Stephen Heidt is a Democrat running for his first term as Idaho Governor. His Republican opponent, incumbent Gov. Brad Little, declined Idaho Public Television’s invitation to debate.
This year we at Idaho Public Television, along with debate organizers nationwide, saw a number of candidates decline to participate in debates or fail to respond to our invitations in the first place. As Federal Election Commission rules say we cannot hold a debate with just one candidate, we’re allowing those who did qualify for the debates a chance to sit down with Idaho Reports for a one-on-one interview in which they can answer questions much like they would have received in a traditional debate setting.
Melissa Davlin, Idaho Reports host:
Thanks so much for joining us this week. First of all, why are you running for governor?
Stephen Heidt, Idaho Governor candidate:
There are lots of reasons why I’m running for governor, but primarily the reason why I’m running for governor is because I believe that there is just a certain portion of the state that is just woefully underrepresented. I believe as governor, you represent everybody, and I feel like that representation has gone notably unattended to.
IR:
Do you mean that people are underrepresented philosophically or geographically?
Heidt:
You could probably make an argument for both. I was referring more to philosophically. But, I feel like there is a geographical issue there. You could make an argument for it, but once again, my concern was philosophical.
IR:
What are the main issues that you are running on?
Heidt:
The main issues that I’m running on are: Number one, the economy and inflation. Number two, education. I’m a lifetime educator. Number three is women’s autonomy, and number four would be criminal justice reform.
IR:
Let’s talk about the economy. Idaho’s economy has been very strong the past few years compared to other states, and weathered the pandemic fairly well. What specifically would you change to improve Idaho’s economy?
Heidt:
Well, the pandemic did cause some strain on the economy, but not as much as in the last six months to a year. What’s going to be the easiest way to affect the economy and ease burdens is taxing, and part of my economy [policy] would be a tax reform. More especially, property taxes.
IR:
What specifically with property taxes would you change?
Heidt:
I would look to restructure it so that businesses carry a fair share of the taxation, because they’re paying about 15% less in property taxes now. You know, the average Idahoan makes somewhere between fifty to a hundred thousand dollars a year.
Businesses make notably more. Large corporate and multinational corporations, they make notably more money, and they have the wherewith to flex and to be able to pay those taxes much more than the average resident here in Idaho.
IR:
Detractors would say that part of the reason Idaho’s economy is so strong and has grown at the rate that it’s grown is because of the lower property taxes for businesses, along with other business incentives. How do you win those voters over?
Heidt:
You know, I expect to win a certain portion of the vote over. I don’t expect to win everybody over, but the bottom line is the taxes. When you’re talking the property taxes, okay, the businesses can afford that. Right now, the property tax has been so high on the residential sector that a lot of Idahoans have had to sell their homes because they can’t afford the property taxes – homes they’ve lived in for decades. To me, that’s the injustice there. At what point are we willing to benefit businesses so much so that Idahoans have to sell their home? And once they can’t afford a home, half of the time, they have to move out of state because they can’t afford to live in Idaho anymore.
IR:
You also mentioned education. In early September the Legislature came together for a special session, approving a major investment in K-12 education. How would you suggest the upcoming Legislature use that $330 million for K-12 education and the $80 million for higher education and in-demand career training?
Heidt:
Well, it’s kind of laid out in and of itself like that, but within the $300 million for education, I would focus primarily probably about 65% of it on teacher salaries. That would have to be reconsidered because I don’t have all the information, but I would want teacher salaries to become more competitive with the states around us – so that there is not a vacuum sucking teachers out, but a vacuum pulling teachers in. Therefore, I do want Idaho to become competitive so that we can get more teachers – not have the 900 vacancies – and hopefully attract good quality educators that can help bring our scores up. My concern is, both parties have always said education is at the top of the list – but having said that for 25 years, Idaho is still 49th or 50th in spending, 49th or 50th in standardized testing scores. So, whatever’s been said, the results are not agreeing with what’s been said. We need to make that change.
IR:
So, you say about 65% of the $330 million should go into teacher pay. That’s about $170 million in addition to what Idaho has put in the teacher career ladder so far. Is that a guaranteed way to boost test scores, and to improve things like the go-on rate and math scores that have been such a concern for parents across the state?
Heidt:
Is it a guarantee? No, but I’m going to give an example to help understand – it’s not going to be a realistic example, but it helps you understand. One high school teacher has 40 students in his class, another high school teacher has ten students in the class. How much teacher-to-student time will the teacher that has 40 students have, in relationship to the other teacher that has ten students? You’re going to get a lot more teacher time [with fewer students per teacher].
The average high school class right now in Idaho is about 30 to 35 students. The average elementary school classroom is typically around 25 students. (I’ve been in prison education for 15 years and that could have changed, that dynamic. I’m speaking of 15 to 20 years ago when I was still in the public sector.) If you can reduce the number of students in a classroom, you will increase the one-on-one contact time between a teacher and students, indisputably so. Right now, Idaho had 900 teaching positions unfilled last year. Well, how they handled that was they simply spread those students out into other classes, made the classes larger – less contact time.
Will it help with the overall scores? It will. But there are many aspects to the dynamic of raising a test score – whether it’s math, whether it’s language, whether it’s reading. That’s just one aspect of the overall dynamic of raising test scores, and it would nudge it a little bit. You have to influence other things, too.
IR:
You also mentioned reproductive issues. Regardless of what happens in the general election, we know that we’re going to have a Republican majority in the Idaho Legislature because Democrats are running for fewer than half of the legislative races. How would you get your proposals on reproductive issues and reproductive access through a legislature that has definitively said they are anti-abortion?
Heidt:
Well, first off, if I don’t like what comes to my desk, I simply send it back to them. That’s the easy thing, and I can say, “When it’s acceptable to me, then it will pass.” You know, I am actually a moderate. For all practical purposes, it’s not going to be much of a fight. There are things that I think conservatively on, then there are things that I think progressively on. Getting the two sides to align, I don’t think would be that hard, but the bottom line is if they don’t want to work with me, it brings things to a standstill. I don’t see the Legislature as not wanting to work with me because, you know, it’s not productive to just say, “We’re just going to write things that you don’t want.” I don’t see them doing that. I have a confidence that most legislators – to some extent or another – have their constituency in mind. They need to have their constituents in mind, and if they don’t have their constituents in mind they need to be replaced.
IR:
You’re talking about future bills that would come to your desk if you’re elected. Currently, Idaho has a near-total ban on abortion with very narrow exceptions. Would you try to do anything to change that statute?
Heidt:
Yes. The first thing I would do is I would let the public know that the governor is the executive branch, and I would encourage people – the governor would not execute it, you know, and follow through with it. I would relax pursuing those who violated those laws at this time.
IR:
Would you have the constitutional authority to do that? That’s up to the 44 prosecutors in each of the counties.
Heidt:
I said encourage, I didn’t say that I would make them do it. I can’t make them do it, but I can encourage. Yes, they can and will do what they want to do. The governor, all he can do is encourage in certain aspects. As soon as I get into office, I would begin to see about procedures and ways to rescind those laws. I don’t know what the process is now, but I would need to get some legal counsel to find out how to go about doing it. I would look to replace those with laws which were more agreeable to both sides.
IR:
You mentioned that you were an educator within the Idaho Department of Correction for the last several years. I’m curious about your approach to criminal statutes around cannabis. You’ve suggested decriminalizing marijuana possession, but not legalizing it. What’s the difference, and how do you think that would benefit Idaho?
Heidt:
First off, I don’t think Idaho is ready to legalize recreational use of marijuana. I think Idaho is very ready to legalize medical use of marijuana. Decriminalizing it would simply mean we’re not going to put you in jail – which is very expensive, per prisoner, to put people in jail. It’s somewhere around $100 a day to keep somebody in jail, plus the court costs of getting them there. With all the costs involved, it is very expensive per year per prisoner. If we just, say, make it like a traffic ticket then we say, “Here’s a ticket of $150 for smoking a joint of marijuana,” all of a sudden not only do we not put them in jail and cost $100 a day to the taxpayers, but it becomes a source of revenue also.
IR:
I’m curious about your campaign up until this point. During the Lieutenant Governor debate last week, Democratic candidate Terri Pickens Manweiler said that she wasn’t sure who she was going to vote for in the governor race, that she didn’t really know you and didn’t really know your issues. I’m curious, have you been actively campaigning around the state?
Heidt:
I have. I’ve made trips to eastern Idaho probably a half dozen times. I made one trip up north. That is notably long – it’s only about a 4 hour drive to Idaho Falls; it’s an 8 hour drive to Coeur d’Alene. I have been in contact with people in the north side of the state as regularly as needed for the campaign. So, the answer is yes. I have been in the same meetings and in meet-and-greets with Terri. Does that mean that she gets to know me? No.
IR:
Have you been trying to actively fundraise? As of right now, your October report said that you had raised about $24,000. That’s compared to independent candidate Ammon Bundy who’s raised more than $600,000, and Gov. Little for his reelection campaign has raised more than $2.5 million dollars. How actively have you been trying to fundraise?
Heidt:
I have a person working on fundraising. Fundraising has improved dramatically in the last couple of months. The first few months, I was pretty much funding it myself, you know? Funds have started to roll in. Have I made what they make? No, but here is the advantage. They have a lot of endorsements, and they have a lot of PACs that they need to attend to. If they were to win, they would need to attend to them more than the Idaho constituency, the voters. Whereas with me, if I win, I pretty much have hardly any endorsements at all, and most of those are individuals and not PACs. My obligation will be entirely to the voters.
IR:
Stephen Heidt, Democratic candidate for Idaho governor, thank you so much for joining us today.
Heidt:
Thank you.
