Did Democrats Hand Conservatives the Gavel?

The late breaking word from the Spokesman Review is that the State House had a new Conservative speaker, Lawrence Denny of Midvale:

Conservative Rep. Lawerence Denney of Midvale was elected speaker of the Idaho House tonight after a close-fought race with moderate Rep. Bill Deal of Nampa. Meanwhile, Rep. Jim Clark, R-Hayden Lake, lost his own leadership bid for assistant majority leader in the House to Rep. Scott Bedke, R-Oakley. “You win some, you lose some,” Clark said. “Scott’s a great guy – he’ll do a wonderful job.”

Denney, a farmer who’s starting his sixth term in the House, declined to comment after the vote, because his new role as speaker won’t be official until the full House votes on it in the morning at the official organizational session. Deal also declined to comment.

Now, we don’t know the margin, but I wonder what Democrats contributed to the victory. Consider that four of the five State Representatives Democrats defeated in the Boise area were moderates who would have probably voted for Bill Deal. (Kathie Garrett, Janet Miller, and Debbie Fields.) Thus if the margin was less than 3 votes, the result of Treasure Valey Democrats’ efforts to defeat Republicans is that we ended up with a more conservative house speaker.

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