Posted: Tuesday, March 18, 2008 11:00 pm
Steve Crump
My Uncle Ray served in the state Senate from Power County in the 1950s. He told me a story about a poker game that almost kept the Legislature in session for an extra week.
Four lawmakers - including chairmen of two important committees - got together and played poker every Monday evening. One of the chairmen was a more skilled cardplayer than the other, and over the course of the legislative session took the other man's pocket money home every single time they played.
So the persistent loser demanded they keep playing so he could get even. "Charlie," he said, "I've got that road bill that benefits your county in my committee. It'll stay there until you quit drawing inside straights."
Danged if he didn't win the next time.
The state Constitution decrees that legislators spend the winter in Boise, but in Uncle Ray's day most of his colleagues were farmers and sessions were shorter. Boise wasn't so special back then, and a lawmaker could sneak in a quick trip to Harold's Club in Reno before he had to get back home and rebuild the combine.
But since the Treasure Valley's retail boom began 20 years ago, more spouses have accompanied lawmakers to Boise. Basically, legislative sessions got longer as the shopping got better.
Plus the fact that Boise is a lot more fun these days than Athol, Arco or Soda Springs. At home, there's still a foot of snow in the driveway and a livestock lagoon waiting to be drained. In Boise, there's poker with the guys, beer with the lobbyists and all-you-can-eat-shrimp at the Red Lobster on Saturday nights.
Back home, it's Hot Pockets for dinner, the local TV news at 10 and bedtime at 10:15.
The founding fathers of the West mostly located capitals away from their state's big cities: Carson City, Santa Fe, Helena, Salem and Olympia, for example. Whether they realized it or not, they were also limiting the length of their legislative sessions because nobody wants to hang around, say, Laramie or Juneau any longer than absolutely necessary.
Idaho had its chance, originally putting the state capital in Lewiston (which is easy to flee to in March.) But they changed their minds and moved it to Boise, which for better or worse is pretty much the most interesting city in Idaho.
Today, two-fifths of legislators live close enough to the Statehouse to sleep in their own beds at night. After the Census of 2010 and reapportionment, probably 60 percent will do so because the Treasure Valley is growing much faster than the rest of the state.
And after the 2020 Census, the four or five remaining lawmakers who aren't from Ada or Canyon counties will have to stick around as long as the homeboys want them to. That means, probably, a year-round legislative session.
In the classic Frank Capra movie "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington," Mr. Smith (played by James Stewart) worried that because Washington, D.C., was so far away from his isolated Western hometown, folks there would forget what he looked like.
Maybe he was from Athol.
Steve Crump can be reached at 735-3223, or scrump@magicvalley.com.