District 29 Idaho State Rep. Chris Abernathy, of Pocatello, looks forward to serving in the Legislature again if he can fend off a Republican challenge from former seat holder Dustin Manwaring, also of Pocatello.

“It’s been very interesting,” Abernathy said. “It would be nice if we could get more done and meet in the middle of the aisle.”

But legislators did accomplish some things, including expanding Medicaid, Abernathy said. And he credits Idaho voters.

“Whether the other side of the aisle liked it or not, it was going to happen,” he said.

Meanwhile, Manwaring says he’s running again to make the most of relationships he built when he was in the state Legislature from 2016 to 2018.

“I put in that time and I feel I can be a lot more effective going back to Boise as a second-term legislator and pick up on those relationships while they still exist and get some things done,” Manwaring said.

In the last session he served in the Legislature, he said he learned how much effort it takes to essentially filter out bad ideas.

“That’s one of the hardest things as a policymaker,” he said.

Abernathy said he has a few major goals to work on in the Legislature if he wins re-election to the seat.

A key issue is getting the minimum wage of $7.25 an hour increased, he said.

Idaho was tied with Nevada for the fastest growing state in the country from July 2017 to July 2018, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

“We’re doing fairly well compared to how the other states are doing,” Abernathy said. “And I’ll give some kudos for that to the governor.”

He says that Brad Little has done a good job in dealing with the whole pandemic situation.

“You look at our economy compared to all the other states during this pandemic; Idaho is in the top tier,” Abernathy said.

But Idaho is also tied with several other states for the lowest minimum wage in the country, so there’s room for the minimum wage to be increased, he said.

Plus, day cares for young children are expensive and a lot of the day cares have gone out of business since the pandemic hit.

He says the state may want to consider providing some incentives to help keep the day cares viable. He gets 25 to 50 emails in the mornings on that topic.

“That’s going to get your young families be able to go back to work and be able to get back into the economy,” he said.

If he regains his former seat, a top priority of Manwaring’s would be trying to find stable transportation funding.

Further, work on prison reform is key because costs are huge, he said.

And it goes hand in hand with physical and mental health funding, though there’s no silver bullet, he said.

“I think we can keep that (prison) recidivism rate down if we keep investing more into the health of our population,” Manwaring said.