WASHINGTON, September 24, 2004 — Every summer since 1973, Vivian Evans has become a reluctant shut-in—her only effective defense, she maintains, against the thick smoke that hangs over nearby fields before wafting its way toward her northern Idaho home. "It's just a terrible experience," Evans said of venturing out of doors, "because you feel like somebody stuffed cotton into your throat and you can't get air in or out."

In fact, the 59-year-old Evans, who settled in Idaho 30 years ago, said the smoke has aggravated an asthmatic condition and, in those intervening three decades, also caused her other medical difficulties. And she isn't alone: There are widespread allegations that the smoke has sickened thousands of Idaho residents and probably contributed to several deaths, including that of a woman from Evans's community.

Idaho field burning in a 2003 photo. (Bob Abbott/SAFE)

The aggrieved say the source of their problems is unmistakable: After the annual local seed harvest, farmers who grow Kentucky bluegrass torch their fields to remove leftover stubble and expose the plants, a process they say promotes growth the following year. To add insult to injury, critics say, field burning has depressed the local economy. They also maintain that farmers in such neighboring states as Washington and Oregon, where field burning has been severely restricted, have thrived without this controversial practice.

But farmers in northern Idaho insist that this summer ritual is essential to their livelihoods, as it affords them an incomparable strategy for rejuvenating their fields. Losing it, they say, could ruin their farms, undermine an important sector of the economy and threaten the preservation of open space in a rapidly developing area.

As a result, opponents of field burning have been locked in an ongoing struggle with Idaho farmers—a sometimes bitter conflict that's been waged on scientific, legal and political fronts. And the acrimonious struggle escalated in 2002, when a group opposed to field burning filed the first in a complex web of lawsuits seeking to ban the practice.

Two of those lawsuits name Wayne Meyer, who grows bluegrass near Vivian Evans's home in Rathdrum. Meyer and his two brothers farm a combined 3,000 acres on the Rathdrum Prairie, where their father settled to work the land in 1964. Without the right to burn their fields, Meyer said, families like his face the prospect of having to unload the property once destined for kinfolk.

"It's not a pleasant thought, because it was never my intention to sell my farm and retire," Meyer, who works his land with a son-in-law, said. "I always wanted to pass it on to a family member. And I have three grandsons, and they love coming out here to work on the farm."

But if Meyer feels besieged, he has had the means to help keep his presumed rights intact: In addition to his regular work, Meyer also served five terms in the Idaho House of Representatives before losing a primary re-election bid in May. There, he supported several bills to help farmers either continue burning or else ease their transition out of the practice.

Meyer's dual role was widely known, and until his defeat it was probably the most visible example of how easily public and private business can mix in Idaho's part-time, citizen legislature.

Idaho legislators are often called on to approve bills affecting their own financial interests, while some do business with lobbying organizations or with the state. In the last two legislative sessions, for example, a lawyer whose firm represents Qwest Communications voted twice for its closely contested proposal to deregulate telephone service. A trucker and a lobbyist's wife voted for a measure allowing heavier vehicles onto Idaho roads. And a major state contractor and the president of a group that lobbies the legislature both served in Boise.

Idaho is one of only three states (along with Michigan and Vermont) that do not require elected officials to file financial disclosures identifying their outside sources of income.

"It's left up to the 'quote-unquote' good will of the individual legislator" to report potential conflicts of interest, said Rep. Tom Trail (R-Moscow), who supports mandatory financial disclosure.

Many of these legislators have cast votes that broadly benefit industries from which they draw income, and some have promoted legislation that influences their narrower fields of interest.

However, their personal stakes in their public work often do not qualify as conflicts of interest under state law. Interviews with 16 Idaho lawmakers reveal little concern that conflicts of interest are a genuine problem. Indeed, many of these legislators said that they already do their utmost to avoid such conflicts and that it would be impossible—and imprudent—to wipe out any overlap between their private and official activities.

A tractor uses propane to ignite a field, in a 2003 photo. (Bob Abbott/SAFE)

"Idahoans value their citizens' legislature," Sen. Shawn Keough (R-Sandpoint) said. "They historically have not wanted a professional legislature. They just abhor the thought, and recognize that the tradeoff there is [that] you get conflicts of interest."

But those tradeoffs have proved to be too burdensome for Idahoans concerned about the efforts of Rep. Wayne Meyer and other lawmakers to forestall a ban on field burning.

In 2003, Meyer worked on a sweeping field burning law that has stalled a lawsuit against him and 78 other north Idaho farmers.

The law, known as House Bill 391, includes a safe harbor provision banning suits against farmers who abide by new regulations it imposes on field burning. Meyer pointed out that while he did "work closely" with the sponsor of the law, he did not propose the safe harbor provision.

That is of little comfort to Patti Gora, executive director of Safe Air for Everyone, an advocacy group opposed to field burning. The legislator, she said, failed to represent his constituents. "He used his political power and influence to take away what are pretty fundamental property rights from the residents of north Idaho," she told the Center. Gora called House Bill 391 "payback legislation that would remove the cause of action" for one of the lawsuits in which Meyer is a defendant. Safe Air filed the other lawsuit.

But if Meyer's work generally went unchallenged in the legislature, it may have factored in his defeat at the polls.

Phil Hart, the winner, had called field burning an important campaign issue and criticized Meyer for "self-serving" actions.

Hart said he's met many residents who suffer from the effects of field-burning smoke, and that the practice should be phased out over a period of several years. "My opponent has used his position in the legislature to insulate himself—or he's attempted to use his position in the legislature to insulate himself from liability," Hart told the Center before the primary. "And I think that's self-serving."

Speaking before the election, Meyer insisted that field burning was a common campaign issue that he was ready to handle. "Every individual that has ever run against me has tried to use it in the campaign," he said. "It's not an issue that I'm afraid to talk about in public."

But he did say that "it probably would have been a good idea" to ask to be excused from voting on House Bill 391.

The Idaho Supreme Court upheld the law in August, overruling a District Court judge who had declared it unconstitutional.

One law, 105 enforcers

An Idaho senator who voted this year for a closely contested deregulation proposal designed to benefit Qwest Communications International Inc. previously represented the telephone giant before state regulators on separate issues. But Sen. Curtis McKenzie, a Nampa Republican, said that the relationship of his firm, Stoel Rives LLP, with Qwest did not influence his vote.

Other Stoel Rives attorneys failed last year to persuade the state Public Utilities Commission to stop regulating Qwest's telephone service rates in seven cities, so the company launched an intense lobbying campaign in hopes of having the legislature deregulate residential and small business rates. After approval in the House, the bill passed the Senate by a single vote. But it ultimately failed by a one-vote margin when Sen. Jack Noble (R-Kuna) changed his mind and requested a second vote.

Asked if there was a conflict of interest in his vote to aid Qwest, McKenzie said, "I suppose in the abstract there could be, but you know, we literally do represent so many companies, in Idaho and in other states, that you could say that for literally everything that comes before [the legislature]." Conflicts, he added, could just as easily be read into his votes on bills affecting everything from Idaho-based companies like Albertson's, Inc. and J.R. Simplot Co. to his children's schooling.

McKenzie said he did not lobby on the bill or participate in the floor debate. Nor did he officially declare a conflict of interest, which legislators must do if they think one exists under state law and chamber rules.

Sen. Michael Burkett (D-Boise), a sponsor of the 1990 ethics law that governs conflicts, said it was "very much the case" that the system relies on self-policing. "There's no active enforcement entity, other than individuals," he said in an interview.

Most political observers say conflicts of interest are not a serious problem in the Idaho legislature. "Frankly, I have not seen it as being a major issue," Jim Weatherby, a professor of political science and public administration at Boise State University, told the Center.

All public servants must report a conflict of interest anytime they face a decision that could bring unique financial gains to themselves, their families, or their businesses, according to Idaho's Ethics in Government Act. No conflicts need be reported when an action affects all of the people in the public servant's "industry or occupation group" or taxation status equally. In addition, the law urges public servants to seek legal advice in uncertain cases and punishes intentional violations of the reporting requirement. It also bars public servants from taking pay to advise anybody on a bill or any measures they have discretion over.

Legislators also operate under rules requiring them to get permission from the chamber before they can abstain from voting, even if they have declared a conflict of interest. Conflicts of interest are occasionally announced informally in committees, but there is no standard record-keeping procedure for such cases.

Members of the House almost always abstained from voting when they declared conflicts in the early 1990s, but most of them have made the opposite choice in recent years, an analysis by the Center found. With the exception of a single bill in 2001, senators have declared far fewer conflicts of interest on the floor than their counterparts in the House and generally voted instead of abstaining. The nature of the conflicts was only rarely entered into official legislative records.

Fifty-six conflicts have been reported on the House floor since the start of the 1991 legislative session, when the current Ethics in Government law first applied. Representatives have chosen to vote in 32 of those cases, with 29 of those votes cast since the start of the 1998 session.

Of the five representatives who reported a conflict of interest this year, four decided to vote. In 2003, House members declared a dozen conflicts—the most in the 13 years analyzed by the Center—and voted in all of them.

Senators, for their part, have declared 36 conflicts since the start of the 1991 session. Four declared conflicts of interest in 2004, and three of them voted. "I think people sincerely believe that it's more critical to vote than to [avoid] a potential conflict," Robert Geddes (R-Soda Springs), the president pro tem of the Senate, said.

Weighty decisions

William Rode, a retired trucker from Eagle, Idaho, testified before the House Transportation and Defense Committee in 2003 against a bill to raise the legal weight limit for vehicles on the state's roads. After long and intense questioning, Rode said, he asked the chair for permission to make one more statement to the committee members. "I looked 'em all right square in the eye," Rode recalled, and told them: "If anyone at this table stands to profit from the passage of this bill, they should excuse themselves from voting.

"They just looked at me like, 'Where in the hell you comin' from?'"

Rode's standard is stricter than many political observers say is necessary or realistic in a citizen legislature where many people hold outside jobs and expertise is hard to come by without experience. In fact, the committee Rode addressed includes Rep. Tim Ridinger (R-Shoshone), a truck operator who has run heavy vehicles, and Rep. Kathy Skippen (R-Emmett), whose husband, Dar Olberding, testified in favor of the increase on behalf of the Idaho Grain Producers Association. Ridinger declared a conflict of interest on an early form of the weight-increase bill, but not on the final version. Skippen did not declare a conflict on either version.

Idaho field burning in a 2002 photo. (Bob Abbott/SAFE)

Skippen said her marriage to Olberding had been raised in her election campaign, but that given her farming background, she was a staunch supporter of agriculture anyway. "My response to that was, if anybody thinks that my husband has to lobby me on agricultural issues, they're nuts," she told the Center.

Ridinger is also unapologetic. "I think it works very well because we have people from all different walks of life," he said of the state's part-time legislature. Conversely, he maintained, full-time legislatures are a recipe for "full-time politicians, and not people who have to live and work with the laws they get passed."

Dan Mader, a former member of the Idaho House of Representatives, agrees. "There's a credibility with someone who's been in the business, lived it, knows it, makes money from it," he said. "I'm just not sure you'd come to a really good solution without having the perspective of someone internal in the debate, that deals with all that stuff on a day-to-day basis."

Mader, a farmer who retired in 2002 after serving five terms, was speaking in particular about the benefits of having farmers handle agricultural policy. Like others, Mader said it's acceptable for legislators to make decisions that broadly benefit their own industries. "I don't have a conflict," Mader said. "I got an interest, period. I got an interest in coming up with the best solution for agriculture."

Jim Hansen, a former state representative who is now the executive director of the public interest group United Vision for Idaho, said both conflicts of interest and lobbying were "part of the very tight relationship that gets nurtured between private interests and public officials" in Boise. Legislators, he said, should avoid working on issues in which they have a business interest—or at least be sure to act as watchdogs rather than advocates for their industries. "To the extent that someone comes to the legislature with expertise, they should use it to enlighten and expose how things are done in that industry, even if that's not beneficial to somebody's case, rather than be a promoter for that industry," he said.

Several legislators told the Center that conflicts of interest rarely come up for discussion in Boise, while others insisted that the legislature was very sensitive to the issue.

Sen. Cecil Ingram (R-Boise), who proposed legislation in 2004 stiffening restrictions on gifts to public servants, said some of the lawmakers almost feel like family, and acknowledged that might make it harder to be critical. "It's awfully hard to tell your brother he ought to stop drinking and smoking and chasing women at the picnic dinner, don't you think?" He added, "As far as I know, we're pretty clean."

Jim Weatherby, of Boise State, notes that standards are more likely to slip in a political system where a single party is as dominant as Idaho's GOP. "It's noble to want to engage in self-policing," he said, "but it might be helpful if it was backed up by actual criticism from the other side, and the potential that a person who engages in that kind of activity could face defeat at the polls."

Robert Geddes, the Senate president pro tem, said it is not difficult to spot conflicts of interest, and that his colleagues would never let him get away with anything that was "blatantly" self-interested.

Other legislators have sought out legal opinions. For example, Rep. Joseph Cannon (R-Blackfoot), who serves on the Transportation & Defense Committee, estimates that of the roughly $5 million in construction contracts his company wins annually, 60 percent comes from the state, and in particular the Department of Transportation. Before seeking office, Cannon said, he called the attorney general's office to ask whether serving in the legislature would present a conflict of interest. The AG gave him the go-ahead.

Sen. Shawn Keough, who serves as vice chair of the Senate Transportation Committee and as a member of the joint budget committee, is also the executive director of the Associated Logging Contractors, which represents small timber firms.

She said the group has strictly separated her duties from its lobbying activities, that she has voted against ALC positions in the past, and that she has consulted the attorney general to steer clear of conflicts.

In handling conflicts of interest, Keough said, "By and large, most of us are pretty good about it—or at least fair."

State secrets

Idaho has eschewed the path of 47 other states that require their elected officials to file financial disclosures. Some say that's partly because in a state as rural and sparsely populated as this one, one rarely needs a form to learn what his neighbors do for a living.

"I think that's pretty much well known without disclosure," Geddes said.

But Idaho legislators, who earn a basic annual salary of $15,646 for their public service , would clearly prefer to keep at least some details private: Only 11 of the state's 105 lawmakers agreed to a request from the Center for Public Integrity to complete financial disclosure reports typical of those required in other states. These forms ask for details about such things as earned and unearned income, personal property, partnership interests, honoraria, gifts, value of assets, and so on.

The Center found numerous cases in which the information legislators listed publicly in the 2004 Legislative Directory, which is published by the state government, offered only a vague or partial description of business interests. One simply noted "semi-retired." Some listed no information at all.

Meanwhile, autumn is approaching in northern Idaho, where the field burning season is expected to last for about another month. Beyond that, the future remains uncertain for residents on both sides of the struggle.

Thanks to ongoing litigation related to this contentious issue, farmers have largely lost their liability insurance. Some wonder whether they will be in business five years from now. Many are weighing whether to continue burning and risk more lawsuits.

And there are people like Vivian Evans, who says she risks her well-being just by walking outdoors.

"When it's beautiful outside and the days are really nice—not too hot—I have to stay inside," Evans said. "I can't spend time with my children and grandchildren. I can't go fishing or camping with them because I have to worry about my health."

But Evans said she got no relief from her legislature or from her long-time representative, Wayne Meyer.

"He's doing something for himself, and he's supposed to represent the people of this area that he was voted in to represent," Evans said. "I didn't think that was allowed in this country anymore."