Terri Pickens is a fourth-generation Idahoan from Pocatello with state shooting awards who brings her own gun when she visits voters on gun ranges. Her father was a construction worker, her mother was a bookkeeper, and she grew up in Idaho, the state she dearly loves.
“Then, in 2016 something happened,” said the Democrat who originally was a Republican. “It hurt my heart, and there was no sideline sitting anymore after that.”
She had good news for her audience Saturday at the Pearl Theater: “The sleeping giant is waking up. Even people on his side are asking what’s going on here.”
“Governor Little is answering to Washington, D.C., not his constituents in Idaho,” she said. “He’s spent more time in DC and Mara Lago than Idaho, and for a fourth-generation Idahoan, I have three words for him, ‘shame on you.’”
Pickens credits her Idaho public school education and full-ride track and field scholarship for enabling her to get a BA in political science and later her Juris Doctorate degree at the University of Idaho College of Law.
“I have lived in Idaho all my life, and I care most about the same values North Idahoans hold dear,” she told Bonners Ferry residents Saturday. “I want to hear from Republicans, Independents and Democrats, and I don’t pay someone to answer when anyone emails me at info@terriforidaho.com. I will converse with anyone, anywhere, including the gun range. Winner buys the beer.”
Chief among her goals, if she becomes our next governor in November, is to “undo $450 million in tax breaks given the rich and get rid of the voucher scheme. That will put $500 million back in the (tax payer) system.”
She said she would restore road and bridge projects that are waiting in the queue.
“We’re being stretched so far now that nothing is getting funded,” she said.
Pickens stressed that even the current budget cuts could be funded on a short-time basis.
“That’s why we have rainy day funds,” she said, “but just since January we’ve lost four individuals who, due to loss of mental health services, took their own lives.”
A woman in the group added her concern about the crisis over reproductive rights in Idaho.
“When Little said no one’s dying from Idaho’s abortion near ban, he was lying,” agreed Pickens.
“The day after finishing my race for Lieutenant Governor in ’22, media wanted to interview me to ask what I was going to do next. My daughter lost her reproductive rights, so that very day I got a group of women together, eventually producing the Initiative circulating now to restore women’s reproductive rights.” That comment brought especially loud applause.
Some people genuinely believe the church and family should be responsible for filling these needs, she said.
“The Preamble to the Constitution doesn’t say, ‘we the church or we the rich; it says we, the People. We need to protect that.”
At that, a woman asked if she supports stopping churches from getting 501C3 status.
“It’s all up to the IRS, for this is a federal issue,” Pickens answered.
“But would you join other governors to tax churches?” she was asked. She said, “Joel Osteen’s church and other multimillion dollar church enterprises are why I think taxing churches may be needed.”
At that, lifelong Bonners Ferry voter Craig Kelsen commented that there is a nonprofit in the City of Moscow that is fighting this battle. Kelsen has close family living in Moscow, and he said they are watching Christ Church, a major Christian nationalist organization started by Doug Wilson, which has become nationwide in scope.
Others in the room added that they see Christian nationalism as the cause of today’s problems within the national and state government. But Kelsen and Pickens credited the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 with pushing the takeover of government by Christian nationalism.
One woman commented that she had “tried to get two local churches to hold meetings to learn about Christian nationalism, but no one wants to discuss what they call “politics” when politics just means caring for your community…”
Pickens cut her off, saying, “It’s not inherently political, but you should be talking about coming up with common solutions. I’ll tell you, though, that the dam’s breaking because it’s hurting them, too. They’re all going to be faced with it.”
“To get back to Idaho problems,” Kelsen broke in, “can we find a way to write the (state) budget in March, after we’ve spent our money? For instance, our schools’ budgets have to be done in May.”
“The tax-cut bill was passed before they knew how much money they would have,” Pickens said, agreeing with Kelsen that his statement makes sense, it’s doable and essential.
A woman raised another big issue for those listening to Pickens, that of the fate of Idaho voters’ registration information after demands for private voter information from the Trump justice department.
“Secretary Phil McGrane’s one big thing is that he’s steady and true. He genuinely cares about every registered voter having access to the ballot box,” Pickens said. “This administration wants to disenfranchise (exclude) 70 million women. The SAVE Act has not passed, though, and even if it does, it will be challenged in court because the states’ secretaries of state run our elections, not the federal government.”
“(Trump’s) trying to pass a law that any mail-in ballot arriving the day after election day due to slow mails, etc. can’t be counted,” former school librarian Amy Brown commented, adding that California and Washington State solely depend on the mail-in ballot. Pickens reiterated that the states have the power to run their own elections as they see fit.
Elsie Hollenbeck, a retired teacher with a long record of local political activism, asked if Pickens had spoken with Idaho farmers about the impacts on them from the loss of immigrant labor. “Yes, the dairy industry, for instance, is telling me about the ripple effects of Trump’s attack on immigration and the costly effects that his tariffs have on farming.”
Rob McKenney pointed out that there are other economic losses besides the increases in oil costs from Trump’s war on Iran, which affect farmers. “The war’s loss of the Straight of Hormuz has stopped the farmers’ fertilizer supplies as well.”
“Just as they’re dealing with spring planting,” added Brown.
The conversation moved once again when a woman pointed out the irony of the Trump administration’s move against citizen gun ownership.
“Pam Bondi is starting a registry to list those who have guns,” said Pickens, who is a strong defender of the second amendment. “Of course they have to come for the guns, and what chance do we have against ICE, who has a bigger budget than most of the world’s armies.
“This is a big issue, especially in southern Idaho across the gun community,” she said. “Every time the administration has told your governor what to do, Little did it. It isn’t the Democrats who are coming for our guns.
“To wrap this up, every day we all hold our breath with all of the doom and gloom. The news is so exhausting, and the exhaustion is the problem. We wake up feeling it’s been another two months since just last night.
“I get my energy to run this race from talking to all of you,” she said, “and, like me, each of us has to do something to help replace the super majority in our state legislature. We need to work hard to get Democrats elected in this state.”
After someone pointed out that so many in our area, especially, believe the lies about Democrats because of what their churches tell them, Pickens admonished her not to try and engage with such individuals. “There are some individuals who are not worth the time and effort; talk, instead, to everyone in every party who you believe is reasonable.
“In this community, you’re the most resilient Democrats in the entire world, and I have met
Democrats around the country and other parts of the world. This area used to be blue or purple, but now it’s as red as any in the country because of people coming into Idaho from elsewhere. They’re only here because they think it’s a safe haven now. But there are those who attend church because they love Jesus, and it will hit them soon.
“I know it’s scary and certain people are intimidating, but I applaud you.” Earlier she had explained that she learned to ski at Schweitzer and spent years living in North Idaho. “The first time I came back here, I saw the big (Trump) sign, but you did not let that stop you, and you need to keep talking and working with your neighbors to turn things around.”
She shared her personal political history, beginning by saying that she was the first person on either side of her family to go to college and get a degree. “In Idaho we’re telling kids that they don’t matter,” she said, referring to the lack of adequate public school funding and losses of public education funding to families sending kids to private schools.
“Now it’s $50 million (for kids in private schools), but they’re saying they want more because it’s not working,” she said. “What is working is that they’re crushing public education. To put a pin in it, they’re even trying to pass a bill to levy $100,000 penalties against teachers if they don’t police what kids are wearing and are not dressing to their (birth) gender. In our state (these people) won’t even allow signs that everyone is welcome here.”
Pickens founded her own law firm years after working as a public defender in Nez Perce County, and she said, “There are no advantages to owning a small business. You’re put at the bottom and have to claw your way to the top just to survive.”
Because of that first-hand experience, she will work for improvements for small businesses in Idaho.
She was in the court room the day of the Aryan Nations Butler trial in Coeur d’Alene, she said. Remembering that part of Idaho’s history and the success against Butler encourages her.
“It’s harder up here now because of how many have moved here from out of state. If we stand our ground, though, we’re going to overcome it.” She believes overcoming it locally will encourage others in less severe areas to “work harder to cut out the cancer nationwide.”
People now, more than ever before, need to be motivated to work on this, she said. The Democrats are motivated by over 100 Democrat candidates running in statewide races.
“When polled and asked to rate the chances of a female Democrat beating the Republican governor, it came out at 28%. When you add in my credentials, it increases 7% more to 35%. If you add in the work I’m going to do in the next eight months and factor in the effect the Trump slump will have, we will win,” she said.
“So, be part of the No Kings demonstration next Saturday because it’s essential that every one of us does everything we can between now and November. Whether it’s phone banking, writing post cards or knocking doors, it’s ‘all hands on deck,’“ she concluded.