The Statesman gives some recent (2008) history on the machinations…

House Minority Leader John Rusche, D-Lewiston, said the stakes in this latest gas tax debate are so small – just $36 per year for the average driver after 2013, according to the proposal Otter now insists on – that this surely must be about something more than just a tax hike. “This is about the hearts and minds of the Republican Party,” Rusche said

But the real pièce de résistance is this second post which gives it the smell of a Stalinistic purge (albeit without any real blood).

Meanwhile the Republican Party has lost the ability to effectively govern. It is no longer about what might be best for the state of Idaho. They are so consumed with their party war that the people of the state of Idaho are being left out in the cold.

As the Republicans move further to the far right, the ability to craft consensus legislation that serves the people is lost. Instead we get a litany of legislative initiatives that have unintended consequences, cater to the most conservative element of their party, are either unenforceable or represent empty messages instead of good public policy, or provide special interests with benefits at the expense of the people..

You see, our water is controlled by Suez (who’s one of the villains of the piece mentioned above), but I can only assume that since we’re not a village in third world country we won’t be treated to their same special level of service.

So while we in Boise revisit the Tragedy of the Commons in other resource realms, it won’t be with water resources, since we don’t control that. (Oh wise city fathers who hold to the tenet — as do so many of my fellow citizens today — that corporations and private enterprise can do no wrong and should be given full rein.) So comforted am I: We are in that pool whose water is owned by those who’ve bought it up worldwide, recognizing it as a commodity more precious even than petroleum, since one can live without one but not the other. (I was so amused, watching Flow, by a company man who — in his Marie Antoinette manner — advised that the poor just needed to prioritize and economize so that they could pay for the water they previously had access to in common. Profligate poor.)

This via my new favourite local happenings thoughts events blog, the unequivocal notion.