Idaho’s first governor to serve non-consecutive terms was in office during a turbulent time
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IDAHO FALLS – Earlier this month, Donald Trump became the second man in history to win the presidency for a non-consecutive term.
America’s 45th president will be sworn in as the nation’s 47th president in January. Trump secured the victory with 312 electoral votes, according to the Associated Press. Unlike his 2016 victory against Hillary Clinton, Trump also won the popular vote.
Grover Cleveland was the first president to make a historic comeback for a second non-consecutive term in 1892. He was also the first Democrat to get elected president after the Civil War.
Similarly, Idaho has also elected leaders to non-consecutive terms on two occasions. The most recent was Gov. Cecil Andrus, the last Democrat to lead the state. He was elected for a third term in 1986 after stepping down a decade earlier.
Forty-four years before that at the height of World War II, Clarence Bottolfsen of Arco became the state’s first governor to win a non-consecutive term. Bott, as he was known by friends and acquaintances, served as the Gem State’s 17th and 19th governor.
Bott’s early life
Bottolfsen was born in Superior, Wisconsin on Oct. 10, 1891. A biographical sketch from the University of Idaho shows he attended high school in Fessender, North Dakota, where he worked as “a printer’s devil in the local printing shop.”
“The man who owned the shop moved to Arco, Idaho and purchased the Arco Advertiser, a weekly newspaper. Soon he sent for Bottolfsen, then 19, to work for him,” U of I reports.
As Bottolfsen gained experience in the printing business, his interest in the newspaper industry grew. He eventually took over the Arco paper during an economically challenging time and “turned it into one of Idaho’s leading weeklies.”
“He arrived in Arco on Oct. 3, 1910, and assumed management of The Arco Advertiser, soon converting that newspaper into a paying proposition,” Author Robert Sims writes in the book “Idaho’s Governors.”
Bott worked as a state legislator throughout the 1920s and 30s while running the paper. He became the editor in 1934 and two years later, acquired the Blackfoot Daily Bulletin, which he also managed.
He retired in 1947, but reportedly continued to work as a correspondent for several newspapers and even did freelance work.
The Arco Advertiser still exists today. It also provides commercial printing services for businesses.
It’s not clear what motivated Bott to run for office, but after years in the Legislature, he surprised his opponents when he became the Republican nominee for Governor in 1938. He became the state’s first Republican governor in seven years when he beat his Democratic opponent, C. Ben Ross, with 57.3% of the vote, according to voting records.
Bott’s political rise and fall
Bott called for a $5 automotive license fee during his inaugural address. Sims notes he also called for administrative changes to the state liquor dispensary, something that may have contributed to his unsuccessful re-election bid in 1940. (Governors served two-year terms at the time). His Democratic opponent, Chase Clark, voted against the administrative changes and ended up earning a narrow victory.
“Two years later, the gubernatorial candidates in the general election were the same. This time, they both had to run on their records, and Idaho voters had trouble deciding which one they wanted. When the results were final, Bottolfsen became the first ex-governor to regain the office, but by fewer than 500 votes,” writes Sims.
Voting records show the final tally was 50.15% for Bottolfsen (72,260 total votes) to 49.85% for Clark (71,826 total votes).
Bott’s second term was much more eventful, according to Sims, and one issue was to blame. In the election of 1942, voters approved the Senior Citizens Grant Act, a measure that added $40 to the state’s monthly relief payments for people 65 and older.
The impact of the Depression and the start of World War II made funding this measure a challenge.
“In his second inaugural address, Bottolfsen declared that ‘economy must be the session’s watchword.’ He … asked for ‘frugality which borders on parsimony,'” Sims writes.
Cuts in state personnel and other departments did not create a savings to help fund this initiative and Bott knew that a tax would have to be implemented to pay for it. Despite running on a platform of no new taxes, Bottolfsen reluctantly implemented a 5% sales tax. That’s how the sales tax was born in the Gem State.
“He believed the Legislature had an obligation to fund the pension plan since it had been approved by the voters,” Sims writes. “While it was clear that Idaho’s voters liked the pension plan, they disliked a sales tax more.”
Legislators ultimately rejected the Governor’s plan and voted overwhelmingly to repeal the bill voters had approved.
Bott later approved the Legislature’s action in a joint session, saying the pension plan “has joined all other patriotic endeavors of Idaho and gone to war.”
“It is not fair to economize elsewhere to provide more money for pensions,” Bottolfsen said, according to the Idaho Freedom Foundation. “I have always felt that the voice of the people should not be ignored, but I am equally confident that if the people themselves could view the financial picture of the state of Idaho as I have viewed it and realize the many demands which are to be made upon the people in the future, they would commend the Legislature and myself for the step that is now taken.”
“Many thousands of our young men are in the armed services at this time, and many additional thousands are likely to be called before hostilities cease. That means everyone of us must undergo untold sacrifice,” Bottolfsen added. “I sincerely hope that those who may feel aggrieved at my action will realize during this strenuous period of world chaos that all of us must enlist for the duration.”
Bott did not convince even the strongest supporters of the pension plan and it led to his political demise.
After an unsuccessful run for U.S. Senate in 1944 against Glen Taylor, Bott went on to serve two terms in the Idaho Legislature before retiring in 1961.
“Not only did this service make him the only chief executive to later serve in the state legislature, but his last election came 40 years after his first, an Idaho record,” writes Sims.
Bott’s final years
In 1961, the 70-year-old man had provided decades of public service for the Gem State. Failing health prompted him to step down at the end of his Legislative term.
The University of Idaho reports he had suffered from emphysema for several years. He was 73 when he died at the Veterans Hospital in Boise on July 18, 1964.
“While Bottolfsen was neither the most effective nor popular Idaho chief executive, it must be remembered that he served in the most difficult of times, depression and war,” writes Sims.
He is buried at the Hillcrest Cemetery in Arco.