District 6 hopefuls discuss COVID-19, education

Latah County voters got an earful Wednesday during a Moscow Chamber of Commerce forum for the candidates running for the 6th Legislative District House and Senate seats.

The newly redrawn district includes all of Latah and Lewis counties, as well as a portion of the Lewiston Orchards and the northeastern corner of Nez Perce County.

Six of the seven candidates on the November ballot attended the event. The only no-show was Constitution Party nominee James Hartley, who is running for the District 6 Senate seat (see related story below).

The state’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic led off the questioning, with all but one candidate saying state and local officials did the best they could given the unprecedented nature of the emergency.

“That’s what we’ve wrapped our heads around the last couple of years, sometimes successfully, sometimes not so successfully,” said Sen. David Nelson, D-Moscow. “It was a novel virus. We didn’t know if it spread by touch or by inhalation. Maybe we over reacted a bit … but by and large we did our best, and that’s what you need to ask your public servants to do.”

Rep. Brandon Mitchell, R-Moscow, didn’t fault the governor or local officials for the steps they took to try and curb the spread of the virus. However, he did think the Legislature should have had a more active role in determining the state’s response.

“I think we needed the voice from Moscow down in Boise, so we could discuss what was going on here,” he said. “Rural areas don’t have the same challenges they do in Boise.”

Moscow attorney Tim Gresback, who is running against Mitchell for the 6th District House B seat, said he didn’t like wearing face masks, but he supported local emergency ordinances requiring them.

“I believe in science and I believe in doctors,” he said. “I think Mayor Bill Lambert saved lives, and he took a lot of heat from it. That’s what a leader does.”

The only candidate who strongly disagreed with the state’s response was former Sen. Dan Foreman, R-Viola, who is running against Nelson. He called for an investigation, both into the state’s actions and into the medical community, for the decisions they made.

“Your constitutional rights were violated,” Foreman said. “Anybody ever hear of the Bill of Rights, freedom of assembly, freedom of religion? When they pointed the finger and said, ‘Your business is essential, but yours isn’t,’ they had no right to do that. … Maybe it was well-intentioned, but it was dead wrong. There’s no emergency clause in the Bill of Rights.”

Foreman was also the exception when it came to the Legislature’s decision to use a large pot of federal dollars to expand broadband access across Idaho.

“I hear people say every day we need to keep the government out of our lives, that we need to let business people be free to run their businesses,” he said. “Yet here we go again, with our hand out wanting Uncle Sugar to bring in all the money so we can have all the things we want. But it should be provided by the private sector.”

Rep. Lori McCann, R-Lewiston, said high-speed broadband “is critical for our businesses and for our education system.”

McCann serves on the board of Idaho Businesses for Education, which seeks to improve the working relationship between businesses and educators.

After the pandemic began, she said, the organization helped collect computers for school children around the 6th District. In many cases, though, that was hampered by a lack of adequate internet service.

“Some places we had to put wifi in a bus and park way out in the middle of the toolie weeds so kids could go download their assignment,” McCann said. “So I’m very strongly in support of broadband. … I know how important it is to our families and especially to our business community.”

Patricia Carter-Goodheart, who is running against McCann for the 6th District House A seat, recalled the difficulty she had getting speech therapy for her son during the pandemic.

“We had internet service, but apparently not enough to have a successful Zoom session,” she said. “It was maddening … I felt terrible, because I felt like I wasn’t meeting the needs of my child. So I’m very excited for this funding.”

Gresback said the efforts to help expand broadband access in Idaho are proof that “government can do a lot of good.”

“But there’s been a movement, it seems to me, to delegitimize government,” he said, “to say that we have massive voter fraud, that public education is bad, that librarians are trying to corrupt our kids — these things aren’t true, but when they’re put out there, people lose faith in their government. … I believe in good government, and I will advocate for good, stable government.”

Voters will have the opportunity to select who will represent them in the Idaho Legislature in the general election Nov. 8.

Spence may be contacted at bspence@lmtribune.com or (208) 791-9168.