? So I felt like I had some good help along the way.

Brennan Summers (04:09):

Yeah, so we try to highlight on the podcast the importance of committees. So whatever I'm chatting with elected leaders, I try to lean into their role on the committee and the things they do. We are finding that our average listener understands what their elected leaders do in terms of voting for bills and proposing legislation, but the idea of committees is sometimes lost on the average Idahoan. Can you briefly walk us through what the process is like of chairing a committee and what that entails and why that matters?

Representative Julie Yamamoto (04:41):

Well, the most important thing is, is that somebody comes to you and says, here, this is a bill that we would like to have heard in your committee. And so the first thing I do is sit down with them and ask them, well, what is it about? Let them talk me through it. Then I read through the bill as well. If I have any questions or concerns, then I talk to that person about that. Ask them who else they've talked to on the committee and encourage them to let people know what's going on with their bill before it gets in front of the committee. A lot of the times you'll get some from personal experience, I have written some bills, and then when I put them out for people to give me feedback, they have caught some things that why not catch it before it gets in front of the committee and not have to go back and redo it and ask for a whole new number? Because that's what it requires is that if you get your RS and then it is actually heard and given a bill number, then if you need to amend it, sometimes you just have to go clear to the beginning and start over again. And so we try to, as chairs, we've been asked to not tell people what to do with their bills, but to give wise counsel so that whatever comes in front of the committee, a lot of the questions have already been answered and concerns have been addressed.

Brennan Summers (06:08):

So first off, your first role is to act as a filter in some sense to ensure that the committee's time's not wasted.

Representative Julie Yamamoto (06:15):

Right. And I know some people think that that means that you draw bills. I made a real effort to not do that, to say that if they had enough interest on the committee for it to be heard, whether it was an educational savings account or whether it was the library bill, all of those things that we heard them, I think there were only two that we ended up not hearing. And it's mainly because we got so late in this session and we needed to get the rules taken care of, which is another part of committee work that probably the average person doesn't know or maybe even care about. But it's pretty important that we're reviewing the rules that are to our germane committee. And so we just got caught in a time crunch and there were two that we didn't hear.

Brennan Summers (07:04):

But there's something to be said about even bills that you opposed in committee, you still brought forward and let the debate occur.

Representative Julie Yamamoto (07:11):

Agreed. And I know there were people who felt like that the chair, that it is your prerogative to just say, I'm not going to listen to. I'm not going to hear it. I didn't approach it that way. I believe that the political process, even if there are people who, I mean it was actually said, well, we win either way. Either we win because the bill gets passed or we win because we have people on record as voting for or against whatever it is. So I suppose that there's, there are those who would say it would've been prudent to not let some of those come through, but that's not the process. The process is that people are elected 105 of us to come to Boise and to cash this stuff out and to debate these issues. And I think that that is the process, and it's a good one. It means that laws don't get usually passed, usually not easily. And I think the library bill is a really good example of that. That's something that maybe needs more time and as they say, to bake and not just a knee-jerk reaction to pass.

Brennan Summers (08:29):

Well, I'm excited to get into some of these specific bills that you mentioned, but when you became chair of the committee, you said that a goal of yours was to create a collaborative lawmaking environment and push forward robust legislation to serve Idaho's students and families. So you've already mentioned one way you've created a collaborative environment, and that's by hearing bills and allowing the education process, the debate process and the lawmaking process all play out in your committee. What are some of the other ways you feel like you've been able to achieve that goal at your short time so far? As chair of the committee,

Representative Julie Yamamoto (09:04):

One of the things that we did is we really looked at that, what does the constitution say as our job is to provide a system of free, thorough public common schools? And it was something that we put the exact wording right on the back of everybody's nameplate. So it was in front of us every day that we were meeting and that we were deliberating, or as we were listening to the presentations that came to us, and we had a couple of discussions about that. It didn't get as far as I would've liked to, I would hope that we would maybe try to come to some kind of a consensus about what did that actually mean, because some of the friction that you see on that committee is what a difference of opinion you could have on what it means to be thorough and what it means to have common and what it means to have a system.

(09:58):

And does that really not take care of individual students just because you call it a system? So those were the things though that I felt like that if we could talk about as a committee, it's a pretty large committee with very diverse views, could we get to a common understanding of what those terms meant? And I think we started down that path, but as you said, one session, we certainly didn't finish that conversation. The other part of it is just bringing people in so that we have so many new people on the education committee just to know all the different, they call it the alphabet soup, but there's everything from the School Boards Association to the Idaho Education Association, witchy, which is the upper ed, the colleges and universities, B-S-U-I-S-U, all of those to bring them in and to give them an opportunity to present so that we start having a common experience and understanding to approach the bills that come before us.

Brennan Summers (11:10):

Yeah. You mentioned a lot of different groups that you've brought forward. You mentioned previously collaborating on the senate side with Chairman Lent. I assume you probably have to work pretty closely with the State Board of Education and our new state superintendent. Why don't you tell us a little bit about working with superintendent Debbie Critchfield. She's new. How's she doing? What's she doing that you like? Where do you see opportunities for her and her organization to venture into new fields?

Representative Julie Yamamoto (11:38):

So Superintendent Critchfield just brings such a positive energy, and she has surrounded herself with people like Ryan Cantrell who is just at the top of his, he's in his A game as far looking at what do all schools need to be successful, Greg Wilson has great policy background, and then the people that they are putting into positions to help guide schools, they are people who truly care about students individually and then as collectively and then as teachers and as local education group, school districts. And I think that that approach of being truly collaborative with the schools that you are representing, with the superintendents, with those principals, and coming alongside to help and to give clear direction about what it is, this is what it says, this is what it means. Julie Oberly, Gideon Tolman, these are the finance people. They have forgotten more than I'll ever know about school finance.

(12:50):

And they have just been excellent guides as Debbie has developed her budget for this coming year. And I really like how she has put it into, she's trying to look at what does the constitution say and then put it into these different buckets so that we're looking at it with a little different framework as far as why are we spending this money in this way? And I just feel like that all of those things that she's trying to listen to what her stakeholders, she brought people together for that finance to the modernization of the school funding formula, which in and of itself is just a beast. And just this idea that she's listened. And when we met last Monday, the things that she has put in place to address, you could draw a line from what somebody's concern was to where it is in the budget. And to me, that is somebody who's listening and not just listening to pander, but listening to really move the work forward. I have high hopes for where we're going with education, and she's working with the governor's office, working with the state board since she was on the state board. She understands that role, their role better than the average person, and I feel like there is a true collaboration there. So I give her an A and she's just, it's a work in progress.

Brennan Summers (14:16):

Yeah, gleaming review from the chair to the new superintendent. We're going to have Debbie on the podcast here in a week or so, and I expect her to give you such positive remarks as well. So we'll hold her to that. So that's great. That's great. You're working closely with her and her team. Love to hear you talk specifically about not just the boss at top, but all the people helping her making things run. You as chair and Debbie as superintendent, a lot of unique issues came forward this last term, this last cycle, last session. I would like to quickly get into a few of them if it's okay with you. We've got a lot of 'em, so I'll hold you to some shorter answers, but I think our listeners are really going to be excited to get your perspective on some of 'em. We'll start with a non-controversial, really easy one.

(15:03):

How about school choice? Okay, so we're under the impression, and we've heard often that Idaho has numerous choices for students and parents when it comes to places to be educated. A bill came forward that you referenced a little while ago that we would call ESAs Educational Savings Accounts that allow a student and a parent to take the public funds allocated for public education of that student and take it with them to a private organization or homeschool in order for them to be educated. Then the dollars can follow the students that came before your committee. You opposed it, but it was heard. Maybe walk us through briefly why you opposed it and where you see the issue going from here.

Representative Julie Yamamoto (15:49):

A I'll start with the end. It will be back. I've been told that and what form it takes, I don't know. But I think the issue becomes back to what the Constitution says is our job as state legislators, and that is to provide a system of thorough system of free common public schools. And I know that we had one representative who felt like, because it didn't say specifically not private, that it didn't close the door on private, but the Blaine Amendment does close the door on that. And what I had been told last year from the attorney general's office was that once you open that door, then you can't close it. But Idaho has not been providing funds for private schools and therefore, yes, giving to parents, but not giving to private schools. So I think that that's part of the issue. Part of the issue is just this misunderstanding of when most homeschoolers that I talk to say that 500 to a thousand dollars is what it takes for them to homeschool their children at home.

(17:06):

So for it to be six, $7,000, they didn't even know how they would even begin to use that kind of cash and concerned mainly with once we take money from the state, we have always been a conservative take on funds given was return on investment and accountability. And what that ESA said is that there would be no accountability. That is just hard to, I've been a conservative all my life, and to think that we're just fork out dollars and accountability square with most of us who have been conservative Republicans fiscally conservative. So I think that those are some of the main issues. And the other part of that is when we see that we have still a funding gap, I understand that people feel like that schools are the black hole, that you never can give 'em enough, but we aren't meeting the obligation. And we just saw something come out that said, our special ed obligation is like to the tuna 66 million short, but now we're going to take money and an average. And that's another misnomer is that when you're dealing with averages of money spent, it doesn't make sense to say that it doesn't cost the same. All students don't cost the same. And so you have those special education students that can be one student a hundred thousand dollars, and then another student, maybe they're the $500, but we're going to do an average.

(18:54):

It logically doesn't make sense.

Brennan Summers (18:57):

Got it. So this comes down to primarily the way you're viewing and reading the Constitution, your responsibility to protect tax dollars and have accountability of what's spent, and then also making sure the numbers work out. So we could spend a long time talking about that. And there's probably a lot we didn't cover with that, but I want to make sure, because you brought up our requirement to the public school system, let's talk about building maintenance. A lot of these schools briefly, what can be done in the legislature to help some of these schools that are struggling to pass their bonds and they're living kind of in tough facilities. We talked to Senator Lent about it, and he was very open to the collaborative approach and bringing in new ideas. What are you seeing through your lens of what we can do to help out some of these school facilities?

Representative Julie Yamamoto (19:42):

Well, the idea that first of all, supplemental levies aren't supplemental anymore. And I think we have to come down to that realization that I understand why it was decided that we would vote on those things to give people more choice in how they tax themselves. But the reality is some of those buildings are 50 or more years old and they are not up to snuff. And so we really do need to look at a different way of funding that and whether people like it or not, that is a state responsibility. So whether it's Senator Lents idea of using endowment land funds or whether it's that revolving loan fund that we talked about, we pass for charter schools with the idea that maybe we could do that for regular public schools, but it really isn't, to me, it's not optional anymore to keep saying that that is our responsibility, but we're not going to need it. And it's up to, there are places like Wilder small school districts that being able to pass a bond to build a school or to fix the one they're in, it just isn't in the cards. And so what is our responsibility as a state? Our responsibility is to provide a safe building for those teachers and kids to work and live in.

Brennan Summers (21:09):

And it's on your radar.

Representative Julie Yamamoto (21:11):

Yeah.

Brennan Summers (21:12):

Yeah. So it's a priority. It's on your radar. It's something you're still going to work to help tackle.

Representative Julie Yamamoto (21:18):

And I think in the funding formula, I don't know that it'll happen this session, but I do believe that it's something that Superintendent Critchfield the state board. It's not that people don't understand it, and it's not that they don't understand the special ed component of it. And that when she said it was a budget buster, she wasn't kidding. But then how do we as a state, how do we approach it? And we had the one bill that from Representative Monks that over time even he said, it's not going to be an immediate fix. It's an overtime fix. And the problem is some of these things need an immediate fix. So I think we're going to have to take another look at that and how we appropriate funds for buildings and maintenance.

Brennan Summers (22:05):

So building maintenance facility funds not the most controversial issue. Very important. Happy to hear that. It's still on your radar. These superintendent school boards are stressing about it. An issue that did draw a lot of attention, there was the library bill that you referenced earlier. This was a bill that on face value, it looked like it was trying to protect children from access to inappropriate materials in their libraries. Can you walk us through, as we are running out of time, but can you walk us through a little bit of what that bill actually did, and then the issue with the private right of action and why that kind of played out the way that it did?

Representative Julie Yamamoto (22:42):

So if you looked at a and B of that bill, I don't think anybody would argue that those materials should not be in the hands of children, and I would maintain or not. When it became problematic was any other harmful materials. Now that becomes very subjective. And then you add to that then that private right of action that I could keep a school district or a public library in litigation constantly. If I was a person who wanted to set up somebody to go in and find something that I decided was other harmful material. And that to me, anytime that you're asking taxpayers to sue for taxpayer money, that also does not make sense to my conservative fiscal brain. I think if somebody isn't using money appropriately, then you look at that appropriation and that the bill that I hear might be coming through that would address that instead of a private right action would look at withholding of funds if in fact these things are not met as far as what is, there is a measure that is clear about what is harmful. But once you get to that subjective, we saw it in Davis County the day after it went on the Idaho House floor and pass. The next day someone in Davis County asked for the Bible to be taken off of shelves, and it did. Since that time, it's back on. But it required a process, which is time and money, taxpayer dollars I think that maybe could have been used in a different way to actually impact what's happening in the classroom.

Brennan Summers (24:26):

Do you foresee a bill coming to your committee that addresses this, that you would support such as the one you talk about of withholding funds versus taxpayers suing for taxpayer dollars?

Representative Julie Yamamoto (24:36):

I've been checking in with the folks along the way because let's face it, who does want little ones seeing things that are, that pornography OB seen? You don't. I don't. Nobody does. But to say that that's all that bill was to me, that was a disingenuous argument, and it was more than that.

Brennan Summers (25:00):

Now, there are those who, no matter how much you explain yourself on issues from ESAs to this library bill, they'll never get to the same place you will. What do you say to those that just will categorically disagree with you on some of these issues? How do you find a point of agreeing to disagree with those who are pretty vocal in their opposition to some of the stances you've taken?

Representative Julie Yamamoto (25:22):

Right. I think that I tried to model what I believe that my faith in God requires, which is in as much as possible live at peace with all people, and that they are entitled, they have First Amendment, free speech rights to disagree and to do it vociferously. And my job isn't trying to squash them or not let their position be heard. It's to be a voice of reason and calm and to hear and first seek to understand, and then just at, I refuse to count them as my enemy. And that's just the long and the short of it is I refuse to have enemies. We might disagree, but I'm called to love others and to treat them as I would want to be treated. And that is my standard, and I'm going to stick to it.

Brennan Summers (26:17):

Yeah, I know your faith plays an important role in your life and in the way that you lead and govern, and I appreciate that. Now, as we're wrapping up here, as a former educator, as somebody that deals extens education policy, we've got to ask if there was one book out there that you would recommend to everybody that they need to run down the library and get, what would you say that book is?

Representative Julie Yamamoto (26:38):

I would tell them that they need to read the book of Proverbs.

Speaker 3 (26:42):

Okay.

Representative Julie Yamamoto (26:43):

People will say, life doesn't come with an instruction manual. Oh, I beg to differ. I think it does. And I think that if we would read that, and then you should follow it closely with Psalms, because I think those two just work together as far as what is just and true and write, and then how to live your life in such a way that you're doing the right things for the right reasons and in the right way.

Brennan Summers (27:11):

And they can find that book at Davis in the Davis County Library now because it's been returned. Yeah, they can praise the Lord. That's right. Now, in your district, I love to ask our elected leaders, if you had to pick one place that you'd recommend as the best place to eat in District 11, what would you choose?

Representative Julie Yamamoto (27:28):

So you've done this with others and I've been thinking, oh, what would I, it is tough, but I will tell you what I call my second. My office is Mr. V's on 10th, and it is just, it's a family owned and run business. There's somebody who's, Tammy has worked there for 30 years, and once you're part of that family, they tend to keep them there. And I don't know, it's sort of like cheers, but without the booze. It's everybody knows your name and it's just really good food too. Bacon. Really good bacon.

Brennan Summers (28:04):

There we go. All right, we're taking notes next time. We're over that way now. Representative, we started talking about your calling to education, your incredible experiences, and educator is an administrator. We got into your goal in a collaborative environment and talked about how you're working with all the stakeholders, the Senate, and we got your a plus rating from Superintendent Critchfield and her staff. We even got to talk a little bit about school funding formulas, about building maintenance, about ESAs, about the library. Bill, we've got to talk about a lot of things today. Now, as we end and wrap this up, why don't we finish on a really positive No. Tell us what you look forward to as being, what gets you excited about the future in Idaho? As you think about the kids entering the K through 12 system. What is it that you can say this is the right place for them to be and this is the right place for them to be educated?

Representative Julie Yamamoto (28:59):

Well, the one thing we didn't talk about is launch, and I know you've talked about launch with others, but to me, this idea that we're going to invest in young people early and often, and well with the idea that we want them to stay in Idaho, and the idea that we're going to help you do that, the schools that I've been in have had a very large low income component, and that going on, whether it be CTE or two or four year has just been out of reach. So to put it in reach, to actually put behind our words some action that says, we're going to invest in you. This is very exciting to me. So I'm hoping that we can start seeing the wisdom and the value and investing in children early with early childhood education, and then all the way through to let's launch them into their future, and let's hope that future includes a lot of them wanting to stay and raise their families in Idaho.

Brennan Summers (30:01):

Absolutely a priority for the governor, and something that you were a strong supporter of Idaho's launch program, so I too am excited to see how that plays out. The representative, we know you love your district. We didn't get a lot of time to talk about all the issues from property taxes and water issues and all the other things that are important to District 11. We're going to have you back on and we'll talk a little bit less about education, then we'll go more into those other issues. But we really appreciate taking the time to chat with us today.

Representative Julie Yamamoto (30:27):

I appreciate your time too. Thank you so much.

Main Street Idaho Podcast Episode 12: Representative Marco Erickson

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Representative Marco Erickson is a man with a unique story and a passion for public service. Marco’s journey is an inspiring tale of turning personal tragedy into a lifelong commitment to making a positive impact.

Rep. Erickson tragically lost his father in a drunk driving accident when he was just eight years old. The pain and trauma of that experience, coupled with witnessing the devastating effects of alcohol and drug abuse, ignited a deep desire within him to prevent others from going through the same ordeal.

Marco’s life took a different path from many of his peers who faced similar challenges. He credits this to his resilience and unwavering determination to avoid negative influences. He also acknowledges the role of healthy adults and mentors in his life who guided him towards making positive choices.

In addition to his public service, Representative Erickson is an accomplished musician and songwriter. He began performing at a young age and has written numerous songs, demonstrating his creativity and passion for the arts.

Tune into today’s episode to hear more about Marco’s journey, his work with at-risk youth, and his vision for a brighter future for Idaho.

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Follow Along With The Transcript

Welcome to Main Street Podcast, an opportunity to talk to Idaho's elected leaders about the issues that matter to you. Welcome. It is Idaho Main Street

Podcast, and we are here with one of our favorite legislators, representative

Marco Erickson out of district 33. So for those that don't know where that might fall on the map, this is a pretty easy one.

Where's your district?

Right in the center of Idaho Falls. Perfect. And you've been in the

Idaho House of Rep representatives for two

Terms now?

Yes. Yeah. Now

We first met,

I don't know if you remember, but when we first

Met, it was when you were

Getting ready to run for that seat. Yes,

I remember. And I remember coming

Away from that meeting thinking

Not only this might be the nicest

Guy I've ever met,

But thank you. I've never

Met a politician like this guy before. So I'm really excited about the conversations we're going to get into. The listeners today are going to get to see a whole different side of Representative Erickson. So

Let's start with

The beginning.

You kind of

Have a unique story. It grew

Up in some

Tragedy that shaped your future, lost your father when you were

Eight,

Yes. To a pretty tragic accident. If you're comfortable, share with us a little bit of that experience and how that legend of public service. Well,

It was a drunk driving

Accident and my dad was at fault.

Bad things were going on. I didn't even know some of

The things. My mom has revealed

Things

To me later in life that I didn't know as a child. But

When that happened, I was a young kid and I just wanted to help other people not experience that, not have to, not just that, but all the trauma that comes with alcohol, drugs, witnessing all those things that I got to see. So luckily I had a lot of healthy adults around

Me, a lot of opportunities. I grew up in Boise, so there were people there that were shaping me and got me

Involved in

Things that made a difference in the world. So I started doing drug prevention when I was literally around eight or nine years old, got

Involved in the community. What did that

Look like? Drug prevention at that

Age. So in that time, in that era, it was Nancy Reagan had this big just say no, it

Was her thing.

And we

Later learned

Through science that it wasn't a very effective campaign overall in the whole scheme of science, of drug change and how we do it in a community approach. But for me, it was one of the first ways that it got me engaged in that work. And so it was highly successful for me because I already didn't want to do those things ever because

Of what I

Saw growing up. And it just helped me have a good start. So we would march in parades in Meridian, we would do community cleanup projects, things like that. But you

Probably

Fell,

Especially looking back and we'll talk about what you're doing now with at risk, but you were probably right there on the edge of it could have gone either way, between being a force for good in the community or finding yourself in some serious habits, trouble, things

Like that. I don't know what was different about me. I was very resilient. I did not want to do any of those negative things. I got in a little bit of trouble. I was a rambunctious kid, no adult supervision. So we would just kind of do our thing without parents watching over us. We gotten a little bit, but not the major, but my brother and my sister, they had to do up a different direction. My cousins, a lot of our relatives, some of 'em ended up in prison. Some of them are not alive anymore. So I kind of got to see all of that. Thank goodness I made a choice to go the right direction because now I don't know the impact I've had on the world, but it's been huge. I know as there's a lot of families and people, I've made a difference in policy work and things I do every day.

Let's talk about that impact. So not only at a young age did you avoid falling in some of those pitfalls, but it shaped your career of where you are now. So we know that our legislators, we have a part-time legislature where they spend a period of time in Boise doing work, but your full-time job, you actually work with

At-risk teens, right? Yeah. I call 'em teens. We call 'em at Promise Kids at Promise because the word at risk is so negative.

So we're like Youth of Promise. These kids are amazing. People just don't always give 'em the opportunity to see, and I see their potential and I try to find that the first day, bring it out of them. And if I have so many stories, I can tell hundreds of stories about these kids and the differences their lives are. There was one particular girl I think about right now, she's still in our program, but two years ago she was vaping and causing all kinds of chaos. She looked horrible, her face, everything about her looked depressed. Now you wouldn't even recognize that that kid ever had a background like that. And she talks about it all the time. So we have several good stories like that. And what is it

That you do that helps

These app

Promise

Teens

Change

Their lives? I tell you what, the most thing we do is love them like a normal person. We not in an inappropriate way, but we just love them and we build relationships with them that they're kind of often overlooked. So we give them an opportunity to be themselves, to be loved and have adults pay attention to 'em and that are healthy adults who just say, Hey, how was your weekend? Oh, you had a hard time at home. Oh man, tell me about that. And they just get to talk and share their life with

Us. I think we all can think of people that we went to school with, people in our community, cousins, people

That

Fall in that category of they

Don't have

A community that is supporting to them necessarily or they're struggling to make that connection. And so what your folks do is you create that community where they can feel supported and loved and open to connect,

And we build a place and in the place they're structured, right? So they don't just get to come in there and just be free. We have rules and regulation and there's cameras watching that. So they know there's no way they can get away with stuff. So kids who are trying to go there and just do things that they don't normally stick around long because they know that's not going to work. We make 'em go to classes, enrichment, we build them up, we want to build their future. So we give them, I'm working with kids right now, teach 'em how to play guitar. And another group, I'm teaching how to build their own business, showing 'em how to use the Idaho

Secretary of

State's website to go and register a business, how to build a logo. And

Then

I have another group I'm working on community drug prevention efforts where next week is Red Ribbon week, October 23rd through the 31st. We go and we work with schools. We hype up the kids, we do this rally, and the community is celebrating that lifestyle of, Hey, we're happy, we're drug free. That's fantastic.

Lot of good stuff coming from there.

Talk to us a little bit about how you went

From being involved in the community of helping these kids to thinking, you

Know what?

I'm going to go put my name on some

Signs and I'm going to be a politician. I still don't call myself a politician. I call myself a statesman. I was always interested in serving the public in various capacities. And so my entire career from the time I was a little boy, the age eight, it was always a public service career. It wasn't meant to make me a lot of money. I spent 14 years working in mental health in the field, did every role I could do in drug treatment and in mental health, building my own agency, doing all that work and then watching and helping with policy consulting, going and working for the state government when I left for Nevada,

Came back to Idaho and I said, listen, it's my time to run for legislature because that was kind of the capstone of the work I was doing. If I'm in the legislature now, I can really set the policy and use all my life experience, all that gamut, the whole round circle of being a provider, helping consumers, looking out for the state's interest, understanding the federal government laws, bring all that into a perspective that just wasn't in the legislature, i's like they need me. And so that's said, I'm going to run. I'm like, why not me if America's still America, the small guy who came out of nowhere can do this, and I did. And it was such a great gift to be able to do and continue to serve

Right now. Well, and there's a lesson out there to the kids you work with and to anyone listening that it doesn't matter the home you grew up in, doesn't matter the difficulties and challenges put your mind to something. America is still America and you can be elected to public office

And you have to have good positive choices that you're making throughout your life. That was one thing when I

Decided

To run. People were asking me, do you have

Any

Demons in your closet? And you're like, no, you're not going to find anything. I didn't do the thing. I did do things that would get me in trouble. I always was a servant and I said, you could find anyone that ever knew me. You can go back in time and they're going to all say something positive about their, and I was just there

To

Serve. I still am. That's what I'll continue doing that as long as the people let me do it.

And as you serve, you have a very different approach than a lot of leaders in the political public scene. So when we

First

Met, the first thing you said is, look, I am not political. And when we were talking

Your two terms in it, you still remind me, Hey, I am still not

Political. You're a servant, you're a public servant, but you

Don't have special interests or secret

Agendas. You don't have smoke field backroom deals, and when you're in Boise,

You don't really make enemies or

Back bite any of your colleagues over there.

How has that approach been received in the

Capitol?

Yeah, it was funny because the first term, I went in there, I got feedback and people were like, we don't know what his agenda is. And they're used to having people that have either one faction or the other. Sure. I fit in with everybody. I've always been, I think what you call a floater. I fit in with the groups who are doing the work that matters that we need to do at the time. There's certain things that just need done and sometimes that's some of the things that align with one group and the other and we just go do it. That's what I'm focused on. I think the general public just wants us to do good work now, and this is no

Dig on any of your colleagues because it's just your personality and your focus has allowed you to just be very open, very loving and focusing like you say on the good work.

What are some of the

Most important things that you have been doing over in the state capital?

Well, my dream from day one was I called it the inverted V,

And

That means there was a lot more money and energy being spent on the crisis response after a problem occurred. And I wanted to invert that and find resources that could create systems. The entire system would be focused on stopping the stuff before it happens. And walk us through the

Context here. Are we talking a mental health crisis? What kind of crisis are we talking

About? Any of the crisis, so that would be substance abuse, mental health, but things that I see a lot in the world that are affecting people, so that helps us to, and education, making sure those kids are being caught early, not having people go into prison system. The trouble system, the things that we spend a lot of money in that are not always necessary, including entitlement programs. There's ways we can stop those problems. For example, project launch, which was a lot of people don't like, but I love it because it gives the opportunity for some young people to get an advanced education quicker and then they won't be needing some of those entitlement programs. They'll pay taxes. A lot of great bigs

Contribute. So your approach has been,

Rather than try

To treat the

Problems, let's

Invest more in trying to prevent some of these problems.

And so as a result, there's been millions and millions of dollars invested in mental health and into new things like assessment centers, early detection, and we're just getting started. Some of these things are just getting off the ground and it's already having results. The assessment centers across the state have already had. The last report I had, there was over 500 families served in them, and they're in the first year of implementation. Some of them just opened last month. None of them have been open an entire year yet. So it's just getting started. And as people know about these things that are early, we catch things before they start. Like

A kid

Is through it from school, they ask us for help, we go in and we help the family meet the needs of what's going on, how can we support you? Just little things like that rather than entering them into state systems like child protection serves, can we divert that? It's a possibility and if we can, we want to do that on the community level before whatever escalates to a higher, expensive,

More expensive thing. So there's a lot of fiscal conservatism in this and trying to determine how are we going to use these taxpayer dollars in a way that's actually efficient.

Yeah, because my vision, I don't see two years ahead or the next election cycle. I don't think like that. I'm thinking 15, 20 years down the road, what we do now, the policies, we can make an impact for families for generations, and someday I'll look back and go, Hey, I'll help with that. No big deal. So

You mentioned not thinking short term. Are you ever concerned that the time's going to come where you're going to get a tough election and not be able to get reelected because two years or one year came and they came after you because you were thinking far ahead?

I don't think about that honestly, because I feel that the work I do will speak for itself. And if there comes a time when the public says, you know what? We prefer some other candidate over you, I'm okay with that because I didn't get in this business to be a lifelong person sitting in that spot.

I

Did it to serve the public. And if they think my time as a servant for them is done, then that's okay with me. But I would hope they would kick me around a little bit longer. This are really awesome things we're working on. It'll takes a few years and we have to meet certain

Thresholds before

We can do the next step.

So

There's things that are five to 10 year projects, and at the end of that, then hopefully I can say, yeah, I've done all the things I set out to do.

Yeah, absolutely. I

Think that's

A brilliant outlook and I think it's refreshing and it's probably why you have so much support with the voters is because you're not pandering. You're trying to get the job done, which is great. You mentioned some things you have common. I'd love to get into those, but first you brought up

Launch,

Which we've talked

About

With some of your other colleagues. That was a big priority for the governor, right? You supported Launch, correct?

I did, yes.

Now,

How is

It working with the governor? You've

Supported him in the past and his

Elections, you've endorsed him, you've been behind Governor Little and Launch of course was a big initiative for him. What's it give us some insights into our governor?

Well, I could tell you this, when I first met him, he got stuck in a thing he didn't want to be doing, which was this crazy pandemic. And he told me, he is like, yeah, I wish I were able to do these other things. He and I were aligned on some of these projects with mental health, the behavioral health council, the things that were going, and I told him, yeah, I'm going to want to do some of the same thing. And just that first couple years, it was awkward for all of us, a

Lot of different stuff being thrown at us, and

Now we're starting to see the fruit. So what his passion was. And so I get excited when we can make a difference and we could do new things that haven't been done, that actual solve real problems, keeps a workforce here in Idaho, helps the youth get out of poverty. So many great things.

I love that. So let's talk future. What are some of the big projects that you're looking forward to

Tackling? Right now I'm working with the Millennium Funds project and we have 15 to 20 million to

Allocate across the

State Idaho, and they've been doing that for a lot of years. But last year we decided to move that back into prevention, kind of like I talked about with the Invert V. And now we're just putting a scientific approach to it. So we're really analyzing the need in Idaho and where to place the resources. That includes school resource officers and drug-free school coordinators and afterschool programs and time out of school. So we're covering and what to do with the parents and educating parents. And so there's this massive approach to that in a scientific manner. So it's not just willy nilly, we throw money here and here we actually are going to have data that's driving the decisionmaking, and it's just a better approach than in the past where they would just throw $5,000 to each district and really didn't have a way to measure the true impact to the kids. Now we're going to have better collaboration across the board with different agencies in the state and better connection to a particular goal and objective, and then there'll be more resources put into individual areas that need it specifically.

Yeah. I know before we started recording, we were talking about you had meetings this morning regarding

That

Your calendar is constantly

Full. Oh man. It's crazy. Is a busy guy who's

Got so

Much going.

I mean, I have to ask, you're a father, a husband, so you got an incredible wife and five kids at home. Is it four boys and a girl?

Yes, four boys and a girl. How do you manage all of this

Stuff? It'd still be Marco, the dad.

I have figured out how to co-mingle the different task I have. So with my wife, I'll bring her to political things and we get to spend some time together and she's there with me and it's not her favorite thing to do, but she does that. So it gives us some time. Or my kids, I have a teen center and they have classes, they're interested. So for years my boys helped build that as teen leaders got them involved in leadership. One of my sons served as a page at the House of Representative last year, so I get to find a way to be the dad and also help them in their career steps in the future. I've been able to public speak nationally with my own children At

Some

Events. We were with the US Surgeon General three years ago in Florida speaking, and my sons were with me and they were speaking as the youth representatives, and it's really just cool to get to do that as a dad.

So there's a message out there to parents to say, even though you're raising kids, there's opportunities to get involved in the community and still not sacrifice time

With your families. Also, in my church, I was able to be their young man leader, so that was really nice for years, that was my role and I've been meaning to

Ask about that. So you're a man of faith, and I was curious

What

Role your faith plays as you go to Boise and vote, and

To what extent does those beliefs

Factor in? I mean, your faith

Creates a foundation with who you are. It makes it easy to make the positive choices, and so you take them into account as part of who you are to the core. But there's a lot of factors that determine what the work we do, including some of the things our people are asking for. Mental health is a really serious problem across the nation. Healthcare in general is so expensive, right? So that's what I try to be an expert in. My master's degree in psychology, I've obviously worked in treatment space, but I've also spent a lot of time in the healthcare space and studying how to change systems.

And

So my energy has been really focused on the systems, and the more I get in there, the more people realize, oh yes, this guy knows what he's talking about, and he can do some changes without having to disrupt the services that are provided to the patients and the people receiving those services. Also taking care of the provider, the people out there doing the work. So it's a big, big, I mean, nationwide, it's a huge thing. A lot of the budget is taken up by that and not

Something one man can carry alone. So as you're in Boise, who are some of the people that you work with, whether it's on the other side in the Senate or in the house?

Who are some of the people you work with or some of

The people you look to for advice or counsel?

Well, it just depends on what the issue is. I look at the experts who know a particular topic the most, and I'll look to them. For example, there's things when you're dealing with water, that's not my expertise. There's certain people that know that Scott EdKey knows a lot about water and Stephanie Mickelson knows a lot about, so if you're dealing with a topic like that, it's better to just go to the people who live that world. And then on mental health issues, guess what they do? They send them to me. If it's an education, there's certain people that, we had people that had been superintendents of school or principals, so we talked to them and talk about how it affects their work, and you got to collaborate with people.

The picture you're painting is that the legislature might not be broken, that there actually is a lot of collaboration. And you guys

Do work together? Oh, we talk a lot. And sometimes, so for example, you'll see a committee, the Judiciary rules committee gets really busy with a lot of very tough topics, and we'll spend hours and hours behind the scenes collaborating with each other, talking, sharing conversations, and having private meetings is going over things together. That takes a lot of work, and it's all worth it because at the end when the time to come vote is, we've had a lot of contemplation time to make a decent decision, and it's not always easy.

It's

The hard part. How do you stay so

Positive? I think even through this interview as we've gone in, there's tough issues that you have to deal with. There's tough issues in the world right now. We're dealing with war in the Middle East, we're dealing with a nation's capital and Congress absolutely broken. How

Do you stay

So positive and optimistic?

I think it's part of my personality. For one, I choose the happy over sadness, but there's always someone out there that's encouraging me. Once in a while I'll get an email or sometimes a lot of emails back to back. They're like, Hey, you did great. Thank you for doing that. And those things just are much better than the negative ones. The negative ones you always think of, what's that person going through? What's in their mind? They may not know what I know. So I think of it from an empathetic standpoint rather than an angry standpoint. That's just how I get through it. Yeah,

I like that a lot.

And for those that

Don't know, you actually have unique musical talents. You mentioned before teaching some of these promised teens, the guitar.

Yes. So why don't you tell us a little bit about how you

Got into it and

Some of the gigs

I've seen you perform many times. Mostly I'll be your groupie at the fair. I always come and watch out. Oh,

You've seen

Me

At the fair. That's funny. So why don't you tell us a

Little bit about your musical talent?

When I was young, I performed in bars and I would go, I play with my uncle's band, so I'd be 14, 15, 16. This is another thing that helped me stay away from drugs. I'd see all the behavior

Of those

Adults

And go,

Man, you're 40 and you're acting like that. I don't want to do that. I want to do something different. So I performed from the time I was really little. I wrote songs. I was 15 years old when I wrote my first real song that I got to perform at a wedding. And I love songwriting and I love performance. So over time, I don't claim to be the best musician. I'm a pretty decent songwriter. People can ask me to write a song about anything, and I'm able to do that. But I like to perform and I enjoy sharing musical talent. At one time, I wanted to do that as a profession. Look, I think I had another calling in public service, and so I was grateful to go that direction too.

Yeah,

Well, it's neat. You

Get so many opportunities to still

For perform. Yeah, you have to balance your life. That's part of the, I joke about I get to dabble in some of my hobbies that I find great joy in doing and peace

And

Writing music. And I usually write 'em about, I've written songs about suicide, which is a really tough being from, and people relate to the work I written songs about foster care, things that kids go through, and then lots of fun, love songs and religious songs too. So it kind of balances it out. If

You had to pick a couple of your absolute famous, favorite, famous artist,

Who would you choose? Oh my goodness. I like the nineties country sound. So people like George Strait definitely is one of them. The

King.

Yeah. Got to have George Strait in there. He was huge influence on me. Randy Travis was another one. Okay. Big for me when I was young. Yeah, those two. And

You know the one, you left off the correct answer. Look,

Garth. Garth.

Yeah,

Garth was, I mean, I've gone to many of his shows and enjoyed them very much. He puts on a show, he does a great job, and he connects with his audience. So even though I was pretty close at the last one of Salt Lake, I tipped my hat to him. He saw me and tipped his hat back. That was the coolest thing. That's

Incredible.

So some fun

Questions that we'd love

To ask the

Guests. The

First

One, no, this is a really tough one for you. Being representing Atle Falls, we always like to ask them what's their favorite place

To eat

In their district?

Oh my goodness.

I

Always tell people, go over to the bee's knees.

Okay. Yeah,

Yeah, because it's just different. It's small. You wouldn't expect to be a restaurant there. And it's something unique to Idle Falls.

They have something on their menu that I haven't tried yet, and we may end up getting bleeped out for this, but it's called a slutty brownie, and I'm not really curious what that entails. I

Don't know. I haven't had that.

We'll

Have to share

A slutty

Brownie

Sometime. We won't tell everyone what it's like. Yeah,

I have no idea. I didn't even know they had that.

It's got to be rich. Okay, so bees knees is a big recommendation. Another question

We'd like to

Ask, if there was one

Book in the world that you'd recommend everybody ought to read,

What might

It be? Oh, I don't know. There's too many amazing books, but my favorite when I was young was the Chronicles and Arties Lewis work. There's so many parallels to the modern world and some of the things. So I just love those characters and the development of the characters from my kids. I don't know. There's so many books in our house,

Thousands

Of books in my house.

C s Lewis is a great recommendation. Now, if they're one political leader that you really look up to or try to emulate,

I never really emulated one particular political leader. I just look at the good that they're doing and I just do my thing. So I didn't really have an influencer like that. Reagan was a good, but there were some things that we could change too. So anyone

That's met you, Marco knows that that is absolutely the accurate question is there is no other political leader. You're one of a kind.

I find that interesting. I hope that in America, I know there's a ton of people just like me. They just maybe not, didn't have the courage to do that. I just stepped out and said, I'm going to try that. We're able to work together in a lot of ways across the country in a more collaborative manner. And it's civil right, and we can get a lot done, and you can be totally different politically in your views, but you could still work in America, get things done. I still believe in that sometimes. I see the two polarized sides and the struggles even in our own party sometimes. And if you work together, you can achieve amazing things and you can fix those problems.

Amen, brother. Amen. So we started this interview talking about the difficult journey you've gone through in losing your dad at a young age. Talked about how you were kind of brought into a community and how that shaped your profession and the good you're doing with these promised teens. I

Love you. You figured that out. I'm a slow learner, bro. There.

We

Talked about

Your long-term outlook, your positive approach to the legislature of stepping up and running despite your background and coming in and wanting to contribute. You talked about launch and your support of the governor and the great things he's doing. We've gone through a lot of things here from favorite books and artists to just the fact that you're different and you have a good approach in things. What would be the last thing you'd like to share? To anybody listening today,

Hey, just got to be, you are who you are, and you're enough.

You're enough. That's a great one

Representative. We're going to have to have you

Back, and we're going to have to dig in more to some of the work that you've got coming up as you tackle the mental hilt crisis and everything else going on. We really do appreciate your time today.

Thank you so much. Mark Erickson, district 33,

Straight out of Idaho falls. Appreciate being here. Till next time.

Main Street Idaho Podcast Episode 11: Senator Geoff Schroeder

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“People move out into the country because that’s where they want to live. They don’t want to be bothered... So when cities grow out into the county, or people want to develop, preserving that rural way of life is important.”

— Senator Geoff Schroede

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Follow Along With The Transcript

Brennan Summers (00:00):

Welcome to Main Street Podcast, an opportunity to talk to Idaho's elected leaders about the issues that matter to you. Welcome to Main Street, Idaho. We're fortunate today to have a senator, Senator Jeff Schroeder out of District eight. Joining us today. Senator Schroeder, thanks for being on.

Senator Geoff Schroeder (00:22):

Hey, thanks for having me. Glad to be here.

Brennan Summers (00:24):

Now, Senator from District eight, for those who might not be incredibly literate at where all the districts are, what exactly is the area that you represent?

Senator Geoff Schroeder (00:34):

District eight is Custer County, valley County, Boise County, and Elmore County. So it's almost 14,000 square miles in the heart of Idaho. It includes, well, I like to claim it's the most scenic district in the state. I claim that I came up with the first representative Blanks. I think she did. So in any event, we have the Sawtooth Mountains, we have McCall and all the national forests in Boise County, Elmore County's beauty. Anyway, that's the

Brennan Summers (01:09):

Wow. And Senator, is that the largest district in Idaho legislative district?

Senator Geoff Schroeder (01:14):

Largest legislative district in acreage or, yeah, square miles.

Brennan Summers (01:19):

Okay. Well, today we'll have to get into some of the challenges that come with that, but currently you're located in what city?

Senator Geoff Schroeder (01:25):

I live in Mountain Home and I've lived there for 33 years, and so lived in Mountain Home 33 years. The law firm that I work for is in Boise, but their representation is statewide representing local governments and cities across the state.

Brennan Summers (01:46):

Now, currently in Mount Nom, from what I understand though, born and raised as in Central Idaho. Right. You're local.

Senator Geoff Schroeder (01:54):

I grew up in Cameo, so my parents moved there in 1971. My dad got a job right out of college teaching junior high school in Cameo. So I've lived there since. See, I went kindergarten through 12th grade in and graduated from came. I went to school at the University of Idaho. Had the inevitably, well, maybe not always inevitable, but did not quite as successful as we would've liked first semester spent time working. Returned in 1986 for my first successful semester, and it was at that point that I ran out of the money I had saved to go back to school and join the National Guard to try to pay for school.

Brennan Summers (02:39):

Do you mean to tell me you didn't just max out student loans and hope that the government was going to pay for it?

Senator Geoff Schroeder (02:45):

No, I had to wait until I went to law school to do that. But go through those boxes

Brennan Summers (02:55):

Now. Senator in the I Idaho National Guard. I think that probably gives you some unique experience in the Senate. Why don't you walk us through your decision to join the Idaho National Guard and what that experience was like?

Senator Geoff Schroeder (03:12):

It kind informed the rest of my career in the Guard, and it was, my roommate and I were successful in college. We were having a good time, but we had a tough time finding part-time work. The job market in 1986 in Moscow, Idaho is a lot different than it is now. And so it was difficult. There was a lot of competition for the few jobs that were available. He got a job driving for the bus company. I never did get on with that, but we went into the armory, talked to the recruiter and kind of couldn't. It's like, you kidding? We go to basic and then we get paid and you pay for student loans and you get the GI Bill. Okay. So I remember telling my dad, he's like, well, if you sure you want to do it, it worked. I got a ton of money.

(04:07):

It was still largely the one weekend, a month, two weeks out of the summer sort of a thing. It was really interesting because the Idaho National Guard is, its one 16th engineer battalion has deployed in every major conflict since the Spanish American War. So there were people in our unit that had been in Vietnam in 1988 when I was working there, A gentleman came into the armory named Clifford Ott. He had been in the guard for the Spanish American War and World War I. He foot marched to Boise to get on the train to go deploy to Europe and to, he wasn't in the Spanish American War exit, but poncho, I'm sorry, poncho V and World War I. So wow. The unit crest in Moscow or in the engineer battalion is the key, the castle and the cactus. The key is the key to the city of Angi France from their service in World War I. The castle is the Poncho V and the cactus is Poncho V, and the castle is the Spanish-American war. And so I met a living person who was in the unit I was in when they did the things that led to that unit crest.

Brennan Summers (05:19):

Wow. Now what rich history there when you signed up, did you expect that you also would be participating in active duty conflicts?

Senator Geoff Schroeder (05:29):

So this was the height of the Cold War, 1986. So war meant the end of nuclear winter, all these, because the Soviet Union was the biggest threat to our country. You probably could say they remain that way. They're not the Soviet Union anymore. But

(05:48):

War was kind of a distant thought. It was like, well, probably maybe. But I spent the bulk of my enlistment in the military training to fight the Cold War and training to fight in Europe and basically retraining tactics from the Vietnam War squad tactics through, I was a supply clerk when I first enlisted, but everybody has to know basic infantry tactics. So, but the Idaho Guard played a real important role and still does in their local communities. And my first two week summer camp was to renovate or to take care of the mine tailings from the continental mine in Boundary County, Idaho. So we went and took two week summer Camp Convoy all the way to Bonners Ferry, actually to drive through Canada to get there. And then spent two weeks where the dump trucks and bulldozers that our engineer battalion had took away mine tailings and replaced them with top soil. We'd have to stop occasionally because of grizzly bears. And it was just

(06:56):

Quite an experience working alongside people who have been in Idaho forever and who had been through deployments to Vietnam with this unit, worked themselves working side by side. Glenn Smith, my company Commander John Rug, John Schneider, who was the postmaster in Orino. Those folks all were from that local area and were still in the guard in the eighties. And back to your question about did I anticipate that when the Iraq war came up, John Rod was still in the Idaho National Guard, still in the one 16th engineer Battalion and Lewiston, Martin Tribune did an article about him deploying again to Iraq, and that was part of it.

Brennan Summers (07:39):

And that was what, 20 years later?

Senator Geoff Schroeder (07:42):

Yeah, 2004.

Brennan Summers (07:43):

Wow. Yeah. And you joined, you also had a deployment in Iraq, correct?

Senator Geoff Schroeder (07:49):

Yes. But at the time the Iraq War hit, I was a recruiter in Mountain Home, had enlisted quite a few people from the town and saw a maintenance unit in Iraq get lost and then get taken prisoner. And I thought that's kind of the same outfit we have in Mountain Home where mechanics, I felt an obligation to make good on the, I was incentivized to join the guard to pay for school and to pay for college, and I did it for that. It became a full-time job, which is a different topic, I guess. But in any event, here I am the recruiter and here are folks who have joined to pay for school and this sort of thing, and now we're actually getting called up to do the thing that we've all trained to do. And I wanted to make sure that I guess I was a part of that and that I was there on the ground to see how it was going and that the skills that you need to be able to survive versus getting lost, knowing how to run a convoy, knowing how to stay in communication with people. I just wanted to make sure that I was a part of making sure those mistakes weren't made. I was watching unfold live on television in front of me.

Brennan Summers (09:13):

So you felt a sense of, call it duty or obligation to actually go over there and serve in the sand?

Senator Geoff Schroeder (09:22):

Yeah. Northern Iraq isn't asan. It looks a lot, but yeah.

Brennan Summers (09:28):

Yeah. Now that's got to have given you a very unique perspective in serving in the Senate. There's probably not a lot of people in Idaho legislature who have served in the military. There's a few of you. But as a veteran, how has that affected the way that you view policymaking in Idaho?

Senator Geoff Schroeder (09:48):

Well, I think the biggest driving thing that I took away when I left that return from that deployment was an event that occurred right after we arrived, and that was their first set of elections. So Iraqis didn't, under Saddam Hussein didn't have free and fair elections to the extent they had them. The tickets were already marked. You already had, the party had already picked who you got to vote for, and when the party picks who you get to vote for, you don't have very many choices. So you have these elections with 98% or 99 and this sort of thing. And so one of the things that had been set up was for the Iraqis to form their own government, and it required elections at a local level, city elections, precinct elections, to elect the people who would go form the Iraqi constitution. Those elections were the last week of January in 2005, and there was a lot of threat that there would be people who wanted to disrupt those elections, people who wouldn't like the outcome of those elections because the results weren't predicated on skewing who got to be on the ballot.

(11:08):

So you see a lot of ballots with a lot of names hanging up around the city, I guess. And so we were told this is going to be a big event, and there's a huge threat of disruption, people seeking to disrupt the elective process or the results. And so it was kind of an all hands on deck. I was a motor sergeant for the brigade headquarters company. I had 20 mechanics, and they're like, everybody's going out in the city off of our base, and you're all going to backstop the Iraqi police. So instead of American soldiers at polling places, it would be Iraqi police at polling places, but the soldiers would help guard the police stations. And so 12 of my soldiers were on the rooftop of the Kirkuk traffic police building. Another half of my motor pool was on the rooftop of another police building in Iraq for five days.

(12:03):

And we had a front row seat to watch how they conducted those elections and to make sure that people obeyed the curfew and weren't out when driving around after dark when they weren't supposed to. And there was some conflict. But what I took away that I found the most impressive was the morning of the elections. No one could drive anywhere, and everyone was walking and people were coming out of their homes over the threat of actual physical violence. There were people who were threatened, if you vote in this election, we don't want you to participate. And everyone had to stick their fingers in ink when they voted. And so I have a ton of pictures that I took during those five days, and the tail end is a bunch of people with ink stained fingers that would prevent them from voting twice. But people facing the threat of a real threat of violence in a semi chaotic country. Cook is a city of 700,000 people or was in 2005, so it's not a small city, but here they were, I'm going to go vote, because they had the opportunity to vote that they hadn't had for 50 years.

(13:22):

And so for me, voting that, that really sticks with me to this day. People were joking. I took a picture of an Iraqi guy holding his finger up. You can see it on my Facebook page, but every primary election I would put, have you voted? He did. He did when he was threatened to be killed for having that ink stained finger. So when people monkey with elections or election processes, I get a little wound up. And so that's one of the more pivotal things that informs my local elections at the local level are the place where government is the most responsive to the people. They're the most important elections, and it's important that people be able to participate in those.

Brennan Summers (14:13):

Wow. I think that's a fantastic description of the importance of elections and voting. Wow. I'm moved by that. I appreciate you sharing that experience. I know our veterans are not always in a place to share their experiences of what happened over there, but wow, what a great message there. Let's talk about local elections, right? So you've taught us about the importance of voting and what some have been willing to do to get to the ballot box. You served in local government, correct? You were on the city council?

Senator Geoff Schroeder (14:40):

Yes. So right after I retired, there was a mountain home city council election, and I had decided to run, I'd been again, I lived there for the Guard, moved me there in 1990. So I've lived there for now 33 years. But when I first got there, there was this little camera eight local access channel that would come and set up and film city council meetings. So I got invited to participate with that channel, and so I ended up attending a lot of city council meetings just to film it and then later edit the tape or play the tape for folks. Now we have YouTube and live streaming, so that thing is a little outdated, but I've been involved and known mayors of city council people through the years. And so I thought, sure, I could step in and offer some insight now that I'm free of the limitations of military service.

(15:38):

So I did. I ran and I won and got elected and really enjoyed that time on the council. I decided to finish the degree that I had started. So my 20 year army career took me outside of that for a while. So I was working part-time and I decided to stop the city council participation and kind of focused on getting that undergraduate degree finished. So I spent two years off the council, and in that time I was working as a consultant, partly for a project for finishing my undergrad degree. And then they hired me for this law firm. So prior to going to law school, and the reason I'm telling this is one of the projects was go to Glens Ferry and help them rewrite their comp plan for zoning. I had not done it before. Susan Buckin, who's now the state parks and rec director, was the attorney for Glens Ferry at the time.

(16:38):

And she put me on that project, and I had to help shepherd this council and mayor through just as an assistant on the legal part of it, the actual practice of law. Of course the firm did. But I attended the p and z meetings and attended the council meetings to walk through each of the chapters of the comp plan. And what I noticed going to this meeting was this was the first time I dealt with the city council other than one I had served on, and I started to miss it a lot. I was like, here are these people, and here's the part that really struck me. Then when I first saw it, I was at one of their meetings and they were debating their budget, and they were debating a budget about how much to pay the librarian and should it be this much, should it be this much more?

(17:26):

But I realized here we are on a Tuesday night, it's eight 30, and here are this group of four people and a mayor, and then there's city staff, and they're all sitting here doing their level best to try to keep this city running, to try to keep the streets paved, to keep the library open, to run a water treatment facility, a wastewater treatment plant. These are all largely volunteers. They're paid very little, but they're putting their heart and soul and they're putting their effort into how best to run a city. And it was then that I realized that there's not much difference from one city to another when it comes to the role of that government and the way folks on these city councils treat their responsibility. They're devoted to it. They're passionate about it. It certainly creates conflict in some places, some more aggravated than others. But I realized that this is the heart of our society that are local governments really are where the action is and where you have the most access and the most influence in making sure that the outcome is that what you want. We need an ordinance to do X or Y or Z. So as a result of that, I ran for a second term on the city council and finished most of it, and then resigned right at the tail end. So anyway.

Brennan Summers (18:53):

So Senator, you describe the impact of local elected leaders and how much they can do in their devotion. Many, I mean, what percentage of Idahoans do you think can name their city counselors though?

Senator Geoff Schroeder (19:08):

I don't know. I think there's a lot. I've thought about this a bit, and it comes up a lot, which is one of the reasons I ran. When you talk about cities in Idaho, there are 200 of them,

Brennan Summers (19:27):

200,

Senator Geoff Schroeder (19:28):

200 cities, or one depending on, I think one dis incorporated. I'm not sure the Association of Cities could, but you have the big ones. So you have cities of 10,000 or higher. Mountain home is in that group. There's 23 cities of the 199 that have more than 10,000 people in them, 23 of those cities. But when you get down to those 200, yeah, everyone knows their city council person. Everyone knows their mayor because you run into 'em at the post office, you run into 'em at the grocery store, you go to Thanksgiving dinner with them. Clayton has 14 people. I would suspect that a Thanksgiving dinner would require public notice. It's a city, an attorney in our office represents. But

Brennan Summers (20:18):

Wow, 14 people. You said 14 people in Clayton.

Senator Geoff Schroeder (20:22):

Yes.

Brennan Summers (20:23):

And is that the smallest city in Idaho?

Senator Geoff Schroeder (20:25):

It's not. I think Warm River. I was just looking this up a little bit earlier today, but here's the important part. There are 23 cities over 10,000. There's 11 from five to 10,000, and then 27 cities from two to 5,000, 22 from 1000 to 2000. And here's 43 cities from 500 to a thousand and another 40 cities from 200 to 536 are below 200. So

(21:05):

When it comes to city government in Idaho, it's all rural by count of cities. And so this gets to another, probably a little more technical topic inside baseball or local government thing. But anyway, the idea that cities exist to under a mandate from the constitution for police power and to promote the health, safety, and welfare of the citizens, they incorporate for a reason to deliver services to the citizens and to help govern and regulate their conduct amongst people who are living in a small area versus scattered out in the countryside like where I grew up eight miles out of town.

(21:55):

So what you end up having, and I think what's reflected in some of my literature about why I decided to run is you have these great big cities that have maybe an inaccessible government, maybe the top five or six aren't, they have so many people in that city that the government isn't, the city councilman isn't ready to answer the phone at a moment's notice, but they're the ones that end up, they're the punching bag for what people perceive to be problems with local government, particularly with respect to spending and overspending and property taxes. Oh, these cities are out of control. They're spending so much money. Well, there's a whole bunch of process baked into adopting a budget and spending money. And so the notion that that city governments are out of touch with their constituents might hold true for the top 15 or 10 cities. Maybe that's the case, maybe it's not. But I can tell you, as someone who is in the trenches with these cities every single day, the cities that are the bottom tier of this, which is the bulk of the cities in Idaho, 22 plus 43, plus 40 plus 36 or below 2000, that those people are spending exactly as much money as their constituents want them to spend.

Brennan Summers (23:17):

So Senator, how does that affect what you've been doing in the Senate? Because you talk about wanting to run to kind of bolster local government and fight for the little guy in Boise's capitol. How has that affected what you're doing in the Senate?

Senator Geoff Schroeder (23:32):

Well, the ability of a little city to do the things that it needs to do to function as a city is there by this kind of hybridized grant of power. So in legal realm, a city, you have what's called the Dillon's rural state where cities or local governments have only that power granted by the state, or you have home rural states and Idaho is kind of different. So you have a police power. Granted, my concern has been, and I've seen over the years from my first term on the city council and through now efforts to go in and restrain the powers of local governments to do things, and particularly the powers of cities. And those come as a result of some large city having some zoning ordinance or some ordinance that someone runs afoul of, or we had this come up this session. So back in, I dunno, the late nineties, early two thousands, one of the largest cities in Ada County annexed without permission or without consent, a bunch of people.

(24:40):

And that turned into an annexation statute that we live with to this day. That is Byzantine would be one way to describe it, but it's very difficult to navigate to understand category A, category B, category C. And so there are efforts to try to simplify that. There are efforts to try to reign in other areas that cities can do. I remember in 2015 or 16, the statute was passed. You can't, cities can't regulate garbage bags, minimum wage, I don't know. You name it. Every year there's something that we don't want cities to do, and the targets are always directed at these big cities. Well, the problem is that who has to live with that? Who has to live with those restrictions are the tiny ones as well, where the problem doesn't exist. We wouldn't have thought of banning garbage bags. Who cares? And those examples are a little less problematic.

(25:41):

It doesn't matter. But there's other ones that direct how cities adopt budget, how cities are funded, that when your target is the big guy, you're accidentally getting the little guy. So when you restrict growth to a certain percentage or a budget to a certain percentage, and you restrict services to a certain percentage, well that affect a tiny city a great deal more than it will a big city. So 8%, if I want to add 30 houses to a city and I need and a 30 home subdivision to a city, if that's more than 8% of the total homes in the city, then I'm going to have a problem getting my budget grown enough to deliver the same level of service they had before.

Brennan Summers (26:30):

Right? So I think anyone listening can't question your passion or understanding of these local issues. And clearly that's one of the reasons why you ran. So we've talked a lot about the connection here between city and rural and these small incorporated cities and the way that plays out. You talked earlier about such a vast and diverse district and District eight. Why don't you, as we're running out of time quickly, but why don't you give us a couple examples of the issues that you're hearing about and that you're seeing in District eight as it's so big and so many issues. Give us a few examples of some of the challenges that your constituents are facing.

Senator Geoff Schroeder (27:09):

Well, we have a huge diversity. So we have a very agricultural dependent component in Elmore County where there's the dependent on water is just a tremendous issue.

Brennan Summers (27:25):

Sure.

Senator Geoff Schroeder (27:26):

We have rural farms in Custer County as well that require irrigation and irrigation water and water rights. We have in Valley County and in Custer County and Valley County, both have tremendous mining resources and mineral resources. And those are under constant scrutiny to make sure that they comply with environmental regulations before they can either cause of harm or a detriment. And so you're balancing the needs of the country to produce minerals and the need of the county to have a bustling economy and to provide, but to not be at odds with, for example, the tremendous recreation and scenic values in the city of McCall or the city, city of Cascade. And so those are tough to wrestle with. Should this mine be approved, is it going to have the effect that the folks claim that it will?

(28:32):

And then, yes, preserving the rural way of life, people move out into the country because that's where they want to live. They don't want to be bothered. They want to be able to shoot out the back door like I did where I was growing up. We make sure no one's behind us, but we lived miles from other people. So when cities grow out into the county or people want to develop those, that rural way of life is important. I grew up in a rural situation. If I was expecting my rural lifestyle and all of a sudden it's encroached by a city or by other growth from my neighbor next door, maybe not in a city, it would concern me. And so those growing pains are prevalent in Valley and Elmore counties to some extent in Boise County as well. The demands of growth of population on emergency medical services in Boise County, the recreation folks in these counties, and particularly in Valley County. How do you fund that? And there's an effort now that I've seen people criticize, but a statewide solution to E SS funding I think is necessary given some property tax value limitations and the expense of medical service in Arbor area.

Brennan Summers (29:49):

Yeah. Yeah. There's no doubt when you look at these conflicting interests at times and a vocal constituency, you've definitely got your job cut out for you as you figure out what we need to do in those regards. As we're wrapping up, there's a couple of questions I have to ask all of our guests and you with your unique background, I've got to ask you a couple. The first one, if there's a book that you would recommend that everyone out there reads, what book would it be?

Senator Geoff Schroeder (30:25):

Oh boy. I have an answer, but I'm not going to answer it. Okay. Well, this came up on a Twitter. This book passed away recently as a philosopher. I have a philosophy degree. His name's Harry Frankfort.

Brennan Summers (30:41):

Okay.

Senator Geoff Schroeder (30:42):

He wrote a book. It's very small and the title is fun, but don't be fooled by the title. It is a piece of scholarly work. But the title by philosopher Harry, the book by philosopher Harry Frankfurt, is called On Bullshit. And it describes the difference between truth and lies, and then this other notion and this third thing, which is the title of the book is A Greater Enemy of the Truth than is a lie. And he does a stunning job of it, and I really think more people ought to read it.

Brennan Summers (31:18):

Fantastic. Maybe not a bedtime story for the kids, but definitely one that some of your coworkers, and

Senator Geoff Schroeder (31:24):

For someone just talking around something besides giving you an answer that can be verified or falsified,

Brennan Summers (31:31):

Fair, best place to eat in your district. Now your district is massive, so if you could possibly choose one or two places,

Senator Geoff Schroeder (31:39):

I wouldn't do justice. I will tell you this. Before I had the district and was a senator, before I was a senator, I would have to go to, I'm the city attorney for the City of Crouch, and our firm is a city attorney for Horseshoe Bend. So Sonora Mexican Grill and Horseshoe Bend. It's a great place to stop and get an enchilada. That's one that end of the district. There are so many more, but

Brennan Summers (32:10):

We will take that one and then we'll atric it with so many more. As Senator, we started today talking about your time signing up in the National Guard, the way you felt an obligation to go serve, and your very compelling story about the importance of voting. We got into some of these local government issues, your time on the city council, the unsung heroes that have so much impact and a call to serve in local government where possible. And talked about how that's affected not only your reason to run for the Senate, but also the issues you've been carrying then you went through quickly, but a list of a lot of issues that your district is experiencing, and with this historic growth, everything going on, you gave us a great book recommendation and a good Mexican restaurant. Senator, we've appreciated your time with us today as we depart some last minute words of maybe anything you'd like to leave us with.

Senator Geoff Schroeder (32:59):

Well, I think one of the more important jobs that I have is to listen. There's a lot of us there that like to talk. I have a lot to say, but if I don't stop and listen and if I don't listen carefully to what someone is saying, so people leave me voicemails, I listen to 'em, I try to call 'em back, but I try to listen and listen for what it is that I'm being asked, and whether that's a person who's advocating for a piece of legislation, a colleague, but I try to listen carefully to what people are saying. And so if you don't think I'm listening, maybe I've missed it and I'm not, and maybe I'm jumping to talking, but I prefer to listen first, listen carefully, and then offer what it is that I have to say.

Brennan Summers (33:46):

Fantastic. Well, anybody listening now, that's an open invitation to reach out if you're in District eight to Senator Jeff Schroeder. Again, district eight. He's open and willing to listen to anything you've got to say to him. Senator, again, thank you so much for joining us. We're going to have to have you back on. Okay? Okay.

Senator Geoff Schroeder (34:02):

Thank you.

Brennan Summers (34:03):

Thanks, Senator.

Main Street Idaho Podcast Episode 10: Representative Chenele Dixon

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“Stuff that matters in day-to-day lives. I think most people are, they’re just trying to provide for their family and live and work and play in Idaho and just make a good life for their family. And so they’re concerned about things that help them do that.”

— Representative Chenele Dixon

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Follow Along With The Transcript

Brennan Summers (00:00):

Welcome to Main Street Podcast, an opportunity to talk to Idaho's elected leaders about the issues that matter to you. Hello. Welcome to Main Street, Idaho. We are very lucky today to have representative Chanel Dixon with US District 24 out of Twin Falls, right?

Representative Chenele Dixon (00:21):

Yes. So Twin Falls County, so it's the rural part of Twin Falls County, and then Gooding and Camas Counties.

Brennan Summers (00:28):

And you had to add that because your kids, you are in the school board or over the school foundation for, is it the, which school? Kimberly?

Representative Chenele Dixon (00:37):

Yeah, so I'm the president of the Kimberly School Foundation.

Brennan Summers (00:40):

Yeah. Alright. Okay. So we've got a lot to cover today. Well, first we've got to figure out who you are, right? You're a first term representative in the Idaho House. How are you feeling about it?

Representative Chenele Dixon (00:49):

It's great.

Brennan Summers (00:50):

It's great.

Representative Chenele Dixon (00:51):

Yeah. You're

Brennan Summers (00:51):

Happy

Representative Chenele Dixon (00:52):

Am

Brennan Summers (00:52):

You may come back for a second

Representative Chenele Dixon (00:54):

Time. I am coming back, yes. Love it. That's my plan.

Brennan Summers (00:57):

Tell us a little bit about your family. Tell us about how you, who are you?

Representative Chenele Dixon (01:01):

Okay. Well, Chanel Dixon, and we live in Kimberly. My husband grew up in Twin. He's a fifth generation Idaho. And I actually grew up in Phoenix.

Brennan Summers (01:10):

Oh, really?

Representative Chenele Dixon (01:11):

Yep. But we got back here as soon as we were done with all our training and schooling and raised our kids in Idaho. We have two girls and they're both grown, both married. We have one granddaughter that just started second grade. Wow. They're kind of far away right now. So our oldest daughter lives in San Antonio with her family and our youngest daughter and her husband are in Knoxville, Tennessee. But we're hoping that we see everybody come back this way.

(01:44):

So my background is in education. I have an English teaching degree, and I did my master's in education. And then about four or five years ago, I went and got a real estate license. So I'm a licensed realtor. My husband's a physician. And yeah, I've always tried to be involved in my community in doing community service. I ran the Music fest for C S I, college of Southern Idaho for quite a while, which is a music camp for 12 to 18 year olds. And so I would coordinate that. I'm not musically inclined. My kids are,

Brennan Summers (02:23):

Oh, that's neat.

Representative Chenele Dixon (02:23):

I'm not musically inclined, but I can organize. And so they asked me to be the director and I would bring in the music teachers and we'd have a hundred to 110 youth come for the week. And then we put on a big concert at the end, been involved in the Republican party for a long time. And I started off, I actually ran to be on the executive committee for the Twin Falls County Republicans, and then I ran for precinct committee person. So I did that for a long time. And I was the secretary for our county. And then I was our state committee woman. And then I helped on a lot of campaigns. And when it was good timing, it's always about timing. And so our kids were grown. My husband had actually changed jobs and he can come with me to Boise work from Twin or from Boise, which is really nice. That

Brennan Summers (03:20):

Is nice.

Representative Chenele Dixon (03:21):

And then with redistricting, there was an open seat and so I put my head in the ring

Brennan Summers (03:28):

And was the campaign process as stressful as it sounds,

Representative Chenele Dixon (03:32):

It's a little stressful. I mean, it's a lot of work, but I kind of enjoy it and it's fun to get out there and just meet a ton of people. And we knocked a lot of doors and held some town halls and we'll do that again. But I've met obviously a ton more people

Brennan Summers (03:53):

Since

Representative Chenele Dixon (03:53):

Being in the legislature. So

Brennan Summers (03:55):

A lot of people that you've got to know and a lot of people you probably still need to get to know. Oh

Representative Chenele Dixon (03:59):

Yeah.

Brennan Summers (03:59):

Right. Absolutely. As you're out meeting with people, what issues are they telling you that they care about?

Representative Chenele Dixon (04:04):

Well, I think most people care about their roads.

Brennan Summers (04:08):

They

Representative Chenele Dixon (04:08):

Don't like the potholes in the roads. They want want smooth roads. They want low taxes. They want good schools for their kids and the things that government actually does play a role in.

Brennan Summers (04:20):

So maybe not the super controversial stuff, but stuff that matters,

Representative Chenele Dixon (04:24):

Stuff that matters in day-to-day lives. I think most people are, they're just trying to provide for their family and live and work and play in Idaho and just make a good life for their family. And so they're concerned about things that help them do that.

Brennan Summers (04:41):

Yeah, I think that's a really interesting point because a vast majority of people, politics is not their life and it's not necessarily their passion and most actually hate it, but for everybody it matters.

Representative Chenele Dixon (04:53):

It does matter.

Brennan Summers (04:54):

And so how do you reach those voices of people who they don't want to argue with their neighbor about Biden or Trump, they just want their roads to be clear?

Representative Chenele Dixon (05:04):

Well, I think having that message and just talking to them, I went, when I was running in the primary, I went and talked to a group of people and I said, okay, so let's talk about your schools. They were all young parents and I said, what concerns do you have? And they're like, well, we actually really like our schools and we like our teachers and we like our principals. And I said, so you don't have concerns about that? And they're like, no, but maybe we can retain teachers by paying them a little more. So I think just talking to people and helping them see that by electing good, solid people who are willing to be problem solvers, that it does positively affect their lives. I met people too who had never voted. And so I tried to have a conversation about why they should vote and why they should care because it does affect them even if they don't like politics.

Brennan Summers (06:01):

I am shocked how many people who I would view as really good members of the community that contribute help who they just vote every four years in a presidential election when it probably has the least influence in their daily lives, but they don't vote in these legislative primary races or even their municipal elections. That's scary. Right?

Representative Chenele Dixon (06:21):

It is scary. And you want the voices of all the people that live in your district to turn out and vote and be a little bit engaged. They don't necessarily have to run for office themselves, but just to be a little engaged is important.

Brennan Summers (06:37):

But when a very small selection of people are the ones who are voting, then that's the very small selection of people whose voices are represented and that they choose someone. So that's safe. Carrie, you mentioned education, going to schools, you have a unique perspective on education, and I'm really excited to actually kind of put some pins onto where you are with that because you homeschooled your kids, correct?

Representative Chenele Dixon (06:59):

We did.

Brennan Summers (07:00):

And not just your kids, but you operated in a co-op where there was a lot of different things going on. Maybe walk us through the decision to homeschool, why that was helpful. And then I've got a lot more education questions.

Representative Chenele Dixon (07:10):

So we started off, like I said, I majored in English teaching in college. That's what my degree is in. When we had our oldest daughter, she was getting ready to start kindergarten, and the school district was teaching sex ed in kindergarten. And I had some concerns about that and a number of parents had some concerns. And so we went to a school board meeting and said, Hey, can we just talk about this? And I should back up. We were living in Portland, Oregon at the time. My husband was in medical school there. And they wouldn't talk to us about the curriculum, which in Idaho parents have the right to see the curriculum as

Brennan Summers (07:52):

They should.

Representative Chenele Dixon (07:52):

As they should. And that's important and that's an important part of the process, that communication between parents and teachers. And I grew up with a mom who was always very involved in the classroom. She was always the homeroom mom and concerned about what was going on. We would talk about what I was learning. She would read books that we were reading. It was great. So I kind of came from that lens and we had already been talking about how it might be kind of fun to homeschool for kindergarten. And when the school district wouldn't have a conversation, we decided to try our hat at homeschooling and we loved it, and it was so much fun. And then the next year, and we knew we were moving because then my husband was graduating from medical school and we were going onto residency at kindergarten level. We hadn't decided we were going to homeschool through the whole process, but it turned out that we pretty much did. Our oldest daughter graduated as a homeschooler. Our youngest daughter went to Kimberly High School for the last two years

(09:05):

Of her high school. And anyway, during that time, I did some private tutoring as an English teacher. I would help kids with their reading and their writing and learning to think critically as they were reading novels for their English class. Then I got involved in some homeschool, and so I started teaching the high school English classes and loved it. And about the same time that my daughter, we would always ask them, we always left it up to our daughters, do you want to keep homeschooling? Do you want to go to public school? Do you want to go to private school? We would always have that conversation. So our youngest daughter decided to go to Kimberly High School and they were having a bond levy election, and I got involved to help support that. I've always been a huge supporter of public education, even though we were homeschooled,

Brennan Summers (10:05):

Which is interesting. There seems to be an appearance at time that the homeschool community doesn't support public education because they pulled themselves from it. And the public education doesn't support the homeschool community, not part of the process. But I know that isn't necessarily the case. I

Representative Chenele Dixon (10:18):

Don't think so. I don't think so because there's a lot of dual enrolling going on. My experience was that as our girls went to the local public school to take different classes, they were always very welcomed. I had great relationships with their teachers,

(10:38):

So I don't think there needs to be this disconnect. Anyway, so I got involved in helping with their campaign for their bond levy, and I was putting signs out and I was calling people and knocking doors with this group of parents. And anyway, that passed. And after that passed, I was approached by some people at the school district to be on the foundation, the Kimberly School Foundation, and it's been great. I've done that since 2016, and I've been the president for the last four years I think. So basically what the foundation does, and it varies from district to district, but the Kimberly School Foundation raises money for scholarships

Brennan Summers (11:20):

Perfect for

Representative Chenele Dixon (11:20):

Kimberly graduates.

Brennan Summers (11:21):

That's great.

Representative Chenele Dixon (11:22):

And so we've given out to date about a hundred thousand dollars in scholarships. We go to the football games and we do our fundraisers. It's a great,

Brennan Summers (11:33):

Which is really important because in the legislature, education eats up a lot of time as it probably should because it's so important. We had this last session, the topics of the day were choice, voucher, whatever you want to call it. So how did you feel when these education topics come up? How do you wrestle with them as a mother who homeschooled as strong advocate of public schools wanting to get teachers paid more? Where are you at with education policy?

Representative Chenele Dixon (11:58):

So this is not the first time I've thought about this, right? Yeah. So I came into the legislature and all of a sudden I had to think about this. I've thought about this since my oldest daughter who's now 30, started kindergarten. How does this all connect and how does this work together? And in Idaho, we actually have some of the best school choice laws or

Brennan Summers (12:22):

Regulations,

Representative Chenele Dixon (12:23):

Options. We're ranked number three in the country for school choice. And people sometimes confuse school choice with funding. But school choice really means do parents have the opportunity to easily take the method of education that they want and explore that? So in Idaho, we don't have any regulations on homeschoolers. They have nothing that they have to do to fulfill requirements by our state government. And private schools don't either. And a lot of people don't realize that. And so in my mind, that's great school choice. If you want to homeschool, you can do that and you can do that how you want to. And many states are not that way. And then we have charter schools, we have public schools, charter schools are public schools, but

Brennan Summers (13:14):

A

Representative Chenele Dixon (13:14):

Little bit different setup than your traditional public

Brennan Summers (13:16):

Schools. Another option,

Representative Chenele Dixon (13:17):

Another option. We have all of those things here. And the school choice discussion that's really about funding is where I probably, I think my perspective is a little different because as a homeschooler, I appreciated the fact when we got back to Idaho that we could do that, how we saw fit. And if we're going to put state tax dollars into homeschool or into private schools, either one, then there has to be accountability. We can't spend taxpayer dollars and not have accountability.

Brennan Summers (13:54):

So you liked the freedom in Idaho being able to teach your kids in a way that you saw fit without the government kind of

Representative Chenele Dixon (14:00):

Overseeing it,

Brennan Summers (14:01):

But you were also very supportive of those who chose to send their kids

Representative Chenele Dixon (14:04):

Public. Super supportive. And I think the end goal should be that we want a well-educated society. Absolutely. And there's various ways and things that work for different families. And I don't think tossing our taxpayer dollars to a private school, just like the homeschool, there would have to be accountability for that money. And I think down the road, what you would see is that those private schools didn't have the same opportunity to maybe teach in the way or bring certain, maybe they use the Bible, maybe it's a private Catholic school, and they use the Bible as part of their curriculum. Would that be in question if they started having state money? Probably.

Brennan Summers (14:51):

Yeah. Do you expect this issue to come up? School choice, come up again, the session. Oh

Representative Chenele Dixon (14:55):

Yeah.

Brennan Summers (14:56):

You're ready for it.

Representative Chenele Dixon (14:56):

Yeah.

Brennan Summers (14:57):

We could spend all day talking about education, and I kind of like to, but we've got to cover a few more

Representative Chenele Dixon (15:02):

Topics.

Brennan Summers (15:02):

We talked to your dear friend, Senator Harren about drugs came up and issues in, she mentioned in the community that there's a concern about the role that drugs are playing, especially with the historic growth that's coming with a lot of other challenges. You recently wrote an op-ed about fentanyl and in opposition of it, but you brought up what a concern is and how we probably should put more of a focus on, I said, what are you seeing? What is your perspective with fentanyl?

Representative Chenele Dixon (15:30):

Well, so in the Twin Falls area, we have highway 93 that comes up, and it's a common route for drug traffickers to come through. Most of them though, don't want to come to Idaho drug traffickers. There's recordings of voicemails and emails from drug traffickers saying to people who are trying to get them to come to Idaho, no, because you guys have mandatory minimums,

Brennan Summers (16:01):

Drug

Representative Chenele Dixon (16:01):

Traffickers, but we don't for fentanyl. And fentanyl is one of the deadliest drugs. And there's probably not a person around that hasn't heard something about fentanyl. But it's more powerful. It's 50 times more powerful than heroin and a hundred times more powerful than morphine. So it's a deadly drug, and it's getting mixed in with a lot of other drugs. And in the course of a month, it was like the middle of May to the middle of June or something, there were two drug buss on Highway 93 just in my district, and 14 pounds of fentanyl was confiscated.

Brennan Summers (16:41):

Any idea how many people that could kill?

Representative Chenele Dixon (16:43):

Well, it could kill all of Idaho, Montana, and most of Wyoming. It takes basically two milligrams, which is about the size of a grain of salt to kill someone for fentanyl, 14, 14 pounds. And that was just in those two drug busts. And so

Brennan Summers (17:01):

You're saying we've managed to deter a lot of drugs to the community because of the way we've punished drug offenders. But fentanyl doesn't qualify. Why is that?

Representative Chenele Dixon (17:11):

Well, it's a, it's a newer street drug. It gets used in the hospital all the time. It was developed in the sixties. But last session we did have a bill that would've added fentanyl to our mandatory minimums. And I should be clear. So it's not for drug users, it's for drug traffickers. So they have to be proven guilty as a drug trafficker in the court of law. And then if they're proven guilty, these mandatory minimums say, well, you're going to prison for this minimum amount of time no

Brennan Summers (17:48):

Matter what. No

Representative Chenele Dixon (17:49):

Matter

Brennan Summers (17:49):

What.

Representative Chenele Dixon (17:50):

If you've gone through the whole court process and been found guilty of drug trafficking. So sometimes there's confusion. Anyway, so we had a bill and we couldn't get it out of committee. We'll bring it back this session. I've been talking to a lot of legislators and just trying to help educate them on what this really means, what the mandatory minimums actually do. The dangers of fentanyl, I mean, it's contributing to a lot of deaths. And I think the C D C said that about 44% of drug overdose deaths in the United States and Idaho's about the same were fentanyl related. Wow, that's a lot.

Brennan Summers (18:40):

Where's the law enforcement community with the legislation?

Representative Chenele Dixon (18:43):

I think they're in favor of it.

Brennan Summers (18:44):

They support it.

Representative Chenele Dixon (18:45):

And in conversations with policemen and our prosecutors, they're very much in favor of it. And they know that the mandatory minimums, we do have help to.

Brennan Summers (19:01):

So if somebody out there is listening and they have a reaction like me when they hear about how impactful this is, what can they do to help this legislation get across the finish line?

Representative Chenele Dixon (19:11):

Well, I think they can contact their legislator

Brennan Summers (19:15):

And

Representative Chenele Dixon (19:15):

Say, Hey, this is important. And we had a big campaign in Idaho. Fentanyl Takes All, and there's a website and there's some personal stories on there from people who lost their children to fentanyl. I think a lot of it has to be education because we just hear, oh, fentanyl. But we think, oh, it's not going to affect somebody that we know.

Brennan Summers (19:42):

Sure.

Representative Chenele Dixon (19:42):

So I think if people can educate themselves and then just reach out to your legislators,

Brennan Summers (19:46):

Which is crazy how easy it is because your email and phone phone number is online. They just have to Google your name.

Representative Chenele Dixon (19:53):

And

Brennan Summers (19:53):

The first one that comes up is the State's directory.

Representative Chenele Dixon (19:56):

Yeah.

Brennan Summers (19:57):

I love I know, I love that. What you

Representative Chenele Dixon (19:58):

So

Brennan Summers (19:59):

Easy.

Representative Chenele Dixon (19:59):

Oh yeah. We're accessible in Idaho. That's not true everywhere.

Brennan Summers (20:03):

No. So that's great. This is a sad topic. It's an unfortunate topic, but it's an important topic. It

Representative Chenele Dixon (20:08):

Is.

Brennan Summers (20:08):

So let's try to liven things up a little bit. What do you think,

Representative Chenele Dixon (20:11):

Perfect.

Brennan Summers (20:11):

What are some good things happening in the stage? What are you happy about your first term, your first session, I should say? You got it under your belt. How do you feel about it? What were some really good things that you can walk away and say These

Representative Chenele Dixon (20:20):

Wins? It was good. So I think our property tax relief bill,

Brennan Summers (20:26):

That

Representative Chenele Dixon (20:26):

Was a big deal, and people will see that on their,

Brennan Summers (20:30):

Soon

Representative Chenele Dixon (20:31):

In November when they get sent out, people are going to notice it'll be noticeable. And it doesn't mean that their property value hasn't gone up, depending on how their neck of the woods is, but they will see a decrease in their property taxes. And that's a really big deal,

Brennan Summers (20:47):

Especially when so many people have been dreading looking at that. And it's been such a just kick to the teeth when people looked at what that's coming. And now we've kind of switched the narrative, which I think is great. Property taxes, good thing for us to look forward to. What else?

Representative Chenele Dixon (21:00):

Let's see. I think we did some good things with education. I think we started as a state taking responsibility for the buildings, and we got some great raises for teachers and certified staff. I think that funding, it's not a one and done. We have to keep looking at that and making sure that we're making our schools and our teachers whole. There's a lot of turnover in teachers right now, and just all the staff in the schools and pay has a lot to do with it. And so if we can just help, that'll help our education as a state.

Brennan Summers (21:39):

We had Senator lent on early on, if anybody hasn't listened to that one, it's so good to have Send lt talk through what their plan is and how he's learning about maybe what the legislature can do to better address some of these educations. Just specific to buildings, the facilities.

Representative Chenele Dixon (21:54):

Oh yeah. I mean, in my district, we have some very old schools. There's one that's a hundred years old and maybe two actually. But anyway, we just need to keep up on those buildings. They need to be safe and they need to be adequate and up to standards.

Brennan Summers (22:10):

So now that you've had a little experience with your first session, other than the Fentanyl bill, what are some projects you're really hoping to bring forward in the coming years?

Representative Chenele Dixon (22:20):

Oh, well, I'm working on some stuff with counselors and the counselors brought it to me,

Brennan Summers (22:28):

And

Representative Chenele Dixon (22:28):

I think that's important. I try to, even in this last session and moving forward, as I hear about things, I try to talk to the people it's going to affect because the people that sit in the capitol don't know everything about every industry. So when we reach out and we listen to the needs of these different industries and the people that work in them, I think that's really helpful.

Brennan Summers (22:54):

I agree.

Representative Chenele Dixon (22:54):

So I'm working with them on something. I had some people reach out to me about some things that would affect counties. And so I'm just talking to people about that and seeing what we might be able to do and see if we can solve this maybe small problem, but important. Yeah, I think there'll be some good things that happen this session.

Brennan Summers (23:20):

Yeah, no, it sounds like

Representative Chenele Dixon (23:21):

It have some good budgets.

Brennan Summers (23:23):

You mentioned you've had some experience working in real estate as you've seen firsthand then the historic growth that's happening in this state, and it doesn't seem to be plateauing in terms of lots of people coming in home prices skyrocketing. What are you seeing in that space?

Representative Chenele Dixon (23:42):

It has slowed down in the Magic Valley a little bit. The prices haven't slowed down, but the buying has slowed down. And I think it's because we've seen interest rates go up when people are paying 2.5%. That's a lot different than 8%. So people have kind of pulled back a little. I think smart growth is important. I think the state, the counties, the cities, we can all work together to kind of plan ahead. We know, or we expect that Idaho's going to continue to be one of the fastest growing states so we can make some plans. And the third crossing

Brennan Summers (24:21):

In

Representative Chenele Dixon (24:22):

The Magic Valley, if you've heard of that, it's important because we see all this traffic in Twin Falls City. The population doubles every day from people coming in to Twin Falls from outside

Brennan Summers (24:35):

Because they're coming in on those two ramps.

Representative Chenele Dixon (24:38):

And so things like that, as we plan ahead, knowing that the growth is going to continue, that's really, really important. And funding these infrastructure programs that we have and really helping move things along. And I think our counties and cities are looking and doing a good job of planning for what does this look like and how do we have that smart growth.

Brennan Summers (25:04):

Yeah, I love that. We have so many things I love to talk about time's always running short. But before we end, I always have to ask a couple of questions I ask everybody. Kay. So I think you might be ready with some of these, listened to the podcast before and some of these questions. But first one I love to ask is, what's a book you've read that you think everybody out there needs to read?

Representative Chenele Dixon (25:21):

Well, probably my favorite. I have a lot of favorite books I like to read, but probably my favorite book of all times is The Count of Monte Crito.

Brennan Summers (25:28):

Really

Representative Chenele Dixon (25:29):

So great. But you have to, I mean, it takes a while, right? 12, this is an English teacher

Brennan Summers (25:32):

We write, this is an English teacher. We're talking to

Representative Chenele Dixon (25:35):

My dad, who was never a reader when I was growing up about 10 years ago, really got into reading for some reason. And he's an avid reader now. And so I gave that book to him for Christmas a few years ago, and he was like, whoa, I don't know, because of the size of it. Yeah, it's 1200 pages. And anyway, he read it and he was like, you're right. That was one of the best books ever. But

Brennan Summers (25:57):

There's a movie, you can just watch the movie, right?

Representative Chenele Dixon (25:59):

But it's not the same. And even the ending isn't the same.

Brennan Summers (26:02):

Oh, really? Okay.

Representative Chenele Dixon (26:02):

Yeah. Anyway, it's just beautifully written. And then it makes you think it's one of those books that has kind of some of those every man topics, right?

Brennan Summers (26:12):

Yeah. You

Representative Chenele Dixon (26:12):

Can think through. But I also, I recently read one called Think Again. That's really good. And it's just that idea that we have our core values, but then you can come to the table and talk to people about things and really listen. And sometimes you might find that there's another way to look at things and that's okay, and that's healthy, and that's what we want. That's what we want, and that's what our society needs. That was a great one. It is

Brennan Summers (26:41):

What our sightings, but it's so dangerous in politics is that you're changing your view or your perspective. But if we get more comfortable saying, I've learned more and I'm ready to look at this different, it might be helpful.

Representative Chenele Dixon (26:50):

Yeah. I think like Spencer Cox, the governor, Dan Utah, came out with his initiative, disagree Better. And that's kind of the whole idea of that, of let's just listen to each other, come to the table and listen, and then we can actually solve problems.

Brennan Summers (27:05):

Oh, that's perfect. Now, best place to eat in your district.

Representative Chenele Dixon (27:10):

Oh, well, yeah. That's a little touchy. I

Brennan Summers (27:16):

Know. We got favorites. We don't, everyone says it's same thing, but I haven't received any hate mail from a restaurant. Oh,

Representative Chenele Dixon (27:22):

Good. You

Brennan Summers (27:23):

Have the liberty to add a few. And then of course any additionals.

Representative Chenele Dixon (27:27):

Okay. So there's a really great place in Hagerman called the Snake River Grill. It's a great restaurant and Hagerman's just such the Hagerman Valley's so beautiful. So it's fun to go over there. It's a little ways from my house, but it's in my district.

Brennan Summers (27:42):

Wow.

Representative Chenele Dixon (27:44):

There's a great Indian restaurant called Saffron

Brennan Summers (27:47):

In

Representative Chenele Dixon (27:47):

Downtown Twin, which technically I don't cover downtown Twin Falls, but Foot Falls County in my district. Great restaurant. They, it's pretty spicy, so you have to like some spice. But yeah, those two are great. And I dunno, all over my district, there's a lot of good restaurants.

Brennan Summers (28:08):

Good save. Yeah. So if you got left off the list, she meant to add you. You've been in politics for a little while. You've volunteered, you've been actually in the party. So is there a favorite political leader that you have and kind of look up to your friend? Senator Harran talked about Sandra Day O'Connor being somebody that she looked up to and how her biography being something that shaped her life. What about you?

Representative Chenele Dixon (28:30):

Oh, I've always liked Ronald Reagan and I was a little kid. I was pretty little when he first ran, and I just loved him. I was just drawn to what he had to say. And I go back occasionally and read some of his speeches and just classy.

Brennan Summers (28:48):

So something on your bucket list if you haven't been yet. Last week I went to the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in the semi valley. Incredible.

Representative Chenele Dixon (28:54):

Oh yeah. I would love to go. I haven't been.

Brennan Summers (28:56):

Yeah,

(28:58):

I left. Very moved. So you must do that. Well, representative, we started learning about your background, learned about your experience with the Portland School Board and how that shaped your views on education. You knocking doors and learning about the people in the community really care about the things that matter to them, which are the roads being clear. And we've covered everything from drug crisis all the way to favorite books and restaurants. Last thing you want to say to anyone out there who might not be very civic minded, doesn't vote or just kind of stumbled upon this podcast.

Representative Chenele Dixon (29:32):

Well, I would say, like we talked about earlier, it's important to vote and try to educate yourself. And certainly everybody has friends that vote. So if we can just bring our dialogue, make it a little broader, that's such a right. We have in this country that other people want around the world and we shouldn't take it for granted

Brennan Summers (29:54):

And a right that some very special people paid for.

Representative Chenele Dixon (29:56):

Yeah.

Brennan Summers (29:58):

So we thank them and we definitely thank you for being on here.

Representative Chenele Dixon (30:00):

Oh, happy to be here. This

Brennan Summers (30:01):

Has been so fun. We're definitely going to have to have you back after you've solved some of these problems for us.

Representative Chenele Dixon (30:06):

Sounds great. Okay. Thank

Brennan Summers (30:07):

You so much. Appreciate it.