When Idaho legislators begin their 2017 session next month, their numbers will include 14 new representatives and four new senators. Only one of those 18 serves in the districts that cover the state’s five northernmost counties.
Unlike Washington, in Idaho, new legislators are sworn in three weeks after winning their elections. (Washington lawmakers take the oath in January.) It’s during the time they meet in Boise for their freshman orientation. Just a few days after returning from that, new Representative Paul Amador sat in a coffee shop in Coeur d’Alene and remembered how humbled he felt in taking his oath.
“It was a really special moment though, it really was, and I can only hope that how I serve and represent the people will be a benefit to the state,” he said.
Amador serves legislative District 4, which is in and around Coeur d’Alene. He’s originally from California, where he grew up on a farm. He earned a bachelor’s degree in agricultural economics in Fresno, then master’s and doctoral degrees in educational leadership at the University of Nevada in Reno. His wife Julie also earned a PhD and when she got a job in Coeur d’Alene, he followed. Now both of them work at the University of Idaho’s Coeur d’Alene campus.
“I’ve never considered myself a political person but just somebody who’s cared about the community. But if you talk to my wife, she’ll tell you, ‘I didn’t know when my husband would run but I knew he was going to run someday’,” he said.
And now, after winning 63% of the vote in his heavily Republican district, Amador is preparing to go to Boise to serve on the Education, Agriculture and Judiciary and Rules Committees. Two of those three fit his professional and academic backgrounds, so the preparation won’t be too onerous.
“I’m a rational thinker, so if we can talk about data and information and things that we can wrap our heads around to try to make decisions that will benefit the vast majority of the people in the district, those are the types of things I want to work on,” Amador said.
He’s particularly interested in helping the state better match education with economic needs.
“We have quite a few skilled jobs that are left unfilled right now and part of that is we don’t have the workforce that’s moving through our career and technical education programs," he said. "Either we don’t have the capacity or we’re not moving quickly enough through the programs to fill those jobs.”
Paul Amador is in his mid-30s, which is only notable in that he’s considerably younger than the average age of Idaho legislators. He’s obviously well educated and so in that sense he’s intellectually prepared to be an elected official. But is he ready in all the other ways? Even before he was elected he said he reached out to legislative colleagues for information and advice about the job.
“From the beginning it was maybe to say, ‘Talk me out of it or talk me into it. Tell me all about the good, the bad and the ugly,'" he said. "And everybody was very forthcoming and said it was a great experience.”
He looks forward to going to back to the Statehouse, this time for his first legislative session. In addition to his day job, he says he’s studying the issues that he will probably have to debate and vote on. And he looks forward to having that same sense of awe he felt when he first went to Boise after his election.
“It’s kind of a combination of all the emotions you could ever imagine so you’re overwhelmed, but you’re also incredibly humbled by the opportunity that you can provide to the people,” Amador said.
Idaho’s legislative session begins on January 9.