When Idaho voters head to the polls for the state’s primaries in May, they’ll hopefully know a lot more about which candidates do and don’t support their public lands — and cast their ballots accordingly. Or at least, that’s the plan behind a new Idaho political action committee that recently formed in response to repeated attacks on federal and state public lands in recent years.
Idaho’s PAC For Public Lands is the second group of its kind to form this year; Protect Wyoming launched in January. Both groups seek not to sway existing lawmakers, but to instead focus on educating and rallying voters to oust legislators who vote against the hunting, fishing, and outdoor recreation public’s best — and explicitly stated — interests.
“A few months ago, some state polling showed 96 percent support by our populace for public lands,” says Brian Brooks, co-founder and board member of PAC For Public Lands. “It’s hard to get that kind of support for anything. And despite that, we have an overwhelming number of state legislators who are not aligned with that public sentiment, still advocating for disposal of public lands and transferring them to the state, which is a direct pipeline for privatizing.”
While Brooks says he and his co-founders created The PAC for Public Lands in Idaho independently of Protect Wyoming (“we had no idea” what they were up to), both are the result of growing anger and frustration boiling over in sportsmen and women around the country who feel increasingly unrepresented by their lawmakers. That sentiment became abundantly clear last summer after Utah Sen. Mike Lee, R, proposed selling off 3 million acres of public land. Hunters, anglers, ATVers, campers, backpackers, and every other type of recreationist flooded Western statehouses and even marched in streets opposing the legislation. Lee’s measure failed as a result, yet just this week, the U.S. Senate voted to revisit plans for a Chilean copper-sulfide mine near the Boundary Waters Canoe Wilderness Area — again, despite aggressive opposition from hunters, anglers and others.
Lawmakers aren’t listening to the public, Brooks says, and they need to go.
Support for public lands in the United States transcends political divides, according to multiple polls. A seminal Colorado College poll shows year after year that the vast majority of both Republicans and Democrats oppose selling public lands across the West and in Idaho specifically. A recent poll conducted by Change Research in Idaho shows 96 percent of all registered voters, regardless of political affiliation, support public lands.
That’s why Brooks says his PAC is gaining traction and will ultimately succeed at its goal. He’s not trying to convince conservative Idaho voters to change their party ideologies; the PAC is simply working to tell voters which lawmakers support public lands, and which ones don’t.
Because plenty of Idaho lawmakers have either vocally opposed public lands in the form of resolutions calling for the federal government to transfer public lands to the state or supported bills that call for the state to inventory and sell all state-owned land.
“This is real, and they’re coming after our lives here and people need to understand that,” says Brooks, who has degrees in conservation social science and natural resources management and policy from the University of Idaho. “Public lands are not this nebulous policy position where people kind of support it. It’s personal. I grew up hunting and fishing and can only do that here if I have public lands.”
Brooks declined to say how the PAC plans to target individual lawmakers and races to avoid tipping its hand. But he says the PAC has identified the worst public-land offenders and those lawmakers who support public lands, but who face challenges from anti-public lands groups.
“We’re sending educative materials to voters in various ways and they’re just going to be equipped before they head to the polls with honest knowledge. I think that mudslinging in American politics is really common, but we don’t have to do any lying or anything dishonest. We’re just going to simply use people’s statements, voting records, and actions.”
Brooks spent years working in hunting and fishing advocacy in Idaho before he realized that his group wasn’t legally able to “do the hardball politicking that the American system allows for.” So he and a couple other Idaho sportsmen decided to take this new track. Now they’re building their war chest.
Related: If You Want to Vote Out Anti-Public-Land Politicians, Pay Attention to What This Wyoming PAC Just Did
The overwhelming response from fellow Idahoans has been to ask, “How can I help?” he says. “Right now, unfortunately, it’s just ‘Donate, donate, donate,’” given how quickly the PAC has had to move ahead of the May primaries.
People seem to understand the threat to public lands right now is real. The answer is simple, according to these new public-lands PACs: register to vote, research lawmakers, elect pro-public lands lawmakers, and, ostensibly, donate to the cause.
“We’re going to educate folks on what these legislators are doing,” he says. “We’re going to protect and reward the ones who are in line with our values, and the ones who aren’t need a new job.”
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