Rally speaker: Cling to the Constitution Tax Day Rally

POST FALLS - Joe Miller believes the Tea Party's cup is still full and it won't be emptied anytime soon.

The former U.S. Senate Republican candidate from Alaska and veteran spoke during the third annual Tax Day Rally sponsored by the Tea Party Patriots of North Idaho before roughly 400 people on Thursday night at the Greyhound Park and Event Center.

He said some believe the movement is fading and will continue to do so if the economy or political climate improve, but the rally's turnout and a spirit to return to our roots dictate otherwise.

"We are not controllable," Miller said. "We have one allegiance and that's to the Constitution. That is not politics as usual. But if that's extreme, then so be it."

Miller said the Tea Party is in the business of holding people accountable.

"We desire a free and prosperous future for our children and our children's children," he said. "Unless we get the ship back in line, we're going to lose values. Working together in the trenches we can do it."

Miller encouraged attendees to be engaged in the elections.

"We can't elect a Republican who decides the status quo is fine," he said. "In a very little time, we're going to be just like the Europeans."

That, he said, is not what the country was founded on.

Post Falls' John Morris attended a Tea Party rally for the first time.

"I wanted to come check things out because I've heard about these, but haven't been able to come," he said. "I believe government and this country need to change and the only way they will is if our concerns are heard. I'm glad I came."

Speaker Tyler Smotherman, a 2010 Coeur d'Alene High graduate and University of Idaho political science student, said being a young conservative in America today "is no easy business."

But he said we must "wake up," do our homework and see what has happened to the country with its national debt and fleeing from founding principles.

"The very ideas of freedom ... come from the Bible," he said. "I'm here to tell you tonight that God is not dead."

Idaho Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Luna, another rally speaker, said new education reform laws recently passed by the Legislature "move Idaho to the head of the class."

His Students Come First package requires high school students to take online courses, phases out tenure, removes job security for teachers with seniority, institutes merit pay for teachers and limits collective bargaining by local unions.

"We are going to be spending our money differently and not just expecting more and more," Luna said, adding that the laws were passed expecting no federal funding and new money into the system.

Luna said the laws are not only about education and the future, but the economy.

"We have put the customer (taxpayers) back in the driver's seat," Luna said. "We were expecting more money every year and that's just not sustainable."

About 20 teachers held signs outside the facility protesting the new laws, stating the package won't improve education.