By Andi Elliott

Folks, we are asking people to send this to their representatives so that Idaho can be certain that candidates that appear on Idaho ballots are actually eligible to be there. It is up to the Chairmen of the political parties to “vet” the candidates. This is not always done. Georgia and Texas and a handful of other states have begun this process and this legislation is modeled after their legislation.

This is a draft of the proposed legislation that folks all over the state are asking their representatives to sponsor/cosponsor.

Feel free to contact me if you have any questions.

Thanks, Andi Elliott
208-662-5808
straighttalkidaho@yahoo.com

A BILL TO BE ENTITLED
AN ACT relating to certification for placement on the ballot of candidates for president or vice-president of the United States.

BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF IDAHO:

SECTION 1. Section_________, Election Code, is amended by amending Subsection (__) and adding Subsection (___) to read as follows:

(a) Except as provided by Subsection (__) or (___), the secretary of state shall certify in writing for placement on the general election ballot the names of the candidates for president and vice-president who are entitled to have their names placed on the ballot.

(d) The secretary of state may not certify the name of a candidate for president or vice-president unless the candidate has presented the candidate’s certified and/or notarized copy of his or her original birth certificate indicating that the person is a natural-born United States citizen.

SECTION 2. The secretary of state shall perform a background check on presidential candidates to ensure they meet the Constitutional qualifications, including whether not they are a NATURAL Born Citizen of the United States – born of 2 U.S. citizen parents within the United States according to the U.S. Supreme Court in Minor v. Happersett, 1875. Candidates for president and vice-president who are entitled to have their names placed on the ballot shall complete the same Federal I-9 form that every other employee in the country is required to complete to prove that they are legally able to work in the United States. The secretary of state shall certify that said Federal I-9 form has been completed.

SECTION 3. An emergency existing therefore, which emergency is hereby declared to exist, this act shall be in full force and effect on and after its passage and approval.

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Idaho Chooses Life

The pro-Life community is buzzing with the tremendous news that Planned Parenthood has lost the legitimizing cover of the breast cancer lobby. The Komen Foundation’s decision to end its partnership with the Abortion Industry is a huge blessing – on many levels.

There is the money which Komen has transferred from life-loving citizens to those promoting the death of women and babies. Seeing Planned Parenthood lose several millions in charitable support is certainly encouraging.

And we are all excited by the fact that pro-Lifers will no longer have to argue or wince or boycott fundraising efforts designed to end the scourge of breast cancer. In fact, we encourage our readers to at least send the Komen Foundation an email to express our gratitude; a donation in the name of innocent children would be better. Komen deserves sincere praise for protecting the integrity of the effort to treat and cure breast cancer.

But in the long term, the best aspect of this development is that Planned Parenthood can no longer hide its evil behind the skirt of “fighting breast cancer” – as if it were principally concerned about the health or lives of women. Whenever their killing operations have been exposed, they seek to change the subject by pointing to their work with Komen.

That ruse just got a lot harder.

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Idaho Chooses Life

The Board of Idaho Chooses Life has voted to oppose the creation of a state insurance exchange because of the myriad dangers it poses to Idahoans. Implementing ObamaCare, even as we challenge it before the U.S. Supreme Court, just doesn’t make sense. The pending lawsuit provides with a great exit ramp.

But the nation’s best hope is a rejection of Barack Obama at the polls this fall.

We have distributed a “Policy Statement” on the idea of a state exchange to key members of the Legislature and are now meeting to reinforce our message. Rather than voluntarily submit to the edicts of Obama and Secretary Sebelius, Idaho must offer national leadership by choosing a private-sector path to better, cheaper health care.

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Idaho Chooses Life

Americans United for Life has released its pro-Life rankings of the states for 2012. They rank Idaho as the 19th “safest” place for preborn children in the country – at least in terms of the legal protections afforded our preborn brothers and sisters. That is an improvement of four spots from the year before, reflecting our strong 2011 legislative session. In 2009, AUL ranked us at 26 among the states.
Leading the list for the past several years has been Louisiana, Oklahoma and Pennsylvania.

A deeper look at the rankings shows that, generally speaking, the states governed by the ultra-liberal 9th
Circuit are the deadliest. California and Washington have been fighting over dead-last for several years. The average ranking for states in the 9th Circuit – without Idaho and Arizona – is an appalling 45th. Part of that phenomenon reflects the Abortion Lobby’s death grip on the political culture in states like Montana, Washington, Oregon and California. But one cannot discount the deleterious impact of 9th Circuit judges on the pro-Life movements operating within their political orbit.

The rankings from AUL are by no means the last word on the subject, as the organization does come at the question with certain biases. However, it does give us a feel for state of the nation and the great disparity between the states.

It also reminds us of the work we have left to do.

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By Rep. Tom Loertscher, R-Bone

Sometimes in life timing is everything and it seems like the stars line up. Other times not so much. I have been working for quite some time on a piece of legislation to change the date of the primary election from May to August. The Primary election was held in August before Idaho decided to join in a presidential primary. And now that the political parties will be caucusing to choose their nominees, there is no longer a need for the presidential candidates to appear on the primary ballot, it seemed like a good idea to move the election back to August.

Little did I know that the Supreme Court was about to dispense with the redistricting plan that was adopted by the Redistricting Commission. You can call it foresight, or just plain luck or even coincidence but the agenda for introducing the legislation was in place before I had any idea the court was about to rule. With the commission having to come up with a plan that will pass constitutional muster, the counties will have a tough time complying with the May primary date and to get everything in place for the election. At this moment, legislative candidates don’t know what district they might be in and the filing date is about a month away. Needless to say the bill, House Bill 392 has already stirred things up and everyone has an opinion.

We don’t seem to lack for controversy, even this early in the session. A bill introduced in State affairs twice this week, is scheduled for a hearing to make it unlawful to camp on the Capital Mall or around any other state owned building. There is a group that has tents around the old Ada County Courthouse that is across the street from the capital. We took some testimony from some “occupiers or 99 per centers” as they call themselves. One of the committee members asked a BSU student who spoke before the committee, what event would cause them to be satisfied so they would disband on their own. The fellow stammered a bunch but was unable to come up with an answer. Is it good idea to pass a bill that in effect would evict them from the property? From a PR perspective, probably not. One thing for sure is that there will be no shortage of press coverage on this one and some of us are feeling like this is not a winner no matter how we vote.

Joint Finance is still hearing from agencies and their wish lists, that are in competition for the state’s resources. Committees are dealing with the rules that have come forward since last session. Two years ago we put a resolution in place in an attempt to better define what would constitute a reason for new rules and to try to curb the explosive growth in rules from the agencies. For the last two years we have seen fewer rules instead of more. That’s a good thing and we continue to be optimistic that we will see the cost of this process reduced. I think we can count that as a success. Again, maybe that is due to the stars lining up, or good luck or even coincidence. I’d rather call it success because of the efforts of a citizen of this state, who brought the idea to us.

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Idaho Chooses Life

Pro-Lifers will gather once again on Saturday, January 21st to mark the 39th year of our national suffering under the Supreme Court edict legalizing abortion.

In Boise, folks will meet at the Julia Davis band shell at 1 pm. A rally on the steps of the Idaho Statehouse to defend preborn children will follow the march down Capitol Blvd.

Our best estimate is that over 54 million children have lost their lives under the Roe regime. May the Maker of Heaven and Earth reach down and save us from our great national sin.

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By Rep. Tom Loertscher, R-Bone

After being in session for two days this year one of my colleagues told me it felt like we had been in session for two weeks already. I’m not sure what that says about how things went this week, but I would say that that the interim seemed to me like it went by rapidly.

I get asked a lot about what to expect this year, and if the first few days are an indication of what is to come, it won’t be dull by any means. Governor Otter didn’t hesitate to declare that we have weathered the storm and predicted almost a six percent increase in revenues but only wants to spend about five percent of that. I have been told that our forecasting committee is not quite so optimistic. The State of the State message was brief this year and he did not give many specifics for his budget requests.

The minority party has wasted no time posturing on several issues but the most drastic is a sales tax bill to increase revenues by a mere 400 million dollars. It would reduce the sales tax rate to five percent but would eliminate a list of exemptions. I haven’t had time to go through the specifics yet but the most glaring is that when you buy a new or used car you would be taxed on the gross sales price with no allowance for your trade in. It doesn’t leave much to the imagination to see what that would do to auto sales.

Then the bill goes after nine categories of services, professional, (attorneys, accountants, etc.) personal, (beauticians, barbers, house cleaning, etc.) business, construction, (building a house, repairing your house, etc.) and repairs of all kinds including getting your car fixed. The list is too long to go through here so I would suggest you take a look at the statement of purpose for House Bill 345 and let your imagination wander. And most amazing of all is that they think they will be taxing a whole new group of folks. But in reality it is you, the consumer, the ones who buy this stuff who would be footing the bill. Our housing industry is still in the tank and there is thought that this would help things by increasing the cost? I guess I don’t quite catch the vision of how this would help the taxpayers.

Another topic that will be debated extensively will be the Health Insurance Exchanges. Every state has been told that if we do not have an exchange in place, the federal government will set it up for us and we will pay the costs. The two schools of thought on this matter are that it would be better to have a state program than a federal one and we would pay the costs, and if federal government sets it up for us, we will be required to do what we are told to do and we will pay the costs. Looks like we get soaked either way. Oh, I almost forgot. If the plan we come up with on our own is not acceptable to the federal government, they will require us to fix it to their liking and we will pay the costs. Confused yet? I’m sure you can see how much debate this will generate.

So it looks to be another busy session with a dab of controversy mixed in. My only hope is the session goes by as quickly as the interim seemed to escape. We’d be done in record time. What a dreamer I am.

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By Andi Elliott

Isn’t it enough that our federal government is bloated with corrupt and self-serving “elected officials”? Yet even in Idaho…a state noted for its position supporting state sovereignty, individual responsibility, and supposedly, a respect for our laws and Constitution… we have a mirror image of our national government albeit on a smaller scale.

Elected officials use their position to prevent legislation from receiving an “up or down” vote just as the crooked Reid and Pelosi have been castigated for doing. Legislation is being manipulated to protect some of our elected officials’ personal interests. Spousal/child abuse and animal cruelty laws are archaic yet even these laws often go unenforced at the whim of local officials. Idaho, who led the nation in opposition to Obamacare, remains curiously silent about our illegal immigration problems. (I’m told by several sources that some of our “own” are benefiting from illegal workers. Do you think your neighbors don’t know what you’re doing?) We have state officials who have sold us down the “Huang Ho” River. And we have a legislator using state resources to encourage schools to promote her agenda of opposing laws passed by our elected representatives. (I understand she says she’s “sorry” …like Weiner??? There’re sorry alright…they’ve got a “sorry” character and are “sorry” they got caught.)

Whose interests are being promoted and whose pocketbook is being “lined”? Where are the men and women who place patriotism and duty before self? Where are those who will simply do what is right?

Andi Elliott
Hamer, ID

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Idaho Chooses Life

Much appropriate attention was given to the great solons of Indiana when they stepped-up to block taxpayer funding of America’s largest abortion business under the guise of providing “health care” to women. The new legislation, signed into law by Governor Daniels, would go beyond the Hyde Amendment. Indiana would ban any Medicaid funds from going to Planned Parenthood in the great State of Indiana.

A huge victory for the nation’s pro-Life movement.

However, on June 1, the hardcore abortion champion leading Obama’s Department of Health & Human Services, Kathleen Sebelius, issued an order explaining to Indiana that such a move would not be allowed by the federal government.

If Indiana does not change its law, it faces penalties from the feds. Ultimately, Sebelius may force legislators in the Hoosier State to choose between principle and watching its share of federal monies under Medicaid held hostage.

Planned Parenthood operates 28 “clinics” in the state, four of them perform surgical abortions – though we don’t have information on how many others commit chemical abortions.

Several members of Congress from Indiana, including Mike Pence, had written a prior letter to Sebelius, arguing that Indiana had the right under existing law to target Planned Parenthood. The ideologues running our federal regime ignored their views.

Is this how our system of government was designed to operate?

The real problem here, of course, is that for many decades state powers have been practically undermined by the “largesse” of federal funds. All those “free” goodies come with a huge price, as the present situation well illustrates.

We pray that Governor Daniels and legislative leadership in Indiana have the guts to fight this thing for as long as they are able. The protection of Indiana’s prerogatives will ultimately depend on the outcome of next year’s elections. We need a transformation in the way Washington operates in order to begin a restoration of constitutional government.

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Idaho Chooses Life

This legislation would ban almost all abortions after 20 weeks’ gestation based upon a legislative finding that a preborn child is able to feel pain during an abortion. Testimony during the legislative session from several medical experts offered substantial scientific evidence that a preborn child has developed the neurological means to experience pain by at least the 20-week mark.
But, as we testified, the fact of prenatal suffering is hardly a revelation.

During the 1990s, the late Bernard Nathanson offered the world a chance to confront what “abortion” means by filming a live abortion of a late first-term child. It is, appropriately enough, entitled, “Silent Scream”.

Attacked by forceps and a scalpel, we can watch the baby writhe to get away, fighting for its life.

No human can see this video without having to confront the horrible suffering to which we are subjecting these tiny brothers and sisters. It rightly undermines our proud claim to being the most advanced civilization in history.

The primary virtue of SB1165 is its focus on the preborn child and his irrefutable status as a defenseless human being, too often the target of our cruel selfishness.

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