Thinking Outside the Box

This morning, the US Senate Republican Caucus met to choose a new Majority Leader for the 2025 session. Sen. Rick Scott of Florida, the preferred pick by outspoken conservatives throughout the country, fell two votes short of Sen. John Cornyn of Texas on the first ballot and was therefore eliminated. Sen. John Thune of South Dakota won the second ballot on a 29-24 vote.

As I wrote yesterday, the Senate is an old and august body. It moves slowly, and does not quickly adapt to changes in the political landscape. In a way, that’s a good thing, and that’s how the Senate was designed. Unlike the House, which is larger and whose members face the voters every two years, the Senate is meant to be the brakes on the train, to be the moderating force keeping our country from whiplashing from one political fad to another.

However, that careful slowness can be a hindrance as well. I wrote on Twitter yesterday that the Senate has become completely detached with normal people, and feels like an ivory tower debating society. I suggested that senators should look for ways to reconnect with regular folks, such as joining Twitter Spaces for candid discussions.

A lot of people are angry with Sens. Mike Crapo and Jim Risch for not supporting Rick Scott for Majority Leader, but I think a lot of that anger would dissipate if the senators simply explained in candid terms exactly why they made the decisions they did. Instead of form letters that say nothing of substance, we could instead hear their unfiltered opinions and learn more about what drives them.

We shall see if something like that ever comes to pass. I think we in Idaho are spoiled by having a government that really is open and transparent, for the most part. Our senators and representatives are extremely accessible, and most are willing to sit down and chat about why they do what they do.

Nevertheless, the Idaho Senate still retains some of the trappings of its national counterpart. It too is designed to move slowly, to hold on to tradition and precedent a little more tightly than the House. The Senate, for example, still uses a roll call for votes rather than the electronic readerboard in the House. Leadership and committee chairmanships are often closely correlated to seniority, just like in the US Senate.

Is it possible to change that system? The new Senate Republican Caucus will be choosing its own Majority Leader in a few weeks. Contenders are the conservative Sen. Doug Okuniewicz, the moderate Sen. Kelly Anthon, and one who hopes to bridge the two sides, Sen. C. Scott Grow. How this election plays out will be an indicator if the Senate is adapting to a new era or stubbornly holding on to sacred tradition.

Okuniewicz is just starting his second term in the Senate, which in normal times would preclude him from running for the top spot. Anthon, on the other hand, is starting his sixth term, making him one of the body’s most senior members. Does that mean it’s his turn? Grow is nearly as senior as Anthon, beginning his fifth term next month. Should senators choose leaders based on seniority, or based on who they believe will do the best job?

President-elect Donald Trump’s initial cabinet appointments are showing that he has learned from his mistakes and is thinking outside the box. Rather than picking yet another retired general or defense contractor boss for Secretary of Defense, Trump has chosen Pete Hegseth, an Iraq War veteran who now analyzes politics and culture for Fox News. Rather than choosing a grey haired lawyer for Attorney General, Trump has chosen Congressman Matt Gaetz of Florida, a man who knows all too well what happens when the Justice Department is weaponized.

These picks make us believe that anything can happen, that the old unwritten rules of politics no longer apply. Did they ever really apply? Or have past political leaders simply been afraid to go against the grain?

The Idaho Legislature is poised to be more conservative than in living memory, with dozens of new faces. These men and women, many of them my age or younger, don’t know what they can’t do, and so long as they aren’t immediately co-opted by the old guard establishment, they will do great things. Imagine conservative committee chairs, bills being heard on both sides of the rotunda, and real cuts in the size and scope of government.

Imagine going full Javier Milei on the Idaho bureaucracy!

Sen. Dusty Deevers, a state legislator in Oklahoma, wrote an interesting article at The Federalist yesterday about reforms he would like to see implemented in his own deliberative body. While his situation is not quite the same as ours, his identification of the big picture problem is the same:

Rather than a merit-based system where legislation stands or falls based on how just, constitutional, and good it is for the people, we have a personality-driven system where friends of leadership get dozens of their bills heard and those disfavored by leadership get blackballed. Incentives are everything, and the current system’s incentives are entirely perverse and aimed away from the good of the people. Instead of a free market of ideas where the best bills rise to the top, it is a game where the legislators who most effectively express loyalty to leadership rise. Rather than facilitating a robust competition of ideas and problem-solving, it encourages rivalry and divisiveness as everyone tries to climb the same ladder.

Rather than being responsive to the people, this system is responsive to lobbyists and government agencies. Of course, a legislative system that runs on closed-door meetings and loyalty to the powerful is not going to prioritize constituents. A system run by a handful of leaders rather than the entire chamber is easily highjacked by lobbyists and big government agencies. They don’t have to try to control dozens of legislators. They just need to control one.

Deevers goes on to explain a list of reforms he calls the Golden Rules that he says will decentralize legislative power and make the Oklahoma Senate accountable to regular people once again. What might our own elected representatives do to bring power back to the people? It’s time to throw out the rulebook and think outside the box, because we’ve just stepped into a world where anything is possible.

Gem State Chronicle is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.