"The Idaho Legislature usually can be counted on to generate embarrassing headlines, and this year was no exception, according to the Idaho Statesman editorial board. "But it wasn’t all bad. Some of it was good, while some of it was just plain ugly."
Terri Pickens, Democratic candidate for Idaho governor, has taken the lead in assessing the meaning of the Gem State's latest GOP circus. She thanked Governor Brad Little for making it clear he intends to leave the office by signing anti-freedom, anti-Idahoan bills into law. The list of anti-freedom legislation included a bill that targets librarians and a bill that bullies Idaho kids and state workers who are members of Idaho’s LGBTQ community.
“I want to thank Governor Little for announcing he’s not running for governor because he wouldn’t sign these terrible bills if he were listening to the thousands of people who begged him not to sign these laws. Little has no fight left in him and he won’t even stand up to the anti-freedom forces in the Idaho Republican Party that lets a few rigid, angry and mean voices dictate the agenda simply because they are frightened of them.
"Good bye and good riddance, Mr. Little," Pickens said. "You have missed your chance to lead with courage and dignity and instead you are leaving with a whimper – the dying gasps of the liberty we took for granted."
The list of repellent laws is long and consequences of Mr. Little timid leadership are already harming the lives of Idaho people. Doctors are leaving the state in droves for fear of being prosecuted for treating pregnant women. Businesses will find it much harder to compete for talent with other states that don’t paint targets on members of the LGBTQIA community. And don’t forget that Mr. Little still hasn’t let us know what—in real time—he is doing to address the dangerous, disastrous and disgusting racist attacks on collegiate athletes last month on a downtown Coeur d’Alene street.
"So, thank you, Mr. Little, for not running again. You’ve done too much already."
Pickens is a mother, a business owner, and multi-generational Idahoan who left the Idaho Republican Party when it became clear that the party was choosing to pursue dangerous policies that would attack freedom, target unpopular groups for political gain, and threaten our democracy.