Renegade Idaho Lt. Gov. Janice McGeachin is once again going rogue—giving a huge pay increase to an assistant who happens to be vice-chair of the state Republican Party. The lame duck—whose antics have included flouting state COVID rules, signing executive orders while the governor was out of town, and investigating libraries—made Machele Hamilton a full-time employee and boosted her hourly rate from $20 to $37 an hour. That means Hamilton will now be making $30,000 more than McGeachin’s former chief of staff, which could leave whoever succeeds her as lieutenant governor facing a budget squeeze. McGeachin ran for the Republican nomination for governor but lost the primary by more than 20 percentage points.
