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    The Stuck Pendulum
    The Stuck Pendulum
    The Stuck Pendulum
    Ebook64 pages55 minutes

    The Stuck Pendulum

    By Randy Stapilus

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    About this ebook

    In 1988 journalist Randy Stapilus wrote and published Paradox Politics, a history of the last half-century of Idaho politics. As in many other places, politics in Idaho has changed a great deal since then, and now Stapilus has published The Stuck Pendulum, a sequel to the book from the 80s bringing the story of Idaho politics up to date.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherRandy Stapilus
    Release dateSep 14, 2015
    ISBN9781310484186
    The Stuck Pendulum
    Author

    Randy Stapilus

    I'm a journalist - editor and publisher, in my meaning of the words, which have changed in connotation a lot over the years. I worked for 15 years as a reporter and editor for daily newspapers, and since then have published monthly periodicals on Northwest politics and public affairs, and on the subject of water rights.

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      Book preview

      The Stuck Pendulum - Randy Stapilus

      The Stuck Pendulum

      An Idaho Paradox Politics Sequel

      by Randy Stapilus

      The Stuck Pendulum: An Idaho Paradox Politics Sequel

      Randy Stapilus

      Smashwords Edition

      Copyright 2015 Randy Stapilus

      cover photo by Eric Hunt (taken September 1997)

      Please visit my website at www.ridenbaughpress.com/randystapilus

      Please remember to leave a review for this book at your favorite retailer.

      Thank you for downloading this ebook. This book remains the copyrighted property of the author, and may not be redistributed to others for commercial or non-commercial purposes. If you enjoyed this book, please encourage your friends to download their own copy from their favorite authorized retailer. Thank you for your support.

      Table of Contents

      Introduction

      The last swing left

      Back to the right

      A sucession of governors

      A wide stance

      The roaring first

      Statewides and the superintendent

      Paranoia in the heartland

      About the author

      Next Up: Crossing the Snake

      Introduction

      From time to time I’ve fielded the suggestion of updating the 1988 book Paradox Politics, about public affairs in Idaho. Through the 90s I did that, in a way, by writing a series of political almanacs about the state, examining the shift and pull of politics from the big picture (things like presidential, gubernatorial and Senate races) down to the the microscopic (at the precincts). It was an interesting exercise, and educational, for a while at least. It also became intensely time consuming during a period when I wanted to move on to other things.

      There was another factor too: Idaho politics had very nearly stopped changing. I mean that from the early 90s, since 1992, to present – as this is written in 2015, a span of time approaching the main scope of Paradox – it has changed, in the aggregate, on a partisan level, hardly at all.

      This isn’t really a debatable proposition; you can choose any number of metrics to nail it conclusively.

      Here’s one: The number of Democrats, in total, in the Idaho Legislature.

      Since the early New Deal era, Democrats controlled the Idaho Legislature for just one term, after the election of 1958, when it had 62 of 103 members (combining both the Senate and the House of Representatives). In 1960 Democrats slipped to 49 out of 103, narrowly losing control of both chambers, but remaining closely competitive for a few more elections. Reapportionment for the 1966 election cost Democrats a few more seats, and some conservative Democrats switched parties in the 60s, but in 1970 they were still at 45 out of 105 – a minority but still not too far from striking distance of winning one of the chambers. The Reagan wave in the 80s significantly cut into the Democratic numbers, but in the 1986 election, for example, they still stood at 36 out of 126. In 1998, they built that number to 39, and in 1990 came back to 49, actually reaching a tie in the state Senate.

      What you could see through all those years was a certain pendulum effect, voters moving back and forth – a clear Republican lean, but not absolute or overwhelming control, a situation in which a significant number of seats were, in any given election, genuinely up for grabs.

      Between 1990 and 1992 came a then-unnoticed (by anyone I know of) dividing line, after which the number of seats realistically winnable by a candidate either party, in swing districts, shrank greatly, and the vast majority of seats became safely Republican, and a handful becoming safely or generally Democratic. In 1992, emerging from that election when they had 49 seats overall, Democrats shrank to 32 out of 105, losing about a third of their numbers.

      In 1994 they tumbled to 21, down yet another third.

      And in 1996, incredibly, they lost nearly another third of those numbers, slipping down to 16.

      From 1990 to 1996 Idaho Democrats lost two-thirds of their legislative seats. It was the biggest swing by either party since the Great Depression era.

      Nor had either party had been down to such small numbers since the 1930s, and those were in days when partisan control of individual seats was apt to switch, widely and broadly, from election to election – seats were often likely to change in control. This time, from 1992 on, the large number of Republican and small number of Democratic seats stayed in place.

      Since 1994, there has never been more than seven Democrats in the 35-member Senate, and no more than 19 Democrats in the 70-member House. The number of seven Democratic senators seems to have becoming almost institutionalized, while the number of House Democrats

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