[Vision2020] Cheers and Jeers

[Tom Hansen]

Courtesy of today's (March 11, 2011) Lewiston Tribune.

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Spinning out
By Marty Trillhaase of the Tribune

CHEERS ... to Idaho state Reps. Wendy Jaquet, D-Ketchum, and Shirley
Ringo, D-Moscow. It's been a year since the American Civil Liberties Union
raised the curtain on the "gladiator school" Corrections Corporation of
American is running at the Idaho Correctional Center near Boise. Documents
unearthed by the ACLU, The Associated Press and others reveal an
understaffed, for-profit prison where inmates brutalize each other.

And what have you heard from Idaho's lawmakers?

Not much.

Not until Monday. That's when Jaquet and Ringo, who serve on the
legislative budget-writing committee, raised the topic. They questioned
giving CCA the 3 percent bump in fees provided under its contract.

"I'm tired of reading about what's happening in that prison," Jaquet said.
"We have an obligation to make sure people are supervised and safe."

Good for them.

JEERS ... to former Arkansas Gov. and presidential aspirant Mike Huckabee.
If any single individual bears responsibility for handing Maurice Clemmons
the opportunity to go on a Washington cop-killing spree in 2009, it is
Huckabee.

Before Clemmons came to Washington, before he murdered four officers at
the Forza Coffee Co. in Lakewood, before he was shot and killed going for
his gun against a Seattle cop, Clemmons was doing time in an Arkansas
prison.

As in 108 years.

To hear Huckabee tell it, the sentence was a travesty.

"There was a kid who was 16 years old, he committed a burglary, he was
aggravated but not armed. And for that he got 108 years," Huckabee told a
group of Washington reporters last month.

So after 11 years in prison and after having found Jesus, Clemmons
prevailed upon Gov. Huckabee to turn him loose. How was Huckabee to know
what would follow?

Except, as New York Times columnist Timothy Egan pointed out last week,
there's a lot more to the story.

Such as the fact that Clemmons wasn't facing 108 years in prison. He would
have been eligible for parole in 18 years.

Such as the fact that Clemmons didn't draw such a long sentence for one
conviction. He had eight. He broke into a state trooper's home, stealing a
gun and other items. He beat up a woman just for her purse and the $16 in
it.

Such as the fact that Clemmons was far from a penitent inmate. He'd been
disciplined 29 times in prison. "He committed a half-dozen assaults,
harassed guards and had sex with inmates as part of a pattern of preying
on fellow inmates," Egan noted.

Spin away, Mike, but Washington paid for your lapse in judgment.

CHEERS ... to Idaho House Majority Leader Mike Moyle, R-Star. Give Moyle -
and a handful of House conservatives such as Health and Welfare Committee
Chairwoman Janice McGeachin, R- Idaho Falls - credit for standing on their
principles.

If there is a signature Republican issue before this year's Legislature,
it' is school Superintendent Tom Luna's teacher merit pay plan.

But as things stand, the state isn't coming up with extra cash to pay for
it. The bill comes to $38 million the first year and then rises to $51.3
million each year thereafter.

A conservative would call that an unfunded mandate and vote no.

Which is what Moyle did. " I think we'll be back a year from now, trying
to figure out why we're lowering teacher salaries to pay for 'pay for
performance,' and I don't think that's good." Moyle said.

So did McGeachin, who asked why the state would impose an unfunded mandate
on the schools when it's cutting everything else - including Medicaid
coverage for the frail and the poor?

Not that it mattered. The House passed Luna's bill 44-26.

JEERS ... to Idaho Assistant Senate Majority Leader Chuck Winder, R-Boise.
If there's pandering to be done in the state Capitol, Winder's your man.

Winder is pushing a bill to all but block abortions after the 20th week of
pregnancy in this state.

Set aside Winder's dubious contention that a fetus is capable of feeling
pain at the 20th week - something the American Congress of Obstetricians
and Gynecologists disputes.

Just ask yourself this: Why would any woman elect to have an abortion
after having carried a child for nearly five months?

Obviously she would make that choice only if something had gone horribly
wrong.

Such as the fetus is so badly deformed it won't survive - and that the
mother may suffer physical or emotional trauma if she continues with the
pregnancy.

How many women made that awful decision?

In 2009, it was five out of 1,650 abortions performed in Idaho.

The year before, it was three.

Winder would have outsiders second-guess whether "a serious risk of
substantial, irreversible physical impairment of a major bodily function"
- but not the mother's mental or emotional state - warrants a mid-term
abortion. To make matters worse, Winder's bill gives the father of the
child - even a rapist - grounds to sue a physician who performs a mid-term
abortion.

Why would any lawmaker want to involve the state in five tough,
complicated, dangerous and gut-wrenching medical cases a year - when
problems facing Idaho are so severe?

JEERS ... to Idaho House State Affairs Chairman Tom Loertscher, R-Iona.
Last year, Loertscher supported advancing health care providers' religious
views ahead of your own living wills and end-of-life care directives.

So far, Loertscher has frustrated every real effort to correct that error.

He bottled up bills from Rep. Leon Smith, R- Twin Falls, and Tom Trail,
R-Moscow, to cleanly repeal the provision.

Instead, he helped promote Rep. Julie Ellsworth's bill, which might get
you another doctor if your own won't do what you asked. But the bill says
nothing about stopping every other health care provider with an overly
developed sense of omnipotence from interfering. - M.T.

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Seeya round town, Moscow.

Tom Hansen
Moscow, Idaho

"The Pessimist complains about the wind, the Optimist expects it to change
and the Realist adjusts his sails."

- Unknown