J.F.- Otter signs bill insulting tribes, enfeebling himself

How on earth could Gov. Butch Otter have signed legislation requiring him to reach agreement with three Idaho Indian tribes on taxing tribal fuel sales by Dec. 1 or let the state impose its own tax on those sales?

The bill he made law last week not only jabs an elbow in the ribs of tribes who rightfully say their sovereignty gives them some say over the matter, but it directly circumscribes a prerogative of the governor himself. That is something few chief executives are willing to do, and Otter's office offers no good reason for him to have done it.

"He wanted to bring everybody to the table and is hopeful that dialogue can continue and there can be resolution," explains Otter spokesman Jon Hanian.

How's that again? Didn't Otter say, as House Republican leaders were pushing this bill through the Legislature, that everybody already was at the table, and that dialogue was continuing toward a resolution? If so, what's the point of telling tribal representatives if they don't settle by Dec. 1, a settlement will be forced on them?

Can negotiating with a gun at your head, as representatives of the Nez Perce and other tribes now must do, truly be called dialogue?

It isn't as if Otter is, like President Bush, reluctant to use his veto power. He and the majorities of both legislative chambers are of the same party, but that didn't stop him from vetoing several other bills produced during the recent legislative session. He even rejected a popular extension of the state's indoor smoking ban to bowling centers, something many proprietors of those centers supported.

Legislators overrode Otter's veto on that bill, making it law without his support.

On another matter, one of the session's most significant, legislators and the governor never came together on sales tax relief for grocery purchases. That left many legislators grumbling at session end about being prevented from doing one thing they had promised their constituents they would do.

In addition, Otter single-handedly altered a plan for expanding and restoring the Idaho Statehouse that was under way when he took office. That also caused no small amount of resentment among some legislators, mostly again within his own party.

And it raises the quesion whether Otter caved on the tribal tax issue as a last-minute peace offering to the legislative branch. Whatever his reason, though, he can't escape the impression that he cared more about smoking bowlers and what he thought was legislators' edifice complex than about state-tribal relations.

That is more than unfortunate. It is shameful. - J.F.