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Craig Mason
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6 INLANDER APRIL 29, 2021
Things have gotten completely out of control at the Idaho Capitol.
IFFy Propositions
As the Boise Statehouse is deep in an anti-constitutional fever, the Mormon Church may be starting to hit the brakes BY DOUGLAS SIDDOWAY
T
here was a time you could tell someone you were from Idaho and the only response it would elicit would be something about potatoes or maybe the skiing in Sun Valley. I would know. I grew up in the southeastern corner of the state. My family has farmed and ranched there for six generations. Mention the Gem State these days, however, and what you’re likely to get is an earful about our lackluster pandemic response or Ammon Bundy, our iconic failed-rancher-turned-insurrectionist who continues to trespass the Statehouse, embarrassing everyone but his true believers. Someone should find Bundy a job away from the TV cameras. Driving up and down the state fomenting revolution might be fun and glamorous for him, but it’s wearing thin with the rest of us. While they’re at it, they also might try doing something about another subject of state wonderment: our current Legislature. Things have gotten completely out of control there, especially now that the mostly Republican senators and representatives in Boise have gone all-in with the Idaho Freedom Foundation (IFF, homegrown) and the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC, a gift from the Koch brothers) to take power away from the governor, the attorney general, cities and towns, local school boards and health districts — even the voters themselves. Their latest inspiration, introduced after
a self-induced, two-week COVID recess, is a bill from Rep. Sage Dixon of Ponderay that gives any Idaho legislator who doesn’t like a federal executive order or a federal court decision the ability to kick-start a local process to officially ignore it. For the historically minded, it’s no less an assault on the Constitution than the siege of Fort Sumter and the South’s secession from the Union.
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ood luck if you’re looking for a consistent message in all of this. It isn’t there. IFF’s so-called political philosophy isn’t exactly the Magna Carta — more like a dog’s breakfast of cobbled ideas about natural law, personal freedom, limited government and, of course, a nostalgic past. It sounds plausible if you listen unthinkingly to the words, but it’s really a disturbing effort to restrict what we read, what we think about and what we teach in our schools — a cancel culture of ignorance and fear. ALEC’s role, no less insidious, is to give cover to our duped public servants with template bills that masquerade as local solutions to local problems, but in practice are bombshells designed to blow up democracy and clear the way
