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      ‘Republican and more Republican’: Idaho shifts ever rightward

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      ‘Republican and more Republican’: Idaho shifts ever rightward In a state where legislators can boast of membership in the Oath Keepers, the fringe has become mainstreamA peregrine falcon swoops over grazing cows. A giant Stars and Stripes is painted on wood with “Bundy for governor” and “No trespassing” attached. Up a gravel drive, past an upturned wheelbarrow, is a red, white and blue Bundy campaign bus and a sign that declares: “Keep Idaho Idaho.”Ammon Bundy’s compound is situated under rolling green hills and a broad Idaho sky. From his five-bedroom farmhouse, the far-right activist gazes out at his 240 apple trees along with cherry, peach and pear trees. He points to the homes of two neighbors, both military men – and both flying the American flag upside down.“It’s a sign of distress,” Bundy says. “I’m not influencing them in any way but, if there is going to be some type of civil war, I think it will be the military fracturing. I hope not. I believe more in a separation, if it was needed.”The bearded 46-year-old, notorious for armed standoffs with law enforcement that landed him in prison, has no chance of becoming governor of Idaho. But the mere fact that, during a year in solitary confinement, he wrote in his journal about a plan to run for elected office is indicative of a change in the political wind here.Idaho has long been one of the most conservative states in America with its fair share of extremism. Now, critics warn, the extremists are being normalised. Once dismissed as backwoods fanatics, the far right have entered the political arena and identified a path to power.That path leads through a state Republican party that has long exploited tensions between independent-spirited Idahoans and the federal government, which manages two-thirds of the state’s land, and more recently embraced former president Donald Trump’s culture of grievance.Trump beat Joe Biden with 64% of the vote here in the 2020 election. Democrats have not held the governor’s office since 1995 or statewide elected office since 2007. Most elections for the state legislature do not even feature a Democratic candidate.Chuck Malloy, a columnist and former communications adviser to the House Republican caucus, said: “Sure, we have a two-party system: it’s Republican and more Republican. Idaho is shifting more to the right every day.”In the Republican primary election for governor on 17 May, incumbent Brad Little, a stalwart conservative by national standards, is portrayed as a Republican in Name Only (Rino) by his even more extreme challenger, Lieutenant Governor Janice McGeachin (Bundy dropped out of the Republican race and is running as an independent).McGeachin has sought to grab attention by issuing executive orders banning coronavirus mask and vaccine mandates when Little was out of state only to see them overturned on his return. But the political grandstanding appears to have backfired. Opinion polls suggest that McGeachin is heading for defeat.Little, who can boast of a record $1.9bn budget surplus, could not be described as much of a liberal saviour, however. He made a pilgrimage to Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida only for the former president to endorse McGeachin four days later. As the state party’s centre of gravity shifts right, he is shifting with it.The governor recently signed one of the most extreme abortion laws in the country, banning the procedure after a foetal heartbeat is detected and allowing family members of rapists to sue providers. He also signed a bill banning transgender women from competing in women’s sports.Malloy observed: “Little can’t come across as looking pro-abortion in any way, shape or form so he signs this bill and makes the comments, well, I think it’s unconstitutional, but I’ll sign it anyway. He doesn’t want to go into a Republican primary election by being soft on the abortion issue or guns. He’s been picking his fights.”He added: “Democrats can’t be crazy about Brad Little. But to at least some people it’s a matter of do I vote for sane or insane?”Lauren Necochea, chair of the state Democratic party and a state representative, confirmed that she is unimpressed by the governor. She said: “The difference between Little and McGeachin is really more style than substance. She personifies the far-right extremism while he panders to it.”Although Little is likely to retain the governor’s mansion, elections for other offices of state are more competitive between the hard right and harder right. Priscilla Giddings, a McGeachin ally, is running for lieutenant governor, while Dorothy Moon, a member of the far-right John Birch Society, is a contender for secretary of state.Raúl Labrador, a former member of the influential US House Freedom Caucus who once proclaimed “Nobody dies because they don’t have access to healthcare”, is among the candidates for state attorney general.The extremist faction has also been expanding its influence in the state house and senate, recently attempting to block government funding for healthcare and television and to criminalise librarians for “disseminating material harmful to minors”, though the measures were ultimately thwarted.House member Chad Christensen, for example, proudly declares on his webpage his membership of the Oath Keepers, a militaristic, anti-government group whose founder, Stewart Rhodes, is facing charges of seditious conspiracy for his role in the January 6 attack on the US Capitol.Scott McIntosh, opinion editor of the Idaho Statesman newspaper, said: “When I moved here in 2006, the Republican party was very much dominated by reasonable Republicans. Brad Little would be in that category. All they were worried about was running a good small state government.“They’re still here but the Republicans who are getting elected, particularly in the past 10 years, are more interested in coming to the state capitol and pushing transgender rights, abortion, library criminalisation bills that are more culture wars they see going on in other parts of the country that they want to stop from happening here in Idaho.”Perhaps most insidiously, a new far-right generation is targeting and taking over Republican central committees at county level. It means that the election for governor might be less important than it seems since the winner will find themselves tugged to the right by a radicalised state government.Shea Andersen, a marketing consultant who has worked on political campaigns, agreed: “They’ve figured out that the real power in Idaho is not to hold the governor’s seat necessarily – though certainly it would send a great message for them – but any sort of fringe political viewpoint is better served by fanning out and getting your positions represented in more day-to-day operations, whether that is state legislature or county commissioner races or even races for treasurer and secretary of state.”The trend is especially pronounced in northern Idaho, a region infamous in the late 20th century for Richard Butler’s effort to establish a “white homeland” from his 20-acre Aryan Nations compound. Butler was eventually bankrupted by the Southern Poverty Law Center and the compound was burned in June 2001.Chris Fillios, a moderate Republican seeking re-election as a county commissioner in Kootenai county, has observed extremists on the march there. “They have been told, infiltrate at every level: school board, county, city offices, anywhere and everywhere they can, state level, federal level, infiltrate, infiltrate.”Fillios sees a connection with “alt-right” figures such as Steve Bannon, a former chief strategist in the Trump White House. “If we start from the national level and we look at Steve Bannon having identified his so-called 40,000 ‘shock troops’, the most fertile ground that they could find would be northern Idaho. If they can get a foothold here, they could use it as sort of a launch pad for the rest of the country.”A driving force is the Idaho Freedom Foundation, a thinktank that vets legislation and legislators for their conservative and libertarian credentials. Approached for an interview, the foundation emailed a one-word reply: “Nope.” Approached in person at its office near the state capitol in Boise, the foundation’s staff gave a brusque refusal.Tellingly, the foundation’s website asks: “Are you a refugee from California, or some other liberal playground? Did you move to Idaho to escape the craziness? Welcome to Idaho. We’re glad to have you here. You are one of the new Idahoans. The people who came to the Gem State seeking a home that reflects their values: small government and a freer life.”This is a trend that has been called “right flight” as conservatives pour into Idaho from liberal, racially diverse states. It could be seen as part of the grand sorting of American national politics as liberals move to places where they will find like minds and conservatives do likewise, meaning that blue states turn bluer and red states turn redder.Stephanie Witt, director of the Applied Research Center at Boise State University, said: “The newcomers aren’t liberals. They’re as conservative or more conservative than the people who are here.”“I remember one woman I met at a county women’s forum. She was a recent transplant from southern California and she’s just like, ‘We can’t let California happen here.’ She felt like she was really holding a line.”California is the most diverse state in America; Idaho is 93% white. But Tom Luna, the first Hispanic person elected to statewide office in Idaho as superintendent of public instruction, denies that race is a motivating factor. “I don’t see ‘white flight’ as a reason at all for people moving here. I don’t know the numbers but I’ve met a lot of new people that have moved here and I see quite a diversity that identify themselves as Republicans.”Luna is now chair of the state Republican party. He rejects the notion that it has gone rogue. “This is the same party that has led for the past 20 years resulting in now one of the fastest-growing, if not the fastest-growing, state in the country, and one reason is because of quality of life.”But among the new arrivals is Bundy, who grew up in Utah and lived in Arizona before moving to Idaho seven years ago. The father of six children settled on farmland outside Emmett – also the home of Governor Little, a third-generation sheep and cattle rancher – about an hour north-west of Boise.Bundy was infamous for standoffs with federal agents near his family’s ranch in Nevada in 2014 and at the Malheur national wildlife refuge in Oregon in 2016, which left one man dead. He served prison time but denies that he was leading armed rebellions and claims he won the “PR battle”.“The federal government has been attacking the land users – ranchers, loggers, miners and other people,” he said in an interview, wearing a checked shirt and paint-flecked jeans and sitting near a baby grand piano. “There’s been this almost theological battle that’s been going on for decades and decades over the land in the west.”He articulates the small government ideology of many far-right Republicans here: “I believe that we should become independent. We’ve got plenty resources and we should be able to stand on our own and not be dependent on the federal government to pay our medical bills and to build our buildings and all of that. But we’re like welfare junkies. We can’t seem to get off of it.”Bundy has been arrested multiple times in Idaho. Once such incident occurred in 2020 because he refused to leave a statehouse auditorium while protesting against pandemic legislation after officials ordered the room to be cleared. Earlier this year he was involved in protests that helped force a hospital into temporary lockdown.The rise of such tactics by extremists, which has included harassing and intimidating Republican legislators deemed too moderate, and storming into school or district health board meetings, sometimes with AR-15 rifles, has raised the specter of political violence in the state’s future.McIntosh of the Idaho Statesman said: “I only see it getting worse. I don’t see a way out of it.”TopicsThe far rightIdahoRepublicansUS politicsfeaturesReuse this content More

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      States Turn to Tax Cuts as Inflation Stays Hot

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      WASHINGTON — In Kansas, the Democratic governor has been pushing to slash the state’s grocery sales tax. Last month, New Mexico lawmakers provided $1,000 tax rebates to households hobbled by high gas prices. Legislatures in Iowa, Indiana and Idaho have all cut state income taxes this year.A combination of flush state budget coffers and rapid inflation has lawmakers across the country looking for ways to ease the pain of rising prices, with nearly three dozen states enacting or considering some form of tax relief, according to the Tax Foundation, a right-leaning think tank.The efforts are blurring typical party lines when it comes to tax policy. In many cases, Democrats are joining Republicans in supporting permanently lower taxes or temporary cuts, including for high earners.But while the policies are aimed at helping Americans weather the fastest pace of inflation in 40 years, economists warn that, paradoxically, cutting taxes could exacerbate the very problem lawmakers are trying to address. By putting more money in people’s pockets, policymakers risk further stimulating already rampant consumer demand, pushing prices higher nationally.Jason Furman, an economist at Harvard University who was an economic adviser under the Obama administration, said that the United States economy was producing at full capacity right now and that any additional spending power would only drive up demand and prices. But when it comes to cutting taxes, he acknowledged, the incentives for states do not always appear to be aligned with what is best for the national economy.“I think all these tax cuts in states are adding to inflation,” Mr. Furman said. “The problem is, from any governor’s perspective, a lot of the inflation it is adding is nationwide and a lot of the benefits of the tax cuts are to the states.”States are awash in cash after a faster-than-expected economic rebound in 2021 and a $350 billion infusion of stimulus funds that Congress allocated to states and cities last year. While the Biden administration has restricted states from using relief money to directly subsidize tax cuts, many governments have been able to find budgetary workarounds to do just that without violating the rules.Last week, Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida signed a $1.2 billion tax cut that was made possible by budget surpluses. The state’s coffers were bolstered by $8.8 billion in federal pandemic relief money. Mr. DeSantis, a Republican, hailed the tax cuts as the largest in the state’s history.“Florida’s economy has consistently outpaced the nation, but we are still fighting against inflationary policies imposed on us by the Biden administration,” he said.Adding to the urgency is the political calendar: Many governors and state legislators face elections in November, and voters have made clear they are concerned about rising prices for gas, food and rent.“It’s very difficult for policymakers to see the inflationary pressures that taxpayers are burdened by right now while sitting on significant cash reserves without some desire to return that,” said Jared Walczak, vice president of state projects with the Center for State Tax Policy at the Tax Foundation. “The challenge for policymakers is that simply cutting checks to taxpayers can feed the inflationary environment rather than offsetting it.”The tax cuts are coming in a variety of forms and sizes. According to the Tax Foundation, which has been tracking proposals this year, some would be phased in, some would be permanent and others would be temporary “holidays.”Next month, New York will suspend some of its state gas taxes through the end of the year, a move that Gov. Kathy Hochul, a Democrat, said would save families and businesses an estimated $585 million.In Pennsylvania, Gov. Tom Wolf, a Democrat, has called for gradually lowering the state’s corporate tax rate to 5 percent from 10 percent — taking a decidedly different stance from many of his political peers in Congress, who have called for raising corporate taxes. Mr. Wolf said in April that the proposal was intended to make Pennsylvania more business friendly.States are acting on a fresh appetite for tax cuts as inflation is running at a 40-year high.OK McCausland for The New York TimesMr. Furman pointed to the budget surpluses as evidence that the $1.9 trillion pandemic relief package handed too much money to local governments. “The problem was there was just too much money for states and localities.”A new report from the Tax Policy Center, a left-leaning think tank, said total state revenues rose by about 17.6 percent last year. State rainy day funds — money that is set aside to cover unexpected costs — have reached “new record levels,” according to the National Association of State Budget Officers.Yet those rosy budget balances may not last if the economy slows, as expected. The Federal Reserve has begun raising interest rates in an attempt to cool economic growth, and there are growing concerns about the potential for another recession. Stocks fell for another session on Monday, with the S&P 500 down 3.2 percent, as investors fretted about a slowdown in global growth, high inflation and other economic woes.Cutting taxes too deeply now could put states on weaker financial footing.The Tax Policy Center said its state tax revenue forecasts for the rest of this year and next year were “alarmingly weak” as states enacted tax cuts and spending plans. Fitch, the credit rating agency, said recently that immediate and permanent tax cuts could be risky in light of evolving economic conditions.“Substantial tax policy changes can negatively affect revenues and lead to long-term structural budget challenges, especially when enacted all at once in an uncertain economic environment,” Fitch said.The state tax cuts are taking place as the Biden administration struggles to respond to rising prices. So far, the White House has resisted calls for a gas tax holiday, though Jen Psaki, the White House press secretary, said in April that President Biden was open to the idea. The administration has responded by primarily trying to ease supply chain logjams that have created shortages of goods and cracking down on price gouging, but taming inflation falls largely to the Fed.The White House declined to assess the merits of states’ cutting taxes but pointed to the administration’s measures to expand fuel supplies and proposals for strengthening supply chains and lowering health and child care costs as evidence that Mr. Biden was taking inflation seriously.“President Biden is taking aggressive action to lower costs for American families and address inflation,” Emilie Simons, a White House spokeswoman, said.The degree to which state tax relief fuels inflation depends in large part on how quickly the moves go into effect.Gov. Laura Kelly backed a bill last month that would phase out the 6.5 percent grocery sales tax in Kansas, lowering it next January and bringing it to zero by 2025. Republicans in the state pushed for the gradual reduction despite calls from Democrats to cut the tax to zero by July.Inflation F.A.Q.Card 1 of 6What is inflation? More

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      Republican hopes to ride far-right rage into Idaho’s governor’s office

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      Republican hopes to ride far-right rage into Idaho’s governor’s office Lieutenant governor Janice McGeachin is building a coalition including white nationalist and far-right militia backing, in what she tells supporters is ‘the fight of our lives’As the far right in America seeks to increase its political influence, including by seeking elected office, one figure is emerging as potentially its most powerful figure: Idaho’s lieutenant governor, Janice McGeachin.McGeachin is running for governor of the state and building a coalition including white nationalist and far-right militia backing, in what she tells her supporters is “the fight of our lives”.Last month at the America First Political Action Conference, a white nationalist conference, McGeachin praised attendees: “Keep up the good work fighting for our country,” she said in a pre-taped address.“I need fighters all over this country that are willing stand up and fight,” McGeachin continued, urging attendees to push out moderates in the Republican party. “Even when that means fighting amongst our own ranks because there are too many Republicans who do not exhibit the courage that is needed today for us to fight and protect our freedoms and our liberties. We are literally in the fight for our lives.”Three years after attending the the deadly “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, the far-right provocateur Nick Fuentes created the white nationalist conference AFPAC in the hopes of branding it a far-right alternative to the more mainstream conservative gathering CPAC. Fuentes is a well-known white nationalist and notorious antisemite who mocks how Jews were murdered in the Holocaust while also denying the Holocaust occurred.McGeachin has a history of giving speeches and mingling at far-right rallies, often riding the wave of the latest rightwing outrage. Last year at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic, McGeachin gave a rousing speech at a mask-burning event on the Idaho capitol steps, where children burned masks in front of their parents.The Guardian reported last year on the growing civil war inside the Republican party in Idaho, when McGeachin imposed a ban on masks while the governor was out of state. McGeachin also created a taskforce to look into claims of “indoctrination” in schools in order to project children from “the scourge of Critical Race Theory, socialism, communism and Marxism” according to documents obtained by the Idaho Statesman newspaper.This month McGeachin also jumped on the cause of the trucker convoy protest, speaking at a locally planned convoy rally in Idaho. According to local TV station KTVB about 500 people showed up to protest against Covid-19 mandates, though Idaho has none. McGeachin told the crowd “Sometimes they refer to us as being ‘extreme’ for our views,” before reading out loud a quote from Barry Goldwater defending extremism in pursuit of liberty. “We are a free nation and it is so important that we stand now and continue to fight for that freedom and that liberty that makes this country so great,” she said.McGeachin has also attended a gathering where she was endorsed by a rightwing militia figure whom she had apparently made political promises too. In a video previously obtained by the Guardian Eric Parker – who was charged over his role in the standoff in 2014 at Bundy Ranch in Nevada where he was pictured pointing an assault rifle at federal agents – reminded McGeachin that she once told “if I get in, you’re going to have a friend in the governor’s office”.Experts who follow the far right in the US believe McGeachin represents a serious threat, especially as more militia-affiliated groups have started to enter local government in the US, such as in California’s Shasta county.“From her recent speech at AFPAC, continued embrace of white nationalism and endorsements from prominent antisemitic leaders to her longstanding ties with paramilitaries, it couldn’t be clearer that McGeachin is a danger to the rule of law, Idaho communities and democratic institutions,” said Amy Herzfeld-Copple, deputy director of programs at Western States Strategies, a non-profit that works for inclusive democracy through nonpartisan education and advocacy.A total of 31 faith leaders in Idaho recently signed an open letter calling for McGeachin to resign. Rabbis, reverends, pastors and others of different faiths across the state warned in the letter of the “staggering consequences of ignoring extremism” and describe a “rising tide of antisemitism here in Idaho”.The letter cited recent acts of vandalism including at the Anne Frank Human Rights Memorial in Boise. It said: “By associating with alt-right actors and groups like AFPAC in addition to your ties to militia groups that advocate for political violence and harassment in Idaho, you have proven you are not fit to hold elected office, let alone serve a heartbeat away from becoming Idaho’s next governor.”Rabbi Dan Fink of Ahavath Beth Israel in Boise, who co-signed the letter, said in an interview with KTVB that he was courted by McGeachin earlier this year, to help with a campaign against antisemitism.“The dissonance was so extraordinary. I both hurt and at some level, had to laugh because it was surreal,” Fink said in the interview, appalled that McGeachin would share a stage with a Holocaust denier while trying to enlist a rabbi’s help. “That you have the chutzpah to reach out to me and say ‘help me on antisemitism’ while going out and glorying in the presence of antisemites is extraordinary,” Fink said.Herzfeld-Copple said it was not clear how deep McGeachin’s popular support was in Idaho.“McGeachin is a troubling anti-democracy figure in our region seeking to build a national profile with violent and bigoted social movements that increasingly see her as their access to power. But we know these extremists are a minority and Idahoans have routinely rejected those who court white nationalists,” said Herzfeld-Copple.But far-right controversy is never far away from McGeachin and this week she took the highly unusual step of intervening on behalf of a far-right group in a child welfare case involving a 10-month old baby who is the grandson of a campaign consultant for the militia leader Ammon Bundy, founder of the far-right group People’s Rights.The child had been taken away from the parents after officials determined the child was “suffering from severe malnourishment” and in imminent danger. But the Idaho Statesman obtained text messages between McGeachin and Governor Brad Little showing McGeachin seeking to intervene in the case. “Is this true? Call off this medical tyranny tell the hospital to release the baby to his parents,” she wrote.Bundy himself was subsequently arrested this week for trespassing at St Luke’s hospital, where he went to protest with scores of supporters over what he called a “medical kidnapping”.“Nearly every day, McGeachin’s actions become more dangerous. She contradicted pleas from law enforcement and hospital officials and used her government Facebook page to discuss a confidential child welfare case, contributing to a mob of Ammon Bundy supporters that caused a lockdown at Idaho’s largest hospital, compromising delivery of patient and emergency care,” said Herzfeld-Copple.Experts who monitor the far right note that while there is a growing number of far-right legislators at the state and federal level, such as the Arizona state sentator Wendy Rogers, who has admitted to being a member of the Oath Keepers militia, or the Georgia congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, who spoke at the same white nationalist conference as McGeachin amid chants of support for the Russian president, Vladimir Putin.If McGeachin were to win the race and become governor in Idaho it would be a major victory for far-right politics in America.“There are a lot of implications for having someone in the executive branch giving the stamp of approval to far-right paramilitary groups and white nationalists,” said Devin Burghart, executive director of Institute for Research & Education on Human Rights.“In recent years it is unprecedented to see a lieutenant governor doing things like participating in a white nationalist conference or weighing in on a far-right-driven child endangerment issue, we haven’t seen that high a level of support for the far right since the days of the Council of Conservative Citizens, the lineal descendants of the White Citizens Council in the south.” said Burghart.Burghart warned that state politics and far-right extremism in the sparsely populated west of the US is often forgotten in the national political conversation, but it can have major consequences.“What happens out here in the west becomes a model, a testing ground for far-right activism. And what happens out here in the west doesn’t stay in the west, it migrates around the country, said Burghart.TopicsIdahoUS politicsRepublicansThe far rightAntisemitismfeaturesReuse this content More

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      Idaho copies extreme Texas law and bans abortion after six weeks

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      Idaho copies extreme Texas law and bans abortion after six weeksOutrage as state becomes first in US to pass ban modelled on Texas law that allows family members to sue abortion providers Idaho has become the first US state to pass an abortion ban modeled after a controversial Texas law that prohibits abortions after about six weeks or when a heartbeat is detected.Blue states seek to protect abortion rights before supreme court decisionRead moreThe news comes with abortion rights under assault across the US – despite clear majority support for such rights. The conservative-dominated US supreme court is thought likely to overturn Roe v Wade, the 1973 ruling which established the right, later this year.On Monday, Idaho house members passed the ban 51-14. No Democrats supported the legislation. The Senate has approved the bill and the Republican governor, Brad Little, is expected to sign it.Abortion rights groups called on Little to use his veto.Planned Parenthood called the bill a copycat of the Texas bill that became law last May and was controversially left in place by the supreme court.“Idaho’s anti-abortion lawmakers ignored public opinion and rushed through this legislation, looking to capitalize on the US supreme court’s failure to block Texas’s ban,” Planned Parenthood said, adding that the bill’s proponents have been open about wanting Idaho to become “the next Texas”.Jennifer M Allen, chief executive of Planned Parenthood Alliance Advocates, an Idaho nonprofit, said: “Little must do the right thing, listen to the medical community and veto this legislation before it forces Idaho patients to leave the state for critical, time-sensitive care or remain pregnant against their will.”The Idaho bill would also allow family members to sue doctors who perform procedures after six weeks of pregnancy, before most people know they are pregnant. The bill provides a minimum reward of $20,000 plus legal fees within four years of the abortion for successful suits, compared to minimum $10,000 and legal costs under the Texas law.Unlike the Texas law, the Idaho bill provides some exceptions in cases of rape or incest. While a rapist could not sue practitioners under Idaho’s new bill, family members could. Victims would have to file a police report and provide it to a doctor before they could get the procedure.“This bill is not clever, it’s absurd,” said Democratic representative Lauren Necochea, adding that the rape and incest exemptions were “not meaningful”.Last year, Little signed a “heartbeat” bill into law, but it included a “trigger provision” that stopped it being in effect until a federal court approved it, which has not happened.Several Republican-run states have taken steps to restrict abortion rights. Among them, bills in Missouri would permit lawsuits against those who help someone cross state lines to get an abortion. Terminating non-viable pregnancies would be a criminal offense.The Oklahoma senate recently passed six anti-abortion measures, including a copycat of the Texas ban. In February, the Arizona senate passed an abortion ban that would prohibit the procedure after 15 weeks, similar to the law passed in Mississippi, which is expected to lead the supreme court to overturn Roe v Wade.TopicsIdahoAbortionUS politicsnewsReuse this content More

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      Idaho bill that criminalizes medical trans youth treatments passes house

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      Idaho bill that criminalizes medical trans youth treatments passes houseBill aims to make gender-affirming care a felony and punishable by life in prison for anyone who helps a child travel out of state Idaho’s house of representatives has passed a bill that would criminalize gender-affirming medical procedures for transgender youth and make it a felony punishable by life imprisonment for anyone who helps a child travel across state lines to gender-affirming healthcare.The bill, approved on Tuesday, targets medical measures that include vasectomy, hysterectomy, mastectomy, puberty-blocking medication and supraphysiological doses of testosterone or estrogen.The bill will now move on to the state’s Republican-controlled senate. If approved, the Republican governor, Brad Little, could either sign it into law or veto it.“Whoever knowingly removes or causes, permits, or facilitates the removal of a child from this state for the purpose of facilitating any act prohibited … by this section shall be guilty of a felony,” the bill states. “Any person convicted of a violation … shall be guilty of a felony and shall be imprisoned in the state prison for a term of not more than life.”Civil rights and LGBTQ+ advocacy campaigns condemned the proposed bill. “By making it impossible for doctors to provide care for their patients, transgender youth are denied the age-appropriate, best practice, medically necessary, gender-affirming care that a new study just found reduces the risk of moderate or severe depression by 60% and suicidality by 73%,” Cathryn Oakley, state legislative director and senior counsel for the Human Rights Campaign, the nation’s largest LGBTQ+ advocacy group, said.“Bills like HB 675 are being pushed across the country by well-funded, national, anti-trans groups to mobilize their political base,” Chase Strangio, deputy director for transgender justice at the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), said. “These bills do nothing to invest and protect Idaho youth and families and Idahoans deserve better.”According to a 2019 report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), almost 2% of high school students identified as trans, and 35% had attempted suicide in the previous year.According to the Human Rights Campaign, more than 300 anti-LGBTQ+ bills are currently under consideration in state legislatures across the country.State representative Bruce Skaug, the bill’s lead sponsor, said that the bill was “about protecting children”. He also compared gender-affirming treatments to minors drinking alcohol and getting tattoos.The bill passed with a near party-line vote, with Republicans winning by 55-13. Dr Fred Wood, the House’s only physician, joined 12 Democrats in voting against the bill.“Our transgender youth are so incredibly courageous, and I know how stressful it has been for transgender youth and their families as they’ve watched this bill move through this body,” said the Democratic representative Lauren Neocochea during its debate.“An Idaho doctor has had to assist three transgender youth related to their suicide attempts since this bill has been introduced. We need to trust those parents and providers to make these deeply personal decisions,” she added.The Idaho vote comes as the Florida senate also passed a bill on Tuesday which forbids instruction on sexual orientation and gender identity in kindergarten through third grade.Last week, a Texas judge blocked the state from investigating the parents of a trans teenager over gender-affirming treatments after the order by the Republican governor, Greg Abbott, that officials look into reports of such treatments as abuse.TopicsIdahoTransgenderLGBT rightsUS politicsRepublicansnewsReuse this content More

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      ‘The testing ground’: how Republican state parties grow Trumpism 2.0

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      ‘The testing ground’: how Republican state parties grow Trumpism 2.0 In Oklahoma, Idaho, Wyoming and California, the next generation of GOP extremists are passing laws, picking their own voters … and preparing for powerThe website of the Oklahoma Republican party has a running countdown to the 2024 presidential election measured in “Maga days”, “Maga hours”, “Maga minutes” and “Maga seconds” – Maga being shorthand for Donald Trump’s timeworn slogan, “Make America great again”.Betrayal review: Trump’s final days and a threat not yet extinguishedRead moreThe state party chairman, John Bennett, a veteran of three combat tours in Iraq and Afghanistan, has described Islam as a “cancer in our nation that needs to be cut out” and posted a yellow Star of David on Facebook to liken coronavirus vaccine mandates to the persecution of Jewish people in Nazi Germany.This is just one illustration of how Republican parties at the state level are going to new extremes in their embrace of Trump, an ominous sign ahead of midterm elections next year and a potential glimpse of the national party’s future. Yet the radicalisation often takes place under the radar of the national media.“We are not a swing state and we’re nowhere near a swing state so no one’s looking,” said Alicia Andrews, chair of the Oklahoma Democratic party. “And because no one is looking at Oklahoma, we are allowed to be way more extreme than a lot of states.”Andrews pointed to the example of a state law passed by the Republican majority in April that grants immunity to drivers who unintentionally injure or kill protesters and stiffens penalties for demonstrators who block public roadways.“Only three states passed it, with Oklahoma being the first,” she said. “And you know why? Because there wasn’t national attention. We were talking about Florida passing it and Texas passing it. No one was even considering what was going on in Oklahoma and it quietly passed in Oklahoma.”Similarly, Andrew argues, while other states were debating “critical race theory” in schools, in Oklahoma a ban was rammed through with little coverage. Another concern is gerrymandering, the process whereby a party redraws district boundaries for electoral advantage.Andrews, the first African American to lead the Oklahoma Democratic party, said: “Our legislators are in a special session right now to review our maps and they are really eroding an urban core, taking at least 6,000 Hispanic Americans out of an urban district and moving them to a rural district, thus denuding their votes. I didn’t think that they could make it worse but they are.”Oklahoma is a deep red state. As of August, its house and senate had 121 Republicans and 28 Democrats. It continues to hold “Stop the Steal” rallies pushing Trump’s “big lie” that Joe Biden robbed him of victory in the presidential election.Andrews warns that Republicans in her state are indicative of a national trend.“Their stated strategy is start at the municipal level, take over the state, take over the nation. So while everybody’s talking about the infrastructure plan and the Build Back Better plan, they’re rubbing their hands together and making differences in states.”She added: “We’re like the testing ground for their most radical right exercises, and once they perfect it here, they can take it to other states.”‘Owning the libs’Republican state parties’ rightward spiral has included promotion of Trump’s “big lie” about electoral fraud, white nationalism and QAnon, an antisemitic conspiracy theory involving Satan-worshipping cannibals and a child sex-trafficking ring. It can find bizarre and disturbing expression.Arizona staged a sham “audit” of the 2020 presidential election that only confirmed Biden’s victory in the state. Last month in Idaho, when Governor Brad Little was out of the state, his lieutenant, Janice McGeachin, issued an executive order to prevent employers requiring employees be vaccinated against Covid-19. Little rescinded it on his return.The Wyoming state party central committee this week voted to no longer recognise the congresswoman Liz Cheney – daughter of the former vice-president Dick Cheney and a hardline conservative – as a Republican, its second formal rebuke for her criticism of Trump and vote to impeach him for his role in the US Capitol attack.Nina Hebert, communications director of the state Democratic party, said: “Wyoming is not exempt from the extremism that Trump has intentionally cultivated and fuelled and continues to court today.“He was a popular figure in Wyoming in the 2016 election and he retains that popularity amongst voters in the state, which I think is the most red in the nation.”Gerrymandering is a longstanding problem, Hebert said, but Trump’s gleeful celebration of the 6 January riot has opened floodgates.“They have created situations where Republican-controlled state legislatures have no reason to pretend even that they’re not just trying to hold on to power. This has become something that is acceptable within the Republican party.”The shift has also been evident in policy in Florida, Texas and other states where Republicans have taken aim at abortion access, gun safety, trans and voting rights. Often, zealous officials seem to be trying to outdo one another in outraging liberals, known as “owning the libs”.The drift is not confined to red states. When Republicans in California, a Democratic bastion, sought to recall Governor Gavin Newsom, they rallied around a Trumpian populist in the conservative talk radio host Larry Elder rather than a more mainstream figure such as Kevin Faulconer, a former mayor of San Diego.Kurt Bardella, an adviser to the Democratic National Committee who was once an aide to a leading California Republican, said: “To me that was a bellwether. If even a state like California can’t get a more moderate, pragmatic Republican party at the state level, there’s really no hope for any of the parties in any state at this point.“They’re leaning so hard into this anti-democratic, authoritarian, non-policy-based iteration and identity. The old adage, ‘As goes California, so goes the country,’ well, look at what the California Republican party did and we’re seeing that play out across the board.”‘Wackadoodle Republicans’Like junior sports teams, state parties are incubators and pipelines for generations of politicians heading to Washington. The primary election system tends to favour the loudest and most extreme voices, who can whip up enthusiasm in the base.Trump has been promiscuous in his endorsements of Maga-loyal candidates for the November 2022 midterms, among them Herschel Walker, a former football star running for the Senate in Georgia despite a troubled past including allegations that he threatened his ex-wife’s life.Other examples include Sarah Sanders, a former White House press secretary running for governor in Arkansas, and Karoline Leavitt, a 23-year-old former assistant press secretary targeting a congressional seat in New Hampshire.‘Professor or comrade?’ Republicans go full red scare on Soviet-born Biden pickRead moreThis week, Amanda Chase, a state senator in Virginia and self-described “Trump in heels”, announced a bid for Congress against the Democrat Abigail Spanberger. Chase gave a speech in Washington on 6 January, hours before the insurrection, and was censured by her state senate for praising the rioters as “patriots”.The former congressman Joe Walsh, who was part of the Tea Party, a previous conservative movement against the Republican establishment, and now hosts a podcast, said: “I talked to these folks every day, and for people who think [members of Congress] Matt Gaetz and Marjorie Taylor Greene and Lauren Boebert are nuts, they ain’t seen nothing yet.“The Republicans at the state and local level are way, way more gone than the Republicans in Washington. We’re talking about grassroots voters and activists on the ground and eventually, to win a Republican primary at whatever level, every candidate has to listen to them.“So you’re going to get a far larger number of wackadoodle Republicans elected to Congress in 2022 because they will reflect the craziness that’s going on state and locally right now.”TopicsRepublicansUS politicsOklahomaWyomingCaliforniaIdahoUS midterm elections 2022featuresReuse this content More

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      Idaho candidate for governor endorsed by rightwing militia leader, video reveals

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      Idaho’s Republican lieutenant governor and gubernatorial candidate, Janice McGeachin, attended a gathering where she was endorsed in a glowing introductory speech by a rightwing militia leader, as revealed in a video obtained by the Guardian.The video shows Eric Parker, who was charged over his role in the standoff in 2014 at Bundy Ranch in New Mexico where he was pictured pointing an assault rifle at federal agents, reminding McGeachin that she told him at an earlier meeting that “if I get in, you’re going to have a friend in the governor’s office”.In the same speech, Parker tells the small audience that when he sought McGeachin’s assistance in the case of Todd Engel, another Bundy Ranch attendee who was sentenced to 14 years in prison in 2019, he showed her sealed evidence from the trial.He recalled saying to her: “I’m not sure this is legal” and that she replied: “I want to see it,”after which time he said she “started writing letters to the Department of Justice” and “rallying support” on behalf of the imprisoned man.Parker posted the speech video on his Telegram channel on 19 May, the same day that McGeachin publicly announced her candidacy for governor, where she may be up against the incumbent, fellow Republican Brad Little, who is yet to clarify his intentions.In his endorsement, Parker tells the audience: “We need to do everything we can to get her where she can do the most good for us … we got to get her in there for us.” A few moments later McGeachin walks into frame and the two embrace.McGeachin has encountered previous controversies involving links with extremist groups. In 2018 she refused to answer media questions as to whether she was using Three Percenter members as security during her gubernatorial run. In 2019, she was pictured with Three Percenters who were rallying in support of Engel.She has also offered support to anti-mask and anti-lockdown protesters in the state, who include Ammon Bundy’s Peoples Rights Network.In his speech in the video, Parker also recalled McGeachin signing a letter in support of him, as part of an effort led by far right Idaho representative, Dorothy Moon, during his own federal prosecution in Nevada for his own role in the standoff.Parker pleaded guilty in 2018 to a misdemeanor after two hung-jury trials on felony charges including including conspiracy, extortion, assault and obstruction, and eighteen 18 months in custody. Engel’s trial was vacated by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals last August.Earlier that year, Parker founded the Real 3% of Idaho as an unincorporated nonprofit organization. In late 2020, he claimed that the organization had 2,500 members around the state, and has repeatedly denied that the group is a militia.A 1 June video on Parker’s 3% of Idaho YouTube channel shows Parker and Engel drilling with assault rifles on a rural property, and features the title “Eric and Todd, Idaho’s gunmen celebrate Memorial day”.Parker is not shy of controversy. In a 2 May photograph on Parker’s Telegram account Parker stands side by side with Nate Silvester, who was at that time still a deputy with the marshal’s office in Bellevue, Idaho, just miles away from Parker’s address in Hailey in Blaine county. Parker identifies Silvester only as “Officer Funny”, presumably a reference to the fact that the Deputy was enjoying a moment of viral fame after he posted a video to TikTok mocking the tweets of LeBron James, who had tweeted protesting at the fatal police shooting of Ohio teen Ma’Khia Bryant.Following Silvester’s 24 April video, which said among other things that the officer who shot Bryant “did the right thing”, the city of Bellevue placed him on administrative leave, and then fired him on 29 May.Lindsay Schubiner, program director at the Western States Center, a progressive non-profit whose work includes monitoring extremist groups in the region, said that Parker’s video “demonstrated his cozy relationship with McGeachin”.She described the relationship between such a senior politician and the far-right militia figure as “deeply disturbing”.Schubiner added that McGeachin “has consistently sought the support and backing of extreme, anti-democratic movements in Idaho”, and that “no public official has any business advancing the agenda of an anti-democratic paramilitary group”.Neither McGeachin nor Parker responded to repeated attempts to contact them for comment. More

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      Idaho’s Republicans in political civil war as state lurches further right

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      Idaho’s rightward political lurch has immersed the state’s Republicans in a political civil war that now extends all the way from the grassroots to the executive mansion.In late May, the state’s Republican governor, Brad Little, angrily revoked an executive order banning mask mandates in the state that had been put in place by his own militia-supporting lieutenant governor during a period when she was deputizing for him. Janice McGeachin had ordered that Idaho cities and counties revoke mask orders, playing into a widespread fear among the far right that basic health measures to stop the spread of the coronavirus pandemic are a sign of an over-reaching government. Little then called McGeachin’s action “tyranny” and a “stunt” and scuppered it after it had been in place for just a day.But observers say the bizarre fight is symptomatic of a much wider problem in Idaho and the rest of America.They fear that the political dynamics in Idaho – where far-right actors have won recruits and political momentum through uncompromising refusal to comply with public health measures – may presage a worrying direction of conservative politics in the country as a whole.“Political moderates around the country need to pay more attention to what is happening here,” said Mike Satz, executive director of the Idaho97 project, which was founded last year to combat misinformation about the Covid-19 pandemic.“Idaho used to follow broader trends, but now it is in the vanguard of extremist activity,” Satz added.Political moderates around the country need to pay more attention to what is happening hereThe mask ban was put in place by McGeachin, a businesswoman who previously spent 10 years as a state representative for a rural district in the state’s far east. Idaho had no statewide mask ban measures in place, but McGeachin’s move was an attempt to prevent cities and counties addressing the pandemic with emergency measures by themselves.The lieutenant governor won election in 2018 after squeaking through a crowded five-way Republican primary earlier that year. Since then she has won praise from the far right and drawn concern from more moderate Republicans over her associations with the Three Percenter militia movement.During her vice-gubernatorial run, a member of her security detail sported a Three Percenter tattoo, and McGeachin refused to answer media questions about security staffing. On another occasion in 2019, she posted to Facebook a picture of herself with members of the Real Three Percenters group, who were protesting on behalf of Todd Engel, who was sentenced in the previous year to 14 years in a federal prison over his role in a 2014 armed standoff with federal agents at Bundy Ranch in Bunkerville, Nevada.Just weeks later, McGeachin led armed protesters, including Three Percenters, through an impromptu oath which appeared to be intended to swear them in as state militia.Recently McGeachin, while appearing as a guest on the podcast of Southern Poverty Law Center-listed extremist David Horowitz, said that the federal US government did not rightfully own any public lands in Idaho, which make up about 60% of the state’s total area.“I don’t view that the federal government owns the land in Idaho, my view is that the land of Idaho belongs to the state of Idaho,” McGeachin told Horowitz, echoing the views expressed by the likes of fellow Idahoan Ammon Bundy, who led the armed occupation of the Malheur national wildlife refuge in 2016.Even in a deep red state, until recently such associations and positions may have ruled McGeachin out as a serious contender for the governorship.But Jaclyn Kettler, a political scientist at Boise State University, located in the state’s capital, said that over the last year, “battles over mask mandates have underlined divisions within the Republican party”.She says that the divisions are long-standing, and partly related to the party’s lock on statewide offices and the legislature in a state which has not elected a Democratic governor for more than 30 years, and has returned large majorities for every Republican presidential candidate since Richard Nixon’s run in 1968.“When you have a majority for so long, it can lead to internal divisions and factions,”, Kettler said, and adds that the recent successes of conservative Republican candidates in winning primaries, elections or re-election has “shifted the legislature and the party to the right”.Satz, the Idaho97 director, says that this rightward move means that the election of McGeachin, who has positioned herself as the hard right’s tribune, is now a possibility.“Before 2018, no one thought that there was a realistic chance of her becoming lieutenant governor, but here we are,” Satz added.In the last year, and particularly in 2021, what has boosted McGeachin’s status among conservatives has been her support of protests against mask and lockdown orders, which have included direct criticisms of Little’s efforts to rein the virus in, and mandates introduced by local governments.Satz says that a range of far right actors have exploited grassroots angst about Covid measures, including McGeachin, legislators like Heather Scott, Dorothy Moon and Chad Christensen and far-right actors like Bundy, and members of Christ Church, based in the Idaho college town of Moscow.According to Satz these increasingly “violent and aggressive” protests came about in a slow boil. While there were only sparse, fringe protests at the outset of the pandemic, racial justice protests in the wake of the murder of George Floyd brought armed rightwing counter-protesters into the streets. That included in the North Idaho town of Coeur D’Alene, where dozens of heavily armed men began facing off with relatively small Black Lives Matter protest groups in June 2020.Satz said that these counter-protests began to bleed into anti-mask protests, and later ones against Joe Biden’s victory in the 2020 election, which many Republicans and those on the far right falsely believe was stolen by the Democrats. “It’s all the same people,” he said of the composition of the various rightwing protests movements.Consistent promoters of protests include Bundy, who began early on in the pandemic to characterize mask mandates and lockdowns as affronts to liberty.As early as March 2020, Bundy was fronting meetings in his current home city of Emmett, Idaho, calling on people to reject mask orders. By April, he was rallying followers to the defense of arrested anti-vaxxers, and was a prominent participant in anti lockdown marches on the state capitol, some of which were organized in part by the dark money group the Idaho Freedom Foundation. Last August, Bundy was arrested multiple times while leading a maskless protest against Covid measures in the Idaho state house. .Despite being banned from the state house after his arrests, Bundy himself has now filed to run for governor in Idaho in 2022.Bundy also had a hand in making the tone of anti-mask protests more aggressive from December 2020 on. In that month, protesters succeeded in shutting down a meeting of public health officials who had convened to discuss a mandate in the Boise region to address then-surging cases of Covid-19.That protest included members of Bundy’s People’s Rights group. Bundy has reportedly encouraged members, who include a wide range of far-right activists in Idaho and beyond, to engage in weapons and ham radio training sessions in 10-person cells in order to defend themselves in an armed conflict with government, which Bundy has hinted is an inevitability.Now, People’s Rights-linked farmers have purchased land along the Klamath River in Oregon to protest against drought-related reductions in irrigation allowances to farmers.Amy Herzfeld-Copple monitors extremism and other threats in Idaho and beyond for progressive non-profit the Western States Center. In an email, she wrote that “both Bundy and McGeachin have exploited pandemic anxiety and instability over the last year to build political power and attract attention for disrupting democratic norms”.Herzfeld-Copple added that “they each have long histories of engaging with paramilitaries, encouraging political violence, courting bigoted groups”, and that “there’s a real danger that their campaigns will embolden extremist movements”.In March 2021, again in Coeur D’Alene, protesters, with the support of McGeachin and North Idaho Republican legislators including Scott and Moon, burned masks outside a health center. Statewide, Satz says, different elements of the far right are “working together in ways we haven’t seen before”.“They’re using Covid and becoming more aggressive and more focused. The extreme right are gaining power in Idaho, but we don’t think it will stop here,” Satz said. More