File this promise away for 2010.

Having single-handedly killed a financial disclosure bill earlier this year, House Speaker Lawerence Denney says he will not stand in the way next time.

The Midvale Republican remains lukewarm to the idea, though. “Personally I don’t have any problem with disclosure of anything that I do, but I do know that there were a number of people that were very concerned,” Denney told the Spokane Spokesman-Review's Betsy Russell.

Businesses benefit from the University of Idaho's research and academic programs, and they should be willing to help pay their share.

And this concept applies both to the U of I's agricultural research center in Parma and to law school classes in Boise, new university President Duane Nellis told the Statesman's editorial board this morning.

Jana Kemp is one of those politicians the Idaho GOP hardliners call a RINO — a "Republican In Name Only."

Kemp doesn't even call herself a Republican these days. The former one-term legislator is running for governor as an independent.

When a moderate such as Kemp decides she is better off as an independent, I think that says something about the direction and the orthodoxy of the Idaho Republican Party.

This just in from the governor's office:

Governor C.L. “Butch” Otter will visit the University of Idaho Ag Research and Extension Center in Parma on Wednesday, July 8 to discuss the center’s proposed closure.

Gov. Butch Otter has just sent out a guest opinion to Idaho newspapers, urging the Senate to reject the climate-change bill that passed the House on June 26.

And Otter echoes the partisan tone that has marked the climate-change debate, lambasting House Speaker Nancy Pelosi "and her Democrat legions" for pushing "bad economic and environmental policy."

Idaho Sen. Mike Crapo reversed course Monday and voted against a bill that would have established budgets for congressional offices and other Capitol Hill expenditures.

Originally, the Republican Crapo said he would support the spending plan, since it would also pay for security upgrades that have been planned since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

Former legislator David Langhorst, a Boise Democrat, has been named to the State Tax Commission.

Langhorst will join a commission that has drawn some scrutiny from an in-house whistleblower and from some legislators, who have questioned the group's settlements with companies that have protested their tax bills.

Idaho's nuclear downwinders have earned their right to cynicism.

The federal government has ignored them. Their elected officials — namely Larry Craig and Dirk Kempthorne — had the chance to press the downwinders' case while serving in the U.S. Senate, but didn't do nearly enough.

The downwinders believe their elevated cancer rates are linked to nuclear weapons tests conducted on the Nevada desert during the 1950s and 1960s. The Cold War has ended but the bureaucratic battle continues.

The blog will be off this week.

I'm on vacation until July 6.

Have a good week and a happy Fourth of July.

Here's a follow to my Thursday blog post about attempts to increase congressional staff budgets.

I've compiled some data about staff sizes and payrolls for the Idaho congressional delegation. Here are the thumbnails:

Sen. Mike Crapo: Has 35 full-time equivalent employees on staff. The office has averaged 35 FTEs since he joined the Senate in 1999.