Gov. Dirk Kempthorne (R) Elected 1998, 2d term up Jan. 2007
Born:	Oct. 29, 1951, San Diego, CA
Home:	Boise
Education:	U. of ID, B.A. 1975
Religion:	Methodist
Marital Status:	married (Patricia)
Elected  Office:	Boise Mayor, 1986-93; U.S. Senate, 1992-98.
Professional Career:	Exec. Asst. to Dir., ID Dept. of Public Lands, 1976-78; Exec. V.P., ID Home Builders Assn., 1978-81; Campaign Mgr., Phil Batt for Gov., 1982; ID Public Affairs Mgr., FMC Corp, 1983-86.
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Dirk Kempthorne was elected governor of Idaho in 1998 after six years in the U.S. Senate. He was born in San Diego, grew up in Spokane, Washington, and graduated from the University of Idaho. He has spent most of his adult life in the political arena, starting in state government, then working for the Idaho Home Builders Association and FMC Corporation. He managed Phil Batt's unsuccessful gubernatorial campaign in 1982 (Batt finally won in 1994) and was mayor of Boise for seven boom years from 1986-93. Kempthorne was elected to the Senate seat vacated in 1992 by two-term incumbent Republican Steve Symms and over tough competition from Democratic Congressman Richard Stallings. A Mormon and a conservative on abortion and gun control, Stallings was a three-time congressman from the eastern Idaho 2d District. Kempthorne won with 57%, barely carrying the northern panhandle, but running far ahead in the Boise market and carrying the Mormon areas in the east.

Kempthorne started off 100th in seniority in a Democratic Senate, concentrating on the nonstarter issue of unfunded mandates. But after the 1994 Republican victory, Majority Leader Bob Dole made Kempthorne's unfunded mandates bill S.1, the first order of legislative business. Kempthorne impressed colleagues with his knowledge of detail and his willingness to face off with West Virginia Senator Robert Byrd, who fought mightily against the bill as an infringement of congressional prerogatives; it passed the Senate easily with bipartisan support.

But Idaho beckoned. Phil Batt, elected at 67, decided to retire after a long career in state politics and one successful four-year term as governor. Welfare rolls were cut more than 75%, crime was sharply down, taxes and state payrolls were cut, and in 1996, voters had endorsed by 63%-37% the 40-year compact with the federal government Batt negotiated on nuclear waste disposal. In September 1997, Batt announced his decision to retire; in October 1997, Kempthorne announced he was running. He was willing to give up what easily could have been a lifetime Senate seat for, at most, two term-limited terms as governor. ''I truly do believe power now is irreversibly returning to the states, and that is where the important action will be,'' he said. Once Kempthorne was in, the race was essentially over. Former state Supreme Court Justice Robert Huntley ran, he said, to maintain two-party competition. Kempthorne won 68%-29%, carrying every county but the one including Sun Valley.

In 1999 he proclaimed "the Generation of the Child" and got the legislature to pass a $5.5 million Idaho Reading Initiative and scholarships for 3.0 high school graduates at in-state colleges. He passed a voluntary immunization registry bill. Criticized for aloofness, he held an open house in his office for legislators in 2000. He got $5 million in federal funds to crack down on methamphetamine labs that have flourished across the state. He opposed the November 2000 decision of the Fish and Wildlife Service to reintroduce grizzly bears into the Bitterroot Range, and filed a lawsuit; the Bush administration withdrew the proposal in June 2001. He worked on a four-state salmon recovery program and entered a Memorandum of Understanding with Indian tribes as part of the Northwest Power Planning Council's sub-basin planning process. He got funding for a Rural Idaho Initiative, with state money for projects in the non-booming parts of Idaho--a strawboard plant in Benewah County, a new plant site away from North Idaho College in Coeur d'Alene, sewers and streets in Rupert, extension of a sewer line in Shoshone, rail lines for malting barley operations in Bonneville County.

In his first three years, Kempthorne and the legislature cut taxes several times. But by late 2001 revenues came in under expectations, and there were rounds of cuts in planned increases in public schools and actual cuts in higher education. The state tapped the Budget Stabilization Fund and tobacco settlement money and state employees were laid off. He opposed giving state businesses the benefit of George W. Bush's 30% immediate depreciation allowance, over the opposition of the Idaho Association of Commerce and Industry. Many members of the overwhelmingly Republican legislature complained that Kempthorne was aloof and uninvolved. They were unhappy when in early 2002 Kempthorne vetoed their repeal of term limits; the voters upheld the law by the narrowest of margins in November. Kempthorne had articulate opposition from Democrat Jerry Brady, owner of the Idaho Falls Post Register, the state's second largest newspaper, whose great-grandfather James Brady had been elected governor as a Republican in 1908. (Brady didn't tell his reporters he was running and the managing editor said, "We were nearly scooped!") Brady spent $320,000 of his own money and attacked Kempthorne for cutting education spending in a "formulaic" and "lazy" way. He criticized Kempthorne for ousting Fish and Game Commissioner Rod Sando and said the commission was subservient to farmers and ranchers, and said he would appoint new members nominated by sportsmen. Kempthorne protested that he had only cut planned increases in school spending and that he would permit no further education cuts. He appointed a Blue Ribbon Task Force to examine the budget and report after the election.

Kempthorne won by the reduced margin of 56%-42%. He lost the counties containing Sun Valley and Pocatello, three northern panhandle counties and, surprisingly, Boise's Ada County, where voters presumably know him best. Facing a budget crisis in January 2003, Kempthorne proposed the largest tax increase in state history. "I have done something that is absolutely not part of my fiber," he explained to The Washington Post. "But I'm not going to dismantle this state, and I'm not going to jeopardize our bond rating, and I'm not going to reduce my emphasis on education."

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P.O. Box 83720, Boise 83720, 208-334-2100; Fax: 208-334-2175; Web: www.state.id.us/gov.

Election Results (More Info)
	Candidate	Total Votes	Percent
2002 general	Dirk Kempthorne (R)	231,566	56%
	Jerry Brady (D)	171,711	42%
	Other	8,200	2%
2002 primary	Dirk Kempthorne (R)	95,882	66%
	Milt Erhart (R)	37,523	26%
	Walter Bayes (R)	6,873	5%
	Raynelle George (R)	5,271	4%
1998 general	Dirk Kempthorne (R)	258,095	68%
	Robert C. Huntley (D)	110,815	29%
	Other	12,338	3%