Two state legislators from different parties will be featured in same town hall. Here’s why
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POCATELLO – The community will have the chance to sit down for a bipartisan conversation with two local representatives to learn more about the work they are doing.
On Thursday, the nonprofit Idaho Civic Hope Project is hosting “Legislature 101: A Civic Education Event for the Community,” a town hall aimed at educating attendees about the role of the Idaho State Legislature. The town hall will take place at 6 p.m. in the Idaho State University Pond Student Union Building’s Wood River Room. It will feature state Sens. Jim Guthrie, R-McCammon, and James Ruchti, D-Pocatello.
Justin Wood, a founding board member, told EastIdahoNews.com that the town hall will remind attendees “that we’re all different … but we also have shared humanity, and we deserve to be respected, and that we should listen to each other, because we learn things.”
The way Wood put it, the intent of the town hall is to help people “learn more about how local and state government work,” saying that Guthrie and Wood will explain the ins and outs of how a bill becomes a law, the day-to-day responsibilities of a state legislator and more.
“This is just an event to kind of help people learn what it is that your legislators are doing … what are they supposed to be doing, and how they do it and how does the sausage get made,” Wood said.
The way Wood and the other board members see it, having conversations like this with both Republicans and Democrats present is a jumping-off point for the two sides to understand each other better.
“If you talk to people who are different than yourself, oftentimes you’ll find a lot of common ground, and you can start to build off of that,” Wood said. “And that can build a foundation that can set a precedent that will make it easier to work through the more difficult issues.”