Welcome back. We are so thrilled you could join
us today for another custom tailored deep dive.
Yeah, we really are. I'm excited for this one.
And I have to be completely transparent right
up front. Oh, boy. When I first looked at the
source material we are covering today, I was
a little skeptical. Honestly, I don't blame you.
And you listening might be, too, because on its
surface, today's source is a seemingly dry Wikipedia
article titled List of United States Senators
from Idaho. Right. It is essentially a giant
chronological table. Of names, dates and party
affiliations. It's a huge spreadsheet, basically.
Yeah. Not exactly a thriller novel at first glance.
It really isn't. You scroll through and see columns
labeled class two and class three and rows of
electoral history. Those tiny, dense footnotes.
Oh, the footnotes. So you are probably asking
yourself, why are we dedicating a deep dive to
a simple grid of data? It's a fair question.
Well, because Hidden Right There, buried within
this very rigid, organized framework, is a wildly
entertaining story. It really is. It is a story
of political musical chairs, sudden tragedies,
bizarre party switching, and the downright chaotic
maturation of the American West. It is a perfect
example of how data is never just data. Right.
A spreadsheet or Wikipedia table is essentially
a fossil record. If you know how to read it,
you can see the dinosaurs that left the footprint.
I love that analogy. In this case, the source
tracks Idaho's Senate delegation from the very
moment of its statehood in 1890 all the way to
the present day. Even projecting forward into
the upcoming 2026 and 2028 elections. Exactly.
OK, let's unpack this, starting with those mysterious
column headers I just mentioned, because they
actually set the stage for how this whole system
works. Right. The classes. Yeah. The source divides
the senators into class two and class three.
And just as a quick reminder for you listening
who might not obsess over congressional procedure,
those classes refer to the staggered election
cycles of the United States Senate. Because they.
Don't all run at once. Precisely. The framers
of the Constitution designed the chamber so that
only one third of the Senate is up for reelection
every two years. To prevent a complete overnight
turnover. Exactly. Every state gets two senators
and they are always assigned to two different
classes. So they never run for reelection in
the exact same year. Which creates a really fascinating
rhythm to a state's political timeline. It really
does. So keeping that rhythm in mind. Let's look
at the very beginning of the timeline where we
find our first major oddity. The statehood limbo.
Yes. Idaho officially joined the union on July
3, 1890. Right. But if you look at the table
for the very first two senators, George Shoup
and William McConnell, their terms do not start
on July 3. They don't. They didn't take office
until December 18, 1890. Almost six months later.
There is nearly a six -month gap where this...
Brand new, fiercely independent state, just didn't
have any senators representing it in Washington,
D .C. Which is a brilliant historical detail.
Today, if there's a vacancy or a new seat, we
expect immediate action. A governor just appoints
someone? Right, or a special election is swiftly
organized. But in 1890, the United States was
operating under the original constitutional rules
for electing senators. Which was completely different.
They were chosen by state legislatures. not by
a direct popular vote of the people. That shift
to a popular vote didn't happen until the 17th
Amendment was ratified decades later in 1913.
Exactly. So imagine the reality on the ground
in Idaho on July 4, 1890. Day one of statehood.
Day one. They are a brand new state. They don't
have a fully functioning, sitting state legislature
ready to just convene and vote on who goes to
Washington. Building a state government from
scratch takes immense time and coordination.
It's massive. They had to organize voting districts
across rugged mountainous terrain, hold local
elections to actually form that state legislature.
Physically convene those newly elected local
officials. And then finally hold a floor vote
to select Shoup and McConnell. It's like having
to build the airplane while you were already
falling out of the sky. Exactly. That almost
six -month limbo is a stark reminder to you listening
of the massive logistical hurdles involved in
adding a new star to the flag. It wasn't just
a flip of a switch. No, it was a grueling administrative
process across a frontier landscape. And even
after they were selected, you have to factor
in the sheer physical logistics of the era. The
travel alone. Right. Traveling from Boise, Idaho
to Washington, D .C. in the dead of winter in
1890 was a multi -day arduous journey by train.
So the delay wasn't just political, it was geographic.
Very much so. You know, before we move past this,
I want to jump forward for just a second because
there is a fantastic modern quirk that contrasts
so perfectly with those early days. Oh, the seniority
thing. Yes. Idaho is currently one of only 14
states, alongside places like California, Pennsylvania,
and Georgia, with a very specific demographic
quirk. It completely upends how we view seniority.
In the Senate, you have a senior senator and
a junior senator based purely on... on how long
they've been serving in the chamber. Right. Right
now, the senior senator is Mike Crapo, serving
since 1999. The junior senator is Jim Risch,
serving since 2009. But the quirk is that the
senior senator, Crapo, is actually younger in
physical age than the junior senator, Risch.
It's such a great little detail. Congress time
is measured by incumbency, not your birth certificate.
You can be the elder statesman in age. But if
you just won your first election, you are the
junior member getting the worst office in the
building. Exactly. OK, let's go back to those
early frontier days, because that reality makes
the early party politics of the state look completely
alien compared to today. Oh, absolutely. If you
think modern politics is rigid and deeply polarized.
You have to hear about the era of the Silver
Republicans. Such a great era. Because there
is one name on this list that just defies every
conventional rule of modern party loyalty. You
are talking about Fred Dubois. Yes. He is arguably
one of the most fascinating characters in this
entire historical record. I completely agree.
His timeline is pure chaos. I tracked his electoral
history through the source, and it is a roller
coaster. It really is. He was first elected to
the Senate in 1890 as a Republican. Simple enough.
Standard starting point. But then he loses his
reelection bid and the table lists him running
as a silver Republican. Right. He vanishes from
the Senate for a few years, but in 1901, he manages
to get elected again. To the stage other Senate
seats. Yes. Still flying the banner of a silver
Republican. Then midterm, he completely changes
his party affiliation and becomes a Democrat
before eventually losing reelection under that
new label. What's fascinating here is how much
the Bois shifting labels tell us about the era.
They really do. And to be absolutely clear to
you listening, we are not taking any political
sides here. No, not at all. We weren't endorsing
the platforms of the 1890s or projecting them
onto today. We were simply analyzing the historical
record. Exactly. And that record shows that the
Silver Republican faction wasn't just some quirky
nickname or minor disagreement. It represented
a massive foundational schism in American politics.
Unpacking that schism is crucial because it wasn't
about abstract political philosophy. It was about
raw economics. It was entirely about the lifeblood
of the Western economy. Right. During this period,
the national bimetallism debate was raging. The
Eastern banking establishments and the National
Republican Party were generally leaning heavily
toward the gold standard. But in the American
West, and specifically in states like Idaho,
silver mining was a massive economic driver.
Westerners, many of whom were heavily indebted
farmers and miners, fiercely advocated for the
free silver movement. They wanted silver, coined
alongside gold, to expand the money supply and
make their debts easier to pay. So when the national
Republican platform threatened to devastate that
local silver -backed economy, politicians like
Dubois didn't just fall in line and issue a polite
press release. They fractured the entire party.
They did. Dubois' journey highlights the extreme
fluidity of early state politics. When the national
party apparatus collided with the fierce local
economic realities of the frontier loyalty to
the state's primary industry, absolutely trumped
loyalty to a national political brand. Imagine
a modern politician doing that today. Getting
elected as a staunch partisan, realizing the
national platform doesn't fit their state's main
industry, creating their own breakaway third
-party mid -career, winning an election under
that new rebel faction. eventually just shrugging
and joining the opposition party entirely. Twitter
would completely melt down. The news cycle would
be in shambles. But for Dubois and his voters,
it was just survival. The rules were still being
written and the electorate was willing to reward
a politician who adapted to protect their livelihoods,
regardless of the letter next to his name. OK,
here's where it gets really interesting. We need
to talk about what I can only describe as the
cursed era of Idaho's Senate seats. Cursed is
definitely the right word. If you look at this
timeline from roughly 1912 to 1962, a 50 -year
span, the data reveals a staggering era of tragedy
and turnover. The mortality rate is genuinely
difficult to comprehend when looking at a modern
legislature. It is. If you trace the 50 years
between 1912 and 1962, seven different sitting
senators died while holding office. Seven. And
as a quick historical footnote, the source mentions
Frank Church also passed away, though. It occurred
just after his long tenure ended in 1981. But
seven men... dying while actively serving in
a 50 year window is a grim statistic. Very grim.
That's a staggering mortality rate for one state's
small delegation. No wonder the political landscape
is so volatile. It really makes you wonder why.
Was it the grueling multi -day train travel back
and forth from Idaho to D .C. before the era
of widespread commercial flights? The intense
stress of the era. Whatever the cause, it turned
the state's representation into a chaotic game
of roulette. Politically, it created an unbelievable
dynamic. When a senator dies in office, it creates
an immediate vacancy. And those sudden vacancies
triggered a revolving door of temporary appointments,
high stakes special elections and intense political
musical chairs that you just do not see in modern
times. The John Thomas saga is the wildest example
of this. Oh, I was mapping out his timeline and
it is absurd. Tell them about it. So Frank Gooding
dies in office in 1928. John Thomas is appointed
by the governor to finish Gooding's term. Okay.
Thomas then wins a special election to hold the
seat, but a few years later, he loses his re
-election bid. So as Senate Cruz seems over,
he goes home. Exactly. Twelve years pass. A long
time. Then in 1940, another senator dies in office.
And who gets appointed to take that newly vacant
seat? John Thomas. John Thomas. He essentially
became the state's go -to understudy for Senate
tragedies. That's exactly what he was. He gets
appointed. loses the job, waits an entire decade,
and gets called up to the majors again to fill
a completely different deceased man's seat. And
the irony is he eventually became part of that
same tragic statistic, dying in office himself
in 1945. Which set off an absolute ping pong
match of a rivalry between two other politicians.
Henry Dvorshak and Burt Miller. The Dvorshak
and Miller sequence is a Shakespearean level
of political fortune and misfortune. Let's look
at the mechanics of it. John Thomas dies in 1945.
brief interim appointment. Henry Dworkak, a Republican,
wins a special election in 1946 to finish the
term. So Dworkak is now the incumbent senator.
But his victory is incredibly short lived. In
the regular 1948 election, Dworkak loses his
seat to a Democrat, Burt Miller. Miller heads
to Washington and takes office in January 1949.
But tragically, Miller dies just 10 months later
in October 1949. Creating yet another vacancy.
And the governor at the time immediately appoints
Henry Dworkak to fill the seat. The very guy
who just lost the seat a year prior gets appointed
right back into the exact same chair because
the man who beat him passed away. You couldn't
write a script like that and have people believe
it. No, you really couldn't. If we connect this
to the bigger picture, you have to ask yourself
who actually benefits from all this high turnover
and sudden mortality. And the answer is the state
governors. This era. handed immense, unprecedented
power to the executive branch back in Idaho.
Because they held the keys to the kingdom every
time a tragedy struck. Exactly. Every time a
seat suddenly opened up, the governor had the
constitutional authority to unilaterally appoint
a replacement to head to Washington. They were
constantly shifting the balance of power. Choosing
who got a massive leg up of incumbency in the
next special election. This mechanism led to
some incredibly short Almost phantom -like terms
in the Senate. I noticed one term that was so
brief it barely registered. Kirtland Perky. Yes.
The source shows Perky, a Democrat, was appointed
to continue a term after a death in 1912. He
served from November 18, 1912 to February 6,
1913. That is less than three months. He was
practically unpacking his bags in Washington,
D .C., when his term ended because a successor
was elected. It highlights how volatile representation
was for the people of Idaho during that half
century. You had representatives who barely had
time to learn the rules of the Senate chamber,
let alone build any meaningful seniority or influence
before they were replaced by someone else. And
it wasn't just debts causing this revolving door.
No. The table shows a few other dramatic exits
that really emphasize how stepping into the Senate
wasn't always seen as the ultimate. final career
destination. It is largely viewed as today. Look
at John F. Nugent in 1921. He simply resigns
the Senate seat to become a federal trade commissioner.
Which today would be seen as a highly unusual,
almost inexplicable career move. Leaving the
United States Senate one of the most exclusive
legislative bodies in the world for an appointed
regulatory commission role. But at the time,
D .C. wasn't necessarily the center of the universe
for a Western politician. We see that local pull
even closer to our modern era with Dirk Kempthorne.
Right. He was elected in 1992, reelected in 1996.
But then in 1999, he voluntarily retires from
the Senate entirely just so he can go back home
and run for governor of Idaho. It shows that
the locus of power, the real ability to affect
change in the minds of some of these leaders,
still rested heavily back in the state capital
of Boise. The draw of local executive power,
the ability to directly manage the state's resources
and lands was enough to pull a sitting U .S.
senator away from Capitol Hill. Definitely. But
amid all this chaos, all these three -month terms,
sudden tragedies, party switches and resignations,
there is one glaring massive exception in the
historical record. The absolute record holder.
William Borough. Borough was a titan of the Senate.
While everyone around him seemed to be playing
a high stakes game of political musical chairs
or meeting tragic ends, Bohr, a Republican, held
his seat for an astonishing 33 years. From 1907
until his death in 1940. Looking at the visual
layout of the Wikipedia table, his block of time
is just this massive solid pillar of stability
in an otherwise turbulent sea of short rows and
constant turnover. His longevity in that specific
era is truly an outlier. He built immense national
influence simply by surviving and holding his
ground. But what is interesting is that Borah's
33 -year tenure, which was a complete anomaly
in the early 20th century for Idaho, is actually
much closer to the standard operating procedure
we see in the state today. So what does this
all mean? When we follow the timeline down to
the very bottom of this table where the modern
era is mapped out. The contrast is night and
day. It is a complete paradigm shift. If you
synthesize the entire trajectory of the data,
the chaos, the factionalism, the rebel energy
of the early 1900s, contrasts sharply with a
modern era defined by deep entrenched institutional
stability. Let's look at the current U .S. senators
to prove that point. Mike Crepo has been in office
since 1999. Jim Risch has been in office since
2009. Both are Republicans. There are no silver
Republicans fracturing the base over local mining
issues. There are no sudden executive appointments
upending the balance of power every few years.
The frontier has settled. The state matured.
The political machinery became institutionalized
and the electorate's voting patterns solidified.
The data shows a state that went from wildly
unpredictable to highly reliable. And the source
also notes the current representatives in the
House, Russ Fulcher and Mike Simpson, both Republicans
as well, which just reinforces that solid block
of political consistency. The table even projects
out to the upcoming elections, class two in 2026
and class three in 2028. You look at those future
dates and the volatility of the past, the Dubois
era of jumping parties, the Thomas era of. appointments
seems like ancient history the data projects
pure continuity the era of the frontier rebel
has been replaced by the era of the entrenched
incumbent it really is an amazing journey to
trace it is so as we wrap up this deep dive I
want you to remember something the next time
you stumble across a seemingly boring Wikipedia
table or a dry spreadsheet it isn't just a list
of names It isn't just a collection of dates
to memorize. This table of Idaho senators is
a footprint of human ambition. Yeah. It is a
record of profound personal tragedy and the grueling
physical toll of public service in the early
20th century. It maps out shifting local economies
from the silver mines to the modern day and the
growing pains of an American state finding its
footing on the national stage. This raises an
important question, though. Something for you
to mull over long after you finish listening
today. We've traced this incredible journey from
extreme volatility to long -term stability. Idaho
traded the chaotic rebel energy of the silver
Republicans for decades of predictable ironclad
seniority in Washington. They got stability,
sure. But at what cost? Exactly. You have to
ask yourself, did they lose a bit of that fierce
frontier independence along the way? A brilliant
thought to leave on. There is always a fascinating
story hidden right beneath the surface of the
data if you are willing to look closely enough.
Thank you so much for joining us on this deep
drive, and we will catch you next time.