Don't wage class warfare against hunters, anglers

Idaho's fish and elk belong to its people. But, thanks to politics rooted in gifts for the moneyed and connected, the Legislature is flirting with the gentrification of hunting and fishing.

The Idaho Department of Fish and Game has, for two years, pitched straightforward legislation meant to pump another $1 million into its dwindling coffers. The tiny resident fee hike - between $1 and $6 - would generate money for fish stocking and land management. It's cash that would benefit 50 percent of Idahoans who regularly fish. And, House Bill 32 would even allow annual license buyers to "price lock" in at the 2015 rate. Only those who let their licenses lapse, or buy for the first time, would be affected by future increases.

Like the rest of state government, Fish and Game has been left to rot. And the agency is pitching a fair system to correct the problem.

But lawmakers, particularly House Majority Leader Mike Moyle, continue to shelve the bill. Their hope is to create a system of haves and have nots. And they're willing to stall until ramming through the legislation that meets that goal.

Moyle and Sen. Bert Brackett, R-Rogerson, want the state to go into the scalping business. The free tags, given to landowners for good stewardship, aren't enough. Landowners could sell those desirable, limited hunts to the highest bidder, under the Legislature's plan. And, going one further, the state would also start opening some tags and licenses to the bidding process.

Moyle and his colleagues envision a world where lawyers and corporate executives stalk Idaho's finest lands. The rest of the state can literally squabble over the scraps. It's a troubling course that carries more than a whiff of the domination wielded by medieval nobles over the most fertile hunting grounds. It's a recipe for a poaching outbreak.

The Legislature's refusal to approve Fish and Game's proposal is symptomatic of the classicist mode of operation that dominates Idaho policy. Too many just shrugged when Idaho Association of Commerce and Industry lobbyist Alex LeBeau's email rant went public. But it was a telling instance of how things work in Boise. The powerful business lobby expected more tax cuts and state Sen. Jeff Siddoway bucked the party line by standing up for education funding. Perhaps the Fish and Game bill will make the overarching paradigm in Boise, focused on hand-outs to the rich, more apparent to the average Idahoan.

Idaho's trout belong to each and every citizen. So do its mule deer, its ducks and its elk. But Brackett, who owns massive swaths of land in the Magic Valley, is more concerned with benefiting himself and his friends than instituting sound conservation policy. In so doing, Moyle, Brackett and anyone else looking to bias Fish and Game's legislation would be effectively robbing from anyone not invited to the party.

Fish and Game commissioners are rightly threatening to pull House Bill 32. The money is needed. But commissioners would rather wait for "clean" legislation instead of dealing with the Legislature's alternative, one that again unnecessarily injects damaging dogma into otherwise straightforward policy.

Yet again, Idaho lawmakers are looking to stick the little guy to the benefit of themselves and their friends. It's endemic to state politics. And, just maybe, that fact will become a little clearer to the average taxpaying citizen now the ill-conceived maxim is aimed at something enjoyed by so many.

But conservation management is no place for partisan ideology or class warfare. House Bill 32, as originally constructed, is rooted in good science and fairness. Leave it that way.