Three Vacancies, Three Processes

From legislative vacancies to judicial picks, both the governor and the system deserve scrutiny

Last week, Gov. Brad Little appointed Holland & Hart attorney Anne Henderson Haws to fill the vacancy left when Rep. Todd Achilles announced his independent run for U.S. Senate. Ryan Suppe at Idaho Education News was the first I saw reporting the story. When I reposted the news, I received many comments condemning the governor for appointing someone who, in their view, was not only left-wing but also associated with lawfare against right-wing figures.

Holland & Hart, of course, represented St. Luke’s in what seemed to me to be a shakedown of Ammon Bundy following the Baby Cyrus affair. Henderson Haws herself argued on behalf of the pro-abortion coalition gathering signatures for a ballot initiative in its lawsuit against Attorney General Raúl Labrador regarding the initiative’s title.

Yet the governor does not have unlimited power to fill these vacancies. Sure, it would be pretty neat if he could appoint a conservative Republican to represent Legislative District 16 in Boise and Garden City, but Idaho Code limits his choices to the three candidates submitted by the LD 16 Democratic Central Committee.

As a district chairman, I’m well aware of this procedure. Our committee has bylaws in place to comply with state law should the need arise. If one of our legislators—Sen. Scott Grow, Rep. Ted Hill, or Rep. Josh Tanner—resigns, takes a federal appointment, or steps down to run for higher office, I would be required to call a special meeting. Any registered Republican in the district may apply, and the committee would review the applications and vote to select the top three. I would then transmit those names to the governor, who would appoint one to fill the vacancy.

I reached out to the governor’s office to learn the three names submitted by the LD 16 Democrats. They were:

• Crystal Rain, urban planner at the City of Boise (she/her)

• Nikson Mathews, a transgender-identifying individual currently running for the House

• Anne Henderson Haws, attorney at Holland & Hart

Crystal Rain, Nikson Mathews, Anne Henderson Haws

Who would you choose if you were the governor?

Another gubernatorial appointment made news recently when Gov. Little appointed Regina McCrea to a new judicial seat. The Legislature created the new position in the First Judicial District, which covers Benewah, Bonner, Boundary, Kootenai, and Shoshone counties.

The appointment raised eyebrows in North Idaho, since McCrea previously served as a trustee of the Community Library Network and was defeated in 2023 after defending books that many in the community believed were inappropriate for children. The nonpartisan election took on a partisan flavor, with the Kootenai County GOP endorsing the challengers while their Democratic counterparts supported incumbents McCrea and Judy Meyer.

Judicial appointments are just as constrained as legislative ones, only instead of a legislative district committee, the governor receives three names from the Judicial Council. So, what is the Judicial Council? Sen. Brian Lenney explains:

The Idaho Judicial Council is a cozy clique of elites who picks our judges, and it’s dripping with conflicts of interest. It currently consists of:

1. Hon. Chief Justice G. Richard Bevan (Boise), Ex-Officio Chairman, leading the charge.

2. Hon. Nancy A. Baskin (Boise), Vice-Chair, a district judge with a front-row seat.

3. Hon. Todd Garbett (Paris), another judge in the mix.

4. Keely E. Duke (Boise), attorney, appointed by the Governor.

5. John A. Bush (Boise), attorney, another Governor’s pick.

6. Jason B. Kreizenbeck (Boise), non-attorney and registered lobbyist with deep ties to Idaho’s power brokers (we've had more in the past).

7. Scott W. Madison (Boise), non-attorney

8. Kathy Simpson (Idaho Falls), non-attorney and wife of Congressman Mike Simpson (talk about insider access)!

9. Michael R. Kennedy (Coeur d’Alene), adjunct magistrate judge, chiming in when they’re disciplining or retiring magistrates.

THESE FOLKS PICK OUR JUDGES.
NOT THE GOVERNOR.

Then, after they pick the candidates, the council hands Governor Little three (ish) judge candidates, and he must pick one.

He has no veto, and no real choice.

And if all three are the council’s cronies, Idaho gets another insider judge.

The Judicial Branch in Idaho is already a riddle wrapped in an enigma for most citizens. Sen. Tammy Nichols and I are hoping to have the Idaho Bench Project fully up and running soon to help voters better understand how it works. Still, the current system seems ripe for reform. I’ve heard numerous suggestions, from direct election of all judges to giving appointment authority to the Legislature. Sen. Lenney has one proposal:

The solution?

1. Abolish the Idaho Judicial Council

2. Demand elections for all judges unless extreme circumstances arise

Let regular Idahoans, not (lobbyists or congressmen’s wives) decide who delivers justice.

Until we do, this council will keep rigging the bench, laughing all the way to the courthouse.

What do you think?

Without knowing anything about the other candidates, it’s hard to say whether McCrea was the best of some bad options. Yet North Idaho conservatives have been uniformly outraged, so I can’t imagine someone much worse.

Gov. Little made one more high-profile appointment this week, naming Juliet Charron, current Deputy Director of Medicaid & Behavioral Health, to succeed Alex Adams as Director of the Idaho Department of Health & Welfare (DHW). Adams’ nomination as Assistant Secretary for the Administration of Children and Families at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) passed a party-line committee vote yesterday, and his confirmation by the full Senate is all but assured.

I believe Idaho was fortunate to have Adams running DHW for the past year. He inherited an embattled agency that had just been found by an independent audit to have overspent by millions of dollars as well as misappropriated funds in direct defiance of legislative mandates. Adams reoriented DHW away from gender ideology and enabling drug abuse, instead making adoption and foster care the agency’s primary mission.

At the same time, Adams led efforts to streamline bureaucratic rules, just as he had done at the Board of Pharmacy, and worked to transfer rulemaking authority back to the Legislature, where it belongs.

Those are big shoes to fill, and I’ll withhold judgment on Juliet Charron until after she steps into the role this September. The Senate will need to confirm her appointment when it reconvenes in January, and I hope senators come prepared with good questions.

Political appointments are a major part of the governor’s job. Some are constrained by law and a limited pool of candidates; others are wide open. A couple of years ago I went down quite a rabbit hole investigating Gov. Little’s appointment of former state senator Jeff Agenbroad to the Idaho Energy Resources Authority Board.

Of the three appointments I’ve highlighted today, only one—Juliet Charron to lead DHW—was entirely within the governor’s discretion. Yet that shows just how influential the governorship really is. The agency heads he appoints will hire the staff who run those departments for years to come, and it’s likely, as in Charron’s case, that future directors will come from within.

It’s important for engaged citizens of the Republic to elect representatives who will act on our behalf, but it’s just as important to keep a close eye on what our elected leaders are doing, and how they’re shaping Idaho’s future. We should always be on the lookout for ideas to reform the system: making it more transparent, more fair, and more accountable to the people of Idaho.

Feature image credit bradlittleforidaho.com