Moscow’s political history tells a story that is defined by its college town standing and distinct geological makeup.
A part of the left-leaning Latah County, Moscow stands as a blue college town despite its political lean, which stands as a clear point of differentiation with the rest of Idaho, comes with a history that shows that its current standing has origins that are far more complex than those that can be embodied merely by its standing as a university town.
As a part of the Palouse region, the politics within Moscow are guided in part by an agricultural reality that other areas of the state of Idaho may not be privy to.
“We’re an incredibly robust agricultural industry here without having to irrigate, which makes us very different from those of Idaho’s agricultural industry,” Latah County Historical Society Executive Director Dulce Kersting-Lark said. “That has really defined a lot of the culture… that we have an economy that’s driven by abundant agriculture that could be utilized without having to create a large irrigation network, which is good because we don’t have a lot of surface water in this part of the country.”
The large role that agriculture plays in the economy can be seen throughout the localities in the state of Idaho as well through the politicians that are elected, both at the state and local levels. District 5 Representative Caroline Nilsson Troy comes from a farming background, as does Senator David Nelson, who hails from a longtime farming family in the region.
Kersting-Lark said that this agriculturally focused background is also true of Moscow’s recently elected Mayor Art Bettge, who had “a career in crop science and went around the world assisting with the development of crops that could meet the challenges of a changing environment.”
Though the city of Moscow is not defined solely by its university, the continued presence of a younger generation within the city has indisputably impacted the politics of the area. One cannot assume that being regarded as a university town necessarily implies a leftward lean.
Moscow City Council Member Gina Taruscio, who moved away from her home in the South to Moscow in 1994, came from a conservative university community.
“They were very conservative, and I doubt that I was prepared for Moscow, actually being a much smaller university community, being quite as liberal as it is,” Taruscio said, adding that Moscow was more akin to the area of West Lafayette, Indiana, home of Purdue University which was far more similar in terms of the progressive attitudes of the area.
According to Kersting-Lark, in the 1950s, Moscow was a university town that wasn’t very distinguishable from other communities that could be found throughout the state of Idaho. This changed, however, as the town approached the 1960s and 1970s, and the wider, largely left-leaning political waves that the era was most known for started to have a tangible effect on the Moscow population.
Associate Professor of American History Rebecca Scofield said that this political energy manifested in the Palouse around issues of women’s rights and the Vietnam War. Scofield cited activist Anne Staton Voillequé, whose oral history took comments on the political character of the women in Moscow, who were perceived to be radical even by the standards of the progressive activist.
“She said she found Moscow interesting because ‘that was a different group of women’ … they’d been through the fire getting their doctorates and getting jobs and all that,’” Scofield said, referencing Voillequé’s oral history. “These Moscow women were angry and rowdy … ‘a little too radical for us.’”
The radicalism did not end with the women’s movement, however. Like many universities across the country, the UI campus also bore witness to the political agitation that surrounded the Vietnam War following the Kent State shootings of May 4, 1970.
The shootings were felt on college campuses across the county as students protested, sometimes violently, the Vietnam War and the killing of four Kent State students by National Guard forces. While the university saw marches and protests, the agitation on the Moscow campus was punctuated by the bombing of UI’s own ROTC office.
After speaking with many long-time residents of Moscow through her professional work, Kersting-Lark said that this bombing was viewed by many “as a kind of turning point in the community … a break from the norm.”
Though the bombing was an unexpected part of Moscow’s political history, the leftward lean of the city was already established at the time of its occurrence.
“Since the 1960s, Moscow has been viewed (as) a college town that leaned further left than other parts of the state and has been directly at odds with the extremely rural farmland surrounding it,” Scofield said. “Not that farmers have always been conservative … but certainly since the political realignment of the 1970s and 1980s.”
Scofield said that this realignment, known today as the New Right movement “pitted (farmers) against towns and cities that were more diverse.”
While these events were foundational for Moscow’s current political character, the notable history was expanded further with the most recent elections, in which the city elected an all-women city council.
Assistant Professor of Political Science Markie McBrayer commented on the unique makeup of the incoming city council.
“Women tend to be less likely to run for office, and they also tend to under-estimate their ability to serve, while men tend to overestimate their skills, (so) having all women is not typically normal,” McBrayer said. “(While there is) some speculation about whether having a council with only women occupying seats will affect policy outcomes, (t)he literature is less clear on that, particularly at the local level.”
Taruscio, who will be serving her second term on the Moscow City Council after her re-election, commented on some of the primary concerns that the incoming council will face, with the foremost of these concerns being the city’s declining aquifers.
Referencing the work done by Moscow’s environmental education and sustainability specialist Kelli Cooper, Taruscio said though the message of conservation has been a positive one, the declining aquifers have shown that the issue “cannot be solved by conservation alone.”
Between the aquifer and the $2 million terminal construction at the Pullman-Moscow Regional Airport, the city stands at a “crossroads” as it faces down two major issues that will have a profound impact on its future.
Moscow’s political story has shown that, despite its small size, it has remained far from isolated from the wider political movements seen around the country. While some may argue that Moscow’s current political standing is a product of its prior ideological affiliation and others may view that the world around Moscow has changed its character, Kersting-Lark said that the reality is that the reason why we see Moscow as we do today is far less black-and-white.
“Is it Moscow that is different or is it that everything around us has changed?” Kersting-Lark asked. “I think that a case can be made in both sides of that argument.”
Royce McCandless can be reached at [email protected]