When state Sen. Michelle Stennett, D-Ketchum, arrived in Boise at the start of the legislative session in January, she already had one year of experience under her belt. However, the freshman senator said the difference between serving an appointed term and an elected one is more significant than one might expect.
"When you're appointed for someone, you want to be very careful to make the votes they'd want you to," she said. "I didn't know at the time that I'd be coming back."
Stennett filled in for her husband, the late Sen. Clint Stennett, after he was diagnosed with brain cancer and was subsequently unable to serve during the 2010 legislative session. Naturally, Stennett said, she and her husband had similar positions on many issues, but she made all of her votes with his, not her own, views in mind.
Stennett was elected to the District 25 seat on her own terms in November, beating Republican candidate Jim Donoval to retain the seat she'd filled for a year already. She said that being elected rather than appointed shifted her perspective.
"This time around, it was mine to own and mine to debate," she said.
Stennett picked a difficult session to make her own, however—one full of long bills on complex issues such as nullification, gun control and abortion, not to mention the challenges of trying to balance a budget shortfall that was estimated to reach $185 million in February.
Stennett said the bills this session came at a "furious" pace, and the breadth of issues involved made staying informed a "tremendous challenge."
"It was a lot of homework," she said.
Balancing act
In addition to all the background, Stennett said, one of the biggest challenges of her first elected session was weighing the needs of all of her constituents equally.
"If I'm your senator, I have to consider the needs of all of you," she said.
That includes Republicans, Stennett said, and she works to balance her own positions with the need to work with majority leaders to craft legislation that benefits voters as a whole.
"You have to work with the other side," she said.
She said she worked quietly behind the scenes to cosponsor bills and held "respectful" dialogue on important issues.
"Good dialogue and trying to come up with bipartisan bills is how we should be governing anyway," she said.
Politicking and politics
But, Stennett said, legislators are not always so willing to put aside grandstanding, and that was especially the case this year.
"We've had a lot of politicking and not a lot of policy-making," she said, adding that "there's a big difference in good governing between politics and policy."
As an example, Stennett pointed to the three nullification bills that came before the Legislature that said President Barack Obama's health-care reforms didn't apply to Idaho. She called the bills unconstitutional.
Stennett said a vote against a nullification bill in a Senate committee resulted in a dramatic scene when the public stormed the bench.
"The whole tone of the audience changed [after the vote,]" she said, and members of the public who were present pushed past a security guard and headed for the front of the room, yelling at the senators as they came. The senators were prevented from leaving by media cameras that blocked the only available exit.
"The good thing is, the bench separated us," Stennett said. "But it was pretty scary for a couple of the senators who got the brunt of it."
Stennett said she's afraid civility has started to fade from the legislative process, which would prevent good governing in the future.
"Frankly, I think our culture has lost our social graces," she said.
Stennett said protocol is still alive and well in the Senate rules, and members are required to refer to each other with respect and ask permission before addressing each other. She said those protocols are crucial to the legislative process.
"That's what good government is about," she said. "To see that turn into a shouting match doesn't help anyone."
Looking ahead
Stennett will wrap up her 2011 duties with a tour of the district.
Along with fellow legislators Rep. Donna Pence, D-Gooding, and Rep. Wendy Jaquet, D-Ketchum, she will visit Bellevue and Ketchum next week to discuss the whys and hows of the last session.
The legislators will start at 8 a.m. on Saturday, May 14, at Oak Street Deli in Bellevue, and hold a second session at 5:30 p.m. on Tuesday, May 17, at the Roosevelt Grille in Ketchum.
As for next session, Stennett said she'd like to remove the issue of end-of-life care from the segment of Idaho code known as the conscience bill. The law allows health-care professionals to refuse treatment such as tubal feeding or artificial respiration if they object on moral, religious or ethical grounds. However, another law requires physicians to comply with living wills of their patients, which might require such treatment.
Stennett said she'd like to see the language regarding end-of-life care removed from the code for two reasons. First, she said, the law is mostly about abortion and emergency contraception, meant to allow pharmacists to refuse to dispense medications such as Plan B.
Second, she said she believes the government should be involved in end-of-life care as minimally as possible. Removal of the language would reduce government involvement to just the section of code that requires physicians to respect living wills.
"To have the government involved in how you live your last days is a crime," she said. "[But] if you're a Democrat, your bills tend not to get out of committee, not to get printed and to just not go anywhere."
Katherine Wutz: kwutz@mtexpress.com
Michelle Stennett listens to stories at her late husband’s memorial service last year. Photo by Mountain Express
