Chloe Rambo | Argonaut
BOISE — Area reporters gathered around cafe-style tables in a restaurant in downtown Boise Tuesday with pens poised, notepads ready and waited for the governor to speak.
At the Idaho Press Club’s annual Breakfast with the Governor, reporters have an opportunity to question Idaho Gov. C.L. “Butch” Otter and everything is on the record.
Otter took the small high-rise table — a makeshift podium — at 9 a.m., beginning with talk of the growing economy and the stable unemployment rate. Otter also touched on the changing hands of the state prison, education goals, the Idaho Legislature’s stance on same sex lawsuits and, briefly, on upcoming animal abuse legislation.
“It’s pretty hard to predict what’s going to happen (with the economy) — but year after year we’re ahead,” Otter said.
He said the state has finally reached his 2014 goal of bringing the state’s gross domestic product to $60 billion — the main objective in his “Project 60” plan. He said Idaho’s current GDP sits at $62.4 billion, while employment rests at 5.7 percent.
“While we set public policy, we try to set an environment for growth in economy and growth in employment,” Otter said. “But even with that — the 45,000 to 46,000 people out of work — we still have about 18,000 jobs we can’t seem to fill.”
Otter also addressed education — the largest single budget the state has to offer.
Otter said he’s going to continue with his five-year plan to accomplish all the recommendations from the Task Force to Improve Education, in hopes the recommendations will also bolster efforts on the State Board of Education’s benchmark of 60 percent of all Idahoans having a professional or technical degree by the year 2020. He also said replacing education’s discretionary funds is at the top of his list.
Otter said Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Luna’s Propositions 1, 2 and 3 were more appropriate than the public gave him credit for. He said the task force is aiming to increase technology in the classroom and continuing construction of a statewide broadband network to give rural schools Internet access.
Otter was also asked about his stance on the upcoming concealed campus gun carry legislation. He said he fully supports it.
“I am an advocate and always have been for the Second Amendment, and I don’t think people lose their rights under the Second Amendment — or the First Amendment — when they walk on a college campus,” Otter said.
Otter also touched on the upcoming “ag-gag” bill in the Senate Agricultural Affairs Committee — a bill following the distribution of a gruesome video containing images of cow abuse by employees at a large south Idaho dairy.
Otter said the bill would punish those who trespass, or come onto property and lie about their intent to film events.
The discussed agricultural bill went up for public hearing later Tuesday afternoon. The committee voted in favor of the bill to protect landowner rights. Some committee members feared activists with an agenda, others said the bill was too loosely written.
Area reporters also asked Otter on his opinions of the “Add the Words” campaign — a controversial campaign attempting to add the words “sexual orientation” and “gender identity” to the Idaho Human Rights Act. Otter said he couldn’t comment on the campaign because the state is currently facing lawsuits attached to same sex discrimination, but he didn’t think Rep. Lynn Luker’s two highly controversial House bills — one which would allow refusal of services on the basis of religious beliefs, and the other protecting professional licensure when denying services — were thorns in the state’s side.
“I can’t tell you of one company that has said, ‘We’re not coming to Idaho because of Luker’s bill,’ or anything like that,” Otter said.
He said he recognizes Idaho has been the target of much dissatisfaction — even mocking — based on the bills, but the state will continue to prosper.
“It’s not going to bother me that much,” Otter said. “I still believe in the sovereignty of Idaho.”
Chloe Rambo can be reached at [email protected]