Stallings questions Otter's flip-flops

BOISE, Idaho – State Democratic Chairman Richard Stallings on Thursday said C.L. “Butch” Otter’s reversal on protecting education funding is another example of how the “governor-in-waiting” would waffle and waver on issues important to Idaho.

In an article published Wednesday in the Coeur d’Alene Press, Otter withdrew his previous support for Proposition 1, which would raise $210 million to directly benefit education.

The proposal, called the Idaho Local Public Schools Investment Act, would send money collected from a 1-cent sales tax increase directly to school districts. The proposal would bypass the Republican-controlled Legislature, which has a history of raiding designated accounts during economic downturns.

Instead, Otter is now backing a tax shift that would give most of that same sales tax increase to large corporations, land speculators and wealthy vacation homeowners.  

Otter’s flip-flop is consistent with his actions earlier this year, when he withdrew his co-sponsorship for a federal bill that would have sold off 15 percent of Idaho’s public lands to pay for hurricane reconstruction in New Orleans and other Gulf Coast cities.

After several weeks of intense pressure from Idahoans across the political spectrum, Otter admitted he was wrong, and that “... it isn’t the first time, and it won’t be the last.”

“How many times are we going to let Butch flip-flop before the people of Idaho say, `Look Butch, you’re a nice fella, but we can’t trust somebody who changes his mind every time the wind shifts,’” Stallings said. “Today he’s with you, tomorrow he’s against you. Where’s he going to be when you really need him?”

Stallings noted that even now, Congressman Otter refuses to talk about his reasons for opposing the bipartisan Boulder-White Clouds Wilderness agreement.

“Butch Otter is for public schools, then he’s against them. He’s against public land in Idaho, then he’s for it. He failed to show up for a vote on the collaborative Boulder-White Clouds – then said he would have voted against it – and now says he won’t talk about the vote he failed to make.

“Idaho needs a straight shooter like Jerry Brady who will lead Idaho boldly into the future -- not a waffler who ducks for cover on every sensitive political issue,” Stallings said.