Most of Idaho politics today seems obsessed with the latest culture war skirmish. There’s endless shouting about books in libraries, who can use which bathroom, or which politician can outdo the others in public loyalty oaths to some ideological cause. Meanwhile, the issues that will determine Idaho’s survival and prosperity—our land, our water, and our ability to sustain growth—are pushed to the background.
This week on the Political Potatoes Podcast, Lieutenant Governor Scott Bedke sat down with me for a conversation about one of those fundamental issues: Idaho water. It’s a topic that rarely gets headlines but shapes everything from family farms to suburban sprawl to the future of our economy.
Bedke knows the subject because he’s lived it. A fourth-generation cattle rancher from Oakley, his introduction to politics came not from ambition but necessity: public lands grazing always has a political component. For ranchers like him, the policies set in Washington could determine whether the family business lived to see another generation. That fight for continuity pushed him into public service, where he spent two decades in the state legislature, including ten years as Speaker of the House, before being elected Lieutenant Governor in 2022.
Water policy is what Bedke calls the “underpinnings” of Idaho society. Without reliable water, there is no agriculture. Without agriculture, there is no economy. And without an economy, the rest of the political fights we waste our breath on don’t amount to much.
Bedke walked through Idaho’s unique water law in plain terms. At its core is the doctrine of prior appropriation: “first in time, first in right.” Whoever claimed the water first, gets it first. In dry years, that means junior users can be cut off completely until senior users are satisfied. It’s an unforgiving system, and it has forced Idaho farmers to find compromise through what are called mitigation plans—agreements that soften the edges of prior appropriation and allow communities to function without neighbors putting each other out of business.
The 2015 mitigation plan was Idaho’s first major attempt at this kind of compromise, but by 2024 it had collapsed under stress from multiple dry years. Pumps were red-tagged in eastern Idaho, lawsuits flew, and livelihoods were on the line. Bedke stepped in to help mediate. After months of rancorous meetings, a new agreement was reached.
The current 2025 plan is stricter and more transparent. Every farm is individually accountable for its water use. Measurements are in real time. Recharge programs allow users to put water back into the aquifer and get credit for it. And tributary basins once ignored are now included, because the science shows they are hydrologically connected.
Bedke admits it isn’t perfect and it won’t last forever. New problems will emerge. Climate, growth, and shifting demands will force Idaho to adapt again. But the principle is the same: people who are “stuck with each other,” as he puts it, have to find common ground.
That willingness to compromise is the real lesson here. Solving Idaho’s water challenges required neighbors who disagreed to sit across the table, listen, and build plans that worked for everyone. That’s what leadership looks like in a state where resources are finite. Contrast that with the ideological, puritanical, no-compromise tactics that dominate social media. They generate outrage, but they don’t deliver solutions. Water management shows the opposite: the only way forward is through cooperation. Real leaders prove themselves not by stoking division, but by demonstrating that progress comes from compromise on the issues that actually matter.
This episode is worth your time. It’s not loud, it’s not flashy, and it won’t feed anyone’s Facebook outrage. But it is about the most basic resource Idaho has, and the way we manage it will decide whether future generations inherit the same opportunities we had.
About the Author
Gregory Graf is the creator of Political Potatoes and a lifelong conservative Republican. His articles often criticize the hypocrisy committed by far-right grifters who’ve taken control of the Idaho GOP and inaccurately define what it means to be a Republican. Follow Graf on X: https://x.com/gsgraf
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Author: Gregory Graf
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