Centrist Independent Voter endorses independent candidate Todd Achilles for the United States Senate from Idaho.
Achilles is challenging Republican Senator Jim Risch, who has represented Idaho in the Senate since 2009. With the Democratic nominee withdrawing from the race, Achilles has become the principal alternative to Risch in the November election.
Achilles brings an unusually broad background to the race. He grew up on a family farm, served as an Army tank commander and armor officer, spent more than two decades in senior positions with technology companies, taught public policy and served in the Idaho House of Representatives. His experience encompasses the military, business, education and elected government.
We do not agree with every element of Achilles’s platform. But his candidacy offers something potentially more important than another collection of policy positions.
It offers a plausible strategy for changing the way the United States Senate operates.
The Fulcrum Caucus
Achilles has said that, if elected, he will not join the Democratic caucus. Instead, he is working with five other independent Senate candidates to establish what they call a Fulcrum Caucus: a bloc potentially large enough to deny either major party automatic control of the Senate.
The six candidates are Achilles in Idaho, Dan Osborn in Nebraska, Seth Bodnar in Montana, Brian Bengs in South Dakota, Bob Chew in Colorado and Ty Pinkins in Mississippi. Achilles says the six are already communicating with one another about creating the caucus.
This is not merely one candidate inventing an attractive slogan. Dan Osborn has separately and repeatedly said that he will not caucus with either major party if elected in Nebraska. Centrist Independent Voter has already endorsed Osborn.
The election of one independent senator would be useful. The election of several independents committed to acting together could have institutional consequences far beyond their individual votes.
An Idea That Has Been Around Before
The underlying strategy is not new.
In his 2013 book The Centrist Manifesto, Charles Wheelan proposed electing a small group of centrist senators capable of denying either Republicans or Democrats an outright Senate majority. Those senators would then have leverage to force negotiation and give politically moderate voters influence far beyond their numbers in the Senate.
The principle is essentially the one behind the Fulcrum Caucus: centrists do not need to replace either major party to change the incentives of American government. They need enough votes, strategically located, that neither party can govern without dealing with them.
We have long regarded some variation of this idea as perhaps the most plausible route to substantially more centrist government. Building a successful national third party is extraordinarily difficult. Persuading one of the existing parties simply to become less partisan has not worked particularly well either.
A small independent bloc in a closely divided Senate is different. It could acquire genuine power almost immediately.
Why Senate Organization Matters
That power would extend beyond deciding whether particular bills pass.
Senate organization determines committee assignments, committee ratios, chairmanships, staffing and much of the practical balance of power inside the institution.
Imagine, for example, a Senate containing 48 Republicans, 48 Democrats and four genuinely independent senators. Neither major party could organize the chamber without negotiating with the independent bloc.
Those senators might seek more balanced committee representation, greater opportunity to offer amendments, protection for bipartisan legislation emerging from committees, stronger congressional checks on presidential power, or rules making it harder for either party to exclude the other from meaningful participation.
Those are our examples, not commitments Achilles has made. The precise demands of a Fulcrum Caucus would have to be negotiated.
But the leverage would be real.
That could be good for whichever party was temporarily in the minority—and therefore, over time, good for both parties. Republicans and Democrats each complain about excessive majority-party power when the other side holds it. A more balanced structure would require both parties to accept rules they could live under when their own fortunes changed.
Achilles’s Policy Strengths
Achilles’s policy platform also contains much that Centrist Independent Voter supports.
He emphasizes reducing the national debt and acknowledges that doing so will require additional revenue as well as eliminating waste. He supports closing tax loopholes and stronger enforcement against high-income tax evasion. That is not a complete fiscal plan, but it is more honest than promises to balance the budget entirely by eliminating unspecified fraud and waste.
His immigration position combines border security and additional Customs and Border Protection resources with lawful and humane enforcement, recognition of the economic value of legal immigration and awareness of Idaho agriculture’s dependence on foreign workers. That approach overlaps considerably with our own immigration policy.
He supports the Second Amendment while defending reproductive freedom, religious freedom and marriage equality. His broader principle is that government should intrude as little as reasonably possible into personal and family decisions.
Achilles also understands that support for markets requires support for competition. His concern about excessive concentration in agriculture, technology, housing and other industries is legitimate. Competitive capitalism cannot function properly when dominant firms can prevent entry, restrict consumer choice or use political influence to protect themselves from competition.
He supports congressional stock-trading restrictions, stronger lobbying rules, open political competition and restoration of Congress’s constitutional responsibility for decisions involving war. His support for open primaries and broader political competition overlaps with our Voting Rights and Reforms positions.
Ukraine and Foreign Policy
Our initial review left us concerned that Achilles’s criticism of “endless wars” might reflect a broader retreat from American international leadership.
Further examination has been reassuring.
Achilles has said that he and Idaho state Senator James Ruchti urged Senator Risch to stand up more forcefully for Ukraine. His campaign also promoted Achilles’s participation in a fundraiser supporting Ukrainians.
That is consistent with Centrist Independent Voter’s strong support for Ukraine’s resistance to Russian aggression.
Achilles nevertheless favors greater restraint in the use of American military force and wants Congress to reclaim its constitutional war-making authority. We see no contradiction between those positions. Supporting allies against aggression does not require supporting every American military intervention.
We would still like clearer positions from Achilles on NATO, China and Taiwan, Israel and the circumstances under which American military power should be used. But Ukraine is no longer an unanswered question for us.
Our Reservations
Our endorsement does not imply agreement with Achilles’s entire program.
Some of his economic proposals are too blunt.
We disagree with his proposal to tax long-term capital gains as ordinary income above $1 million. There are sound economic reasons for treating long-term gains differently. In the case of corporate stock, much of the income underlying an increase in value has already been subject to corporate income tax, so taxing the shareholder again at ordinary-income rates can produce a substantially higher combined tax burden. In addition, for any asset held for a long period, some portion of the nominal gain may simply reflect inflation rather than an increase in real purchasing power. Real estate provides an obvious example, but the principle applies broadly to long-held assets. These considerations do not justify exempting capital gains from taxation, but they do provide good reasons for taxing long-term gains differently from ordinary income.
A general prohibition on corporate ownership of single-family homes could reduce the supply of rental housing. His proposed tax on corporate stock repurchases treats a legitimate method of returning capital to shareholders as inherently suspect. His language about a “rigged economy” sometimes substitutes populist rhetoric for a careful examination of incentives and market structure.
We also disagree with important parts of his political-reform agenda.
Centrist Independent Voter supports transparency and strong conflict-of-interest rules, but we believe political spending is protected speech. We do not support overturning Citizens United simply to give government broader authority over political advocacy. Our reasoning is explained in our Campaign Finance Reform position.
We are skeptical of congressional term limits, which can transfer power from elected legislators to permanent staffs, executive agencies and lobbyists. Achilles’s proposal for mandatory congressional retirement at age 72 is arbitrary. Voters should ordinarily decide whether a candidate remains capable of serving. We might support a constitutional upper age limit for the presidency, where the risk is fundamentally different. One senator suffering mental decline is a risk worth accepting in return for the experience retained across the entire body. A president in mental decline is a bridge too far.
His fiscal program also remains incomplete. The measures he identifies would not by themselves place the federal debt on a sustainable path. A serious long-term solution will eventually require discussion of Social Security, Medicare, defense spending and broad-based revenues—not merely waste, loopholes and taxes paid by high-income households.
Finally, the Fulcrum Caucus itself needs more practical detail. We have not found a published organizational agreement specifying precisely what its members would demand, how they would approach committee assignments or what would happen if they disagreed over which party should organize the Senate.
That uncertainty is worth watching. It does not diminish the importance of the idea.
The Larger Choice
Senator Risch offers long experience and the advantages of seniority. This endorsement is not based on portraying him as the most extreme member of the Republican Party.
But experience loses value when it becomes indistinguishable from institutional inertia.
Achilles is offering Idaho voters a different conception of representation.
He would enter the Senate owing no organizational allegiance to either national party and with the stated intention of helping build an independent bloc capable of forcing both parties to negotiate.
The odds against him remain considerable. Idaho is strongly Republican, Risch is well financed and independent candidates lack the organizational machinery available to the major parties.
But an endorsement should identify the candidate who offers the best prospect for responsible government, not merely predict the likely winner. Nor should it become a vehicle for overstating one’s influence by endorsing candidates simply because they are already likely to win.
Todd Achilles combines military, business and legislative experience with a serious effort to break the two-party monopoly over Senate organization. His platform includes proposals we oppose and positions that still need development.
The Fulcrum Caucus, however, offers something rare in American politics: a plausible mechanism for turning centrist and independent voters from spectators into participants with actual institutional power.
Centrists have spent years asking Republicans and Democrats to become less partisan.
A small group of independent senators holding the balance of power would give them a reason to do so.
Centrist Independent Voter endorses Todd Achilles for the United States Senate from Idaho.