Otter’s Democratic opponent for governor, Jerry Brady —who traveled the parade route in a 1912 Cadillac—doesn’t think Otter’s social views are a handicap in the area anymore. He thinks it’s his libertarian approach to regulation and public land that will give the Democrats, who last won the governor’s mansion in 1990, their opening.
“He made a big mistake of wanting to sell 5 million acres of public land,” Brady explains. “That’s kind of a libertarian proposition—less federal land, more private land—but it really backfired on him.”
Otter has something of a history with public land and federal regulation. In 1999 he was hit with a complaint from the Environmental Protection Agency for illegally creating a pond out of wetlands on his estate on the Boise River. He fought the EPA for two years before paying a $50,000 fine. When candidate Otter proposed selling off some more of the state’s well-regulated land, some voters saw a grudge trumping political sense.
“The people of Idaho love their public land,” Brady says. “That’s where they hunt and fish and pick huckleberries. People worry when you say ‘sell 5 million acres’ without saying which 5 million acres. It could be wasteland. It could be wetland.”
Brady’s choice of that particular issue cuts against a political fact in all of the Mountain West and Southwest states—every state east of California and west of the Dakotas, from the Canadian border to the militarized Mexico line. As The New York Post’s Ryan Sager notes in his new book The Elephant in the Room: Evangelicals, Libertarians, and the Battle to Control the Republican Party, these states have stronger libertarian streaks than you might guess from their rock-solid Republican voting patterns on the presidential level. “Nevada, Colorado and Montana all have medical marijuana laws (along with the Blue states on the Pacific Coast, Alaska, Hawaii, Maine and Vermont),” Sager points out. “Resolutions denouncing the Patriot Act and requesting that state officials not enforce its provisions if they infringe on the civil rights of citizens have been passed out West by the Republican-controlled state legislature in Idaho and Democrat-controlled state legislatures in Colorado, Montana and New Mexico.”
But the skepticism of government reflected in trends like these, especially in Idaho’s opposition to the PATRIOT Act, has its limits. Butch Otter has tested Idahoans’ tolerance of social and economic libertarianism. While it has defeated him only once, in 1978, the division has wounded him at several pivotal moments in his career. Otter survived his later challenges, in part, by moving away from full-bore, unapologetic libertarian advocacy and by moderating his stances on hot-button social issues.
Three Comebacks
As a 30-year-old legislator, Otter made friends quickly. It wasn’t difficult for a libertarian Republican to find like minds in Boise.
“He and Congressman Steve Symms were drinking buddies—or, I guess, coffee buddies—in Canyon County,” the Lewiston Morning Tribune’s Bill Hall remembers, correcting himself to note that Otter’s group was sober and serious. “There were four or five guys that hung out together, all big libertarians. But they were only as libertarian as they could be in the Republican Party.”
Otter became the most outspoken of the state legislature’s libertarian rump; the runner-up was undoubtedly Maurice Clements, who sponsored a bill to start a school voucher system. But Otter usually dodged the libertarian label and framed his politics as conservative, even co-founding a Conservative Caucus within the GOP.
“When Steve ran for Senate [in 1980] he flipped over and became a regulation conservative Republican,” says Hall. A congressman who had warmed libertarian hearts with an effort to let citizens buy gold began speaking out on issues like abortion, loudly declaring his pro-life views.
“As Steve goes, so goes Butch Otter,” Hall says. “Except Butch took longer to convert to full-on Republican, and he hasn’t shifted all the way. He still has his bold moments.”
“Philosophically I don’t think I changed,” says Symms, who retired from the Senate in 1992 and is now with the lobbying firm Parry, Romani, DeConcini & Symms. “But it’s probably a fine line.” Sen. Symms was politically pragmatic, ready to ally with more liberal Republicans such as Pennsylvania’s Arlen Specter in order to score a GOP legislative victory. Symms remembers Idaho conservatives beseeching him to vote for all of Ronald Reagan’s initiatives, if only because the not-exactly-libertarian president was “on our side.”
Otter had very little reason to rethink his political philosophy after losing his bid for the Republican gubernatorial nomination in 1978. Mormon House Speaker Allan Larsen had won the nomination by running up votes in eastern Idaho. Otter had left the legislature two years earlier; he was working at J.R. Simplot full time. During this period he threw himself completely into his work, clambering onto international jets to pitch Simplot’s potatoes and other products.
“I went all over the world,” Otter recalls. “I got to deal with a lot of different countries. And when I would come home I would say, ‘My biggest problem getting a project going in a foreign country is my own government.’ It always was. With the exception of a couple of agencies, my biggest problem was the government saying, ‘No, we don’t want you to do this, no, we don’t want you do that.’”
Editor's Note: We invite comments and request that they be civil and on-topic. We do not moderate or assume any responsibility for comments, which are owned by the readers who post them. Comments do not represent the views of Reason.com or Reason Foundation. We reserve the right to delete any comment for any reason at any time.
Pingback| 3.20.10 @ 11:13PM
Idaho Gov. Butch Otter emerges as leader of nationwide Repeal Obama Care States’ Righ links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:
Pingback| 3.22.10 @ 2:47PM
Lawyer Don Hecker Message » Idaho Gov. Butch Otter emerges as leader of nationwide Re links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:
nfl jerseys|11.6.10 @ 4:22AM|#
kdk
uggssheepskin boots|11.22.10 @ 3:26AM|#
people Ugg Boots Online Store boots animosity, and people outside are not capable of what are Ugg Boots Outlet boots.
uggssheepskin boots|11.22.10 @ 3:33AM|#
field to the top of the knee,Ugg Boots Online Store which are provided with advanced level as appropriate colors matching slip-on and lace varieties such as power, as they are developed by manufacturers abundant. for example, Ugg Sheepskin Boots, accept endless
uggssheepskin boots|11.22.10 @ 3:39AM|#
Sheepskin Boots Sale short is commonly used high quality Merino (class) and absolute sheep can keep your grill to anxiety and capable of all twelve weeks of the year. This Cheap women Uggs snow used is durable, especially for the insight that power auspices of the heel
دردشة|6.23.11 @ 10:12PM|#
thanks