Reluctant legislator Brent Hill becomes Idaho Senate’s new leader

GOP Sen. Hill of Rexburg is a living contradiction, overcoming shyness and modesty to rise to the top.

BY DAN POPKEY - dpopkey@idahostatesman.com

Copyright: © 2011 Idaho Statesman

Published: 03/06/11

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You might think a man who has been in the Idaho Senate a decade and self-published a book on how principles can make a better world would have an outsized ego.

Not Senate President Pro Tem Brent Hill, who became the chamber’s top leader in December after the 11-year reign of Bob Geddes.

“He’s a fairly soft-spoken person, maybe even slightly shy, which he works to mask in public,” said Sen. Joe Stegner, R-Lewiston, a longtime colleague. “He’s genuine, down-to-earth, the epitome of small-town Idaho. He’s a chamber-of-commerce, church-going, Kiwanis member that thinks of his family first and lives an honorable life.”

According to Hill’s wife, Julie, Hill wouldn’t be in the Senate absent the opportunity presented when Sen. Bob Lee resigned in 2001 because of illness. Hill was appointed.“He never would have run for office, even with people encouraging him over and over and over,” Julie Hill said. “He wouldn’t run because he never wanted people to misinterpret his sincerity toward them because of political motives. And the fear of losing was bigger than the importance of winning.”

In heavily Republican Madison and Fremont counties, Hill has never had an opponent. His first contest came when Sen. Russ Fulcher, R-Meridian, opposed him in the secret-ballot race for pro tem.

A BUSINESS AND A BOOK

Hill, 61, is a certified public accountant, but he might have been a lawyer. He was admitted to BYU law school, said his brother, Brian, but spooked at the image of the confrontational litigator. “He was a little bit shy, not a recluse kind of shy, but he didn’t like to be out infront of everybody all that much.”

Instead, in 1976 Hill joined an accounting firm, Rexburg-based Rudd & Co. Hill oversaw expansion from one office to six, in Idaho and Montana. The firm now has 35 CPAs and a total of 60 employees. Hill became a top officer and retires this spring.

Taking the Senate job meant financial sacrifice because Hill was in Boise during the lucrative tax season. He worked Friday nights and Saturdays, but he and his partners agreed to a pay cut that wound up exceeding 50 percent.

“He did it not for power, not for glory,” said Brian Hill, a partner in the firm. “He did it because he truly in his heart had this desire and need to serve.”

Brent Hill’s 2008 book, A Matter of Principle, is organized around quotes from Founding Fathers and presidents. It is a product of talks he prepared as an LDS bishop, Kiwanis Club leader and politician. He first put his ideas in binders for his four sons, then gave it to friends. Hill also writes cowboy poetry, frequent thank-you notes and love letters to his wife.

“These things are not independent of one another,” Hill said. “The same principles that guide me in my religion guide my patriotism, too. Then I started thinking, more people need to understand this. Not that people are dumb, but it reminds us of what our principles really are.” Finally, at the urging of a lawyer friend, Hill self-published. At $15.95, the book is No. 2,375,615 on Amazon’s best-sellers list.

A SMALL-TOWN BOY

Hill calls gay marriage “an assault on the family,” writing, “The gay marriage debate is about legitimizing homosexual behavior.” He helped enact Idaho’s constitutional ban but declined to appear in a TV debate on the issue. “I don’t want to condemn people, but I can’t accept the practice.”

Hill likes action films; his favorite is “Braveheart.” But he waited until it was on TV, because the Hills never watch R-rated movies.

“I don’t ever remember not being there,” Hill said. He began his chores taking out the trash and sweeping, and rose to ice-cream scooper and soda jerk.

Brent Hill grew up working for his dad, a pharmacist, whose stores included soda fountains at which he was a junior mixologist. “You mixed ironport and cherry and put the carbonation in,” Hill remembers. “That was a very popular drink, kinda like a cherry Dr. Pepper.”

The family moved to Rexburg and Thriftway Drug, which offered furniture, appliances and gifts. Hill was something of a nerd, not coordinated enough to use his 6-foot-2 frame in sports. He played clarinet in the band and was valedictorian at Madison High School. He spent two years at Ricks College and served a mission in Germany.

Honored as the top accounting graduate at Utah State University in 1973, he then worked in Salt Lake City for two years at an international firm. Home beckoned, however, and he and Julie, who married just six weeks after their engagement in 1972, returned to Rexburg in 1976.

A few months later, the Teton Dam collapsed, flooding Sugar City and Rexburg, killing 11 people and 13,000 cattle, and costing the government $300 million in claims. Client records were ruined, the drug store floor destroyed, and six years of Hill’s letters to Julie lost.

“For 10 or 15 years after that, I couldn’t watch the TV and see somebody who had a flood or an earthquake or a typhoon that tears didn’t come to my eyes,” Hill said.

A CALL TO SERVE

The relief work was a testament to the organization of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which the government and Red Cross relied upon heavily.

“It was absolutely incredible to see how people cared about other people,” he said, voice shaking. “Busloads came every day, from as far away as Boise and Salt Lake. We were so busy cleaning out our own homes and businesses, they cleaned the parks, the fairgrounds and helped people who couldn’t take care of themselves.”

The experience was life-changing. “It had a profound effect on me, realizing that we all have a yearning to serve. And when we’re given that opportunity, I think most people jump into it, whether in politics or church or community.”

Hill had managed Sen. Lee’s campaigns. When Lee got cancer and resigned, Hill was the No. 1 nominee of the District 27 GOP.

Hill had only been to Boise a couple of times, and when he arrived in January 2002, he had to stop for directions. “I couldn’t find the Capitol. I could see it from the freeway, but I lost sight of it.”

In his early years in the Senate, Hill did the grinding work of the joint budget committee.

FINDING A VOICE

In 2004, Hill’s son Ritchie Hill died at 28 of lung cancer. Earlier, Hill had been approached about banning smoking in public places, but demurred. “I’ll vote for it,” he told folks back home, “but I don’t think it should come from a white male Mormon in eastern Idaho.”

Helping Ritchie through chemotherapy changed that. Never a tobacco user, Ritchie Hill became highly sensitive to second-hand smoke during treatment. “This is a kid that had a hernia and three broken ribs from coughing so hard,” Hill said. Entering the hospital for treatment could set off fits because visitors, staff and patients gathered at doorways smoking. “We had to put a coat over his face and lead him in so he wouldn’t have to smell the smoke. He was not free.

“I started thinking, this is not just people with lung cancer. This is people with asthma, pregnant women, people with respiratory problems, heart problems. This is thousands of people. I could not know what I knew and do nothing.”

Though Hill never mentioned his son during debate of the Clean Indoor Air Act, the press made note. Ritchie’s death was sandwiched between passage of the bill in the Senate and House.

Among those fighting Hill were restaurant owners like Mary Thomas from the Stagecoach Inn in Garden City. Thomas now says Hill was right. Though bar business suffered, younger non-smoking diners started coming. “I was pleased, actually,” she said. “ You couldn’t even see in that place it was so smoky. It felt better going to work.”

‘THE HARDEST JOB’

In 2005, Geddes chose Hill to chair a six-member Ethics Committee looking into the conduct of Sen. Jack Noble, R-Kuna, who had failed to disclose his financial interest in a bill he authored regulating contract liquor stores.

“I picked him because he’s thorough, he digs in, but he’s ultimately very fair,” recalled Geddes. “He’s not only sensitive to what’s best for the Senate, but he’s very sensitive to the individual needs of the senators.”

Noble might have survived, but for having misled the committee about when he learned of a key regulation. In a heart-stopping moment, Hill played audio of Noble’s earlier testimony and asked, “Senator, are you in agreement that the information you provided this committee Tuesday under oath was false information?”

Noble dodged, Hill pressed: “Did you mislead the committee?”

“I could have misled the committee,” answered Noble.

“I remember thinking, ‘Wow, Brent,’” said Senate Democratic Leader Edgar Malepeai of Pocatello, a member of the ethics panel. “He made sure we got all the facts on the table. I trust him, and he’s a man of integrity. There’s just no question.”

Eleven agonizing days later, Noble resigned.

“It was the hardest job I’ve done in the Legislature,” Hill said. “I love the man. He was a friend. We were members of the same church. My heart ached for his family.”

The incident hurt all legislators, Hill said, citing a passage from the close of “Romeo and Juliet.” “The prince gets after them and says, look at what you’ve done. And he says, ‘All are punished.’ People lost faith in their government.”

‘TAX FAIRNESS’

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION

CHURCH AND COMMUNITY Sen. Brent Hill held leadership posts before he was appointed to the Senate in 2001. He is chairman of the board of Citizens Community Bank, with five branches in eastern Idaho. Other positions held include: - President of Rexburg Kiwanis Club and lieutenant governor of Utah-Idaho Kiwanis district. - Board chairman of the Family Crisis Center, a shelter for women and children in five eastern Idaho counties. - Chairman of the Advisory Board of the School of Accountancy at Utah State University, his alma mater. - Bishop at Ricks College (now BYU-Idaho) and counselor in three different LDS stake presidencies.

In 2007, Hill became chairman of the Local Government & Taxation Committee, where he led a bipartisan push for a review of sales tax exemptions. Layering more than 80 exemptions had put the system “out of balance” and had lawmakers “picking winners and losers,” Hill said. When the sales tax began in 1965, 60 percent of transactions were taxed. Now the proportion is 36 percent, and $1.8 billion is left on the table.

He and House Revenue & Taxation Chairman Dennis Lake co-chaired an interim committee, which wound up divided between House members supportive of the status quo and senators eager for reform. Though Lake brought bills to kill some exemptions to his committee, little happened.

“Our tax law has mutated, it has evolved,” Hill said. “It is a series of Band-Aids stuck together to solve the problems of the time, and it is extremely difficult to revamp.”

Hill remains on the tax panel now chaired by Sen. Stegner, but said he won’t use his new power to press for what he calls “tax fairness.”

“It is still important to me, but I am not trying to use my influence to influence the House Revenue & Taxation Committee or the House leadership. I don’t think that’s my role. This is not a one-man show. We work together to influence each other, and try to bring everyone to a common understanding of what’s best for the

people of Idaho.”

Brent and Julie Hill when they were engaged.