Companies lean on Idaho insiders to make government contacts

As French-owned nuclear services company Areva went hunting last month for someone to chat up Gov. C.L. “Butch” Otter on its proposed $2 billion uranium enrichment facility in Idaho, it sought an insider for the job.

It found Erika Malmen, who isn't just a former state Office of Species Conservation and U.S. Department of Interior lawyer; she's also wife of Jeff Malmen, who since the late 1990s guided Otter in his ascension from lieutenant governor to the U.S. House – and finally back to Boise as state chief executive starting in 2007.

Until November, he was Otter's chief of staff, quitting to work as a lobbyist for the Idaho Power Co. just two months before his wife was hired by Areva.

Erika Malmen is among a new generation of well-connected lobbyists working the halls of Idaho state government who are capitalizing not only on their smarts and professional training, but also on intangibles such as family ties, connections to the state's dominant Republican Party and former jobs in Idaho government that have made them more marketable to companies seeking an inside edge when influencing the public sector.

“You just move from chair to chair,” said Jasper LiCalzi, a professor of political economy at the College of Idaho in Caldwell. “If you are going to hire somebody to lobby, they're going to have to know the system. You're not going to hire somebody off the street. This isn't all that unusual, especially in a small state.”

Erika Malmen declined to comment. Jon Hanian, an Otter spokesman, says Malmen's nuptial affiliation to Otter's former second-in-command doesn't win her special treatment in gaining the governor's ear.

Still, like Malmen, many of the new lobbyists in the 2008 Legislature show deep connections, if not blood ties, to the state's GOP political establishment.

Just months ago, Jeremy Chou was a deputy attorney general for Republican Attorney General Lawrence Wasden; now, he's lobbying for beermaker Anheuser-Busch. Until recently, Martin Bilbao was on the Idaho Republican Party staff; now, he's advocating for Education Networks of America, a private company that provides Internet services to public schools.

This time last year, David Lehman was in Washington, D.C., working for U.S. Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne, a former Idaho governor. Lehman just started a lobbying firm with another former Kempthorne staffer, Scott Turlington.

Jayson Ronk, former director of the state Republican Party, has been hired as a lobbyist for the Idaho Association of Commerce and Industry. His wife, Megan Ronk, is a former Kempthorne staff lawyer who heads up Otter's Idaho Meth Project drug-prevention program.

And two generations of the Kunz family are now lobbying the Legislature. Kent Kunz, a former legislator from Pocatello and Kempthorne aide, is trying to convince Otter to back $3 million for the Center for Advanced Energy Research in Idaho Falls. Meanwhile, his wife, Kitty Kunz, was hired by the Idaho Association of Naturopathic Physicians.

And Joe Kunz, their 27-year-old son and the Idaho Republican Party's ex-political director, has also entered the lobbying fray, working for the Building Contractors Association of Southwestern Idaho.

“Lobbying in general has a lot to do with contacts,” said Joe Kunz, whose ties to the Idaho Legislature started when he was in high school as a legislative page. “Growing up and knowing the legislators, it makes it easier in approaching them and talking to them. It doesn't make it more likely that you'll convince them.”

The arrival of these new lobbyists on the scene comes on the heels of another cadre of young influence peddlers who emerged over the last decade and also benefited from deep ties to Idaho politics.

Ed Lodge, a lobbyist for Qwest Communications, is the son of Sen. Patty Anne Lodge, R-Huston, and U.S. District Judge Edward Lodge. Mike Reynoldson was a former state Republican Party director before signing on as chief lobbyist for Micron Technologies Inc. Jason Kreizenbeck was also a Micron lobbyist before taking over for Jeff Malmen as Gov. C.L. “Butch” Otter's chief of staff in December.

Older lobbyists have a moniker for this group: The “Bittercreek crowd,” so named for the downtown Boise alehouse where they can be found socializing with clients or lawmakers who retire here for a beer once the legislative day wanes.

Skip Smyser, a former Idaho legislator who has groomed some of these newcomers in his 14 years as a lobbyist for companies including cigarette maker Philip Morris, said it's no coincidence many new lobbyists first worked inside government or in the Idaho Republican Party, which controls 75 percent of the Legislature and all statewide offices.

Firsthand knowledge of the system – and the legislative players who run it – often translates into success as a lobbyist, he said.

“It's certainly a benefit if you've been involved in politics or been involved in the process,” Smyser said. “But the overwhelming requirement is you've got to like people in politics. You've got to be a people person.”

If he has any say in the matter, his own kin may one day put on the green name tags that signify the professional influence-peddling guild at the Idaho Capitol. Smyser's son and daughter are both students at the University of Idaho now, but he thinks they have the stuff to eventually work in the halls of government as lobbyists.

“They are both very interested in politics,” he said. “In our house, election night is the only thing that rivals Christmas.”