Two offices, one spokesman: confused yet?

Jim Fisher

Wednesday, August 20, 2008

Is it a scandal that the campaign office for Bill Sali, representative of Idaho's 1st Congressional District in the U.S. House, is in the 2nd District, not the 1st?

In a word, no.

It might sound odd to Idahoans unfamiliar with Boise that any political candidate would rent a short-term campaign office in a political division other than the one he seeks to represent, as Sali has, but the plain fact is even most Boiseans can't tell you where the 1st District ends and the 2nd begins. That's because the capital city is not only the state's biggest, but it is so big it won't fit in either of Idaho's two House districts.

Because it is, every 10 years when a new line is drawn to divide the state into two districts of about equal population, Boise is divided as well. As a result, a location in one district can be moved to another without moving. And almost everyone is forced to consult a map to learn where the line, which is rarely straight, lies.

It matters little, therefore, that Sali's downtown campaign office is on the District 2 side of that line. What matters more is signaled by the defense that Sali's spokesman Wayne Hoffman offers for it.

"It's a convenient location," Hoffman says, "and it's a centralized location where people can interact easier with the congressional office."

It isn't easy, though, to see why having the campaign office close to Sali's taxpayer-financed congressional office would prove convenient for many people - other than Hoffman himself. That's because Sali has taken the unusual step of using his congressional spokesman also as his campaign spokesman.

Most incumbent politicians avoid that for good reason. Tax-paid spokesmen are forbidden from engaging in campaign activities while on the clock, so in most cases where they do that, they separate themselves from their official duties by taking a leave from those duties.

Not Hoffman, though. He's experienced at campaigning while also serving on the public payroll. During the 1996 election, he was a spokesman for Tom Luna's campaign for state school superintendent at the same time he worked as spokesman for the Idaho Department of Agriculture.

In truth, Hoffman says it was not at the same time. He says he carefully avoided doing any campaign work while on the state payroll. But one of Luna's rivals in the Republican primary, Steve Smylie of Boise, wasn't the only one confused by the former reporter's dual role.

This year, the same confusion led one of Hoffman's former employers, the Idaho Press-Tribune in Nampa, to call him on it. In an editorial, the conservative paper called his quick-change artistry from one role to another "unusual and inappropriate."

"It's a shell game," the editorial said. "The truth is, if he's handling campaign matters, he's not available at that time to answer questions in his official capacity as a spokesman for the office."

Hoffman responded intemperately, accusing the Press-Tribune of joining "the chorus of shrill news lemmings all marching willingly to a sea of liberalism, filth and innuendo."

One thing he left out was whether he was writing as the spokesman for Sali's congressional office, or for Sali's campaign. - J.F.