Notes From the Floor

IMMEDIATE RELEASE: LeFavour will not seek another term

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Feburary 24, 2012

Idaho State Senator Nicole LeFavour announced Friday that after eight years serving in the Idaho legislature she will not seek a third term in the Idaho Senate. “It has been such a deep honor to represent the amazing people of Boise’s district 19 where I live. The district has been so good to me and I like to think I’ve been a dedicated voice for those here and for many statewide who otherwise might not have had someone to speak for them.”

In her four terms in the legislature LeFavour was well known for her work on tax policy, prison sentencing reform and improving Idaho’s treatment and support for those facing mental health or substance abuse issues. She also has advocated for adequate services to keep Idahoans with disabilities independent and healthy in their homes and communities.

“It is with the deepest sense of regret and sorrow that I leave the legislature, a place that has taught me so much about politics, policy, process and people. Idaho is a tough place to be in the minority. I took very, very seriously my duty to speak for those who were to be harmed by the policy we passed. That’s not a popular role to play and one simply can’t do it forever. It is especially hard knowing that speaking up for a wrong about to be done was so often not enough to change the outcome. You hope for the best in people and I always have hoped my colleagues would rise to that. Last year was tough and I left the session knowing this would be my last.”

In the legislature, LeFavour served for four years on the powerful Joint Finance and Appropriations committee, for six years on the Judiciary & Rules Committees of the House and Senate and for four years on the Senate Education Committee where she led efforts to oppose Tom Luna’s 2011 Education reform bills which make it law that the state would increase public school class sizes by using drastic cuts in funding for teaching positions to pay for new lap tops and mandatory on line courses.

LeFavour was elected by her peers in the House and Senate three times to serve on Legislative Council. For more than four years she served on the Commission on Hispanic Affairs. All eight of her years in the legislature she served on the Joint Economic Outlook and Revenue Assessment Committee where for five out of the seven years she had the closest year end revenue estimate of any legislator on the committee.

First elected in 2004, LeFavour was Idaho’s first openly gay elected official and the only openly gay person elected to Idaho’s legislature.

“The four or so months of the legislative session are hard on family. My partner Carol has put up with a lot of stress and has stood by me as I dealt with a lot of loss. She’s so smart and keeps me laughing through the hardest times but you can only ask that of someone for so long.”

LeFavour hopes her district will work to make sure that she is replaced in the legislature by another openly gay member.

“It is so critical that the house and senate have openly gay members. If I weren’t here there are times I’m certain that some in this Capitol would say they didn’t know anyone gay. And then how would they ever know that they cared about what happens to gay people in our state?”

LeFavour says she’s seen progress,  “After all these years, finally this body of 105 people is beginning to see that people do still discriminate and do intentional harm to gay and transgender people in our state. I know for a fact that a majority of my colleagues also finally feel that doing intentional harm to gay people is wrong. In a civil society it is our duty to say this is wrong. If we don’t, we might as well be saying that we condone the harm and don’t care about the lives of good people who lose their jobs, housing or educational opportunities for no other reason than that they are gay.”

“I began this session knowing I would not be returning and had one of the most amazing experiences of my legislative career. In August I began working with a group of people who became known as Add the Words, Idaho. Many, gave their every spare hour over the last five months strategizing and organizing to help the Idaho legislature see that Idahoans believe it is time to include gay and transgender people in our existing human rights act. I love the group of people I’ve gotten to know these past months. I think they’ve changed history on this issue. For the first time in all my years working on this issue I have two votes shy of a majority supporting the bill in both the house and senate with at least three maybes and several I’ve not talked to yet. That alone keeps me hopeful about what may still be possible this year.”

“I leave the legislature knowing I did everything I could last year to try to stop the cuts to education and the radical change in priorities from teachers to technology. I put my whole heart into stopping the cuts to Medicaid and to mental health treatment therapy and to services that keep people with disabilities independent in their homes. This year I will continue to do everything I can to get my politically fearful colleagues to acknowledge that this may be the only year in the next ten years that we have such a clear opportunity to pass legislation to include gay people in Idaho’s human rights act. I hope it weighs heavy on their consciences that in history they have the choice to do that now or to continue to allow good people across the state to live in fear every day.”

Senator LeFavour can be reached for comment at208 724-0468
Texting is an efficient way to reach her as well.

Thirty Percent

Last night as all unfolded here in Idaho, I had to breathe in, look around the old ballroom decorated to feel cheery and know in my gut that I represent a tough state. Candidates who poured their lives into races hoping to make a difference in protecting their schools or creating jobs or public transportation, go home now to surreally quiet homes.

Idaho. We Democrats serve in politics here knowing we are the minority. Democracy doesn't work if someone isn't up to the challenge of representing the 30% of the state that clearly prefers not to have public schools decimated by budget cuts. The 30% that will willingly pay taxes so that neighbors don't go without food, housing or medical care. The 30% that worry how expensive it is to lives and budgets when we cut mental health and substance abuse treatment, driving people and their families into desperation and cirsis.

To the other 70% of the state, I say this: what is invisible to you, the bridges, the police cars, the prison walls, the detox rooms, the teachers reading essays into the late dark of night, the prison guards, the parole officers, the social workers making sure someone takes their medication, the program that pays an 88 year old woman's electric bill, the agency that inspects day care centers: these things break down when you starve state government, when you cut it again and again and again.

Idaho, I will always see the best in you. I still hope we will pull together in crisis, look inside classrooms at the beauty and loss there, see our neighbors as people and rise above this as a state.

Closing Day

Friday at 5 pm the candidate filing closes. Last chance. Outside Boise many races have no challengers still.

Many of the candidates do file on the last day. It is the big surprise day. I know of two more great candidates about to file in District 19. Other places I don't know about so I worry. I figure it is better when a seat is vacant to have too many people jump in and to sort it out later rather than to have no Democrats run because everyone is waiting politely, afraid someone better wants the seat.

We need willing people, problem solvers and passionate people. We need those brave enough to stand in front of the train with us, to stand up with school kids, the lowest paid state workers, teachers, counselors, people with disabilities, the state's Hispanic communities, the elderly, those literally dying for substance abuse treatment, those who have lost jobs, run out of unemployment, those who need a state legislature that does more than pretend to balance a budget to look good in an election year.

Money will literally run out in several state budgets right after the elections. Some will run into the red sooner. We know that now yet here this week we push those budgets to the floor and into law. Some seem to feel that the bigger the train wreck we create this year, the easier it will be for them to raise taxes next year.

We are talking about people's lives here. If you all plan to raise taxes, be honest and do it this year before schools lose their best teachers, before kids sit in crowded classrooms slowly falling behind, and before people with chronic illnesses run out of their medications and end up in the hospital. I wish we would all just be honest, not hurt people to justify what we know must do to fix the hole we blew in the state budget with all the corporate and special interest taxes we have cut this past decade.

So tomorrow is closing day and I know my speech here is not uplifting, it is damn depressing, but if it makes you mad and makes you want to do something about it  then look at the filings and if no one is running, put your name in. The Idaho Secretary of state has the forms on line. You can get them notarized and faxed back by 5 pm. Burley to Eagle, Twin Falls to Coeur d'Alene, we need you in here.

I stay in here and serve because I care. I need to say too what an honor it is. It is hard but it is an honor to serve doing what I think is right, standing up for those in the state with so little voice in here. This place can only get better if more people run. We have to keep the debate going, it makes the policy better when races are challenged, even if you don't win the first time.

Someone winning one new seat in the house can change everything, get Democrats more seats on committees, give us a larger voice, more energy and momentum. To me, the party is the people who do these basic critical things like run and volunteer and get the work done. We make the party what we want it to be. If you think something can be better, it can. That's your job and mine. I choose to make this party a party that cares, cares deeply and with that I try with all my might to make a difference.

Choosing Not to Leave

I have a huge black and white framed photograph of U.S. Senator Frank Church in my office leaning against a desk. He is sitting on a wagon on the front lawn of the ranch in Custer County where I spent many years growing up. Frank is smiling, his sleeves rolled up, thick hair brushed to the side. He looks kind and warm. I've not yet hung this photo on the wall of my office. I've not hung any photos. It is time to. I'm staying here in the Senate, not risking leaving JFAC where there is so much work to do next year rebuilding the lifelines, health programs and schools we have torn down this year.

So I will stay here, voters willing. Our seven Senate Democrats make for a small caucus but we must be mighty. Our four budget committee Democrats, Wendy Jaquet, Diane Bliyeu, Shirley Ringo & I, are settling in together too, getting a feel for each other and how our skills and personalities complement one another. Shirley is brilliant and funny.I have sat next to her morning after morning all year. Sometimes she leans over and makes some wise crack in the midst of something tense. She is like my amazing partner Carol who keeps my spirits up through the hardest of things. Humor is a gift I only wish I had like they do.

This morning JFAC finished setting budgets and we disbanded for now until called back by the Chairs. Now each of the agency spending packages, each harsh plan with its job cuts, furloughs, fragile operations and bandaged programs will now make its way into yellow and blue folders bound for the House and Senate floors. These have to pass both bodies now; huge cuts made while we left over $70 million in millennium funds and $35 million in grocery credit saving unused. Some budgets, like the one for Medicaid, have problems. They are not plans but cobbled together statements of desperation.

Below is intent language we passed this morning. Essentially it tells the Governor and his agencies "Good luck, you figure it out now."

"The appropriation provided in this act and the provisions of this paragraph shall take precedence over any Idaho Statute that is in conflict for fiscal year 2011."

It is not a stretch to suspect that there are constitutional issues with writing this sort of broad authority into the intent language of a budget bill and with allowing the Department of Health & Welfare to ignore any Idaho law they want as we tell them to figure out how to absorb $100 million in budget cuts while still providing medical services to Idaho's most vulnerable children, people with disabilities and those with chronic, life threatening illnesses like cystic fibrosis.

I also guess in all this that Governor Otter will not take kindly to being saddled with this job in an election year.

So this is a first but perhaps this is what happens when a powerful majority votes to gut budgets but doesn't want to be the ones who decide who lives and who dies.

Going Home

Alright so a few people noticed that Anne Pasley Stuart filed papers to run for the Senate seat I now fill. It is a slightly long story but the gist of it is this: I miss the House. Anne said she was going to retire from her house seat and the legislature so I thought wow, I miss that larger more chaotic, wild and humorous body, I could go back there. Why not?

I figure if you are going to stand in front of the train day after day you need someone there to keep you smiling when you scrape yourself back up off those tracks. So yes, I'm planning to go back to the House. I hoped Brian Cronin would fill my Senate seat. But now that's where it got complicated. I will miss many of my Republican colleagues in the Senate, especially the four Republican leaders I've come to be quite fond of. Some of the best law makers there just hide that humor and others do what is brave now and then when they can, though not as often as I wish.

The friends I left in the house in both parties will keep me going for the long haul so I can stand up between the marble walls day after day to say what needs to be said when it needs to be said. And I miss the policy work of Revenue & Taxation and Judiciary & Rules. I loved those committees. But really we need more reinforcements, we need folks to understand that we need help in here. From one end of the state to the other we need you all to do the hard thing and run for the legislature, run to stand up with us when all this is so wrong. We need you teachers and students, nurses and parents… in Canyon County and West Boise, in Eagle and Coeur d'Alene, Moscow and Twin Falls, Emmett and Idaho Falls. This is not a presidential election year so the attentive and policy oriented tend to be the ones who vote. This leads to more rational outcomes. That is good for Democrats and moderate Republicans.

Next year in the House and Senate we could be a larger minority, stronger, more able to work with the more reasonable factions to get things done, to stop the worst of what is killing our economy and decimating more and more jobs. Until then we just have to tell it how it is and make sure voters understand that gutting education was a choice and that if we all get involved this year it doesn't have to be this way.

Hoarse but Smiling

Never in my life have I felt so compelled to wave an American flag, so compelled to hug people, grin from ear to ear and just stare up marveling at all those tens of thousands smiling, waving flags singing and stomping their feet on the Denver Bronco stadium stands.
Image after image is painted of the nation we can have offering us a simple choice. Tonight we feel what we as a nation could be. The path there is clear and is two months to its start. Not an easy path but one that is right before us and around us and here in our flying hands.

So I'm horse from shouting and doing the wave and laughing. After this night comes the hard work as the Republican Convention begins and Carl Rove (who is here in a back room somewhere) and his machine grinds up to frenzy and spends the next two months trying to rip Senator Obama and our nation's hope to tatters.

But we are durable people — those millions of us who can not wait for equality or help with medical bills or jobs that don't vanish over seas simply so some company can make more profit for stockholders or escape the accountability of American health, environmental or worker standards.

Tomorrow the work begins all over for every American who is unwilling to risk losing the hope we have for the better nation that is in our grasp. But tonight I'll dance and sing to Bruce Springsteen. I'll go more hoarse and laugh and sing (even though I can't sing) because tonight Barack Obama accepts my vote and our nomination of him as our candidate for president.

Senator Obama is coming out now and I have chanting and stomping to do.

Remembering America Better

The primary election was hard on my feelings for Bill Clinton. Here tonight watching Bill Clinton through the waving flags I was impressed with the genuine tone in his voice, his words which redeemed him maybe to others besides me, maybe even to some who did not ever see his accomplishments. Living all the way in Idaho where our news sources were very limited, he and his administration was an obsession of talk radio. Bill Clinton did not in my memory come to speak to us. He was abstract. For any who were too young or too far away or might listen tonight from deep skepticism, Bill Clinton wove images of so much impressive policy and strong leadership, images of such stark contrast with the Bush administration, that even for someone decidedly not a Bill Clinton fan, I felt nostalgic.
 

Calling Home

You get in the middle of this ocean of politics and home gets swallowed in the blue lights and sea of faces. But I've been calling my dad at certain moments, like when I saw Randy Newman sing at the New Orleans tribute and when Michelle Obama spoke to the convention floor. My dad can be counted on to be watching what ever political thing I'm involved in. He made phone calls to voters during my first campaign in May of 2004 and was already marveling at the Obama Campaign in Idaho in the summer of last year, watching the Logo debate in LA when I traveled there for the campaign to cheer on Senator Obama as he debated 4 primary opponents in a TV studio there.

My dad seems to know more about what is going on here than I do. It is understandable since getting around here is a major undertaking involving many city blocks, shuttles, light rail and buses. At the same time the media is everywhere at once and viewers can float this whole place from caucus to floor session to issue session with the touch of a remote control.

My dad's partner, Faith Echtermyer, is a photographer. She has been making hand-made political signs and posting them at the end of their driveway. Her enthusiasm and anxious desire to see the primary behind us is surprising and cool.

My mom called me today from Challis. She and her partner are so far from all this and yet she asked me how I was doing and if I was having fun before she told me that doctors found a melanoma on her arm. She has to get it operated on next week to get it removed and see if it is OK.

So as this ocean churns and rises in the midst of the Clinton nominating speeches, I rise out of it and think of my mom, gun owner, horse lover and wonderful character. I wish her well.

Tense Moments

Senator Clinton is meeting with her 1700 plus delegates today. We are told it is so that she can release them. I hope she successfully does that because last night, as the white "Hillary" signs were passed out to the entire crowd (just as the Kenedy signs were the night before) it was hard not to feel like this primary will never be over and behind us.

In February the caucus floor in Boise was tense but light hearted as
we worked to persuade Democratic caucus goers to choose Senator Obama
over Senator Clinton. Last night here in Denver in the sea of
respectful Hillary signs, there were tense moments. I
couldn't help feeling how the room had over 1700 Clinton Delegates,
many of whom are now happily Obama supporters, but others for whom that
process of shifting their focus and support has not yet happened.

Our delegation has seemed to move gracefully in this but those divided states feed each other's frustrations I'm sure the more time they spend feeling again like there is any glimmer of hope that supper delegates could come over or something could happen to sink Senator Obama and let Hillary ride into the general election victorious. But this morning we Obama delegates signed over our votes to Senator Obama. They will be reported from a microphone and lap top console on the floor of the convention  tonight. The Hillary delegates are saving their votes until later, after their meeting with her.

Last night I felt at moments that she was still campaigning. One of the threads in her speech asked whether her supporters were in this for the people affected by the issues. She asked again and again were they in it for this or that. But the end of what she was saying trailed off, seemed almost grammatically to be missing as if she left a line out of her speech. The set of questions to her supporters reached no conclusion. That conclusion seems as if it should have been then to say "Well then Barack Obama is your President." It didn't happen though and the series of questions trailed off. I'm sure it is so hard after all she has done to run for this office.

She did make some strong statements about our need to have Senator Obama in the white house. And finally the white signs were replaced with the tall blue "Obama UNITY" & "Hillary UNITY" signs. The feeling that she was campaigning faded a bit and people streamed out into the night, Obama delegates carrying a few Hillary signs and some Hillary supporters carrying Obama signs. May we be done tonight after the vote. Finally done and on to talking to voters about the differences between Senator Obama and John McCain.

Hillary Healing

I missed seeing Hillary Clinton speak earlier today. She will speak soon here on the convention floor and Texas next to us is going mad. Unlike Idaho, Texas was split 50-50 in the primary. Ceding the race has been harder there I'm sure. Tonight is supposed to be part of that healing process. I'm hoping for a warm and genuine endorsement from Senator Clinton with no barbs that suggest doubts.

Michelle Obama came to the Gay & Lesbian Victory fund brunch today. She just showed up and spoke so very passionately about LGBT equality to that room full of many Clinton devotees. She carried Senator Obama's devotion to equality so well in that room of delegates and community members.
No first lady, perhaps not even Hillary Clinton all those years ago has given a speech like that to TV cameras in the midst of a presidential election.

We have come so far. I marvel at people like Tim Gill who lives here in Denver and basically funded Democrats take over of Colorado a few years ago.

Michelle Obama just came out in a cream colored dress with Joe Biden to sit on the floor in a press box a ways away in the arena. That means Hillary is coming out now. Like most of you I'll watch and listen.

One of Idaho's three Clinton delegates, Jeanette Wolfley
on the floor of the convention with a roll out sign given to her by the
Texas Delegation.

Too Exuberant

Canyon County Commission Candidate, Estella Zamora, stands the feet of the elaborate convention stage where the Delaware delegation now sits.

Democratic Party Chair Keith Roark and State Obama Director Kassie Cerami stand at the command center for Idaho's delegation to the National convention, high up above the stage.

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NOTE: Due to technical difficulties (no wireless, not even expensive wireless) I could not post this or anything from the floor of the convention. I'll try to use my PDA from here on to send photos and shorter posts and will try to catch up each morning. Thanks for reading, sorry not to be timely!
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Streaming toward the first floor session. Inside we find speeches underway, platform committee reports (a historic platform but that work is behind our party. This is not a place to discuss and debate.) Many of the seats are still empty, people visiting and getting to know each other. And there is Delaware down there front and center (literally) near where we would have been. Really up here in the stands is where we'd expect to be.

Slowly it is all starting to warm up and gel. People are listening to the speakers more, finding the rows of seats that will be home for the next three days. The seats are not where many are staying though. The glittery lights go up and down. People wander a lot, a crowd too exuberant to sit still or quietly.

It feels like a concert except that watching the crowd and the media is what most people are doing now. There are too many speeches to really absorb. Nancy Pelosi and Michelle Obama come out soon.

These are the "Credentials" which are our passes to the floor and our official Delegate papers. They have some sort of electronic chip in them that the security scans as we enter.

Denver’s Pulse

Late night. A day of wandering the streets of downtown Denver with thousands of slackjawed visitors also trying to find the pulse of this place. It is a city this week with too many arteries for a single pulse. All you get is the staccato of millions of us pushing together to move our nation on past this disastrous period in our country's history. We all mutter quietly, "May we please end the era when we whisper our nationality in foreign countries, where we know so much of our soul has been sold to the highest bidder and where we have grown so soft and unambitious as to our role in the world." As if our entire foreign policy for the past eight years had been crafted by Texans and tank makers just trying to figure out how much they theoretically could make if they completely had their way with federal regulations and our nation's use of military might. If.

But Denver is where we all look ahead. You do feel the heavy hearts of those who have not let go of having Hillary as the next president of the united states. The endless booths of buttons and t-shirts and stuff with Senator Obama's beautiful face on it must feel like a slap to some of them. But we will work to heal that. They themselves seem to be working to heal that. There will always be fanatics. That's OK. It happens. Hopefully we all know what is worth stressing about and what is not. Some people's minds you can not change. You thank them kindly and move on. You leave them in peace.

And one can not leave this evening without note of the number of police here on the streets of downtown. In riot gear. Mostly directing traffic and, by their own account, finding even the most "frightening" protests pretty tame so far. Carol and I have even been amused to see how often the black clad helmeted ones end up giving directions to those of us lost or searching for some event venue. They answer from behind the plexiglass shields, from horses backs or bikes or motorcycles. We thank them smiling.

What of the pulse? Rapid. It is easy to miss even knowing what you have missed. People walk about with their "credentials" on around their necks, announcing they are delegates. We moved quietly from street to street, Carol and I happily incognito. We found it nice to go and seek out gay people at receptions and fundraisers to visit with. This is a place where anyone political from anywhere will be gathering this week and talking strategy for elections or policy. The word "change" is a big one for gay people. We have much to change. We have a long list of what needs to happen before we find equality under our nation's laws– just to provide for our families, raise our children in peace, plan for emergencies, care for sick loved ones and die knowing our partners will be respected along with our wishes after deaths. That's a good little set of policies to change. But if anyone can do these hard things, if anyone can get our nation there, it is the man whose face stares out from every corner and street vendor stall. Who else is eloquent and persuasive enough to bring a nation to understand why gay people matter, how regardless of race or income, citizenship or marital status, we are all part of America? We belong. We are ready to dig in and help solve the problems of a nation in crisis, if we are only given a place at the table.

So Denver beats with a million footfalls and fingers tapping. Tomorrow we begin. 7:30 AM breakfast meetings with our state groups clustered around conference tables in hotel meeting rooms. Idaho is out here 45 minutes from downtown with Guam and Indiana. At 3PM we find out where we have been moved to since Joe Biden's little state bumped us from our nifty spot on the convention room floor. We are humble and don't expect too much. Swing states will be up front. Texas moaned about our being closer than them. It isn't flattering to moan. We will smile and wave from where ever we are. We have mighty delegation in ways you will soon learn.

Under the Huge Sky

We are driving across Western Wyoming, huge and dry, like an immense extension of Southern Idaho without the Snake River. It is spectacular in how much of it there is. It does make me appreciate our fortune in Idaho. That big, slow river flowing through our dry parts.  

That this year’s convention is in the West means more than shorter drives and non-stop flights for Western Delegates. For many of us I’m sure it is a bit more of an acknowledgement that we count. We certainly did push Senator Obama across that delegate finish line. In the general our states are more in play than in year’s past and to convene here feels good. The familiarity of the food and the clothes and the air and light and big expanses is like home. Funny it is a little like the odd experience I had at the LDS temple in Salt Lake where I found myself for the first time in my life standing in a religious monument filled with symbols of the intermountain West. The seagull next to the sage brush, the smells so formative rather than foreign. I’ve been to temples and spiritual sites from Thailand to Alaska, Samoa to Prague, Nepal to the Ucatan. With all their majesty or simple beauty and deep history, none struck cords of home like that little courtyard at the carefully lit hub of Salt Lake’s city streets.

So to choose our Democratic nominee for president in a place with granite mountains and air that is dry and western, feels comfortable and somewhat profound. We are included, these Western States, crimson to blue, purple to chameleon.

On the Road to Denver

Carol and I packed our little blue car last night. We’re headed for Denver. I spent most of the first 10 or so years of my life in Colorado. Denver was the big city and seemed far away even though it was less than two hours from Woody Creek where we lived over a red stone creek bottom, between sage brush and pine mountain sides. My sister and I walked an irrigation ditch to school and our family left for Idaho when it all got too big and crazy in the 70s.

Not only have I never been a delegate, I’ve never been to a National Convention before. My clearest images of political conventions come from brief TV glimpses featuring oceans of signs and placards. Hunter S. Thompson’s dispatches covering one particular Republican National Convention liven up several still photos of Idaho delegates, including fellow 2008 national delegate, TJ Thomson as a very young man in a silly hat with Senator Malepeai smiling behind him in a stadium seat under bright lights..

I actually watched parts of the 2004 Democratic Convention including Senator Obama’s very moving address, the one where, for the first time I heard a national political leader so successfully transcend traditional political division and still genuinely include gay people like Carol and I in his vision of America. We both cried watching and I’m sure we were not alone.

But really, I knew nothing of Political Conventions until I ran for delegate this year. I know that is true of more than a thousand of us nationwide. And today we are streaming by car and plane and bus across the West to converge on Denver.

Running For Senate

PRESS RELEASE     March 8th 2008     Information: Nicole LeFavour 724-0468

In 2006 LeFavour was chosen, with 50 other legislators across the nation to attend the University of Virginia’s Darden Emerging Leaders program.

Said LeFavour Saturday, "I will be sad to leave behind so many friends in the House. It is an intense place where we bond often while looking for lighter moments; across party lines, ages and ideologies. But I will say that I look forward to new experiences and to joining some close friends and frequent co-sponsors from both parties in the Senate. In the House I leave behind much work I have begun with members of three fantastic committees. I will especially miss the Revenue and Taxation Committee because I feel that the work there is so vital to ensuring fairness in the lives of Idaho families. My colleagues know me and know I will be hard at it, continuing to work with Republican and Democratic Senators to make positive improvements to legislation affecting the taxes paid by middle class people and small businesses all across Idaho."

Texas

Obama Office in Austin. That’s a large black dog sleeping contently wearing a T-shirt that reads: Really Big Dogs for Obama.

….

This morning I flew to Texas to canvas and help with an event for Senator Obama. I fly back to Boise Monday morning. Tuesday is the primary here. It is a primary and caucus in the same day and much rest on the numbers that come out of this race in these remaining big states. Texas is one heck of a big state and the Senators visit here last week drew over 30,000 to an outdoor moonlit rally in front of the state Capitol.

Texas is warm and awash in people flowing in, phone lines buzzing and paper flying to doorsteps in the moist hands of breathless volunteers.

The office in Austin is an exhausted second floor fabulous rabbit warren with computers and buttons and cell phones and carefully printed sheets of white paper on much of the floor.

Volunteers are adorned with colorful images of the senator and deeper and deeper into the halls you find  media and strategy whirring. No one is pausing to feel confident or celebrate the records set for turnout at rallies, numbers of organizers, doors knocked, calls made. Everyone is just running, from task to task, list to list.

At the doors in the neigborhoods there is a mix of those who did not register and maybe wish they did, those who have been called and knocked already and those still swaying…

I got one swaying today. I got decideds and doors already knocked with people still up beat and kind in response to my smile and Obama button.

Missing days in the legislature is something I’ve only ever done once in my four years in office and I had a substitute, Amy Herzfeld, to sit in and vote for me. I have missed a single or partial floor session or two over the past four years to be at a hearing in the Senate. This will be the first day this year I will miss and fortunately it is a day with a long list of early Senate bills, mostly non-controversial. I will watch the debate on the live streaming and instant message with a few of my caucus members just in case.

I have also left pairs slips, bright pink sheets where we sign and are able to seek out another legislator voting the opposite way so that our vote can be counted in our absence. Of course if no one is going to vote "no" on a bill, there is no way to pair. Interestingly in 2006 when Bill Sali was running for Congress, Tom Loercher voted no on bill after bill to allow Bill a pair so it looked like he missed very few floor votes while he still served a state representative.

Texas neighborhood.

Election Whispers

Whispers. Lots of them. Who is running for what, challenging whom, giving up the ghost, moving to the Senate, finding family again, sauntering off into the sun set. Sometimes we legislators save these tidbits of information for the last moment, seconds before 5 PM on the day of the filing deadline, the 21st of March.
    "What is he going to run for?" "Is she retiring?" "Will someone file against me?"
    It is the eve of election season and the hour of speculation.
    I know well that there will be some surprises out there and some which are probably no longer surprises. We will lose some good people, a few to higher office, maybe gain some harder working or younger legislators, maybe lose some friends in both parties, maybe see some who have earned a challenge get challenged. While many of the seasoned ranks serve in here quietly and comfortably for years or even decades, there can come a time when even the kindest or hardest working have to look over their shoulders at the secretary of state’s web site come filing time. For those less diligent that day may come sooner. For Republican feather rufflers and outliers sooner yet. There will be primaries we all know. But some of the less than warm and fuzzy of the 105 of us seem to stand the test of elections again and again, often to the dismay of colleagues and the policy we long for.
    This year there will be some shifting around within the body, even within Boise districts. The Senate I suspect will gain some Democratic seats. It could be a good year for Democrats there if voters steel themselves and stay engaged through all the swiftboating and low partisan slander that’s sure to come. We have to remember that there are humans behind those faces on the TV screen.
    In Idaho, if you are a watcher of politics, March 10th is the day to put the secretary of state’s web site in your browser book marks… and watch races begin to unfold here from the Tetons to the Owyhees and all the way up the rivers to the deep lakes south of Canada.
    Thirty five districts each representing almost 37,000 people. Your state legislature taking shape. Think you can do a better job than some of us? Chances are you can. That’s what we wish of democracy. We are a citizen legislature. There is not a lot of glory, but guaranteed a lot of work. Ordinary folks: farmworkers, soccer moms, teachers, small business owners, social workers, artists, farmers, assembly line workers, waitresses and college students. At its best this place should look like Idaho. We can do better at looking like Idaho. I know we can.

http://www.idsos.state.id.us/elect/eleindex.htm

Obama in Idaho

The Line Stretches Across Campus

The Green Room with Super Delegates and Dignitaries

Senator Obama Arrives

The Senator speaks of a united America, health care specifics and Idaho’s hopes

Senator Stennett Looking Good After Surgery with Chief of Senate Democratic Staff Marie Hattaway

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Electric. Amazing. Who believed there were so many Democratic inspired
people in Idaho. Thousands had to be turned away because the place was
filled to the rafters. What a powerful, genuine man. He looks in your eyes and seems to reserve nothing. I thought, meeting him in person for the second time, how real he is. So many people laud his intelligence, his ability to articulate what our nation is missing and what we need. I see in his eyes a President I trust to be true to his words.

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Carol
& I woke at 4 AM and lay in bed a bit before deciding just to get
dressed and drive down to BSU and the arena. There were very few cars
stirring at 6 AM but here and there you could see people in neighborhoods scraping off ice, headed down
the dark streets to hear Senator Obama speak. We walked through the
snow with people cheerful and still warm from their cars. At the gates,
some had clearly been there waiting at the arena for hours already….. for more of this story go to More on Senator Obama

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Senator Barack Obama is giving voice to something so many of us feel. We tire of so much of the same leaders who look and sound and limit themselves to what they have grown accustomed to limiting our nation to. We can be more than a nation which promises prosperity and equality. We can inspire change in a nation, ask ourselves to give a little more to make this place grow closer to the dreams those leaders generations ago had for us. Why would we give up on hope for that? Compromise is an option after all else fails, but where lives are at stake, no other skill is as valuable as rolling up our sleeves to persuade, bending down to listen and ask for consensus, knowing how to look into the eyes of others to change minds and change what is broken in health care, in energy production, in poverty, in overcrowded classrooms, in our bullying relationships with other nations and our wordless relations with each other. We don’t ask enough of ourselves in terms of what we can give others in need. If we did, what might we accomplish as a nation? What might we finally be?