Now Proven: Idaho Statehouse a real "Jurassic Park"

Some of the most compelling evidence yet, we need protection from these people. Send Mr. Boyd and his editor Ian Fennel a note of thanks.

IDAHO LAWMAKERS LEAD IN AGE (Dan Boyd, Idaho State Journal Pocatello 3/20/07)

BOISE — James Ruchti is the rarest of breeds at the Idaho Legislature — a political neophyte with most of his professional career in front of him.

So when Ruchti, a 37-year-old Pocatello Democrat serving his first term in Boise, was recently spotted going to lunch with young Republicans Raúl Labrador and Brent Crane, it wasn’t a sign of switching his stripes.
“ We just like hanging out,” said Ruchti about Labrador and Crane, who’re also first-year lawmakers in their 30s. “We have the same sense of humor.”

And a Generation X sense of humor isn’t exactly mainstream at the state Capitol.
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According to a recently released survey, Idaho has the oldest body of lawmakers of any state in the country.

The study, conducted by the Scripps Howard News Service, found that 60 percent of those who call the shots in Idaho — the legislators, congressmen and the governor — were born before 1945.
The next closest states, North Carolina and New Hampshire, are nearly 10 percent behind.

What’s more, only North Dakota has a lower number of Generation Xers — people born between 1965-1983 — in elected office.
So where are all the young politicians in the Gem State?

Part of the dearth of younger elected lawmakers may be explained by the fact that Idaho’s citizen Legislature meets every year and, in recent years, has been in session for about three months annually.
“ A younger generation has a tougher time sacrificing three months a year,” said Ruchti, an attorney in Pocatello. “So you end up getting a lot of retired people whose ideas are sometimes less realistic.”

Indeed, some have suggested the age factor played a role in some legislative decisions this year, such as the vote not to extend day-care oversight rules.
Only one day after a House panel voted down new day-care requirements, a study ranked Idaho last in a nationwide survey of child-care.

“ That’s a place where I think it really shows up,” said Ralph Maughan, a political science professor at Idaho State University. “ That’s the thinking of someone who came of age in the 1950s or 60s.”
Maughan said the practical effect of having a more seasoned Legislature is that the ideas of an older generation carry more weight than they might in society.

“ It means that the values of a particular percentage of the population aren’t represented,” he said. “ It’s not that older legislators can’t or wouldn’t, but it’s just that they might not know what the younger generation thinks.”
In fact, the average Idaho legislator is 58.2 years old, according to numbers obtained by the Journal.

According to the 2000 Census, the median age of Idahoans is 33.2 years. That’s nearly six years older than the median age in 1980, but 25 years younger than the average Gem State lawmaker.

Some, however, see the venerability of the Legislature ? about 6,000 years old counting the collective age of its 105 members ? as a good thing.

Rep. Ken Andrus, R-Lava Hot Springs, was 69 years old when elected to represent District 29 in 2004.

“ My feeling is there’s a lot of merit coming in to make laws if you have personal experience,” Andrus said. “ Young people have bright minds and capabilities, but they don’t have the same experience.”

Others agree.

Before the start of this year’s legislative session, former Gov. Jim Risch said there needs to be a certain amount of “ gray hair” to make the process run smoothly.

And Ruchti said the younger lawmakers have much to learn from the veterans.

“ I think we respect that they’re a little more seasoned,” he said. “ They’ve seen the practicalities of what we’re trying to do.”

But in a body in which only six of the 105 legislators are under the age of 40, gray hair is more the rule than the exception.

Despite the occasional frustrations, Ruchti laughed when asked last Wednesday about the possibility of a youthful revolution.

Just then, Speaker of the House Lawerence Denney, R-Midvale, a 59-year-old farmer, strolled down the hall.

Considering the questions of youth and revolution, he spoke of the fisticuffs among parliamentarians he witnessed when visiting Taiwan.

In Idaho, where respecting one’s elders holds much weight, such a scene seems all but impossible to imagine.

Joked Denney, “ I don’t expect to see any fist fights.”

dboyd@journalnet.com

http://www.journalnet.com/articles/2007/03/20/news/breaking/news02.txt