Craig’s future less certain after arrest

Tuesday, August 28, 2007 10:10 AM PDT

BOISE (AP) — U.S. Sen. Larry Craig was forced into the Senate minority by voters, defeated on immigration by colleagues and put on probation for his conduct in an airport restroom. Now analysts predict he’ll skip running for a fourth term in 2008.

The 62-year-old Republican was arrested June 11 by a plainclothes officer investigating complaints of lewd conduct in a men’s restroom at the Minneapolis airport. On Aug. 8, Craig pleaded guilty to misdemeanor disorderly conduct, which includes ‘‘offensive, obscene, abusive, boisterous or noisy conduct.’’

Craig said Monday he shouldn’t have pleaded guilty; others say he shouldn’t have waited to react until the incident surfaced Monday in the Washington, D.C.-based newspaper Roll Call.

Earlier this year, Craig said he’d wait until September to announce whether he’d run again. Craig declined to be interviewed for this story.

Craig has spent 27 years in Congress, including the last 17 in the Senate.

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The last 10 months have brought political turmoil. First, the GOP lost its majority in both the U.S. Senate and House, forcing Craig from his Veterans Committee chairmanship, and in June, Craig was trounced in his latest bid to pass immigration reform, a stance that alienated many Idaho voters. That was the same month as his arrest.

‘‘Adding this to the mix complicates his decision at best, and might cause him to rethink his future in the U.S. Senate,’’ said Jim Weatherby, a professor emeritus at Boise State University who has known Craig since they were students in the late 1960s at the University of Idaho in Moscow.

Craig, who last year backed a failed constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage, is married. He has adopted three children from his wife’s previous marriage.

Roll Call cited a report by undercover officer Sgt. Dave Karsnia after an encounter in which Karsnia was seated in a restroom stall next to a stall occupied by Craig. Karsnia described Craig tapping his foot, which Karsnia said he ‘‘recognized as a signal used by persons wishing to engage in lewd conduct.’’

With Craig’s guilty plea, the Hennepin County, Minn., court dismissed a charge of gross misdemeanor interference to privacy. Craig paid $575 in fines and fees and was placed on unsupervised probation for a year, according to court records. A 10-day county workhouse sentence was stayed.

The arrest comes after Craig last October labeled allegations from a gay-rights activist that he’s had homosexual relationships ‘‘completely ridiculous.’’

In a statement Monday, Craig said he regretted his guilty plea.

‘‘At the time of this incident, I complained to police they were misconstruing my actions,’’ he said. ‘‘I was not involved in any inappropriate conduct.’’

Craig’s spokesman in Boise, Sidney Smith, was uncertain if Craig’s guilty plea would affect his re-election plans.

‘‘It’s too early to talk about anything about that,’’ Smith told The Associated Press.

Idaho’s minority Democratic Party said Craig should have told Idaho voters earlier, instead of nearly three months after the incident.

‘‘The people of Idaho would have been better served if they’d heard this from the senator when it happened, rather than so long after the fact,’’ Democrats’ spokesman Chuck Oxley said.

Democrat Larry LaRocco, a former two-term U.S. House member, has declared his 2008 candidacy for Craig’s seat.

Two Republicans, Lt. Gov. Jim Risch and elk rancher Rex Rammell, who clashed with Idaho in 2006 after his animals bolted from their pen and were shot by state officials, have said they’ll likely run if Craig doesn’t.

Idaho Republican Party Chairman Kirk Sullivan declined to comment on Craig’s case, as did other GOP leaders.

‘‘We owe it to him (Craig) to let him say what he has to say before we decide what it means or what it does not mean,’’ said Wayne Hoffman, a spokesman for U.S. Rep. Bill Sali, R-Idaho.

Others, however, say the clock is ticking on Larry Craig’s political career.

There have already been consequences for Craig: On Monday, he quit as a Senate liaison for Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney. Idaho Republicans may next try to push him from office, said Jasper LiCalzi, a political science professor at Albertson College of Idaho. If he did leave, it would be up to Gov. C.L. ‘‘Butch’’ Otter to name a replacement.

‘‘It isn’t a question of whether he’s going to run again,’’ LiCalzi said. ‘‘It’s a question of whether he serves out his term.’’