Idaho and the Seventeenth Amendment: Legislative Elections, One Contested Seat, Four Deadlocks and a 1917 Statute

Every lesson so far has used Idaho as an example. This one makes it the subject. The sources are the Senate Historical Office's own records, the Senate's lists of Idaho senators and appointed senators, the Idaho Code, the National Governors Association's records of Idaho governors, and the newspapers that covered Boise in January of the election years, read in the Library of Congress's digitized collection. Where a fact in the brief for this course could not be confirmed in those sources, the lesson says so in the sentence where the fact would have gone.

December 1890: three senators for two seats

Idaho became the forty-third state on July 3, 1890. Its first legislature met in December to elect two senators, and, in the Senate Historical Office's account of what followed, "appeared deadlocked." Fred T. Dubois, who had been the territory's delegate in Congress, asked the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee a creative question: could Idaho elect three senators at once, one for the short term ending March 3, 1891, one to succeed that senator for the full term beginning March 4, 1891, and one for the other seat's longer term? The chairman said it could. On December 18, 1890 the legislature elected George L. Shoup, the sitting governor, and William J. McConnell, with the understanding that the two would draw lots for the classes once seated. The legislature then elected Dubois to succeed whichever man drew the short term. The drawing came in Washington on January 7, 1891, by the Senate's Idaho timeline: Shoup drew Class 2, the term ending March 3, 1895, and McConnell drew Class 3, the term ending March 3, 1891, less than two months away. So Dubois's seat was McConnell's. Shoup, still governor, signed the credentials certifying his own election.

Shoup was sworn in on December 29, 1890. McConnell's credentials went to the Committee on Privileges and Elections, which reported favorably on January 5, 1891, and he was seated for a term that lasted until March 3. Dubois's credentials for the term beginning March 4, 1891 were filed, because the Senate does not act on credentials for a Congress that has not begun. Then, in February 1891, the Idaho legislature voted again and chose William H. Clagett for the term beginning March 4. The stated reason was doubt about the validity of Dubois's election. The Senate's account adds that representation for the mineral-rich north was also a factor, and Clagett was the north's man.

A memorial from Idaho legislators arrived in Washington on January 10, 1891 arguing that Dubois should not be seated and asking whether a legislature could elect a successor before the Senate had determined when a term ended. When the 52nd Congress met in December 1891, Dubois appeared to claim his seat, the Senate admitted him on December 8, and referred both men's credentials to the committee. Clagett's legal argument was procedural: the legislature had not organized until Tuesday, December 9, 1890, so under the 1866 Act the election should have been held on the second Tuesday after that, a week later than the December 16 date the legislature used. The committee majority rejected the point because no one had protested the organization at the time of the election. On February 2, 1892 the committee reported, with a bipartisan majority finding Dubois legally elected before Clagett and two Democratic members dissenting in Clagett's favor. The Senate did something unusual: it gave Clagett a seat on the floor and two hours to argue his case, one of the few times an unseated claimant has been allowed to do so. The Senate's historians describe his speech as focused on party pledges and Idaho politics rather than the legal question. On March 3, 1892 the Senate voted that Dubois should retain his seat. In April it recommended $4,000 for Clagett's expenses and $2,000 for Dubois's. Clagett tried again for the Senate in 1895 and failed; in 1897 he was the Populists' first choice and gave way to Heitfeld. McConnell went home, served four years as governor, and later worked for the Immigration Service. Shoup was re-elected by the legislature for the term beginning in 1895, after the fifty-two-ballot deadlock described below, and served until 1901; his statue entered the Capitol's Statuary Hall collection in 1910.

The first election taught Idaho what the rules were. The 1866 Act that lesson 2 describes governed the mechanics, down to the day of the week, and a state that got the day wrong invited a contest. And the Senate's power under Article I, Section 5 to judge its members' elections was the only court of appeal, which meant Idaho's choice of senator was finally made in Washington by senators from other states, fourteen months after the legislature voted.

Legislature met	Elected	Party	Seat and term	How it went	Source
December 1890	George L. Shoup	Republican	Class 2, to March 3, 1895 (by lot)	Elected December 18, 1890 with McConnell after an apparent deadlock	Senate election case; Senate Idaho list
December 1890	William J. McConnell	Republican	Class 3, to March 3, 1891 (by lot, January 7, 1891)	Same vote; seated January 5, 1891 for a term that ended eight weeks later	Same; Senate Idaho timeline
December 1890	Fred T. Dubois	Republican	Class 3, March 4, 1891 to March 3, 1897	Elected December 1890 for a term not yet begun; legislature elected Clagett instead in February 1891; Senate seated Dubois March 3, 1892	Senate election case
January to March 1895	George L. Shoup	Republican	Class 2, to March 3, 1901	Re-elected March 7, 1895 with 27 votes, the number needed, to 12 for Willis Sweet and 14 for Crook, after a deadlock Haynes recorded as 51 days and 52 ballots	Haynes, Record of Deadlocks; Topeka State Journal, March 7, 1895; Kootenai Herald, February 9, 1895
January 1897	Henry Heitfeld	Populist	Class 3, March 4, 1897 to March 3, 1903	Elected January 28, 1897 after a contest "covering over three weeks"; Dubois held 30 votes; Democrats and Populists had fused	Salt Lake Herald and Seattle Post-Intelligencer, January 29, 1897
January 1901	Fred T. Dubois	Silver Republican, then Democrat	Class 2, March 4, 1901 to March 3, 1907	Won in 1900 as a Silver Republican and "officially changed to a Democrat before taking his seat"	Senate Idaho timeline
January 1903	Weldon B. Heyburn	Republican	Class 3, March 4, 1903 to his death October 17, 1912	Elected; re-elected January 1909	Senate Idaho list
January 1907	William E. Borah	Republican	Class 2, from March 4, 1907	Separate ballots January 15, 1907, 50 to 18 over Dubois; joint session January 16 recorded 53 to 18	New-York Tribune, January 16, 1907; San Francisco Call, January 17, 1907
November 1912	Kirtland I. Perky	Democrat	Class 3, November 18, 1912 to February 5, 1913	Appointed by Governor Hawley under the original recess clause after Heyburn's death	Senate Idaho list; Salt Lake Tribune, January 25, 1913
January 1913	William E. Borah	Republican	Class 2, March 4, 1913 to March 3, 1919	Re-elected January 14, 1913 with 75 votes on separate ballots; confirmed in joint session January 15	Salt Lake Tribune, January 15, 1913
January 1913	James H. Brady	Republican	Class 3, short term to March 3, 1915	Elected January 24, 1913 on the thirty-first ballot, 43 to 7, after ten days	Salt Lake Tribune, January 25, 1913

1895: fifty-two ballots for Shoup

Shoup's first term ran out on March 3, 1895, and the legislature that met in January 1895 had a Republican majority. It still could not elect him for seven weeks. Haynes's 1906 table of deadlocks, the one lesson 10 reproduces, lists Idaho in 1895 at 51 days and 52 ballots, Shoup elected. The dispatches from Boise explain why. Shoup, the incumbent, was opposed by Willis Sweet, the former congressman from the north, and by William Clagett, the man the Senate had turned away in 1892, who held the Populist votes. The Kootenai Herald of February 9, 1895 printed the Boise dispatch of January 30: three ballots that day "without change," Shoup 20, Sweet 19, Clagett 15, with "astute politicians" saying both leading men were beaten and a dark horse would be needed. The Cheyenne Daily Leader of February 22 called the fight sectional, Shoup backed by Governor McConnell and the south, Sweet by the north, and reported that Shoup had intended to retire and let Sweet succeed him before McConnell talked him into running again. The Omaha Daily Bee counted the thirty-fourth ballot on February 14 at Shoup 20, Sweet 19, Clagett 15, unchanged. The Seattle Post-Intelligencer of February 19 reported a Salt Lake Tribune special predicting Shoup's election "in two or three days." It took sixteen more. On March 6, with "only two more ballots" left in the session, the Sacramento Record-Union's Boise dispatch had Shoup at 21, Sweet 18 and Crook 11, and Sweet's men pledged in writing to stand by him. On March 7, 1895, the last day, the Topeka State Journal's dispatch reported the end: "George L. Shoup has been re-elected United States senator. The vote today was: Shoup 27; Sweet 12; Crook 14; absent 1; necessary to a choice 27." He won with exactly the number required and not one to spare.

The 1895 contest is the Idaho deadlock that fits Haynes's definition best: a prolonged and stubborn fight inside the majority party, settled on the final day by members who switched to the incumbent rather than lose the seat to a special session or a vacancy, the fate that befell Delaware, Montana, Washington and Wyoming in the same years (lesson 3). Count Idaho's deadlocks from Haynes's table and the legislature's journals, not from later summaries; the 1895 fight is easy to lose because the man it re-elected was the incumbent.

1897: a Populist by fusion

Dubois came up for re-election in January 1897 as a Silver Republican in a legislature elected on a Democratic and Populist fusion ticket. Under the fusion bargain, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer reported, the Populists were to have the Senate seat, and their first choice was William Clagett, the man the Senate had turned away in 1892. The Democrats would not vote for Clagett in sufficient numbers. The contest ran more than three weeks. On the Tuesday night before the final vote, by the Post-Intelligencer's account, Clagett's friends switched to Henry Heitfeld, a state senator from Nez Perce County, a St. Louis-born farmer and fruit grower who had come to the Populists through the Farmers' Alliance; thirteen Democrats agreed to vote for "most any Populist" except Clagett; three Populists bolted and were brought back; and on January 28, 1897 Heitfeld was elected. The Salt Lake Herald's detailed tally gave Dubois 30 votes and one vote to F. T. Nelson, with "every Populist in the legislature" plus thirteen or fourteen Democrats and one Republican, Fenn, voting for Heitfeld. The Herald's headline called Heitfeld's election "a paralyzer." The Anaconda Standard was less polite: "Idaho's Senatorship Squandered on a Man Named Heitfeld," over a report that the Boise Statesman considered the choice "a fatal blunder." Dubois took the floor afterward, bowed to the legislature's will, and asked his supporters to join the majority "in an effort to give the people of the state good laws."

Heitfeld served one term and is one of the few Populists ever to sit in the Senate. The episode belongs in a lesson on the Seventeenth Amendment for the reason the reformers would have given: a three-week fight, a fusion bargain struck before the election, a first choice vetoed by the junior partner, and a senator chosen for being acceptable rather than for being anyone's choice. Hoar's argument in lesson 4 was that legislatures deliberate and conventions do not. January 1897 in Boise looked like a convention.

1907: Borah, 53 to 18

Borah's first election was the uncontested kind. The Evening Star's Boise dispatch of January 15, 1907 described him as the man who "will in all probability be chosen today" to succeed Dubois, a Boise lawyer not yet 42 who had "overcame opposition to state convention and secured unanimous nomination," and who was married to a daughter of former Governor McConnell. That evening the two houses, voting separately, gave him 50 votes to 18 for Dubois, the New-York Tribune reported; the joint session at noon on January 16 recorded 53 to 18, by the San Francisco Call's account. The Senate's Idaho timeline dates his service from March 4, 1907 and counts six terms and "32 years and 10 months." Borah's election by convention nomination followed by a legislative vote was the pattern Hoar had predicted and the pattern Oregon's Statement No. 1 was designed to replace. In Idaho the party convention chose and the legislature ratified. The Senate Historical Office's pages on the amendment describe Borah as "himself a product of a state-based system of direct election," without saying what Idaho system they mean; the 1907 accounts read for this lesson describe a convention nomination, not a primary. Whether Idaho ever gave its voters a formal preference vote on senators before 1913 is a question this course could not answer; see the section on what was not found.

1911: Idaho's senators on opposite sides

When the direct election resolution reached the Senate floor in February 1911, Borah had charge of it. The Seventh Circuit's account of the legislative history in Judge v. Quinn cites the "debate between Sens. Sutherland and Borah" on February 16, 1911 (46 Cong. Rec. 2645 to 2657), and the Morning Oregonian's report describes the resolution as Borah's, "altered under the Sutherland amendment" that kept Congress's power over Senate elections. Borah had opposed Sutherland's change and lost; he then voted for the resolution as amended on February 28, 1911. Heyburn voted against it. The Oregonian's roll call lists Heyburn among the 33 nays with Root, Lodge, Depew and Penrose; Borah is among the 54 yeas. Senator Owen's 1912 speech quotes Heyburn dismissing the demand for direct election as "popular clamor." The Senate's page on the amendment says Borah "strongly supported" Bristow's resolution in the next Congress, and the Asheville Citizen's account of June 12, 1911 has Borah again "in charge of the resolution" and speaking for it after the Bristow substitute was adopted.

So Idaho's delegation split the way the Senate split: one member chosen by a legislature who wanted the voters to choose next time, and one who did not. Heyburn died in October 1912, before the amendment went to the states. Borah lived to be re-elected under the old system in January 1913 and four more times under the new one, in 1918, 1924, 1930 and 1936, the last after an unsuccessful run for the Republican presidential nomination. The Senate's timeline records his funeral in the Senate Chamber on January 22, 1940 and his statue's acceptance in 1947 as Idaho's second contribution to the Statuary Hall collection, beside Shoup's.

January 1913: one ballot and thirty-one

Heyburn's death on October 17, 1912 left Idaho with a vacancy and a legislature out of session. Under Article I, Section 3 as it still read, Governor James H. Hawley "may make temporary Appointments until the next Meeting of the Legislature, which shall then fill such Vacancies." On November 18, 1912 Hawley, a Democrat, appointed Kirtland I. Perky, a Democrat. The Salt Lake Tribune later described Perky as "appointed by Governor Hawley to fill the recess vacancy," which is the old clause's vocabulary exactly. Perky is the last Idaho senator to hold office under it. Hawley's term ended January 6, 1913, and the legislature that met that month had both seats to fill: Borah's full term and the two years remaining on Heyburn's.

The full term took one day. On January 14, 1913, the House and Senate voting separately re-elected Borah with 75 votes, against a scattering for George W. Tannahill and two for Perky, "without the loss of a single Republican vote in both branches of the legislature," the Tribune reported; the joint session confirmed the result at noon the next day. The short term took ten. On the same first day the Republican vote for the short term split among Chief Justice James F. Ailshie, former Governor James H. Brady, Thomas R. Hamer, Burton L. French, James B. Babb and others, with Ailshie leading Brady by two votes and no one close to the 43 needed in a joint assembly of 85. Brady's managers claimed 44 votes "in sight." Ailshie's claimed the north would "swing solidly" to him. Both were wrong for ten days.

On January 24, 1913, the thirty-first ballot by the Tribune's count, a Republican caucus agreement reached that morning broke the deadlock. Brady received 43 votes, two more than needed, Ailshie seven. The northern members who had been Ailshie's base gave him none. The Tribune connected his collapse to a recent state Supreme Court contempt proceeding in which he had been a party and to the court's ruling that had barred the Progressive Party's electors from the November 5, 1912 ballot, both of which "played a prominent part in the defeat of the jurist." The day's set piece came from Representative A. S. Dickenson of Blackfoot, an Ailshie man, who passed when his name was called so that he could take the floor afterward, delivered what the Tribune called "a bitter personal attack" on Brady "amidst hisses from the big audience," and cast his ballot for William Courtney, the janitor of the House. Brady had been elected without him. Brady pledged to work "shoulder to shoulder" with Borah; Borah left for Washington that afternoon; Perky telegraphed congratulations. Brady was sworn in Washington on February 6, 1913 and, as the Evening Star noted, within fifteen minutes cast the vote that carried a Republican motion for an executive session, 37 to 34, a motion that would have failed on a tie had Perky still held the seat.

One week after the thirty-first ballot, on January 31, 1913, the same legislature ratified the Seventeenth Amendment. The order of events is the argument. A legislature that could re-elect a popular incumbent in one ballot and needed thirty-one to fill a vacancy, with a party caucus doing the real choosing and a chief justice's reputation decided by legislators' grudges, voted to hand the job to the voters. Idaho was the twelfth state to ratify, by the official note in the House Manual. The roll calls in each chamber are in the 1913 Idaho Senate and House Journals and the 1913 Session Laws. Those volumes are not on the Idaho Legislature's website, which carries session laws and journals only for recent decades, and the newspaper collections searched for this course reported the Senate elections but not the ratification vote. The margins are therefore not reported here. Anyone with access to the Idaho State Archives in Boise or a university library's bound set can read them in an afternoon.

The first direct election, 1914

Brady's short term ended March 3, 1915. On November 3, 1914 he stood before Idaho's voters and won, becoming, in the Senate's words, "Idaho's first directly elected senator under the Seventeenth Amendment." He had been chosen by the legislature in 1913; the voters confirmed him in 1914. Borah's term, protected by the savings clause, ran to 1919, and his first popular election came in November 1918. Brady died January 13, 1918, and Idaho's first appointment under the amendment followed nine days later.

Idaho's vacancy law: 1917 to today

The Seventeenth Amendment's proviso lets a legislature "empower the executive thereof to make temporary appointments." Idaho's legislature did so in 1917, by chapter 27 of that year's session laws, and the statute has been carried forward through every recodification since as Compiled Laws section 325a, Compiled Statutes section 463, Idaho Code Annotated section 57-910 and now Idaho Code 59-910. The history note on the Legislature's site lists those reenactments and no amendment. Here is the whole section, which is one sentence:

59-910. United States senator, vacancies, how filled. Whenever any vacancy shall occur in the office of United States senator from the state of Idaho by death, resignation or otherwise, the governor shall have the power and is hereby authorized and empowered to fill such vacancy by appointment, and the person so appointed shall hold such office until such time as a United States senator is regularly elected to fill such vacancy, at the next succeeding general election, and qualifies by virtue of such election: provided, however, that in case a vacancy occurs in the position of United States senator from the state of Idaho within thirty (30) days of any general election, no election for United States senator to fill said vacancy shall be held at such general election.

Read it against the four questions lesson 6 uses. May the governor appoint? Yes, for any vacancy "by death, resignation or otherwise." Is the appointee restricted? No; there is no party requirement and no list. When is the election? At "the next succeeding general election," so a vacancy in December 2026 would be filled by election in November 2028, and the appointee would serve about 23 months. What if the vacancy is late? If it falls within thirty days of a general election, that election skips the seat and the appointee serves until the one after, which could mean nearly 25 months. Does the statute mention the governor's writ of election? No. The Seventh Circuit in Judge v. Quinn held that the amendment itself requires the writ whether or not the state statute does, so an Idaho governor filling a vacancy should issue one naming the general election date. Idaho's thirty-day proviso is the kind of provision the Seventh Circuit distinguished from Connecticut's, since it fixes which general election fills the seat rather than forbidding a writ.

The brief for this course asked about amendments to the section in 2013 or later. There are none in the history note, and the section text on the Legislature's site as of October 2026 matches the one quoted above. The NCSL's July 2026 summary places Idaho among the 35 states that fill the seat at the next general election with an interim appointee, and notes the thirty-day rule. Idaho's law is older than most of the others on NCSL's list and plainer than nearly all of them.

Question	Idaho (Idaho Code 59-910)	Compare
Governor may appoint?	Yes	Kentucky, North Dakota, Rhode Island, Wisconsin: no (NCSL)
Same party required?	No	Eleven states require it, including neighbors Nevada, Utah, Wyoming and Montana (NCSL)
Special election?	No; next general election	Fifteen states hold a separate special election, including neighbors Oregon and Washington (NCSL)
Late-vacancy rule	Within 30 days of a general election, the seat skips that election	Iowa uses 89 days, South Carolina 100, South Dakota 90, Connecticut 62 (NCSL; Judge v. Quinn)
Writ of election mentioned?	No	Florida's statute requires one; Illinois's did not; the amendment requires it regardless (Judge v. Quinn)
Enacted	1917, ch. 27; no amendments in the history note	Many states amended their laws after 2004 and 2009

Seven appointments, and an eighth the Senate's list leaves out

Idaho has filled a Senate vacancy by appointment seven times by the Senate's count, once under the original Constitution and six times under 59-910, and once more in 1921 in a case the Senate's list excludes by rule (see below the table). The Senate's list of appointed senators since 1913 gives the dates and whether each appointee was later elected; the Senate's list of Idaho senators gives the vacancies; the National Governors Association's records give each governor's term, which identifies who made the appointment.

Vacancy	Appointee	Appointed	Governor (term per NGA)	What happened next
Weldon B. Heyburn died October 17, 1912	Kirtland I. Perky (D)	November 18, 1912	James H. Hawley (D), January 2, 1911 to January 6, 1913	Under the original recess clause; served until the legislature elected Brady; left February 5, 1913
James H. Brady died January 13, 1918	John F. Nugent (D)	January 22, 1918	Moses Alexander (D), January 4, 1915 to January 6, 1919	Elected November 5, 1918 to the unexpired term; served to January 14, 1921
John F. Nugent resigned January 14, 1921 (not on the Senate's appointed list)	Frank R. Gooding (R)	Service from January 15, 1921 (Senate Idaho list)	David W. Davis (R), January 6, 1919 to January 1, 1923	Appointed to the seven weeks left in the term he had already won in November 1920; served until his death June 24, 1928
Frank R. Gooding died June 24, 1928	John Thomas (R)	June 30, 1928	H. Clarence Baldridge (R), January 3, 1927 to January 5, 1931	Elected November 6, 1928 to the unexpired term; served to March 3, 1933
William E. Borah died January 19, 1940	John Thomas (R)	January 27, 1940	C. A. Bottolfsen (R), January 2, 1939 to January 5, 1941	Elected November 1940 to the unexpired term; died in office November 10, 1945
John Thomas died November 10, 1945	Charles C. Gossett (D)	November 17, 1945	Arnold Williams (D), from November 17, 1945, after Gossett resigned the governorship that day	Defeated for the Democratic nomination in 1946; Henry C. Dworshak elected November 1946 to the unexpired term
Bert H. Miller died October 8, 1949	Henry C. Dworshak (R)	October 14, 1949	C. A. Robins (R), January 6, 1947 to January 1, 1951	Elected November 7, 1950 to the unexpired term; re-elected; died in office July 23, 1962
Henry C. Dworshak died July 23, 1962	Len B. Jordan (R)	August 6, 1962	Robert E. Smylie (R), January 3, 1955 to January 2, 1967	Elected November 6, 1962 to the unexpired term; re-elected 1966; retired January 3, 1973

The table shows a pattern. Every Idaho Senate vacancy on the Senate's list of appointed senators has come by death, and every one has been filled by appointment rather than left empty. One vacancy came by resignation and is missing from that list because of the list's own rule, which excludes senators appointed to seats they had already won. John F. Nugent, elected in 1918 to Brady's unexpired term, resigned on January 14, 1921, seven weeks before the term ended on March 3, 1921; Frank R. Gooding, who had won the full term beginning March 4, 1921 at the November 1920 election, was appointed to the remainder and the Senate's Idaho list dates his service from January 15, 1921. The governor was David W. Davis, a Republican, whose term the National Governors Association gives as January 6, 1919 to January 1, 1923. That makes eight Idaho appointments in all, seven under 59-910 and its predecessor on the Senate's list and Gooding's besides. The appointment has nearly always stuck: of the six appointees under 59-910 on the Senate's list, five won the next election. The exception is the case worth telling. John Thomas died on November 10, 1945, a year after Charles Gossett, a Democrat, had been elected governor. On November 17, 1945 Gossett resigned the governorship; his lieutenant governor, Arnold Williams, took the oath the same day; and the Senate's records show Gossett's Senate service beginning that same November 17. The NGA's biography says he resigned "to take an appointment in the U.S. Senate." The arrangement was lawful under 59-910, which puts no limit on whom the governor may choose. Idaho's Democratic voters declined to ratify it; Gossett lost the 1946 nomination, and the seat went to Dworshak, a Republican, in November 1946. Williams lost his own election that year too. The episode is the local version of the complaint that lesson 6 traces through the 2009 appointments: the appointment power is lawful and the governor's motives are the voters' business, and the voters in Idaho's case made it theirs within a year.

Thomas's two appointments are also unusual. He is one of the few senators appointed to the Senate twice, eleven and a half years apart, to two different seats, by two different governors. The Senate's list enters him twice.

What was searched and not found

Some items in the brief for this lesson could not be confirmed. Each is stated here with what was checked, so the next person can pick up where this course stopped.

An Idaho preference primary or advisory vote on United States senator before 1913. The brief asked about a 1909 or later law. The Idaho Legislature's website carries the current Idaho Code and session laws for recent decades only; the 1909 and 1911 session laws were not available to this course online. The Constitution Annotated's summary, citing Haynes, says at least 29 states nominated senators by popular vote by 1912 and that two states used Oregon's pledge, but it does not list them. The January 1913 newspaper accounts of the Borah and Brady elections, read in full for this lesson, mention a convention nomination for Borah in 1907 and a caucus agreement for Brady in 1913 and say nothing about a primary vote on either man. That silence is suggestive, since a primary result would have been the first thing a correspondent cited for a one-ballot election. It is not proof. The honest statement is that no Idaho preference primary law was found, and the 1909 and 1911 Session Laws are where to look.

The chamber votes on Idaho's ratification of January 31, 1913. Discussed above. The 1913 Senate and House Journals hold them.

Idaho legislative resolutions on repeal. The brief asked for bill numbers. Searches of the Legislature's bill pages for the sessions available online (1998 through 2026) for "Seventeenth Amendment" and "17th Amendment" returned three memorials, none on point: House Joint Memorial 1 of 2001, which urged Congress to leave the Electoral College alone and was adopted by both houses by voice vote; House Joint Memorial 19 of 2002, which urged Congress to submit an amendment allowing states to apportion one legislative chamber by county, adopted by the House 42 to 26 and failed in the Senate 8 to 25; and House Joint Memorial 7 of 2003, on the same apportionment subject, which was printed and referred to State Affairs and went no further. The 2026 House and Senate journals that a search engine flagged were downloaded and searched; neither mentions the Seventeenth Amendment. The Legislature's site does not have full-text search of pre-1998 memorials. So: no Idaho repeal memorial was found for 1998 to 2026, and earlier sessions were not searchable. Lesson 10 covers the states where repeal resolutions were introduced.

Questions and answers

Why did Idaho elect a senator in 1890 for a term that had not started?

Because the legislature met only every two years and the short-term seat would expire on March 3, 1891, before it met again. Dubois got the Senate Judiciary Committee chairman's informal blessing to elect the successor in advance. The Senate later confirmed the practice was acceptable while reaffirming that it would not act on such credentials until the Congress they belonged to began. The Senate's case history has the details.

Was Clagett's challenge frivolous?

No. His legal point, that the legislature organized on December 9 and the 1866 Act therefore put the election a week later than December 16, was a real reading of the statute, and two committee members agreed with him. The majority rejected it because no one had objected at the time, and the Senate adopted the majority's view on March 3, 1892. The Senate paid his expenses, which it does not do for frivolous claimants.

How many votes did Heitfeld get in 1897?

The scanned Salt Lake Herald is unreadable at that digit, and the Seattle Post-Intelligencer's tally is garbled too. Both agree Dubois had 30 and Nelson one, and both describe Heitfeld's majority as every Populist plus thirteen or fourteen Democrats and one Republican. This lesson reports what both papers agree on and leaves Heitfeld's exact figure for someone with a cleaner copy or the 1897 journal.

Did Borah owe his 1907 election to a primary?

Not on this evidence. The Evening Star's profile of January 15, 1907 credits a state convention nomination he won after "a determined fight," and the legislature then elected him 50 to 18 on separate ballots and 53 to 18 in joint session. No preference primary is mentioned in the accounts read for this lesson. The Senate's page on the amendment describes him as a strong supporter of Bristow's resolution in 1911, which is consistent with a man who had been through the convention route and wanted the voters to have the job.

Why did Idaho have a Democratic senator for eleven weeks in 1912 and 1913?

Because the original Constitution's recess clause let the governor appoint, Governor Hawley was a Democrat, and he appointed Kirtland Perky, also a Democrat, on November 18, 1912 after Heyburn's death. The legislature, with a Republican majority, then elected Brady. The Evening Star's account of Brady's swearing-in on February 6, 1913 shows what the switch meant in Washington: a 37 to 34 Republican procedural win that would have been a tie with Perky in the seat.

When was the last time an Idaho legislature chose a United States senator?

January 24, 1913, when it elected Brady on the thirty-first ballot. Borah's re-election on January 14 was the last full-term election by an Idaho legislature. Both men's terms were protected by the amendment's savings clause; Brady faced the voters in 1914, Borah in 1918.

How long could an appointed Idaho senator serve under 59-910?

Up to about 25 months. A vacancy within thirty days before a November general election skips that election, and the appointee serves until the general election two years later and the winner qualifies. A vacancy just after a general election yields about 23 months. The statute sets no shorter deadline and provides no special election.

Has any Idaho appointee been rejected by the voters?

One. Charles Gossett, appointed November 17, 1945 after resigning as governor, lost the Democratic nomination in 1946. The other five appointees under 59-910 on the Senate's list, Nugent, Thomas (twice), Dworshak and Jordan, each won the next election, per the Senate's list. Gooding, appointed in January 1921 to finish Nugent's term, had already won the following full term at the 1920 election, which is why the Senate's list does not count him.

Hard questions

Isn't it convenient to claim Idaho's history "proves" the reformers' case when the course admits it could not find the ratification votes or a primary law?

The lesson does not claim proof. It reports four documented legislative fights, 1890 to 1892, 1895, 1897 and 1913, from the Senate's own case history and from newspapers a reader can open, and it reports the ratification date from the official note. The missing votes would show how lopsided ratification was, not whether it happened. The missing primary law would show whether Idaho's legislature was already following voters' instructions, which would strengthen the "changed little" case in lesson 9 rather than the reformers'. Both gaps are stated, with the volumes to check. That is the opposite of convenient.

Idaho's 1913 deadlock lasted ten days. Delaware's lasted years. Why treat Idaho's as significant?

Because it happened in the last month the old system was in force, in a state about to ratify its replacement, over a seat with two years left, and because a caucus settled it on a morning after ten days of public balloting. It is not the worst case; lesson 3 has those. It is a representative case, with a chief justice's candidacy destroyed by a regional bloc and a legislator voting for the janitor to make a point. The Senate Historical Office counts 45 deadlocks in 20 states between 1891 and 1905 on its briefing page (46 on its overview page, the count Haynes's table gives; lesson 3 explains the difference). Idaho's 1895 contest is in Haynes's table and 1913's shows what an ordinary one looked like from the gallery.

The Gossett appointment was legal. Why single it out?

Because it is the clearest Idaho illustration of what the vacancy clause permits, and because its legality is the point. 59-910 lets the governor appoint anyone; the amendment lets the legislature write 59-910 that way; and the only check either provides is the next election, which in 1946 worked. Readers who think the clause needs more checks, as the sponsors of S.J. Res. 7 did in 2009, will cite cases like this. Readers who think the next election is check enough will cite the same case. The lesson gives the dates and lets the reader choose.

Why does the course rely on out-of-state newspapers for Idaho's history?

Because the Library of Congress's digitized collection, which was the only newspaper archive this course could search in full, has few Idaho dailies for the years in question and strong coverage from the Salt Lake, Seattle, Anaconda and Washington papers that ran Boise dispatches. Idaho's own papers, the Idaho Statesman above all, are the better source and are available through the Idaho State Historical Society and commercial archives this course did not use. Where an out-of-state paper quotes a Boise paper, as the Anaconda Standard quotes the Statesman on Heitfeld, the lesson says so.

If 59-910 has worked without amendment since 1917, isn't the whole discussion of vacancy law reform irrelevant to Idaho?

It has worked in the sense that every vacancy was filled and every appointee faced the voters within about two years. It has also allowed a governor's successor to appoint the governor, allowed appointees to serve up to two years without election, and said nothing about the writ the Seventh Circuit says the Constitution requires. Whether any of that needs fixing is a policy question for the Legislature, which has not taken it up. The discussion is relevant because the next vacancy will be governed by this one sentence, and the people it governs should know what it says before they need it.