{"id":17777,"date":"2022-04-20T01:35:18","date_gmt":"2022-04-20T01:35:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/?p=17777"},"modified":"2022-04-20T15:31:00","modified_gmt":"2022-04-20T15:31:00","slug":"parker-pushes-populist-envelope","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/2022\/04\/20\/parker-pushes-populist-envelope\/","title":{"rendered":"Parker Pushes Populist Envelope"},"content":{"rendered":"

Republican primary hopeful Eric Parker aims to defy past, partisanship<\/i><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

By Eric Valentine<\/em><\/p>\n

For a man who is seen by many in his state through a lens firmly embedded in his past, Eric Parker sure has a clear idea of the future. And it involves him sitting in the Idaho State Legislature as a Senator sponsoring bills, allowing bills to the floor so he can\u2014in some cases\u2014publicly vote them down, and advocating for the working class by being \u201ctransparent and available\u201d\u2014his starting point for what a politician is supposed to be.<\/p>\n

If all that\u2014or even some of that\u2014happens, the South Valley husband, father, and electrician who also founded The Real 3% of Idaho will likely be able to turn to a \u201chold my beer\u201d moment he had at the Capitol during the Idaho State Legislature\u2019s session this year. <\/span><\/p>\n

In Under 20 Minutes<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

Long story (medium) short: There was an attempt to repeal the grocery tax\u2014that 6% sales tax we pay on food, something Californians and roughly 40 other states\u2019 residents don\u2019t have to do. We get it back. That is, if you pay your income taxes and check the right box on that form that costs more to fill out than the refund you\u2019ll get for buying food. Anyway, the bill looked like it was lacking enough votes to pass so bill sponsors were going to shove it in the drawer for another year, like bachelor groceries. Parker\u2019s Republican legislature friends were ready to give up, but Parker\u2014who says a grocery tax should be unthinkable when the working class struggles like it does\u2014wanted every politician to at least have to face the public and vote. So Parker, with his thick, dark, Idaho-proud beard, in front of a room full of non-establishment Republicans, said, \u201cHas anyone asked the Democrats (to send the bill to the floor for a vote)?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Silence.<\/span><\/p>\n

Parker said, \u201cGive me 20 minutes\u201d and headed across the aisle (pretty much literally) to District 26 Sen. Michelle Stennett\u2019s office, who wasn\u2019t returning his text. How did it go when the 2nd Amendment-honoring man who \u2026 is not an elected official but spends significant time at the Capitol networking with elected officials telling them the concerns his hopeful-voters are telling him and was arrested and sent to prison at Bundy Ranch for pointing a rifle at federal agents \u2026 walked into the senator\u2019s office?<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI went in there with a smile and just got to the point,\u201d Parker said. \u201cShe was a total pro.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

And in that moment Parker and Stennett (OK, mostly Parker, but still) did something very rare in state capitols these days. They chose bipartisanship over the status quo, so they could do what they were sent to Boise to do: Vote on stuff, and even differently from one another if they so choose.<\/span><\/p>\n

It was an anomaly. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cAnd this shouldn\u2019t be an anomaly, this should be what we do,\u201d Parker said.<\/span><\/p>\n

A Primary Primary<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

In less than a month, Parker will face off against a member of his own party in order to face off against the eventual Democratic nominee in November. It\u2019s the first time he\u2019s had to do that, and one can tell it doesn\u2019t sit entirely easy with him.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cGeorge Washington warned us that partisan politics can destroy us,\u201d Parker said.<\/span><\/p>\n

And, he adds, his party\u2019s state platform is \u201cspot on.\u201d And then this is where any uneasiness lifts its face as Parker says some of his Republican colleagues (hint hint) do not seem to legislate that way.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

How accurate his opinion is on that or whether it will be enough to matter, only May and November will tell. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe labels put on me are not accurate. I\u2019m working for the people,\u201d Parker said.<\/span><\/p>\n

His big issues \u2026 correction, what he says are the big issues for the people in the community he talks to (he really is a populist) include:<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2022 Lava Ridge windmill project<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2022 Labeling citizen parents of public school students domestic terrorists<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2022 Tax reforms (grocery tax, property tax relief, and more)<\/span><\/p>\n

Parker feels he has the extra burden, though, to get his story out to the media. Because, here comes the irony of it all, eight years ago the media constantly put his story out there. And in some cases, it wasn\u2019t even his story, it was his image in a photograph, to add color and context to the Bundy story. It doesn\u2019t justify what Parker did\u2014he served time for it\u2014but it reveals the difficult position the media is in whenever Parker is in the news. Can you really tell an Eric Parker story and not use the words: Ammon, Bundy, ranch, rifle, militia,<\/em><\/del>? Perhaps!<\/span><\/p>\n

According to Parker, a reporter at the Idaho Mountain Express<\/i>\u2014the paper of record for the Valley\u2014had conducted a 45-minute interview with him on Senate Bill 1398. This is the bill that Parker says would\u2014essentially\u2014have protected all Idaho parents of public school children from being labeled a domestic terrorist by the federal government. It\u2019s a bill that last year passed in the House but not the Senate and vice versa this year. Go figure, and Parker says he can explain why, and did so to the reporter. Translation: The bill is getting significant support, but because one way to assert one\u2019s 1st Amendment right is to state the opinion that what Parker did at the Bundy Ranch is domestic terrorism, it can be easy to dismiss Parker\u2019s push for this bill as, perhaps, a vindication of sorts. <\/span><\/p>\n

Parker could explain to you until you turn blue in the face (or just turn \u201cblue\u201d) why the two situations are different. And the Idaho <\/i>Mountain Express<\/i> could justify (and do it honestly) why they journalistically don\u2019t see a news story there, but rather a marketing piece for the Parker for Idaho campaign. <\/span><\/p>\n

But at least the community is making it transparent and available now. Someone had to do it.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Republican primary hopeful Eric Parker aims to defy past, partisanship By Eric Valentine For a man who is seen by many in his state through a lens firmly embedded in his past, Eric Parker sure has a clear idea of the future. And it involves him sitting in the Idaho State Legislature as a Senator […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":17785,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","_pvb_checkbox_block_on_post":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[72,75,83,18],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-17777","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-community","8":"category-elections","9":"category-idaho","10":"category-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17777","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17777"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17777\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17836,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17777\/revisions\/17836"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17785"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17777"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17777"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17777"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}