Every election, our legislative candidates hold up scorecards to prove they deserve your vote or that someone else does not. Nice, clean, and easy. A simple number that tells you who is a “true conservative” and who is a RINO. Looks official and honest.
But, it’s not.
Scorecards enforce the rules of the game. Game masters write those rules.
The game masters in Idaho are the Idaho Freedom Foundation (IFF). The IFF created the Idaho Freedom Index (IFI) over a decade ago. It is the most powerful scorecard in Idaho legislature. Who is behind the IFF? We’ll cover that in a future blog.
Each day, during the legislative session, lawmakers can look at their phones to see how the bills being presented that day are scored by the IFF. Legislators who consistently vote to the scorecard (or promise to comply) are rewarded with membership in the Freedom Caucus. The Freedom Caucus is an internal pressure group pushing the IFF agenda.
This “game” or system makes it easier for lobbyists. They no longer have to meet with all the legislators. They can go directly to the game masters and get a negative score on a bill they hate that ensures the death of the bill before it ever gets a vote.
A not-so-hidden objective of the game is that it bypasses constituents. After the election, a legislator no longer needs to consider voters at all. Just vote to the IFF test.
What wins on the scorecard are bills that consolidate power at the state level, push more costs onto cities and counties, stop any spending, and preference the lobbyists who represent out of state businesses. And, the game has evolved so much that the Republican Party Platform is now written by the game masters and championed by IFF loyal legislators.
The only spoilers to the game are legislators who insist on reading the bills and voting on behalf of their constituents. These legislators understand the rules of the game but choose to uphold their responsibilities to the voters who elected them. They still believe that an elected official should serve the people. These are the people who get Fs on the IFF scorecard and are willing to face the consequences of the wrath of the IFF.
Those legislators are easily eliminated (prevented from being reelected) with outside money, funding smear campaigns in the closed primary. The closed primary was a stroke of genius by the game masters, when they added it to Idaho law in 2011. This structure allows outside interests to influence our state with relatively little money, compared to larger states.
Scorecards sound like accountability. But, they really just block good governance. They weaken problem solving and penalize votes that protect local, rural families, businesses, and communities. Scorecards are shortcuts that drive the wrong behavior and undermine the very goals they claim to protect. And, boy do they loudly claim they are protecting everyone.
If you look at the bills that score the lowest, they are the ones that would fix things like the Pharmacy Benefits Manager game where insurance companies can own the pharmacy, the reimbursement company, and the drug manufacturers.
My first solo consulting project was to design a program to fix a national call center. The company was using a scorecard to help reduce costs. To minimize call time, A 3-min timer sat at every customer service desk and it did change behavior. Suddenly calls all hovered near the 3-minute mark. Short, easy calls got longer as call reps chatted after the problem was solved. And, when a call was more difficult to solve, reps hung up at three minutes to avoid negative repercussions. Customers became angrier.
The Idaho Freedom Index (IFI) scorecard is like that 3-min timer. For a decade now, your legislators have become accountable to and measured by a 3-min timer … instead of you, the constituents.
Senator Jim Woodward and Representative Mark Sauter fell victim to the 3 min timer. They worked on difficult, unglamorous North Idaho problems: accelerating repairs at Albeni Dam, challenging unjustified sewer-rate increases, helping property owners keep fire insurance, and countless other projects. The Freedom Index 3 min timer rewarded each of them with a big fat F. They were defeated in the following session’s primary elections.
Idaho legislators deal with the hundreds of bills introduced each year by lobbyists and outside interests. These bills score high on the Idaho 3-min timers and legislators are rewarded supporting the lobbyist agenda. These bills, written in other states, usually don’t address or solve problems in our district. Do you feel hung up on, while your legislator gets an A? I do.
Idaho has a long tradition of government skepticism, pro-market attitudes, and anti-bureaucracy. According to the Idaho Freedom Foundation’s own website, we were one of the last states to have any national political pressure blueprint, when the Idaho Freedom Foundation (IFF) organized here in 2009. By then, the IFF machine had a readymade playbook complete with legislative scorecard, media megaphone, “conservative” branding, and legislative whip.
The legislative scorecard offered the perfect voter shortcut for freedom-loving Idahoans who weren’t paying attention to the legislative details behind the words. Closing the republican primary in 2012, cemented the IFF’s power by reducing the number of people who needed to be influenced.
Since then, the machine has gained power and used that power to push through bills for out-of-state interests. This hurts us in multiple ways. It takes away our ability to solve local problems locally, costs us more money, and makes it easier for outside interests to compete against local people. For example, H583, the short-term rentals (STR) bill, forces ALL the local voters to subsidize STR businesses – mostly owned out of state.
This year, the two legislators with As sailed through the primary, while the legislators who actually worked and addressed complex back-home problems, got sent home with Fs.
We need a new way to assess what’s good for North Idaho. One that measures what matters here, not a one-size-fits all scorecard.
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