Rep. Steve Berch

A politician tends to only represent the people who vote for them. A statesman strives to represent everyone in their constituency whether they voted for them or not. This doesn’t mean you agree with everyone on every issue all the time. It does mean you respect those good ideas – no matter where they come from – by incorporating them into the work you do.

It’s much easier to be a politician than a statesman:

• It’s much easier to inflame emotions with false and misleading messages to win votes.
• It’s much easier to make decisions based on what you want to believe is true, instead of doing the due diligence to know what is true.
• It’s much easier to tell voters what they want to hear instead of what they need to hear.

A statesman, however, works to bring people together and listens for points of agreement, instead of arguing about where they disagree. With agreement, you can establish trust and respect, which is the first step toward working together to solve problems.

A statesman builds a consensus among colleagues to tackle difficult issues. It takes patience and good listening skills to resolve major issues that require the agreement of at least 36 representatives, 18 senators, and 1 governor.

A statesman has the courage to make decisions that may not be popular in the short term, but necessary to secure a beneficial long-term outcome.

A statesman is more concerned about achieving results than getting the credit.

The road toward becoming a statesman starts by knocking on doors and talking one-on-one with a broad spectrum of one’s constituency. You learn the issues that really affect people’s daily lives. You learn to respect people of all political affiliations and treat them with civility in both word and deed. You become a better public servant and a better person.

This is why I choose the road that leads to being a statesman.

Unfortunately, this road is less traveled by too many incumbents and candidates these days. To be clear, several of my legislative colleagues on both sides of the aisle are statesmen. We listen and learn from each other to our mutual benefit, even if we disagree at times.

However, too many choose to be politicians. It is discouraging to see bills promoting ideological purity that divide communities and punish those who disagree. It is dangerous when legislators give credibility to false and misleading information in an effort to curry favor with voters.

If we continue traveling down this increasingly rancorous road, we wind up with a government that rejects accountability after being elected; that doesn’t care about those that disagree with them; that believes the ends justify the means – which leads to operating without a moral or ethical compass.

We wind up with a state without statesmen.

There is a path forward. Voters need to know who the people on their ballot really are. Ask yourself: Is the candidate taking your vote for granted? Do they make it easy to contact them? Have they knocked on your door? Do they want to talk with you or at you?

If you want more statesmen and fewer politicians in the legislature, vote for the person – not a letter or a color.

House Bill 442 would prevent cities from setting reasonable maximum fees or deposits for residential rental properties, like application fees or pet deposits. With cities unable to ensure these basic protections, there are no checks on unscrupulous landlords who can bankrupt families with exorbitant fees. 

Idaho is home to some of the most overvalued housing markets in America, which ripens opportunities for exploitative practices against desperate renters, and HB 442 weakens the ability of local officials to respond to this crisis. The National Low Income Housing Coalition shows 30% of Idahoans are renters. As the legislation is written, landlords would be able to collect application fees or security deposits from an unlimited number of people, charging whatever they want, without ever having to prove a unit is even available.

“This bill is proof that Idaho renters have no allies in the Idaho GOP. This bill offends the notion that the government closest to the people governs best and paves the way for tenants to be exploited by out-of-state property managers who are gobbling up investment properties at the expense of Idahoans who are increasingly struggling to afford a most basic human need, a place to live,” Rep. Colin Nash said.

“Government should protect consumers from unscrupulous bad actors. This bill protects unscrupulous bad actors from consumers,”  Rep. Steve Berch said.

“Our local communities should have the right to respond to the pressing issues impacting them. The application fee ordinance was the city of Boise’s appropriate response to the predatory behavior that is preventing our neighbors from putting a roof above their heads. Until we have a statewide solution, I will continue to support my community in protecting renters from this egregious behavior,” Rep. Brooke Green said.

“While many long-standing Idaho landlords treat renters fairly, we are seeing an increase in out-of-state investors turning the desperation of renters into quick cash with predatory fees. With a severe shortage of homes and prices skyrocketing, Idahoans are easy targets. This bill takes away the ability of local leaders to provide basic consumer protections so that Idaho families can get a fair shake,” Rep. Lauren Necochea said. 

Here’s mine. It reveals what I believe to be an essential element of leadership, be it in the public or private sector, or in one’s personal life. 

Bill and Dave’s last visit to the Boise site was in the early 1990s.  A “coffee talk” for all site employees was hosted by the two and held in the interior courtyard at HP’s campus on Chinden Boulevard. 

An entourage of executives accompanying Bill and Dave entered the courtyard through a single door. Dave was physically impaired by this time, so it took a while for the party to make its way through the entrance. Many employees (mostly factory line workers) were backed up behind them as Dave slowly advanced into the courtyard. Bill was the last of the executives to enter and politely held the door for those behind him, which turned into an endless sea of employees clamoring to get through.

Bill continued to hold the door and then subtly changed his stance to that of a doorman — with a pleasant smile — so he could face the people as they walked by. Some people recognized him but couldn’t stop due to the employees pressing from behind. Others just continued through, oblivious of the founder holding the door.

This lasted for more than a few minutes with Bill silently standing there, holding the door for his employees. The executives were being so attentive to Dave they forgot about Bill. Eventually someone realized Bill was separated from the group and retrieved him to prepare for the talk.

I was watching all of this unfold from a distance and realized that through his silent action, Bill was displaying an important attribute of a successful leader: humility. Here was one of the wealthiest people in America gladly playing doorman to his employees — and genuinely enjoying the moment.

How many politicians or captains of industry would do that today?

This ability to be humble — to be polite, considerate, appreciative and respectful of others — grounds a leader with those they lead and serve. It makes and keeps us human. Bill and Dave understood that, and infused these values into the culture of their company.

I don’t put myself on the same pedestal as Bill and Dave, but knocking on over 28,000 doors helps ground me in my role as a legislator and a public servant to my constituency. If every Idaho legislator did that, our state government would be far more responsive to the needs of all its citizens, and Idaho would be a more pleasant place to live, even when we disagree.

We could use more humility from people in leadership positions — and from each other. Here’s hoping there are more ‘Bill and Dave’s out there to lead and serve us in 2022 and beyond.

Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you Exhibit A for political malpractice. A majority party that controls 80% of the Senate and over 82% of the House has been working for nearly four months writing bills behind closed doors — four months to draft legislation, consider long term consequences, finalize a few well-crafted bills, and build a consensus to pass them.

Instead, we got a hodgepodge of 29 bills introduced in the House, which were withheld from the public until the first day of the reconvened session and voted on the next day. Some read as if they were written on the back of a napkin. Most of them where so poorly written you could drive a truck through the gaps in logic, legality, and fiscal impact.

The outcome: Not a single bill passed. The majority party spent $100,000 of your tax dollars to reconvene the legislature with nothing to show for it.

Actually, that’s not entirely true. One legislator confided in private it really didn’t matter if any of the bills actually passed. What mattered was creating talking points for reelection campaigns next year just by introducing them (e.g. “I tried to do . . .”).

In fact, the political malpractice put on display makes a convincing argument for not allowing the legislature to call itself into special session. This can happen if voters pass a proposed constitutional amendment that will appear on next November’s ballot. The events of this week took place a year before the 2022 election. Imagine if the legislature could pull this political stunt a month before Election Day! The opportunities to pervert the legislative process for purely political campaign purposes are endless — which would be endlessly paid for by you.

A question of balance

Many of the bills, either singularly or in combination, gave the unvaccinated the right to work anywhere, anytime, in any environment and without disclosure. The rights of those who want to avoid being exposed by those who are unvaccinated were never considered. One scenario would not allow you to ask or confirm if a caregiver employed by a business or government entity was unvaccinated, thus preventing you from denying them employment and entry into your home to take care of your kids or elderly parents.

The honest, mature, professional debate we should have had this week was how to balance the rights of the individual with the rights of others and the public at large. Allowing anyone to do anything they want, anywhere, at any time, without any responsibility or consequence for their actions is anarchy.  Conversely, government control of everything at the cost of individual liberty is oppression.

The best path forward is somewhere in the middle, rather than either extreme. It’s what discerning and disciplined legislators do in the face of highly emotional and inflammatory circumstances. In the words of J. K. Rowling, “We must face the choice between what is easy and what is right.” It’s easy to play into the emotions of the moment. It’s a lot harder to step back and discern the right course of action that may not fully satisfy those emotions.

This is why we need to elect critical thinkers who understand they represent the interests of all constituents, not just those who voted for them.

This is why we need to vote for the person, not a letter or a color.

After three years on the committee, my goal now is to prevent the dismantling of public and higher education. Many of the bills and laws being passed are politicizing education. A high school debate coach would cringe at arguments put forth during committee hearings. Meanwhile, the real problems are being ignored.

Critical thinking is on life support in the House Education committee. Here’s just a small sampling of actions by the majority party, which controls education policy priorities:

One member led a state-wide effort to teach children how to burn masks at public rallies while Idahoans were dying from a pandemic. This committee member is helping rewrite Idaho’s science standards.

One member claimed we do not have co-equal branches of government, asserting that the legislature is most important because “there are more people in it.” This member wants to re-write standards, which includes teaching government and civics.

One member suggested that students with social emotional learning problems should be “taken behind the woodshed.”

One member justified their opposition to Idaho’s education standards because their grandchild lost interest in science.

One member sponsored a bill that takes money away from public schools if they didn’t keep classrooms open during a future pandemic, even if the mortality rate was 50%. The committee approved it.

One member sponsored a bill that would take 90% of the education budget and convert it into vouchers used to pay for private and religious school tuition. The committee approved it.

One member introduced a bill that would allow anyone above the age of 18 with only a bachelor’s degree in any non-education field to teach your children. The committee approved it.

One member sponsored a bill that reduced the educational qualifications of a charter school administrator to be less than that of the teachers they hire. The committee approved it.

A Republican Party official running for governor was permitted to film himself introducing a bill he wrote that would allow teachers to be sued and take money away from schools if topics he didn’t like were discussed in any classroom. The committee approved this bill and the act of political theater surrounding it.

Perhaps most disturbing was observing a group of majority party committee members repeatedly meet with an organization that virulently opposes public education. These meetings were held in a conference room inside my office suite. This same organization attacked a committee member who didn’t fall in line.  The result: the committee voted to abolish every K-12 education standard in Idaho and replace them with . . . nothing. The committee member under attack lost his primary election two months later.

How do we restore critical thinking when setting education policy in Idaho? It starts with electing legislators who reject extremism and the politicizing of education. Voters must dismiss the manufactured fear and misinformation being used to control their child’s education – and reject candidates who embrace these tactics. One place to start is by watching for extremist rhetoric, the bills candidates support, and how they vote.

In the end, the vote that matters most is yours. Next November, vote for the person, not just a letter in the alphabet or a color in the rainbow. Your child’s education – and the state’s future – is at stake.

Republican Party leaders repeatedly say you should be afraid of “tax-and-spend Democrats.”  Instead, there are over two billion reasons you should be afraid of them.  Over the last five years, the legislature has forced school districts across the state to float nearly $2.1 BILLION in local bonds and levies.  This includes many conservative, rural school districts across the state that are loathe to impose property tax increases on voters.

What the majority party doesn’t want you to know is the role they’ve played in raising your property taxes. The legislature is constitutionally bound to adequately fund the annual operations of all public schools. Local bonds and levies are supposed to be supplemental to that funding. Instead, these bonds and levies have become necessary to fund annual operational costs.  The Legislature is picking your pocket to pay for its failure to do the job.

Legislative leaders like to argue that education is over 50% of the state budget and therefore must be contained.  What they don’t tell you is how much money the legislature exempts from revenue collection each year – before budgets are set – just in the form of sales tax exemptions and exceptions alone. Many of them have been on the books for decades. They are rarely reviewed and never expire.

Note in the chart below that if only 18% of the $11.64 billion in exemptions can’t be justified, that would have paid for every bond and levy requested statewide for the last five years. And this doesn’t include additional tax exemptions, such as tax incentives and special property tax breaks awarded to selected entities. This is how the Legislature has been increasing your property taxes.

Source (bonds and levies): Idaho Education News Source (sales tax exemptions): Legislative Services Organization, Idaho Legislature

But the situation is even more insidious. If you throw a frog into a pot of boiling water, the frog will immediately jump out. But if you put a frog in lukewarm water and slowly increase the temperature, the frog will not perceive the danger and eventually be cooked to death. Voters are being lulled into the notion that annual school bonds and levies are the norm. They are not. Truly supplemental bonds and levies should probably occur no more than about once every 5-10 years – not every year. When it comes to the Legislature’s control of the education budget – you are the frog!

And if the same people who created and perpetuate this situation are continually re-elected, the next generation will be on the menu.

Well, it’s like a roller coaster.  It can be a thrilling, adrenaline-pumping experience. Or it can be a head-spinning, stomach-turning nightmare. Or both.  But in the end, after all the ups and downs, twists and turns, white-knuckled fist-clenching and primordial screaming, you wind up back where you started.

It seems every year the legislative roller coaster becomes increasingly more extreme. The plunges are deeper and the turns skew sharper to the right (ejecting some occupants from their seats). But in the end, the legislature makes little or no progress by the end of the session.  Here’s a midway progress report on the issues voters tell me they care about the most:

• Funding education without constantly voting on school bonds and levies:
• Keeping up with the cost of living (low wages, high property taxes, soaring rents):
• Affordable healthcare, including better mental health services:
• Transportation infrastructure that keeps up with the rapid pace of growth:
• Protect access to public lands being blocked by out-of-state billionaires:

Instead, the majority party has spent most of the time on bills that are either self-serving, politically motivated, or just plain head-scratching:

• Enabling the legislature to call itself into session anytime for any reason
• Increasing the power of the legislature over the executive branch
• Increasing voter suppression by making absentee voting more difficult
• Nullifying the constitutional right for citizen-driven ballot initiatives
• Banning all future medical science development of psychoactive medications
• Shifting $4 million taxpayer dollars into a slush fund controlled by a few legislative leaders
• Allowing people to bring concealed guns into elementary schools
• Making it easier for businesses to engage in price-gouging
• A law to protect your kid’s neighborhood lemonade stand
• And so on . . .

When the dizziness and nausea from the legislative roller coaster subsides, you can then head on over to the Fiscal Fun House! The legislature is currently sitting on over $1.3 BILLION in a rainy-day fund, a record budget surplus, and an idle internet sales tax account. Instead of investing most of that money in education, infrastructure and vital services, the majority party introduced a bill that would divert a good chunk of it toward tax cuts that go mostly to businesses, the wealthy and the well-connected – while a family of four making less than $75,000/year will likely see their taxes go up!

I and my colleagues have proposed legislation that will provide real tax relief for working families:

• Invest internet sales tax revenue in education, which would reduce the need for perpetual school bonds and levies.
• Repeal the cap on the homeowner’s exemption, which would raise it from $100,000 to approximately $150,000 (if the majority party hadn’t capped it in 2016).
• Increase the circuit-breaker allowance to help offset property taxes for low-income seniors and people with disabilities (which hasn’t changed since 2006).
• Create a new earned income tax credit.
• Repeal those portions of the $2.5 BILLION in annual sales tax exemptions that don’t deliver a fiscal benefit to the state.

Unfortunately, majority party leadership has thus far refused to allow these ideas to be discussed, debated, or come to a vote. It looks like the legislature may once again fail to prioritize working families over its political squabbles. It’s time to get off this roller coaster.

But there is one value missing from their list: Community. This omission reveals a growing concern as the legislature shifts toward prioritizing individual liberties over protecting the interests of the larger community. A civilized society strikes a healthy balance between the two. Extremism in either direction serves more to divide us than unite us.

Rep. Steve Berch

COVID is challenging our ability to strike this balance, especially when it comes to masks. Consider this: if our young men and women in the military can don battlefield attire and armament from head-to-toe in hostile climates, then we should all be able to endure the inconvenience of wearing a mask when we’re around other people.  Some don’t wear a mask because they question the severity or even the existence of a pandemic and want the Governor to lift the COVID emergency order. One legislator actually stood on the floor of the House and publicly declared the pandemic was over – while people are scrambling to get vaccinated!

I do not support lifting the Governor’s emergency order at this time (A resolution ordering this, SCR101, is stuck in a Senate committee). Here are the factors I take into consideration when making a determination – which can change with new information:

• Mortality rates.  The loss of any life due to COVID is tragic, even if the rate may be less than what was originally projected.  This is an important – but not the only – criteria for reaching a determination.
• Morbidity rates (people who survive but suffer long-term or permanent damage to their health).  This number is unknown, and it will take time to quantify. We do know COVID can result in long-term convalescence periods and possibly life-long problems that can be severely debilitating (e.g. “COVID lung”).
• Hospital beds.  As hospital beds fill up with COVID patients, and/or hospital staff is reduced due to self-quarantine, an increasing number of non-COVID patients can’t get the life-saving medical care they need because healthcare systems are pushed beyond capacity. This results in people potentially dying from anything requiring ICU care, not just COVID.  This factor will ebb and flow with spikes and decreases in infection rates.
• Mutations.  The more wide-spread COVID infects humans, the greater opportunity for the virus to mutate into strains that are more contagious and more lethal.  One identified strain may be 30-70% more contagious, and another may be more lethal and more resistant to the vaccines currently being administered.
• Vaccinations. This may be the most important factor, now that vaccines have started to be administered. The quicker we can vaccinate the population, the quicker we can get back to a more normal existence, but we must remain vigilant as the virus spreads and mutates.

I try to balance both the immediate and long-term perspective when making decisions.  I value the input and advice of credible sources whose knowledge exceeds mine (including our state epidemiologist), as well as people with years of experience in containing pandemics and other highly infectious diseases (such as SARS and Ebola).

The definition of a patriot is: “a person who vigorously supports their country.” I don’t like wearing a mask – but I do.  It’s just one small patriotic action I can take to protect and support others in my community, my country.

Tom Luna, the new Idaho GOP Chairman, recently previewed his plan for attacking Democratic candidates this election year:

Step One: Harp nonstop on a report generated for the City of Boise by a nonpartisan team of volunteers, and falsely attribute it to Idaho Democrats, who in fact never wrote, endorsed, or implemented it. The report compiled some citizens’ suggestions, and is not and never has been Democratic policy or platform.

Step Two: Call Democratic legislators “socialists,” ignoring the fact that we are not only capitalists who embrace the importance of businesses large and small, but many of us are business owners ourselves.

Step Three: Hope that voters will settle for name-calling and distortion, and won’t probe into actual positions or records.

This brazen misdirection by the GOP Chairman belies a fear that if Idaho voters really understand Democrats’ positions and the GOP’s dismal single-party governance record, the Republican super-majority would be in jeopardy.

Voters deserve to know where Democrats actually stand. Here is our legislative agenda, plain and simple:

• A Strong Economy. Idaho has lost business opportunities due to inadequate infrastructure, an insufficiently skilled workforce, and a lack of affordable housing. We want to correct these deficiencies.  Let’s be honest—there’s a lot of crony capitalism in this state masquerading as real capitalism.  We’ll do a lot better without a one-party government whose focus is on well-connected insiders rather than making sure everyone has economic opportunity.
• The success of our communities starts with our schools. Teacher pay must be sufficient to recruit and retain quality educators. Lack of funding shouldn’t force schools into four-day weeks and sub-par education programs. Education should be adequately funded by the state as mandated by our Constitution – property taxpayers shouldn’t have to pass levies to keep schools operational.We should be generating a skilled workforce that draws high-wage employers to Idaho, not underfunding higher education, forcing tuition hikes that make a degree unaffordable.
• Fair Taxes. We oppose the GOP’s giant tax cuts and exemptions to those at the top that leave the rest of us with overblown property taxes and underfunded schools and infrastructure. The 2018 Republican income tax cut cost the state over $200 Million annually in revenue, gave over $5,000 a year in cuts to the wealthiest, but only $12 a year to earners in the bottom 20%, while leaving schools underfunded and giving nothing to those needing it most.  The indexed homeowner exemption should be restored and we must increase property tax assistance for seniors and veterans. Millions of dollars a year in internet sales taxes are currently held hostage by the majority party’s infighting. These funds should be used to fund education, repair infrastructure and reduce property taxes. And the legislature should examine the $2.5 billion a year in lost revenue from sales tax exemptions.
• Public Lands. Democrats always fight to protect public lands and your right to access and use them, as well as your right to enjoy clean air and clean water.
• Strong families. Idahoans should not have to work three jobs to support a family. We support gradual increases to the minimum wage and affordable, safe childcare.
• Public Safety. We support our first responders.  We back adequate funding for training and equipment, including ensuring proper standards for use of force.
• Idaho has 187 structurally deficient bridges, and 898 bridges that are past their expected structural life. You deserve roads and bridges that are strong enough for the needs of business and your family’s safety.
• Health Care. We support affordable, quality health care, so we and 61% of Idahoans who agreed with us made Medicaid expansion a reality.

Idaho Democrats are fighting for a more balanced legislature that addresses constituents’ needs.  After thousands of conversations with voters, we have found broad public support for our platform as described above, and the GOP is rightly concerned that a debate on real issues will not play out to their advantage.

In 90 days, you’ll have the chance to correct the harmful imbalance in our legislature. We hope that you’ll join us in paving a better road for Idaho’s future.

What does it mean to work year-round when the legislature is in session for only three months? It means that I am a resource for my constituents every day – it is both a humbling and personally satisfying experience. I get to help people without having to convince a majority of 104 other legislators to agree with me. I can have an immediate, positive impact on people’s lives. The actions may seem small in the grand scheme of things but are important to the individual, especially when I can help make government work for people.

I can’t guarantee the outcome of an issue owned by another government entity, but I can do my best to assist and advocate for my constituents. Here’s are just a few of the issues I’ve worked on for District 15 constituents since I was elected in 2018:

• Addressed concerns about student safety along Cloverdale Road when walking to Joplin Elementary School while the road was under construction (walkways were put in place)
• Helped a constituent learn why they could not access water from their local irrigation district canal
• Fixed a leaking sprinkler pipe on school property that was flooding a neighbor’s yard
• Connected a constituent with the Governor’s office regarding the lack of volunteer preceptors needed to complete nurse practitioner graduation requirements at ISU
• Fixed an issue with water constantly pooling in front of an elderly person’s mailbox
• Addressed questions regarding how Idaho’s sex offender registry is managed relative to the laws of other states
• Helped clarify certain constraints on HIPAA in regard to parental notification
• Connected a constituent with PERSI management to address a participation issue
• Worked to install four-way stop signs at a dangerous residential intersection
• Responded to many requests for data and information on a variety of topics
• Addressed a wide variety of questions and concerns related to voting by mail for the May 19 primary election and the current pandemic

The list goes on. In addition, I give constituents my personal cell phone number to make myself readily available. If a candidate for elected office doesn’t make it easy for constituents to contact them, they shouldn’t apply for the job.

There’s another benefit when taking the job of being a public servant seriously. I learn more about how government works at all levels. Responding to a constituent request often results in my building new relationships with people within state, county, city and other local government entities. It can also be the source and impetus for new legislation to remedy a bad situation or benefit citizens throughout Idaho.

Being a legislator is more than just writing and debating bills in the statehouse for three months. It’s about helping people. It’s about being a public servant in all ways possible all the time.