Every election season, I’m reminded of a truth some elected officials seem to have forgotten: they work for us. We sign the paychecks, and every couple of years we conduct the performance review. Hard to do when the employee won’t show up.
This fall, showing up has become optional for many Idaho Republicans. On Oct. 6, the League of Women Voters set out a chair for Gov. Brad Little at a candidate forum in Boise. He didn’t respond. He didn’t come. The chair sat empty for 90 minutes while his opponents answered voters’ questions.
Then there is my personal favorite. In April, Sens. Crapo and Risch and Rep. Simpson all declined a town hall in Pocatello. The very next night, Risch was in Pocatello anyway, keynoting a Republican fundraiser. So it wasn’t that he couldn’t make the drive. It’s that we didn’t buy a ticket.
It’s no better closer to home. Republican legislative candidates in Districts 32 and 33 declined the Stand Up For Idaho forum and [are not expected to attend] Mother Forward’s forum on Oct. 26. When the City Club of Idaho Falls tried to put every District 33 candidate on one stage, Sen. Dave Lent and Rep. Marco Erickson backed out at the last minute, and the event fell apart. Rep. Barbara Ehardt did debate, if you can call it that, on a conservative talk radio show where the hosts joined in and her challenger was outnumbered three to one. That is not a debate. That is a home game where the referees wear your jersey.
In my line of work, we would call this avoiding your stakeholders. A project manager who skipped every status meeting and only showed up where the room was guaranteed to applaud would not be managing that project long. Yet that is what these incumbents are asking: four more years, no questions asked. Literally.
This isn’t about party. In 2022, the Democratic nominee for governor declined a statewide debate too, and he deserved the criticism. This year, the debate dodgers are incumbents with records: Medicaid cuts, school funding, and a budget hole dug by years of tax cuts. Those votes were cast in our name. We deserve to hear them defended to our faces.
I have written before that our legislature too often serves a master that is not its constituents. If you want to know which master a politician serves, watch where they show up.
We live in a constitutional republic. We hire people to govern on our behalf, and the whole arrangement depends on them answering to us. A candidate who refuses to face voters is telling you the job is theirs whether or not they earn it. That spits in the face of the very system they swore to uphold.
Early voting runs through Oct. 30 at the Bonneville County Elections Office. There will be chairs at the Mother Forward forum on Oct. 26. If our representatives can’t find time to sit in one, perhaps it’s time we found representatives who can.
Chance Marshall is a project manager and the District 33 legislative chair for the Bonneville County Democratic Central Committee.