Randy Stapilus's Blog, page 5
July 6, 2017
The uses of big data
Not always are federal requests spooky overreaches with eerie implications for actual Americans. But this new one sure was.
That is the request from the Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity, the task force established by President Donald Trump and headed by contentious Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach.
The commission’s formal purpose is to “study the registration and voting processes used in Federal elections,” which on its face seems peculiar, since these are state p...
June 29, 2017
Odds on the F-35
Last week attendees at the Association of Idaho Cities heard a presentation about a Boise-specific project that could have impacts throughout the state: The effort to designate Gowen Field at Boise as a training mission site for the F-35 Air Force aircraft.
The state’s national guard unit at Gowen would supply manpower for the effort. While Gowen is located at Boise, Mayor David Bieter and a state Department of Commerce spokesman pointed out the economic effects of the added mission at the...
June 22, 2017
Numbers of consequence
Numbers are different from ideology in this way: They are specific, and they can have inescapably concrete meanings.
Two Idaho examples from last week.
The campaign of Tommy Ahlquist, the Republican gubernatorial candidate and businessman heavily involved in Boise downtown redevelopment, mentioned the number 100 a couple of times. On Wednesday he released a video ad saying he has “a blueprint to cut $100 million dollars in wasteful government spending in his first 100 days” as (presumably)...
June 15, 2017
The Fulcher shift
A simple decision about running for one office as opposed to another one has upended the calculus for both, and maybe for much more of Idaho Republican politics.
The candidate in question, of course, is former state Senator Russ Fulcher, who for a long time has been a candidate for governor, then on Thursday shifted his aim over to the first congressional district, to run for the U.S. House seat now held by Raul Labrador.
It’s doubtless a rational end result of working through the political...
June 1, 2017
Tours of past and present
This may be a good moment for the opening of Idaho’s newest staffed visitor center, in one of the not especially scenic areas of the state.
And one of the historically ugliest.
The site is the Minidoka War Relocation Center east of Jerome, which has been a designated federal historical site for a while and has allowed visitors in, but only now is staffing up so managers can show visitors around. Self-guided tours have been available for awhile, but only now is the site properly being staffed...
May 25, 2017
Who votes, and what that means
The regular election day of mid-May passed barely noticed across most of Idaho, as it often does. And low attention often means low turnouts.
And what do low turnouts mean for election results? What’s the difference, in other words, between that and higher turnout elections?
One particular result from May 16 deserves a close look for just this point. It is the ballot issue in Bonneville County over whether to create a community college taxing district, the prerequisite to creating a new comm...
May 18, 2017
The conspiracy problem
Fictional dramas and thrillers employ conspiracies regularly – they’re a good device – but actual, significant, real and successful conspiracies are a rare thing.
In American history, only a few have managed to achieve their purpose, even a limited purpose, before coming unspun. The Lincoln assassination conspiracy was one; the 9-11 conspiracy was another. Most others you might think of either weren’t really conspiracies, or very significant, or didn’t work out. And the Lincoln conspiracy o...
May 11, 2017
From drought to flood
When it comes to water, you want not too little, and not too much.
Lately, seems as if Idaho is getting stuck with one or the other.
On Wednesday, Acting Governor Brad Little tacked Custer, Elmore, and Gooding counties on to a State Disaster Declaration that already included a majority of Idaho counties. At this point – as this was written, anyway – almost three-fourths of Idaho counties are listed by the state as disaster areas owing to flooding.
You see it in remote parts of Custer Count...
May 4, 2017
Trumpcare, Idaho and beyond
The political effect of Thursday’s U.S. House vote on health policy – Trumpcare, as we hear – may be enormous, even in Idaho.
Both Idaho representatives, Raul Labrador and Mike Simpson, voted in favor of the Republican bill.
Writing about the raw ammunition this gives Democrats, the liberal site Daily Kos cobbled a quick generic attack ad: “Rep. X voted for tax cuts for millionaires and billionaires while gutting health care for everyone else. Twenty-four million people thrown off Medicaid...
April 27, 2017
Does he run?
Political question of the week in Boise seems to be: Will Raul Labrador run for governor?
There’s been a lot of presumption, even as Labrador has held off declaring one way or the other, that he will. He has expressed interest, and since the seat will be open, 2018 would be a time to move.
He may run for it; the decision, of course, is his exclusively. If he does, he’d certainly be a strong contender. But I sense a majority opinion now of political observers who would be less surprised if he...
