Church versus State
Church versus State: How Frank Church and Environmental Protection triumphed in Idaho[1]
Prepared for the Phi Alpha Theta Conference – Spring 2009
People wax poetic when they describe Idaho, even if they occasionally choose uncomplimentary descriptions. Early settler Charley Greenwood called Idaho “the country God forgot.”[2] A popular late 20th century slogan proclaimed: “Idaho is what America was!”[3] Jo Ann Ruckman, professor of History at Idaho State University said Idaho was “one of America’s least known and certainly least understood states.”[4] A character on NBC’s hit series The West Wing said that in Idaho “they use Democrats for target practice.”[5] Historical, scholarly, and popular culture references depict Idaho as a rustic, quaint, and conservative place. While that assessment carries a certain truth, Idahoans revere a Senator for whom they have named an Institute, a conference, a symposium, and a whole wilderness area. Frank Church, Democrat, champion of the environment, and a self-described strong liberal, served as United States Senator from Idaho for twenty-four years, and was the only Idahoan to ever win a presidential primary election in a major party.[6] Today, twenty-nine years after losing the 1980 election to opponent Steve Symms, Church remains the last Democrat to hold the office of United States Senator in Idaho.
Comedic as the West Wing quote may sound, fictitious President Bartlett’s equally fictitious Chief of Staff Leo McGarry made a valid point about Democrats and Idaho politics. Though Idaho Republicans do not actually use Democrats for target practice, they do outnumber them overwhelmingly. A 2009 Gallup poll lists Idaho as the third most Republican state in the union.[7] As Governor Cecil Andrus wrote in his autobiography, in Idaho, “any Democrat who hopes to stick around must have the adaptive skills of a coyote.”[8] Church’s political career and his environmental legislation succeeded in spite of the Sagebrush Rebellion and speak not only of his capabilities but of the challenges posed by Idaho voters. While insecurities about their water rights and jobs could sway Idaho constituents, Church instead appealed to their sense of fairness on matters of preservation. His idealism and his ability to remind Idahoans of their own better natures won him an unsurpassed legacy and secured wilderness areas for generations to come.
Annie Pike Greenwood, whose husband identified Idaho as God’s forgotten country, wrote about settling in Hazelton to farm. She described “nothing but sagebrush so far as eye could see” and wrote of the beauty of the Minidoka Mountains which “would hearten me, day after day, for tasks too heavy and circumstances too painful.”[9] The Greenwood family, like many others, journeyed to Idaho in pursuit of the opportunity to farm and to find their fortune. The abundance of cheap desert land, made available through the 1894 Carey Act and the Reclamation Act of 1902, lured settlers into Idaho where private entities built (and profited by) irrigation systems. The Carey Act transferred federal land to state ownership, states then sold the acreage to farmers while providing irrigation arrangements handled by an approved state engineer.[10] Irrigate all they might, Idaho’s hopeful new citizens discovered that the myth spun by the U.S. Reclamation Service was indeed just a myth.[11] America’s frontier dream consisted of bountiful crops won through hard work, but no amount of effort could change Idaho realities.
Those realities, harsh ones, clashed with misleading appearances in a land where rich volcanic soil supported endless reaches of sagebrush. Scholar and former state senator Karl Brooks called Idaho “the water-cup of the northwest.”[12] However, it is a water-cup resting, mostly, in high mountain desert. Water springs up from deep beneath the ground, it courses through in rivers bound for the Pacific, but it does not stay. The water rushes on, leaving the parched ground unfit for crops, unfit to fulfill settlers’ dreams. The earliest of the American settlers and explorers had gladly labeled the high mountain deserts of the American West as precisely that: desert. Then, interested parties such as the Union Pacific Railroad and the Bureau of Reclamation realized that if they wanted to see the West settled, the word desert could discourage newcomers. Promoters of settlement banned the word ‘desert’ from maps, decrying that single word of truth as “libel and bad publicity.”[13] The promise of dependable irrigation and the appealing sound of settlement in plains and valleys, but never deserts, lured disadvantaged but hopeful newcomers.
Most of the settlers tried to farm the southern portion of the state, where the bulk of the population resides to this day. 3.8 million of Idaho’s four million irrigated acres are in the Snake River Basin. The Snake River Plain’s average rainfall is less than ten inches per year, so far below the national average of thirty annual inches that it would take an abundance of faith or folly to try to farm in Southern Idaho.[14] They did try. As time went on, settlers learned that the miracle of irrigation had some serious flaws. Reservoirs leaked, canals clogged with weeds, and water seeped into low-lying lands to create useless, salinated bogs where nothing could grow. Farmers fought with insects and rodents and each other, even resorting to murder in battles over water rights.[15] The control and distribution of water necessitated a guarantee in the state’s constitution, that “the right to divert and appropriate the unappropriated water of any natural stream to beneficial uses, shall never be denied.”[16]
No politician, scholar, or citizen can overstate the importance of water rights in Idaho. As Annie Pike Greenwood wrote, “when a man stole your water, he committed grand larceny… he takes the clothes from your children’s backs, robs your wife of the medicine she probably needs, takes every penny out of your overalls pockets. It is no wonder that almost every year farmers are killed at the headgates.”[17] Contentions over water rights and the difficulty of irrigated farming fostered a lasting insecurity in Idaho culture, exacerbated by what Idahoans perceived as disregard from the federal government. Keenly felt hardships during WWI worsened the bleak Idahoan outlook when already-struggling farmers had to contribute to wartime food production below operating costs.[18] “We were paying high for the war,” wrote Greenwood, “yet all our prices were arbitrarily fixed by those who never thought of computing the cost of production; consequently we were able to pay almost no debts except labor costs. Good Old Grandma Government told us we must go into debt to feed some of her sons whom she had sent out to murder her neighbor’s boys.”[19]
The end of the war brought no relief. Renewed European production after the war and the wartime population growth that had encouraged farmers to increase holdings set the stage for economic collapse. Bank failures, low commodity prices, and crop surpluses struck Idaho early in the Great Depression. Between 1929 and 1932, farm income dropped by seventy-five million dollars.[20] The Greenwoods, along with most of their neighbors, lost their homes and their livelihoods. Corporate farming took over many of the failed homesteads, as Annie lamented that “scarcely any of the farmers in that sagebrush country have been able to hang onto the land.”[21] As technology changed the Western landscape, bringing factory and commercial-scale farming jobs, Idahoans survived, but retained the dislike of federal government that their grandparents had felt. The postwar era brought change to America, and to Idaho. Hydroelectricity, considered key to wartime production, brought new conveniences to the most rural of communities.[22] More dams created more electricity and provided more irrigation water for agriculture. The prosperity that launched the baby boomer generation launched a higher demand on natural resources and resource-based jobs. At the same time, however, more Americans discovered the joys of tourism and took an interest in the last untamed places the country offered. Thus had the stage been set for Idaho’s Hells Canyon High Dam controversy. Thus had the stage been set for Frank Church to begin his political career and set the course for Idaho’s environmental age.
Church did not win the office as Senator until the election of 1956, and by then the controversy of Hells Canyon had been decided: Idaho Power, and not the federally-funded Bonneville Power Administration (BPA), received permission to dam the Snake River in the area. Idaho Power, however, proposed to construct three much smaller dams than the one the BPA had designed. The Federal Power Commission licensed Idaho Power’s plans in 1955 and Congress and the Supreme Court ratified the decision in 1957, the same year Church took office.[23] The legal battle, over whether private industry or federally-subsidized power interests should utilize public resources, had taught Idahoans a valuable lesson. With existing laws, they could defy and even defeat the federal government they had so long resented. Their success bolstered their faith in their own independence even as the memory of the controversy fueled their distrust of outsiders in general and federal policy in particular. In the 1960s awareness of health and safety hazards grew while concern for environmental preservation increased. Problematically for politicians, though, where Idahoans had largely agreed to preserve Hells Canyon and support Idaho Power, their reactions to conservation legislation lacked such uniformity.
Natural resources had long provided the basis for Idaho’s economy, through agriculture, mining, and logging. Church understood his constituents’ priorities, an understanding reflected in his own statement: “We can’t threaten their pocketbooks. If it is really a choice of conservation or their job, they’ll take their job.”[24] Though he initially defended wilderness without much fanfare, circumstance placed him in a difficult but fateful position. In 1961 Clinton Anderson, a Democratic Senator from New Mexico, introduced a wilderness bill that caused Idahoans to fret over potential economic losses should the bill endanger their resource-based jobs. Anderson fell ill before could take the wilderness bill to the Senate floor for debate. He asked Frank Church to take on the responsibility. Church, though he suspected Idahoans did not favor the bill and that his support of it could hurt his chance for reelection in 1962, agreed.[25] Idahoans thereafter referred to it as “the Church Wilderness Bill” and by Church’s own admission, “No other politician in either party stood with me, and, as the election approached, most of them joined in a chorus of calamity over the awful fate in store for Idaho.”[26] Not only politicians, but Idahoans disparaged the bill. The Wilderness Bill’s proponents, considered enemies to the hard-working men and women in the lumber, mining, and cattle industries, fell under criticism from the editor of the Idaho Statesman who held forth that “The Wilderness Bill is nothing more than a further attempt to force a bureaucratic government on Idaho people.”[27] Grim though the situation looked, nationwide Cold War concerns overshadowed local arguments. Within days of the 1962 election, Church spent his time in Washington as the Cuban missile crisis reached a favorable conclusion. He won over fifty percent of the vote, carrying more than three quarters of Idaho’s counties, a success which Professor LeRoy Ashby and journalist Rod Gramer attributed in part to the positive outcome of the missile crisis.[28]
With his position secured, Church worked throughout the mid-1960s to protect not only Idaho’s wilderness, but to enact legislation to preserve environmental quality throughout the nation. The Wilderness Act became law in 1964 and Church followed it with the Wild and Scenic Rivers Act of 1968. The damming of Idaho rivers, for agriculture and for hydroelectricity, had depleted runs of Chinook salmon and steelhead trout. Through both genuine ignorance and deliberate disregard, the logging and mining industries had destroyed once-rich spawning beds while cattle damaged valuable riparian habitat by foraging on river banks. Ed Chaney, director of the Northwest Resource Information Center, identified the foundation of the problem: “for the past three quarters of a century a man or woman could come and go and do pretty much as he or she pleased and the rivers take the hindmost.”[29] With the Wild and Scenic Rivers Act, Church fought to preserve some of Idaho’s pristine waterways and protect a portion of salmon and steelhead habitat.
From a 21st century vantage point, the success of that 1968 Act does not look terribly surprising. At the time, however, Stewart Udall, Secretary of the Interior throughout the 1960s, described Idaho as a state “in the grip of the user interests – the timber, mining and other interests.”[30] Udall had not mentioned, however, the number of Idahoans interested in the environment. From hunters to fishers, boaters to hikers, and those wanting to camp, picnic, explore on trail bikes or on horseback, Idaho’s outdoors bustled with people who believed in their right to enjoy public lands. Citizens, like Roger Biddiscombe, wrote to encourage Church “to keep the whole Salmon River from its source to the Snake River, as wild as it is now.” Idahoans not only contacted Church in support of the bill, they asked for even more preservation, as did Mrs. Edward F. Bailey who asked for inclusion of the lower Salmon River and William Jones Jr. who requested that the bill protect the Selway River. Support for Church came from across the nation, as the chairman for the American White Water Affiliation D. K. Bradley wrote in praise of “a vigorous liberal and conservationist” and reminded Church “to prod the Forest Service… they seem to forget that watershed protection is as important a part of their job as timber harvest.”[31]
Naturally, not everyone appreciated Church’s efforts, and they made their views known. Idaho’s Cattlemen’s Association protested the proposed National System of Hiking Trails on the grounds that “Our modern civilization is not walking-minded and, therefore, walking trails are certainly impractical.”[32] Such resistance had a polar opposite in conservation lobbyists, who felt “Church is not going far enough,” in regards to conservation issues, but allowed that “if you consider his constituency, he’s doing pretty well.”[33] Church issued newsletters informing constituents of issues and his position, and he mailed postcard ballots asking for public response on propositions. He traveled the state, making appearances in county courthouses and striking up conversations in small town diners, finding out how Idahoans felt. An early 1960s poll showed not only a majority of voter approval for Church, but that voters liked him personally.[34]
The late 1960s brought some uncertain and stressful times to Church’s career as controversy over the Vietnam War and Cold War fears worried Idaho citizens. Church fell under fire from conservatives who criticized his opposition to the war in Vietnam, a matter exacerbated when two men from northern Idaho started a recall petition against Church after the Senator supported a 1967 treaty allowing the United States to construct a consulate in Leningrad. The plan backfired, however, when Idahoans learned wealthy Californian conservatives had funded the petitions and related literature. Leading Republicans Senator Len Jordon and Governor Don Samuelson denounced the recall, and other Idahoans responded with disdain at outside attempts to influence Idaho politics. One elderly voter, Republican Fred Boynton, spoke in favor of Church, that “The people of Idaho voted him into office and the people of Idaho will vote him out of office when they damned well please.”[35] Despite his title of Democrat and his reputation as an environmentally-minded liberal, Church had proven to Idaho that he served their best interests and Idahoans, in return, defended him as one of their own.
As Idaho moved into the 1970s, voters continued to support Church’s conservation efforts. Pocatello’s Idaho State Journal wrote, “Frank Church made a commendable move when he decided to conduct a postcard poll of some 50,000 of his constituents” on the proposed Sawtooth National Park and moratorium on Salmon River dam construction.[36] At the same time, Perry Swisher of the Pocatello Intermountain paper reminded voters to decide their own positions before outside forces got too involved, reminding Idahoans that “we are politically and strategically among the weakest states in the union, if we are not the weakest.”[37] Especially in regards to preservation, Idahoans reacted with extreme distrust and suspicion of non-Idahoan forces. In some cases, that distrust hindered preservation goals, when it surfaced as a belief that wilderness legislation served only eastern millionaires who regarded Idaho as a playground for fishing trips. “This argument,” Church told attendees of the 1977 Wilderness Resource Distinguished Lectureship series, “widely circulated and surprisingly believed, was enough to blow the mind.” [38] Church reminded constituents that preserving their wild lands meant leaving something for their children, emphasizing his view that: “I can think of no finer patrimony for our grandchildren than to leave this region in the same untamed condition in which it was left to us by the Creator himself.”[39]
In 1976, Church ran in the presidential primary on the Democratic ticket. He entered the race with less than optimum timing, announcing his candidacy in mid-March. To those who thought his decision had come too late, Church responded that “it’s never too late – nor are the odds too great – to try.”[40] Indeed, Church won four states in the primaries: Idaho, Oregon, Montana, and Nebraska. When Church decided to step out of the primary election, and voiced his support for Jimmy Carter, Carter briefly considered Church for his running mate. That possibility, too, disappeared when Carter chose Walter Mondale instead.[41] That Church ran at all, that he carried four states, remains a fantastic irony. The liberal Democrat from a conservative Republican state, who had championed unpopular causes, who had criticized spending for the Vietnam War in opposition of the President and his own political party, who had proven his willingness to listen to those who disagreed with and even disliked him, spoke to crowds with such eloquence that journalist Steve Ahrens said it gave him goosebumps when he listened to Church’s campaign speeches.[42]
Church returned to Idaho when his bid for the presidential election reached its end, but his political career continued as the Sagebrush Rebellion brought new threats to Idaho’s public land and environment. Astonishing and even misguided as it seemed, Idahoans’ dislike of outsiders worked in favor of preservation. Their time-honored reverence for water rights made them resent and resist any suggestion for diversion of Idaho water out-of-state, but particularly to the southwest. While Sagebrush Rebels in neighboring states shared Idahoans’ resentment for federal policy, Idahoans remained suspicious of their Western neighbors. Church soothed Idahoan fears when he promised, “As long as I am in a senior position on the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, there will be no diversion of water out of the Northwest.”[43] In addition to his staunch defense of water, Church continued to seek public opinion. In the first session of the 86th Congress, on the issue of salmon conservation, Church stated “I would hope to sit with… and to listen to the points of view expressed by those people in the Northwest who have a lifelong and vital interest in the Columbia River and the Salmon River.”[44] Again and again Church proved his desire to serve his constituents through his willingness to hear their opinions. His conservation efforts faced more challenges when Western attitudes toward the environmental movement worsened, but Church won a valuable ally: Ted Trueblood, fellow Idahoan and editor for Field and Stream magazine.
During the 1980 election campaign, Trueblood’s own group “Save our Public Lands” joined forces with eighteen other organizations and individuals to form “Outdoorsmen for Church.” They supported the Democratic Senator and outdoor values, listing Church’s environmental achievements as victories for outdoor enthusiasts and their rallying statement was a simple and heartfelt one: Idaho wins with Church. They urged the re-election of Church because they considered him “not only the best friend we have among Idaho’s Congressional delegation; on many issues, he is our only friend.” Church himself spoke against the Sagebrush Rebellion, telling Idahoans that “a deeper look at this scheme reveals its true purpose, namely to take the land which all of us own together and place it in the hands of special interests.”[45] Ultimately, the Sagebrush Rebellion failed, in Idaho and in the West. Unfortunately, Church also failed to win the 1980 election. Not through his conservation efforts, for Church had won the approval of outdoors enthusiasts as well as those who made their living from natural resources. So well did he establish a workable middle ground that the president of Idaho Lumber Incorporated wrote to Church in of support the National Forest Timber Conservation Act. “This bill is being attacked under the guise of conservation,” wrote Arthur Johnson, adding that, “this attack is not justified, and as the bill as it now stands would produce necessary timber management and… assist in commercial timber production.”[46] Church educated his constituents and fulfilled his duty in representing labor interests along with conservation.
Church lost the 1980 election through a combination of non-environmental factors, including Carter’s early concession of the presidential race, powerful conservative campaigning at local and national levels, and his support of the Carter-Torrijos Treaties that would relinquish America’s ownership of the Panama Canal. Church, who saw the chance to improve relations with Central America and thought that the aging canal system no longer met America’s military or financial needs, supported the treaties. Americans, however, felt differently. A May 1977 poll revealed that seventy-eight percent of Americans, and seventy-nine percent of Idahoans, wanted to maintain control of the Panama Canal.[47] Church’s support of the unpopular treaties made him an especial target of the Republic National Committee’s Senatorial Campaign, which as early as 1978 worked to defeat liberal, Democratic Senators. The following year, 1979, saw the National Conservative Political Action Committee’s creation: the “A.B.C. – Anybody But Church” campaign. Conservatives’ efforts forced Church to take a position on every issue while their television ads highlighted his liberal record.[48]
He lost a close race. He lost by only 4,262 votes, less than one percent of the overall. Three of Idaho’s strongest Church-supporting counties (Kootenai, Nez Perce, and Latah) along with the rest of northern Idaho in the Pacific Time Zone, showed a 5.6 percent drop in voter turnout due to Carter’s early concession to Reagan, announced at 9:45 p.m. Eastern Time.[49] At the end of his career, in a letter to the president of the American Wilderness Alliance, Church wrote, “As I look back on twenty-four years of public service in the U.S. Senate, there is no cause to which I have been more personally committed than the cause of wilderness preservation.”[50] While his environmental legacy survives as the most well-known of his achievements, scholars and politicians can look to Church’s example, whether they hope to affect Idaho, or the whole nation. Church did not lead so much as he served, and he served with the faith that his constituents would support fair and responsible legislation. As great as his legacy, of untrammeled forests and rushing rivers, was his hope in the better side of human nature. A message from his presidential primary campaign summed up his career, and his life, better than any scholar or biographer has. “I believe,” said Frank Church, “in the power of principle and the power of ideas.”[51]
[1] This paper was derived from the author’s master’s thesis, a larger work which explains how Idaho’s settlement and Idahoans’ relationship to environment and government established Idahoan identity.
[2] Annie Pike Greenwood, We Sagebrush folks, p. 13.
[3] Michael Frome, “River of No Return,” Adventure Travel, May 1980, p. 55.
[4] Jo Ann Ruckman, forward: We Sagebrush Folks, xviii.
[5] Eli Attie, “Constituency of One,” The West Wing, NBC, air date 11/29/2003.
[6] Carol Payne and Margaret Carpenter, Frank Church, Democratic Senator from Idaho: Ralph Nader Congress Project: Citizens Look at Congress, (Washington, D.C.: Grossman Publishers, 1972), 7.
[7] “State of the States: Political Party Affiliation,” Gallup, 01/28/08, http://www.gallup.com/poll/114016/State-States-Political-Party-Affiliation.aspx (accessed 2/19/2009).
[8] Cecil Andrus and Joel Connelly, Cecil Andrus: Politics Western Style, (Seattle, WA: Sasquatch Books, 1998), 40.
[9] Greenwood, We Sagebrush Folks, 13.
[10] Christian Petrich, Margie Wilkins, Tondee Clark, and Tony Morse, “Canals and Irrigation,” Digital Atlas of Idaho, (Idaho State University, Pocatello, ID, November, 2002), http:/imnh.isu.edu/digitalatlas/hydr/cnlsirr/cnlfr.htm (accessed 2/16/2009).
[11] Mark Fiege, Irrigated Eden, (Seattle, WA: University of Washington Press, 1999), 143.
[12] Karl Brooks, “It Happened in Hells Canyon: How Idahoans Invented Environmental Law,” (lecture, Idaho History Center, Boise, ID, July 30, 2008).
[13] Donald Worster, Rivers of Empire, (New York, NY: Pantheon Books, 1985), 69.
[14] Tim Palmer, The Snake River: Window to the West, (Washington, D.C.: Island Press, 1991), 33, 90.
[15] Fiege, Irrigated Eden, 25, 30-31, 58-59, 82-83.
[16] Andrus and Connelly, Cecil Andrus, Politics Western Style, 125.
[17] Greenwood, We Sagebrush Folks, 380.
[18] Merle Wells and Arthur A. Hart, Idaho: Gem of the Mountains, (Northridge, CA: Windsor Publications Inc., 1985), 120.
[19] Greenwood, We Sagebrush Folks, 339.
[20] Wells and Hart, Idaho,120, 123, 127.
[21] Fiege, Irrigated Eden, 118 and Greenwood, We Sagebrush Folks, 451.
[22] Brooks, 143.
[23] Ibid., 4-5.
[24] Payne and Carpenter, Frank Church, 15.
[25] LeRoy Ashby and Rod Gramer, Fighting the Odds: The Life of Senator Frank Church, Pullman, WA: Washington State University Press, 1994. 146-47.
[26] Payne and Carpenter, Frank Church, 15. And Frank Church, “Wilderness in a Balanced Land Use Framework,” Lewiston, ID: University of Idaho Wilderness Research Center, 1977, p. 2.
[27] Editor’s note, response to “Wilderness Bill’s Defender Speaks,” Idaho Statesman, 8/27/1961.
[28] Ashby and Gramer, 155-56.
[29] Ed Chaney, “A Question of Balance:Water/Energy – Salmon and Steelhead Production in the Upper Columbia River Basin Summary Report,” p. 11, November 1978, Ted Trueblood Collection, MSS 89, Box 6, Folder 7.
[30] Ashby and Gramer, 345.
[31] Letter to Frank Church, Roger Biddiscombe, 4/22/1965. Letter to Frank Chuch, Mrs. Edward F. Bailey, 4/23/1965. Letter to Frank Church, William Jones Jr., 4/19/1965, Letter to Frank Church, D. K. Bradley, 3/9/1965, Frank Church Papers, MSS 56, Box 156, Folder 6.
[32] Letter to Frank Church, Idaho Cattlemen’s Association, 4/22/1966, Frank Church Papers, MSS 56 Box 69, Folder 10.
[33] Payne and Carpenter, Frank Church, 15.
[34] Ashby and Gramer, 153.
[35] Ibid., 237, 241-42.
[36] “A Sawtooth National Park?” Idaho State Journal editorial, Pocatello, ID, 29/1960.
[37] Perry Swisher, “Church Proving His Worth In Sawtooth Plan,” Pocatello Intermountain, c. Feb. 1960, Fred Hutchison Papers, MSS 124, Box 4, Folder 12.
[38] Church, Wilderness in a Balanced Land Use Framework, p. 3, 14. University of Idaho Wilderness Research Center, 3/21/1977, Ted Trueblood Collection, MSS 89, Box 1, Folder 10.
[39] Frank Church, “The River of No Return Wilderness – What it means for Idaho,” Fred Hutchison Papers, MSS 124, Box 8, Folder 13.
[40] Ashby and Gramer, Fighting the Odds, 502.
[41] Bethine Church, A Lifelong Affair: My Passion for People and Politics, (Washington, D.C.: The Francis Press, 2003), 245.
[42] Ashby and Gramer, Fighting the Odds, 512.
[43] “Water plans spark concern in Northwest,” Lonnie Rosenwald, Statesman Valley, 8/31/1979, Ted Trueblood Collection, MSS 89, Box 6, Folder 5.
[44] Proceedings and Debates of the 86th Congress, First Session, Vol. 105 No. 145, 8/24/1959. Ted Trueblood Collection, MSS 89, Box 1, Folder 9.
[45] Outdoorsmen for Church, campaign mailing, 8/22/1980, and Frank Church, “Maintaining Idaho’s Quality of Life,” 10/20/1980, Ted Trueblood Collection, MSS 89, Box 6, Folder 6.
[46] Arthur B. Johnson, Letter to Frank Church, 2/16/1970. Frank Church Papers, MSS 56, Box 135, Folder 13.
[47] Ashby and Gramer, 540-541.
[48] Ron Hatzenbuehler and Bert W. Marley, “Why Church Lost: A Preliminary Analysis of the Church-Symms Election of 1980,” The Pacific Historical Review, Vol. 56, No. 1 (Feb. 1987), pp. 99 – 112, 107-109.
[49] Ibid., 99, 105.
[50] Frank Church, letter to Sally A. Ranney, 12/12/1980, Fred Hutchison Papers, MSS 124, Box 2, Folder 25.
[51] Ashby and Gramer, Fighting the Odds, 508.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
PRIMARY SOURCES
Manuscript and Archival Collections
Frank Church Papers, Special Collections, Albertsons Library, Boise State University, Boise, Idaho.
Fred Hutchison Papers, Special Collections, Albertsons Library, Boise State University, Boise, Idaho.
Ted Trueblood Collection, Special Collections, Albertsons Library, Boise State University, Boise, Idaho.
Published Sources
Andrus, Cecil and Joel Connelly. Cecil Andrus: Politics Western Style. Seattle, WA: Sasquatch Books, 1998.
Greenwood, Annie Pike. We Sagebrush Folks, Moscow, ID: University of Idaho Press, 1988.
Newspapers
Idaho State Journal, Pocatello.
Idaho Statesman, Boise.
Other Sources
Attie, Eli. “Constituency of One,” The West Wing, NBC, air date 11/29/2003.
Brooks, Karl. “It Happened in Hells Canyon: How Idahoans Invented Environmental Law.” Lecture. Idaho History Center, Boise, ID, July 30, 2008.
SECONDARY SOURCES
Ashby, LeRoy and Rod Gramer. Fighting the Odds: The Life of Senator Frank Church. Pullman, WA: Washington State University Press, 1994.
Fiege, Mark. Irrigated Eden. Seattle, WA: University of Washington Press, 1999.
Frome, Michael. “River of No Return,” Adventure Travel, May 1980.
Hatzenbuehler, Ron and Bert W. Marley. “Why Church Lost: A Preliminary Analysis of the Church-Symms Election of 1980.” The Pacific Historical Review, Vol. 56, No. 1 (Feb.1987): 99 – 112.
Palmer, Tim. The Snake River: Window to the West. Washington, D.C.: Island Press, 1991.
Payne, Carol and Margaret Carpenter. Frank Church, Democratic Senator from Idaho: Ralph Nader Congress Project: Citizens Look at Congress. Washington, D.C.: Grossman Publishers, 1972.
Petrich, Christian, Margie Wilkins, Tondee Clark, and Tony Morse. “Canals and Irrigation,” Digital Atlas of Idaho. (Idaho State University, Pocatello, ID, November, 2002). http:/imnh.isu.edu/digitalatlas/hydr/cnlsirr/cnlfr.htm (accessed 2/16/2009).
“State of the States: Political Party Affiliation.” Gallup, 01/28/08. http://www.gallup.com/poll/114016/State-States-Political-Party-Affiliation.aspx (accessed 2/19/2009).
Wells, Merle and Arthur A. Hart. Idaho: Gem of the Mountains. Northridge, CA: Windsor Publications Inc., 1985.
Worster, Donald. Rivers of Empire. New York, NY: Pantheon Books, 1985.