Wayne's bad Freedom Index bill

A confession of a crime against freedom

Twenty years ago, I left journalism and was hired as the special assistant to the director for Idaho’s Department of Agriculture. I’d be putting it politely if I called the job “an education” (along with a second job in government at the actual state Department of Education). I learned that government, generally speaking, sucks. It sucks the life out of people who believe in freedom as an essential part of the human experience, and it does so by sucking people’s hard-earned money away from them under the force of law.

Photo by James Baltz on Unsplash

The Department of Agriculture, at the time, managed something like 80 different programs, from regulating cattle operations and domestic elk farms to grading eggs and potatoes.

In one of my capacities at the department, I had to deal with emerging issues that Director Pat Takasugi decided needed attention but didn’t fall neatly into one of the agency’s program categories. One of those issues led to my writing and getting passed 2006’s House Bill 513 which gave the director of the department the authority to:

Cooperate with producers, industry and technology groups, and other agencies to encourage the growth of technology within the state’s agricultural industries while protecting, as necessary, the integrity of existing agriculture and agricultural marketing channels.

Those words are still in the law, in Idaho Code 22-103, as part of the duties of the director. Though these words were written by me, I had a hard time remembering exactly what they meant until I did some additional research.

A year before, the Legislature had a taskforce that was looking at biotechnology for economic development potential as well as potential challenges surrounding this area. I was invited to speak to the panel where I spoke a little too glowingly about a lot of very ungodly things like tax incentives (!), special funds for biotechnology research (!), and plants altered to have vaccines already built into them (!!).

If I had a time machine, I’d definitely go back and prevent that guy from giving his testimony. You can find an accurate rendering of my remarks in the taskforce’s minutes. I’d like to blame the legislative services staff at the time, Maureen Ingram or Toni Hobbs, for getting my remarks wrong, but alas they are correct.

Of course, if anyone said Wayne Hoffman is supportive of these policy positions today because of something he said 20 years ago, I’d have to point out that my track record against this stuff is very thorough.

More importantly, though, is the observation that the bill passed the House and Senate unanimously, which says a lot about the changing landscape of the Legislature. Even the few conservatives in office at the time voted yes. (Then-Sen. Russ Fulcher made the motion in the Senate Agricultural Affairs Committee to approve the legislation).

Today, the legislation would have earned at least a -1 on the Freedom Index for expanding the power of the director of the Department of Agriculture. I’d hazard a guess that the 2025 Idaho Legislature would have supported the legislation but likely with some more no votes.

If people are looking for an example of how I have given the state more power, this is the one and only example. And to the degree my work since 2009 has prevented more stuff like this from becoming law, you’re welcome.

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