Democratic Idaho State Senate legislator Nicole LeFavour has
declined to seek a fifth term representing the 19th District in the
Idaho State Senate. She’s abandoning that safe seat to run against
incumbent Rep. Mike Simpson for his 2nd Congressional District
seat, as the popular Republican seeks a seventh term in the U.S.
House of Representatives. The question is: Why? “I’m running for
Congress because I love Idaho and we can do better,” LeFavour said
in a recent Twitter post.
State Senate District 19 takes in the north and east
sections of Boise (locally known as the North End and East End);
the central downtown; and “the foothills,” a populous suburban area
north of the city. The capital and its suburbs being home to
bureaucrats, and academics associated with Boise St. University,
makes the 19th one of the most reliably Democratic districts in
Idaho. In 2008, the same year Obama carried it with 69% of the
vote, LeFavour beat Republican Chuck Meissner with a nearly
identical 70% (McCain-Palin carried Idaho as a whole 62% to 36%).
This after previously serving the same district in the Idaho House,
and scoring a two to one margin in her first race in 2004. She ran
unopposed in her second House race in 2006.
LeFavour, 48, a lesbian with roots in rural Custer County,
was the first openly gay member of the Idaho Legislature, and
despite being involved in a number of legislative issues such as
education (she’s an ex-teacher), is mostly known as a gay rights
advocate. A soft-spoken, yet determined crusader for such, she has
conducted a quixotic quest for reforms in employment, housing, and
healthcare. LeFavour supported the recent “Add the Words” bill,
which GOP Senate members declined to introduce on procedural
grounds due to their 28-7 majority. It would have added the phrases
“sexual orientation” and “gender identity” to the mission statement
of the Idaho Commission on Human Rights, which administers state
and federal anti-discrimination laws in Idaho. A recent provocative
act was to send as Christmas gifts 60 copies of the movie
Brokeback Mountain to fellow legislators. Needless to say,
LeFavour supports gay marriage.
Simpson, 61, married, has represented Idaho’s 2nd
Congressional District in the U.S. House of Representatives for
thirteen years. The Burley, Idaho native and former dentist has a
voting record typical of a western conservative when it comes to
federal management of public lands. Though his views on such issues
are in no way kneejerk. Simpson — after much legislative
sausage-making — has supported such wilderness designation
projects as the Central Idaho Development and Recreational Act
(CIEDRA), which would set aside 312,000 acres in the Boulder-White
Clouds area for a variety of uses. The bill is still pending. On
cultural issues, Simpson is a Mormon — enough said. This in itself
will be a plus for Simpson in a year where Mitt Romney will likely
top the ballot in the heavily LDS-populated 2nd.
Simpson has enjoyed a 32-year career in Idaho politics
going back to service on the Blackfoot City Council in 1980. He
went on to seven terms in the Idaho House of Representatives,
serving as House Speaker from 1993 to 1999. Simpson was elected to
the U.S. House of Representatives in 1999, and boasts a long list
of committee and caucus accomplishments. As a former dentist, a
favorite battle is taking a tough line against methamphetamine
abuse, which degrades teeth and causes what dentists call
“Methmouth.” In election years Simpson routinely garners large
majorities — maybe the better word is “landslides.” Recent tallies
include 71 percent of the vote against Democrat Debbie Holmes in
2008. He beat Democrat Mike Crawford with 69 percent in 2010. Also
in 2010, Simpson faced an initial primary challenger, Marvin
“Chick” Heileson, who ran under the Tea Party banner and tallied 22
percent of the vote. This year Heileson is repeating this
superfluous exercise in Idaho’s May primary.
LeFavour has little to go on except support on her home
turf around Boise; Blaine County, home to Sun Valley-Ketchum and
its liberal Hollywood glitterati (who are also a good source of
campaign funding), though not a populous area; and the same small
numbers problem applies to Teton County, an across-the-state-line
from Jackson, Wyoming progressive suburban enclave. Simpson runs
the rest of the board in an east-northeast crescent of small cities
from Mountain Home to Twin Falls, Pocatello, Blackfoot, Idaho
Falls, Rexburg, and Lemhi County (Salmon). A noted Idaho political
guru, Political Science Professor John Freemuth of Boise St.
University recently told Sean Cockerham of McClatchy Newspapers,
and reprinted in the Idaho Statesman, that “….most people
who run a race think they have a chance to win…. [This race] just
strikes me as awfully improbable.”
Has LeFavour done a political calculation that tells her
that she can win? Starry-eyed liberal idealism is certainly not
enough to beat a popular incumbent, especially one whose supporters
would find LeFavour’s cultural social engineering agenda to be
anathema to their conservative values. Someone or other of the
Mormon faith has served the constituents of Idaho’s 2nd
Congressional District since 1951 — sixty-one years.
So how does a liberal lightning rod with that record beat
a conservative Mormon in a majority conservative district with a
large Mormon population in a year where the GOP presidential
nominee will likely be a Mormon and the face of the Democratic
Party is Barack Obama?
She doesn’t. But maybe from her point of view tilting at
political windmills raises her political profile in the
future.
