BOISE, Idaho — This article originally appeared in the Idaho Press.
The two top rivals in an open race to be Idaho’s next lieutenant governor fiercely debated state policies on issues from abortion to growth in a debate televised statewide, but found common ground on extremism and what makes Idaho Idaho.
Current GOP House Speaker Scott Bedke, R-Oakley, faces Boise attorney and Democratic nominee Terri Pickens Manweiler in the race for lieutenant governor; current GOP Lt. Gov. Janice McGeachin isn’t seeking reelection, as she instead unsuccessfully challenged Gov. Brad Little in the May GOP primary. Constitution Party candidate “Pro-Life,” formerly known as Marvin Richardson, also is on the ballot.
Friday night’s debate between Bedke and Pickens Manweiler, the final installment this year in the “Idaho Debates,” was broadcast live statewide Friday night, but it had big competition: Game 1 of the World Series was happening at the same time. However, the debate is available for viewing in full any time online at idahoptv.org/idahodebates or on Idaho Public Television’s YouTube channel.
Pickens Manweiler, a Pocatello native and fourth generation Idahoan, said, “Whether you’re born and raised here like me or if you’re new to this state, we all want the same things. We want to be good neighbors. We want to be respected and we want to respect each other. We value our public schools. We value and support our communities. We wave, we smile, and we welcome everyone. We value our fundamental right to privacy and liberty. We value the 2nd Amendment. We don’t want government overreach telling us what we can read, who we can love and marry, and one that dictates our health care decisions. We love freedom.”
She pointed the finger at Bedke, Idaho’s longest serving speaker of the House, for the recent direction of the state. “Idaho is changing, we cannot deny that,” Pickens Manweiler said. “And my opponent sat back in the House with his gavel and stayed silent while the minority of extremists became the loudest voice in the Legislature. And he thinks that’s earned him the gavel in the Senate. It has not.”
Among the lieutenant governor’s duties is presiding over the Idaho Senate.
Bedke, a fourth generation cattle rancher from Oakley who ranches in the same area that his great-grandfather homesteaded in the 1870s, said, “We all know that Idaho is the best place to live, to work and raise a family. We are the fastest-growing state in the nation. Others want what we have. That’s because we’ve always had the lightest possible touch of government. We’ve always lived within the taxpayers’ means. We’ve delivered record tax cuts that have led to a very positive business climate. All of this has enabled us to be able to put record investments back into our infrastructure systems and into our education systems. A positive business climate has to have a quality education component; in fact, that’s what it’s all about. It’s about connecting Idaho kids with Idaho jobs.”
“This is the Idaho way,” he said. “Now, that’s a term we all throw around a little bit. But here’s what it means to me. It means dignity and respect for every Idaho citizen. It means waving as you pass someone on a rural Idaho road. It means letting someone in when they’re trying to merge in heavy traffic. Idaho’s been discovered, and there’s no going back. We can’t let all of this new growth change who we are. … That’s why I’m running for lieutenant governor.”
Both promised major departures from how McGeachin has handled the office, which has included trying to counter Little’s policies with surprise executive orders when he was briefly out of state, prompting him to immediately and retroactively reverse them.
“The office has been disrespected – I think the office has been abused,” Pickens Manweiler said. She said her top two priorities in office if elected would be “to restore reproductive freedom to this state,” through working with legislators and a potential ballot initiative; and to address the rise of extremism in Idaho.
Bedke said, “If I’ve heard one thing on the campaign trail, it is for heaven’s sakes, don’t embarrass the state of Idaho as the lieutenant governor.” He said his top priority if elected would be to “drought-proof our state,” citing his work on mediating major water rights agreements. “I bring passion to that issue because that’s where I live, that’s what I do,” he said. He also said he’d focus on growth-related issues including infrastructure and school construction. “If we’re not going to build schools with property tax dollars, then we’re going to have to build them with other dollars,” he said, “because the Legislature is duty-bound by the Constitution to provide a general, uniform system of free schools, and that includes a safe school.”
Bedke blamed President Joe Biden and national Democrats for the state’s current ills. “I’ve gone up and down the state and the concerns that every person brings to me are based in the failed Democrat policies that we all live under,” he said. “We have record inflation. Everything that we touch costs more than it did just a couple of years ago, whether it’s gasoline or groceries. There’s a concern that our country is no longer energy independent. There is great concern about the rise in drugs and the crime associated with drugs, particularly fentanyl, in our communities,” for which he blamed border security policies. “These are not good policies for Idaho. Unfortunately, those federal policies affect us dramatically here.”
Pickens Manweiler responded, “I should feel really important, because according to my opponent he is running against President Biden.” Bedke has a current TV campaign commercial that opens with, “Bedke vs. Biden.”
“That’s pretty much what he’s been saying for the last year,” Pickens Manweiler said. “I’ve been in this race for a year and three months, and he’s not once said anything about my policies, so I’m going to go out on a limb and say with the exception of reproductive health care, that my policies aren’t so far off form his, because we’re Idahoans. And in Idaho we like the feds to stay out of our business. But I’m not running against someone in Washington, D.C. I’m running against Speaker of the House Scott Bedke.”
Here are some of the issues the two debated:
ABORTION
Bedke stood by his move as speaker to defend Idaho’s anti-abortion laws that were written to take effect after the U.S. Supreme Court this year overturned Roe v. Wade, including a near-total ban on abortion that’s currently partially enjoined by a federal court with regard to hospital emergency room care. “I have a clear track record of being pro-life. I’m unapologetic about that,” he said. “I am against elective abortion. …. I oppose abortion except in the rare cases of rape, incest and when the life of the mother is in jeopardy. I believe the doctors and health care givers should be allowed to do their job in the areas of miscarriage management, fertility questions like that, and I believe that that was the intention of the bills.”
Bedke blamed President Joe Biden and national Democrats for the state’s current ills. “I’ve gone up and down the state and the concerns that every person brings to me are based in the failed Democrat policies that we all live under,” he said. “We have record inflation. Everything that we touch costs more than it did just a couple of years ago, whether it’s gasoline or groceries. There’s a concern that our country is no longer energy independent. There is great concern about the rise in drugs and the crime associated with drugs, particularly fentanyl, in our communities,” for which he blamed border security policies. “These are not good policies for Idaho. Unfortunately, those federal policies affect us dramatically here.”
Pickens Manweiler responded, “I should feel really important, because according to my opponent he is running against President Biden.” Bedke has a current TV campaign commercial that opens with, “Bedke vs. Biden.”
“That’s pretty much what he’s been saying for the last year,” Pickens Manweiler said. “I’ve been in this race for a year and three months, and he’s not once said anything about my policies, so I’m going to go out on a limb and say with the exception of reproductive health care, that my policies aren’t so far off form his, because we’re Idahoans. And in Idaho we like the feds to stay out of our business. But I’m not running against someone in Washington, D.C. I’m running against Speaker of the House Scott Bedke.”
Here are some of the issues the two debated:
ABORTION
Bedke stood by his move as speaker to defend Idaho’s anti-abortion laws that were written to take effect after the U.S. Supreme Court this year overturned Roe v. Wade, including a near-total ban on abortion that’s currently partially enjoined by a federal court with regard to hospital emergency room care. “I have a clear track record of being pro-life. I’m unapologetic about that,” he said. “I am against elective abortion. …. I oppose abortion except in the rare cases of rape, incest and when the life of the mother is in jeopardy. I believe the doctors and health care givers should be allowed to do their job in the areas of miscarriage management, fertility questions like that, and I believe that that was the intention of the bills.”
She added, “I would suggest that a ballot initiative would be quite successful in Idaho, and … as lieutenant governor, I will certainly use my negotiating skills with the legislators, but if I have to take this to the people I will.”
EXTREMISM
“Let’s be clear: I oppose extremism on either side of the political pole,” Bedke said. “It is absolutely non-productive, and it’s antithetical to our system of government.” But, he said, “To think that the speaker can single-handedly put a stop to everything that he or she doesn’t like is to be a one-term speaker.”
“Every part of the state sends their first choice to represent their interests in Boise,” in the Legislature, he said.
“I don’t support the picketing of people’s homes,” Bedke said. “I don’t support there always being a rancorous discussion. I don’t support pushing through the doors of the Capitol and the demonstrations that happened there, because I was right there when it happened. That’s not what we’re all about. We’re better than that here in Idaho. … And I believe that the silent majority around the state will begin to reward those that are here to make a difference and not those that are here just to make a statement. It’s a big difference. If you don’t feel like you have to work with anybody, then you’re just making a statement.”
Pickens Manweiler said she’d employ a research assistant in the lieutenant governor’s office to research bills that are based on misinformation, and spread the word. “The budget of the lieutenant governor’s office does have full-time employees available, and rather than just sitting and answering phones, which I believe is what is happening right now, that person can also be doing research and determining whether or not bills are based on information, or whether they’re based on fiction,” she said.
She cited this year’s HB 666, the House-passed bill to criminalize librarians who check out “harmful” materials to minors; the bill died without a hearing in the Senate. She said the fact that the bill was debated and passed in the House gave “legitimacy” to arguments that librarians in Idaho communities are pushing inappropriate materials on kids, “even though there is none to it. So then what you saw, you saw librarians being attacked.” She noted that the library director in Bonners Ferry resigned amid harassment; and armed protesters showed up at library board meetings in Meridian.
Bedke said, “It passed the House without my support, let’s make that known.” He was recorded as absent in the House’s 51-14 vote to pass the bill.
“When you give something legitimacy by letting it hit the House floor, that is doing something,” Pickens Manweiler responded.
She said, “I’m running to restore balance and stop the growing extremism in this state so that we can focus on the issues that actually matter to Idahoans.”
GROWTH
Pickens Manweiler charged that the Idaho Legislature for the past 20 years, under GOP control, hasn’t planned appropriately for growth, leading to current problems. “There are a whole host of things that we can be doing to plan for growth,” she said. As an example, she cited legislation that unanimously passed the Senate in 2020 to allow carpool lanes in Idaho, which currently are illegal except in resort communities of 25,000 or less population. The bill died in the House Transportation Committee that year without a hearing. The Senate, she said, “unanimously said ‘go do this,’ and Mr. Speaker’s House absolutely would not. So now in Idaho, no carpool lanes. We can’t ease infrastructure for zero dollars.”
Bedke said he didn’t kill the carpool lanes bill. Though he didn’t discuss this in the debate, under legislative rules, that decision was up to the House transportation chairman, Rep. Joe Palmer, R-Meridian, who never scheduled a hearing on the Senate-passed bill, SB 1312a in 2020.
Bedke said, “It’s an easy concept that growth should pay for growth,” rather than “legacy citizens” bearing the cost. “I think Idahoans expect there to be cost of living increases in their taxes, etc., but when your property taxes have doubled in the past five years, you could make a strong case that growth is not paying for itself.”
He added that the state should share more of its surplus funds with local governments to cover the costs of growth. “I believe that the revenues from growth more easily accrue at the state level and not in the local units of government, and then the Legislature has been collectively pretty stingy with sending those moneys back to the local units of government. And maybe that needs to change. We need to have that discussion,” he said. “I’ve never been one to stifle any of those types of discussions, or carpool lanes either. … I think it’s a basic concept of fairness that growth should pay for itself.”
Pickens Manweiler said HB 389, a far-reaching property tax and local budget limitation bill that passed in 2021, “defunded municipalities,” and contended that by supporting it, Bedke effectively voted to “defund police.” “The sheriff’s offices, the county officials all testified in front of the speaker and said, ‘Please don’t pass this bill, it will hurt our budgets,’” Pickens Manweiler said. “And you know who suffered? The Nampa Police Department, when they had to lay off law enforcement.”
Bedke responded, “To twist HB 389 into defunding police is absurd,” calling that “a humongous stretch.”
The city of Nampa has faced major budget concerns as a result of the limitations in HB 389, according to Mayor Debbie Kling, but hasn’t laid off police officers. However, she told the Idaho Press, “It limits the hiring of new officers to contend with growth. … When we have limited tax revenue, then it does impact our police force.”
SJR 102
Bedke said he voted for the proposed constitutional amendment to let the Legislature call itself into session so that the voters could decide on it, but said he favored a two-thirds margin for lawmakers to call themselves back, rather than the 60% that’s in SJR 102.
“This is an important question. I think all Idahoans should decide whether or not we’re going to amend our Constitution,” he said.
Pickens Manweiler said, “I absolutely do not support the amendment and I urge everybody watching tonight to vote no, and here’s the reason. … In 130 years, it didn’t need fixed, but all of a sudden, now it does. And that’s because we’ve seen the far-right shift in the House and the Legislature, and what they want to do is undo the balance of power. … It’s bad for the people of Idaho.”
The Idaho Debates are a longstanding collaboration between the Idaho Press Club, the League of Women Voters and Idaho Public Television, and are co-sponsored by Idaho’s public universities.
At the close of the debate Friday night, the two rivals shared not only a cordial handshake, but a brief hug. Pickens Manweiler was a lifelong Republican until she became a Democrat after the 2020 election, citing concerns over election denial and reproductive rights.
Bedke, smiling, said, “If we were neighbors, we would get along.”
Betsy Z. Russell is the Boise bureau chief and state capitol reporter for the Idaho Press and Adams Publishing Group. Follow her on Twitter at @BetsyZRussell.
This article originally appeared in the Idaho Press, read more on IdahoPress.com.
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