Idaho’s last Democratic governor left office 30 years ago. A look at left-wing leadership in a red state
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IDAHO FALLS – Cecil Andrus emerged victorious in a rematch with his political opponent in Idaho’s gubernatorial election.
It was Nov. 3, 1970 and the 39-year-old Orofino man was elected to be Idaho’s 26th governor, the first Democrat elected to the position since 1947. He beat his Republican challenger, Don Samuelson, with 52% of the vote (128,004 total votes), according to voting records.
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He ran for governor four years earlier while serving as a state senator. He filed to run after the Democratic nominee, Charles Herndon, was killed in a plane crash near Stanley about six weeks before the election. Andrus was narrowly defeated by Samuelson that year, but had now secured a victory.
Andrus’s inauguration on Jan. 4, 1971 kicked off a 24-year period of Democratic leadership in the Gem State. He was re-elected by a wide margin in 1974. His second term was cut short in 1977 when President Jimmy Carter appointed him Secretary of the Interior.
Lt. Governor John Evans, a Democrat from Malad, served the rest of Andrus’s term. Evans remained in office for 10 years before Andrus entered the race again in 1986. He won by less than one percentage point against Republican David Leroy. Andrus was re-elected in 1990, making him Idaho’s only four-term governor to date and the second to serve nonconsecutive terms.
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Since Andrus left office in 1995, Idaho has consistently been led by a Republican governor and the GOP has been the dominant political party.
Today, Idaho is the fifth most Republican state in the U.S., according to an independent polling organization.
“Generally, people in Idaho are concerned with fiscal issues, such as budget deficits and lower government spending, leading to a conservative way of thinking,” the report says.
But Idaho’s history of Democratic leadership got us wondering why Idahoans voted that way at the time.
Why Andrus appealed to Idaho voters
Andrus passed away in 2017 at age 85, but his granddaughter, Monica Church, who is vying for a seat in the Idaho House, tells EastIdahoNews.com there are several reasons why he was appealing to voters.
“He appealed to Idaho voters because he was Idaho,” Church says. “He was a lumberjack, a union man with three small children living in a rural community who wanted what was best for his family and his neighbors.”
Logging, mining and the railroad were major industries in Idaho at the time, Idaho Secretary of State Phil McGrane says. Unions associated with those industries were popular and that drove a lot of the support for Andrus’s campaign.
Education was a huge focus for Andrus, Church says, and during his first years in office, he brought kindergarten to Idaho and increased school funding.
But what endeared him to voters was his public opposition to a mining claim during his 1970 campaign. A New York-based company wanted to open a mine at the base of Castle Peak in the White Clouds Mountains. Andrus was an avid hunter and fisherman, like many Idahoans, and wanted to protect Idaho’s public lands. In an essay about Andrus, Stephen Shaw says his opposing stance earned him additional votes and a reputation as a “quality of life” politician.
In 2018, seven months after Andrus’s death, Congress renamed the White Clouds wilderness area after him.
Andrus’s efforts to block nuclear waste shipments to Idaho in 1973 further solidified voter support for him and helped him get re-elected in 1986. Congress wanted to make Idaho a longterm repository for nuclear waste. Andrus responded by banning waste shipments and ordered an Idaho State Police trooper to park across the railroad tracks in Blackfoot to prevent a delivery.
In a 2016 interview with the Spokesman-Review, Andrus admitted he didn’t have the authority to do that “but the federal government flinched.”
Idaho filed a lawsuit and won. It resulted in the 1995 settlement agreement requiring all radioactive waste on the desert west of Idaho Falls to be removed by 2035 and taken to a national repository site yet to be identified.
Richard Stallings, a Pocatello Democrat who represented Idaho in Congress from 1985-1993, says Andrus’s personality was another reason voters liked him.
“He and I worked very closely together. He was a wonderful, empathetic person. Once you met him, you were drawn to him. He had a magnetic personality,” says Stallings.
Andrus remains a beloved political figure in Idaho, Church says, and the fact that people from both parties have fond memories of him is a testament to his leadership.
Other noteworthy Democrat victories in Idaho
Andrus certainly wasn’t the first Democrat to get elected in Idaho.
Since becoming a state in 1890, 12 of Idaho’s governors have been Democrats, according to the book “Idaho’s Governors.” The first was Frank Steuenberg. The Caldwell man was the state’s fourth governor and was in office from 1897 to 1901. Labor unrest between miners and mine owners during his administration led him to declare martial law, which remained in effect for months. Four years after leaving office, a disgruntled miner assassinated him.
In 1933, Idaho’s first Democratic Congressional delegates went into office. Walt Minnick is the last Democrat to represent Idaho in Congress. He served in the House of Representatives from 2009-2011.
The last time a Democratic presidential candidate carried Idaho was in 1964. Lyndon B. Johnson had 50.92% of the vote that year, according to voting records, compared to 49.08% for Republican Barry Goldwater.
“Idaho was one of 44 states carried by incumbent President Lyndon B. Johnson. However, it was Johnson’s narrowest victory in the election. He carried the state by a margin of 5,363 votes, or 1.83%, making Idaho about 20.75% more Republican than the nation,” one report says.
Since then, no Democrat running for president has been able to get 40% of Idaho’s popular vote.
Stallings remembers that election and he attributes Johnson’s victory in Idaho to Goldwater’s “radical” political views. Civil rights were an issue in that election, which LBJ supported and Goldwater opposed. Pocatello had the largest black community in the state at the time due to the railroad, he says, and racism was a problem in some areas.
Racial hostilities made the 1964 presidential election a close race in Idaho, Stallings says.
“The memory of Kennedy’s assassination was still pretty strong. Idaho didn’t vote for him in 1960, but LBJ (who served as Kennedy’s vice president) benefitted from that and won by association,” says Stallings.
Voting across party lines
In 1986, C.L. “Butch” Otter was elected for the first time as Idaho’s Lt. governor. It’s not entirely clear why Idahoans elected the Caldwell Republican to serve under Andrus, but it wasn’t the first time a republican and a Democrat led the state together. Republicans Phil Batt and David Leroy both served as Lt. governor at different times under John Evans. During the 1960s, Democrat W.E. Drevlow was a Lt. governor under a Republican governor.
Church says both Andrus and Otter were “authentic” Idahoans who represented Idaho values, and that resonated with voters.
“Both men represented different parts of the West and the culture Idaho embodies,” says Church. “Cecil was — you saw him out there. He was cutting down trees into his 70s, and Butch as well. He (Otter) was sort of that Robert Redford cowboy and was authentically Idaho.”
Otter could not be reached for comment, but Church says the pair worked well together and had a mutual trust and respect for each other because they didn’t focus on party politics.
“I remember my grandfather saying many times that he never had to worry when he left the state. He trusted (Butch),” Church explains. “We look back at them as being a Republican and a Democrat but that wasn’t the way they saw it. They were principled men who took an oath to Idaho, and they did their jobs.”
WATCH OUR INTERVIEW WITH CHURCH IN THE VIDEO ABOVE.