From the Office of Rep. Bill Sali

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Republican Members of the House Natural Resources Committee walked out during a hearing today to protest the Majority party’s efforts to lock-up and further restrict energy resources in America at a critical time while also undermining the form of government instituted by the Founding Fathers.

Congressman Sali, a Member of the Committee, released the following statement:

“Americans are paying, on average, $4.06 a gallon at the pump. Energy costs across the board continue to rise, whether fuel to drive, gas to heat homes or electricity. And yet today Democrats undermined our Constitutional form of government in an effort to lock up more American energy sources.

“By using an antiquated and unconstitutional statute, the Democrats tried to seize extraordinary power elevating a single committee above the rest of Congress including the full House, the Senate and the President. Our form of government contemplates checks and balances essential to the American system. I will not stand by the Chairman’s attempt to make law by a majority vote of a single committee in the House of Representatives.

“The Resolution today brought up by Chairman Rahall (D-WV) directs the Secretary of the Interior, Dirk Kempthorne, to immediately withdraw, for three years, more than one million acres of federal land in Arizona. That land contains the highest-grade known uranium deposits in America, potentially holding upwards of 10 to 20 percent of America’s uranium reserves. The Democrat Majority seeks to legislatively withdraw these lands, by a vote, not of the House, Senate and signing by the president, but by the vote of 20 members of the House of Representatives,” said Sali.

This type of ‘legislative veto’ is clearly unconstitutional under the United States Supreme Court case, INS v. Chadha.

Sali continued, “Nuclear energy is already a source of clean power and holds great promise in meeting America’s energy needs for the future. Uranium can be mined safely, and can be turned into a clean and abundant source of energy. We need all the energy we can get from all the sources we can access, including nuclear power. We should not be locking up American energy resources especially using a process based solely on legislative fiat.”

This was not the only bill opposing American energy development moved by the Democrats today. The committee also moved Rep. Barney Frank’s (D-MA) H.R. 415, which designates Wild and Scenic Rivers status for a section of the Taunton River that flows through the middle of a highly developed area with a road, stop lights, street signs and all, literally on its banks. The measure would block a desperately needed gas pipeline in the New England area, which has some of the nation’s highest energy costs.

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From the Office of Rep. Bill Sali

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Congressman Bill Sali today, again, insisted that Congress pass legislation to end the ban on American energy exploration and production, as a bill to impose new penalities on price gouging failed to collect enough votes to pass the House.

Sali voted against H.R. 6346, the Federal Price Gouging Prevention Act.

The bill would impose civil and criminal penalties for sales of fuel that are determined to be “price gouging” during any period in which the President of the United States has declared an “energy emergency.” Under this legislation, liability is based on the determination that fuels have been sold at “unconscionably excessive” prices and that a seller is taking “unfair advantage of the circumstances related to an energy emergency to increase prices unreasonably.”

“This so-called ‘anti-price gouging’ legislation throws a stick in the spokes of free-market competition,” Sali said, a member of the House Natural Resources Committee. “Terms like ‘unconscionably excessive’ are so vague that no one can say what they mean today. That will force people into our courts to have them tell us what those words mean. Who wants that? This measure would ultimately mandate that certain private companies sell their products within a price-range that is acceptable to a handful of federal regulators during periods the President has declared an energy emergency. That’s not what Idahoans or Americans generally need or deserve.

“Today Idahoans are paying over $4 per gallon at the pump and yet the Majority insists on bringing legislation to the floor that will do nothing to ease the strain on our pocketbooks. Gas prices vary from region to region, state to state and even block to block, for a variety of reasons such as state and local tax variations, distance to the supply, supply disruptions and competition in local markets. Federally micromanaged interference in the free-market is not a realistic or effective way to lower the prices we are paying now.

“Instead of focusing on price controls, Congress must focus on the solution – increasing American supply. When supplies are increased, no one will be in a position to engage in price gouging. Increased American exploration and production of American crude oil and natural gas need to be a priority for Congress. I will be joining my colleagues in the Western Caucus in unveiling a comprehensive plan later this week that does just that,” concluded the Congressman.

H.R. 6346 needed a two-thirds vote to pass. It failed on a vote of 276-146.

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By Richard Larsen

One of the side affects of a horrendously out-of-control county budget is the fact that the Assessor’s office has to generate the tax revenue to pay for it. With apparent questionable operations and the lack of ethical guidelines and competence previously characteristic of the Assessor’s office, the County has been able to generate the necessary property valuations to meet the budgetary demands of a 30% increase in the County budget this year.

This past week I’ve visited with dozens of individuals who have had dealings with the Assessor’s office, and the emerging picture is downright ugly. Having been run with competence and fairness for years under the leadership of Diane Bilyeu, it is now a veritable cess pool of cronyism, incompetent leadership, retribution against taxpayers, and unethical operations.

Since Jo Lynn Anderson took the helm at the Assessor’s office, the department has steadily declined in professionalism and competence. According to the State Tax Commission, the office is out of compliance with state guidelines, and it appears it will be so again this year. After two years of being out of compliance, the state can intervene to remedy the situation and the County can lose State revenue. That appears likely to occur.

Our current Assessor and her assistants, “the management,” have refused repeated offers to receive management training to improve operations. She came into the office with no management or assessment experience other than drawing maps for 35 years for the department. Consequently, the de facto managers of the office are her assistants. Jo Lynn also no longer attends Idaho Association of County Assessor’s meetings since they sometimes go into Executive Session where only Assessors can attend, and since Jo Lynn has no functioning knowledge of the appraisal business, she won’t attend those without her assistants.

Much of the problem seems to be the hostile work environment that the management has created. The professional appraisers who are or have been there have been coerced to perform unethical adjustments to assessments contrary to standards of the industry. The appraisers’ reluctance to make such adjustments created significant tension between them and management, and has resulted in the loss of all but two certified real property appraisers and one manufactured home appraiser, where there should be at least seven altogether. The Assessor has hired unqualified friends and political supporters who draw pay at the high end of their scale. The Assessor brags that the reason they receive such high compensation is because she brought in so much revenue for the County last year.

The Assessor’s office is required to abide by the Uniform Standards of Professional Appraisal Practice (USPAP) developed by the Appraisal Standards Board (ASB). These standards mandate equitable and ethical appraisal of property values. Yet my research consistently turned up examples of excessive valuations next to properties virtually unaffected by reassessment, in spite of more improvements made to the neighboring properties. Also contrary to USPAP standards, if the Assessor’s office can’t gain access to a residential property, management has instructed department appraisers to value the property with a half-finished basement. When the reluctant appraisers were told to engage in these unethical practices, the issue was forced by telling them they have to do it “because I’m management.”

Commercial assessments are now being done by an appraiser not trained or experienced in commercial appraisal. This has created profound inequity in assessments in similar properties throughout the county, significantly higher than similar properties in neighboring cities.

When the rare successful appeal of an assessment rescinds the Assessor’s valuation, an attitude of retribution is assumed. Within earshot of many witnesses, a member of the management team told one taxpayer who was successful in his appeal, “We’ll get you next time you son-of-a-b****.” And to another, “You got me this time, but we’ll get even.” One of them, after a successful appeal by a residential taxpayer, inquired “How quickly can I go after (taxpayers’ name) again?” Management demanded a $20,000 higher assessment on a residential property declaring, “He’s a tax crybaby and he needs to learn a lesson.”

We all saw the headlines earlier this week of how the Assessor’s office is attempting to “tax-rape” ON Semiconductor. This is unacceptable, and all too characteristic of how the Assessor’s office now operates. If something isn’t done immediately to remedy the situation, Bannock County will be decimated. Retirees will be forced out of their homes, residents forced to relocate outside of the county, and businesses forced to close their doors because of the exorbitant tax rates. It would be disastrous if ON closed shop here because of property taxes. And we’re dreaming if we think new businesses will be willing to locate here when they get a whiff of what’s happening with property taxes.

I don’t think we can wait for two more years when the Assessor’s term ends. It’s time for a recall and time to clean up the Assessor’s Office!

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From the Office of Rep. Bill Sali

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Congressman Bill Sali today introduced legislation addressing constituents concerns with the practices of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF).

“The Second Amendment is clear: ‘the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.’ Unfortunately, the ATF chose to use the troubling phrase ‘Always Think Forfeiture.’ This slogan creates the perception that the agency will not give our Constitutional rights the priority they deserve,” said Sali.

The ATF has had a program in which agents are given engraved Leatherman tool kits reminding them to focus on the seizure of private property.

H.R. 6253, The Always Think Freedom Act of 2008 will prevent the ATF from purchasing, using or distributing any hand tool or tool kits on which any reminder about “forfeiture” appears.

“Many Idahoans have told me they do not appreciate what they see as an anti-gun, anti-private property message from a federal agency. The ATF should always think freedom rather than forfeiture,” said Sali.

Original cosponsors of H.R. 6253 include: Rep. King(R-IA), Rep. Goode(R-VA), Rep. Davis(R-TN), Rep. Brown-Waite(R-FL), Rep. Walberg(R-MI).

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By Richard Larsen

Here we are on the verge of a possible recession (we haven’t had two quarters or even one quarter of negative GDP growth), and in the midst of an energy crisis with $135 oil, and what was Congress debating this week? A tax that will hit the economy from $1.7 to $4.8 trillion, and cost the average American family up to $3,726 per year! Such legislation will, if eventually passed, virtually ensure an ongoing recession by adversely affecting national GDP by 2 to 3% per year according to Time magazine, which inexplicably thinks it’s a good idea.

The Warner-Lieberman bill, the so-called cap and trade bill would have done that, and probably more. After all, when was the last time a government program cost projection was accurate? This bill, defeated by the Senate, was heralded by mainstream media, and certain politicians, as “bold national policy” designed to reduce carbon emissions and “contain climate change.” Yet even in the best-case scenario, the potential climatic impact would be a change in global average temperatures by about 1/100 of a degree between now and 2030. Who in their right mind would think that’s a cost-effective use of tax-payer money? Apparently a bunch of Federal legislators and many in the mainstream media fall into that inane category. It really makes me wonder what has happened to common sense in politics. It obviously is a rare commodity on Capital Hill and is declining as precipitously as Congressional approval numbers.

Cap and trade legislation forcibly lowers carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions by placing limits, or caps, on companies that emit CO2, and affords a mechanism for them to trade or buy credits from companies that are under those limits. By creating such a mechanism, utilities and companies emitting less than the limit could sell credits to companies over the limit, which would have to buy the right to emit more CO2. The net affect on the environment is negligible, but the potential to drive energy related costs higher and higher is significant, according to the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM).

MIT published a study earlier this year that estimated the cost of implementing such a system would cost $3,500 to the average American family of four by creating a massive tax on energy that is then passed on to consumers including a 44% increase in the cost of electricity. The NAM estimates the impact on the cost of gasoline would be as much as an additional $5.00 per gallon by 2030. That means if this bill was in effect now, gas would cost $9.00 per gallon.

Even if the CO2 emissions are reduced as predicted, based on the “science” of the proponents, the impact on the global environment is a decrease of 0.013 degrees of “prevented warming,” according to the National Center for Public Policy Research. Look at it this way, if you were buying a car, and the salesman said it may or may not run, and even if it did, it may not function the way it was designed to, would you dish out $3,500 for that car?

What makes much more sense is to do the same thing we did last year. Global temperatures dropped by 0.7 degree Celsius last year. That decline actually eradicates the increase of the past 100 years, according to all three monitoring agencies. So what did we do to achieve such a drop in global temperatures? Aside from individual conservation, we did nothing. Could it be that climate temperatures actually fluctuate regardless of mankind’s CO2 emissions?

The fundamental premise of this kind of legislation must be rejected. That premise seems to be that we can “save the planet” by reducing our carbon footprint. There is no underlying science that proves we can do so. Secondly, we must learn from the mistakes of Europe which has implemented cap and trade policies. The three years of Europe’s experiment has been a disaster both from an environmental perspective and economically, according to the UK Times.

Let’s consider a few facts. CO2 is a colorless and odorless gas in the atmosphere that is measured in parts per million, or ppm. The vast majority of CO2 emissions, about 97 percent, comes from Mother Nature, including what we humans exhale.

CO2 is nowhere near the most important greenhouse gas; water vapor holds that distinction. An astounding 99.9 percent of Earth’s greenhouse gas effect has nothing to do with man-made CO2 emissions. If measured on a football field, man-made CO2 would amount to less than a centimeter.

The Warner-Lieberman bill has been defeated but it was a dress rehearsal for another version next year, especially if Congress moves more to the left in the November elections. These efforts amount to draconian command-and-control attacks against our quality of life under the auspices of environmentalism. The underlying premises are flawed, and the recommended measures can virtually destroy the American economy. Unilateral disarmament was wrong militarily; and cap-and-trade legislation amounts to unilateral economic disarmament.

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By Bryan Fischer, Idaho Values Alliance

The bona fides of the Idaho Human Rights Commission, which claims to be all about equal treatment for everyone, are abut to be put to the test.

The IHRC brought a bill this past session, sponsored by Republican Sen. Tim Corder, which would have threatened severe punishment to any employer who would make non-normative sexual behavior or cross-dressing in issue in employment decisions.

What the HRC has yet to address, to my knowledge, is how it will handle a complaint issued against a lesbian who is being charged with sexual harassment on the job.

We are about to find out.

Janet Crapo, a former city employee in Hauser, a 670-person lakeside town in northern Idaho, has filed a formal complaint with the IHRC, accusing a member of the City Council, Carmen Miller, of recruiting her for a city job and then retaliating against her when she declined Miller’s lesbian advances.

The two met at a fitness class, and Crapo was soon offered a job by Miller, who said the job would be terrific as long Crapo would “play the game,” a phrase which Miller refused to clarify.

Shortly after Crapo took the job, Miller began visiting her at work, bringing lunch to her or offering to take her out. She began showing Crapo pictures of herself in a bikini during a body-building competition in Hawaii.

The harassment, according to the complaint, included home phone calls, questions about sexual orientation and other sexually inappropriate comments.

Said Crapo, “I was so uncomfortable being around Ms. Miller, I would come home from work and cry or tell my husband that I did not want to go back because I was so uncomfortable.”

She complained to the then-mayor and the city council president, apparently to no effect.

The employee, a married mother of two, finally quit her job after 15 months of such treatment, writing in her letter of resignation that she could not “handle the stress any longer due to the harassment.”

The HRC, which gets almost $1 million a year of your tax money to push the homosexual agenda in Idaho, claims on its website that, “Our commission works toward ensuring that all people within the state are treated with dignity and respect in their places of employment.”

Janet Crapo is about to discover whether “all people” includes heterosexuals who are sexually harassed by homosexuals.

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From David Ripley, Idaho Chooses Life

The very close win by Justice Horton on Tuesday represents a narrow escape for Idaho families.

We need only watch the evening news to see the disaster being constructed by judicial revolutionaries in California and New York to realize the magnitude of trouble committed liberals on the bench can bring to quiet, unsuspecting villages.

John Bradbury, a closet liberal, nearly pulled off a startling upset.

His television ads were brilliantly manipulative. He plugged into conservative anger over the manipulation by Idaho’s elites of the judicial election process. Bradbury hoped to focus conservative anger at Horton – a beneficiary of the appointment game that has been out of control for several years now. And it almost worked.

With over 149,000 votes cast on Tuesday, Bradbury lost by just 196 votes.

He would be getting ready for a pretty new robe if it weren’t for the diligence of our friend, Pastor Bryan Fischer, at the Idaho Values Alliance. We have partnered with him for several years on the Gem State Voter Guide – and it was Bradbury’s answers to this year’s survey which provided the dimmest insight into exactly how Judge Bradbury would reign from the Supreme Court.

While there were very limited resources to get the word out about Bradbury, the fact is enough conservatives learned that he was hard-core judicial activist from the Voter Guide to make good our narrow escape.

This situation puts a focus on how essential the Voter Guide project is, and to the need for meaningful reform of our judicial election process. Idaho’s legislative leaders must pay greater attention to this problem in coming sessions.

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From Bryan Fischer, Idaho Values Alliance

The fitness of Kirk Sullivan to continue as the chairman of the Idaho Republican Party has again been called into question by late-breaking developments in the primary campaign for legislative seats in District 21.

These races featured conservative incumbent legislators - Sen. Russ Fulcher, Rep. Cliff Bayer, and Rep. John Vander Woude - facing off against challengers Steve Ricks, Jefferson West, and Richard Jarvis. The same troika of challengers spent $2,000 on an Idaho Statesman ad attacking Idaho Chooses Life for endorsing the incumbents, falsely accusing ICL’s Executive Director, David Ripley, of implying that they hold pro-abortion views.

Last week, a form letter, written on official party letterhead, was mailed widely in District 21, arriving in mailboxes on Wednesday or Thursday, and giving the distinct impression that the Republican Party had officially endorsed the challengers in those hotly contested races.

No less than three times the incumbents are smeared as members of the “good old boy” network and the reader is bludgeoned no less than nine times - nine! - with the phrase “special interests” to imply that it was the party’s official position that Fulcher, Bayer and Vander Woude are in the bag for powerful lobbyists.

Although each letter was identical in content, different committeemen signed them, apparently sending the letters to party members in their own precincts, thus giving the impression that they had written the letter themselves. According to the note at the bottom of each letter, the mailing was “gladly paid (for) by the Ricks for Senator Committee.”

Sullivan was immediately contacted by concerned party members, and by candidates whose fortunes would be directly affected by the false impression created by the letter. However, Sullivan failed to return phone calls for four days, and then weakly promised only that he would look into the matter. (An IVA phone call to Sullivan’s office yesterday was not returned.)

According to one source, Sullivan claimed on Saturday that he did not know how to get hold of Mr. Ricks, even though his home and work numbers were accessible in seconds via the internet. By then, of course, it was too late to protect the integrity of the electoral process.

Tuesday evening, Sullivan made vague noises about initiating legal action against those who misrepresented the party by sending the letter, but the threat appears to be empty and toothless saber rattling on his part.

Contrast this with Mr. Sullivan’s actions 2 ½ years ago, when a similar missive had left some with the impression that the party was endorsing Brandi Swindell in her run for a seat on the Boise City Council. He wasted no time in issuing a public clarification, distancing the Party from Ms. Swindell’s campaign so fast it’d give you a nose bleed.

Yet in this case, he dithered around for four days and then did nothing, despite the fact that the false impression created by the letter was likely to have a material impact on a campaign.

While Fulcher and Bayer survived their primary challenges, Sullivan’s failure to take decisive clarifying action likely cost John Vander Woude his seat in the legislature. Vander Woude lost his race against Jarvis by a scant 55 votes, and it is entirely possible that enough primary voters were influenced by the deceptive nature of the letter into thinking that Vander Woude was being officially opposed by his own party.

If only 28 voters changed their minds about Vander Woude based on the letter, that would have been enough to deny him a seat that should rightfully be his.

Add to this that any number of Democrats, crossing over to vote against Bill Sali (the runner-up in that race, Matt Salisbury, got an astonishing 8,000 votes more than Walt Minnick) may well have decided to create mischief in other races as long as they were meddling with the GOP ballot.

Vander Woude had a solid voting record as a pro-life, pro-family conservative during his one term in office, and thus this underhanded tactic has likely deprived Idaho families of a consistent and dependable voice and vote on social issues.

Sali’s race makes it abundantly clear that it is harmful to the prospects of conservative Republicans for the party to hold open primaries. The rank-and-file members of the GOP recognize this, and have forced the party establishment to move toward closed primaries whether they want to or not.

Sullivan has fought the grassroots on the primary issue every step of the way, and the results from District 21, ending in the unseating of a social conservative, will only foment further unrest among the already agitated GOP grassroots.

Word on the street is that the Central Committee in Twin Falls cast a unanimous no-confidence vote in Sullivan’s leadership and similar no-confidence votes are scheduled for or have already been held in Cassia and Minidoka counties, among others. The floor seems to be falling out from under the current chairman.

Sullivan will face a challenge for party chairmanship at the state convention next month, and this District 21 debacle is certainly not going to help his chances. The party elites have rallied around Sullivan, and have used heavy-handed pressure in a number of ways to boost his chances of re-election.

But the natives are restless, and the current alternative, Rod Beck, who is leading the charge to close the GOP primaries, has repeatedly locked horns with the party elites over the issue and would be the establishment’s worst nightmare.

One possible outcome? The party elites, seeing the handwriting on the wall, may ask Sullivan to step aside and appeal to Norm Semanko to step forward as a compromise candidate. Beck is prepared to support Semanko’s bid for the post, but Semanko, out of a concern for party unity, has put his plans to run for the chairmanship on hold.

Semanko is universally well-liked, and if the party is looking for a unifier in the wake of unhappiness with Sullivan’s leadership, Semanko may be just the man for the job.

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By Bryan Fischer, Idaho Values Alliance

All Idahoans who care about the rule of law and the preservation of the cultural unity of the United States have valid reasons for concern as the Mexican government proceeds with its plan to open a Mexican consulate in the state capitol.

The first line in an Idaho Statesman story on the matter says quite frankly that “one of the services it will offer is identification for Mexican citizens living in the U.S., whether they’re in this country legally or not.”

In other words, the Statesman’s writer is acknowledging in the first line of the piece that the Mexican government is both indifferent to American immigration law and intends to use the consulate to help illegal aliens evade it.

The consulate will offer matricular consular identification cards, often used by illegal aliens to open bank accounts. Said a longtime advocate for immigrant labor, “It’s an identification card.”

The Mexican Embassy in Washington admitted that the cards, according to the Statesman, “are most helpful for documented and undocumented Mexican migrants who need bank accounts.”

Problematically, immigration officials refuse to accept the matricular consular as valid identification at the U.S. border, and the FBI and Justice Department alike, according to an FBI spokesman, “have concluded that these cards are not a reliable form of identification due to the nonexistent means of identifying the true identity of the cardholder.”

(For these reasons and others, the matricular consular cannot be used to secure an Idaho driver’s license.)

The spokesman added, “It’s also vulnerable to fraud. They’re vulnerable to forgery. Even the newest version can be easily replicated.”

At last word, there has been no response to Rep. Bill Sali’s letter to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, asking her office to delay granting permission to the Mexican government for the Boise consulate until security concerns can be addressed.

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The task of sorting through all the candidates with their accompanying political baggage is daunting at best, and impossible at worst. Because I receive numerous inquiries for voting information each election cycle, this post will detail my personal voting preferences.

I do not claim to have any preternatural knowledge of issues or candidates. However, because of my personal experiences and connections, combined with my addiction to political news, I usually have sufficient information to form an opinion. Over the years, these opinions have overwhelmingly been proven correct.

I will use for my reference the Bonneville County sample ballot, which once again shows us that Democrats have very few - if any - primary races. Their presidential selections have already been made in CLOSED caucus back in February, so I don’t know why their candidates appear on the ballot. We can count on many if not all of them to vote in the OPEN Republican primary in order to sway voting towards the most liberal Republicans, who, in many cases, were originally Democrats. (Remember former Speaker of the Idaho House, Bruce Newcomb? He was originally his county Democrat chairman, but could not get elected until he put the all-important “R” behind his name on the ballot. For actual documents proving Democrats purposefully vote Republican, see GrassRootsIdaho.)

I strongly urge all voters to check out the responses given on the Idaho Values Alliance Voters Guide.

So, let’s skip to the Republican side of the ballot.

For United States Senator, my choice is Fred Adams, of Idaho Falls. Jim Risch simply has too much baggage. I cannot vote for him under any circumstances. In the general election, I will be voting for independent candidate Rex Rammell.

For US House of Representatives for Idaho’s Second District, my choice is Gregory Nemitz. This is a man who is founded on constitutional principles, a claim incumbent Mike Simpson simply cannot make.

In District 31, the gerrymandered district stretching some 200 miles from the Teton Valley to the Utah border, otherwise known as the “east coast of Idaho”, I endorse Tom Loertscher for Representative Seat B. I have no preference for Seat A.

In District 32, I endorse Erik Simpson for Representative Seat A. He is young, energetic, and conservative. Ann Rydalch is tired, stuck in the past, and has a record of raising taxes.

In District 33, I recommend giving Kenneth Walton, the perennial opponent of Bart Davis, an opportunity to serve in the legislature. Bart Davis has risen to leadership in the Idaho Senate, but fails on so many fronts to deliver on conservative issues. I also consider a number of his positions and actions to have been unethical.

For Bonneville County Commissioner, I endorse Dave Radford, a man who has proven pro-life credentials, and a love of the constitution. His challenger, Harold Jones, is also a good man, but a bit of an unknown quantity and too inexperienced.

For Bonneville County Sheriff I endorse Paul Wilde, not because I know him well, but because he is highly recommended by recently-retired Sheriff Byron Stommell, a man I respect.

For Supreme Court Justice, I recommend the incumbent, Joel Horton. I vigorously object to the manner in which he became the incumbent. Justice Linda Copple Trout purposely retired mid-term to allow her replacement to be appointed by the Judicial Council rather than allow her position to be filled as an open seat, completely at the whim of the supposedly uninformed voters of Idaho. However, in this case Judge Horton has revealed himself to be a strong supporter of the Idaho Constitution, rather than a fan of judicial activism, as reported in the Idaho Values Alliance Voter Guide.

Though I do not have the opportunity to vote in Idaho’s First Congressional District race, I wholeheartedly endorse Rep. Bill Sali. This is a man who has been a champion of the unborn, lower taxes, smaller government, and the US Constitution since his days in the Idaho House.

And that completes my list of endorsements. I look forward to receiving your comments in response.

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