HART: Voters can do better — much better

In 2022, voters in Idaho’s District 2 had NO choice in who they wanted to represent them in the Idaho State Senate. That’s because there was only one name on the ballot. Phil Hart ran unopposed and was elected despite a long history of misconduct and fraud.

Hart stopped filing both federal and state income tax returns in 1996. When he was unsuccessful in bringing suit against the IRS and was ordered to sell his Athol home to pay his debt, he attempted to avoid losing it with a string of bankruptcy filings and false claims that other people owned the home. 

A 2015 article in the Spokesman-Review reported: “This is the same home for which Hart illegally cut trees from state school endowment land in 1976 maintaining that as a citizen he had a right to take the logs for free.”

In 2018, Hart fraudulently tried to run for the legislature in District 7 when he didn’t reside in the area.

Just last month, Hart was the ONLY state senator to vote against a recent senate resolution denouncing racism in Idaho, following an incident where several black members of a Utah women’s basketball team were harassed in Coeur d’Alene.  

Idaho deserves better. On the 2024 ballot, voters will have a choice. Harrison resident Tom Hearn is challenging Hart to represent the citizens of District 2, not only by supporting the issues that are most important to them, but by doing so ethically, lawfully, and with only service to community in mind. Tom Hearn is the choice Idaho needs. 

KATHY JUDSON

DeSmet

District 2