Idaho enacts new protections for teachers who don't play the pronoun game — and all the right people are upset



Idaho has enacted new protections for teachers and other public employees who do not use someone's "preferred pronouns."

On Monday, Gov. Brad Little (R) signed H.B. 538 into law. The bill prohibits:

... any governmental entity in the State of Idaho from compelling any public employee or public school student to communicate preferred personal titles and pronouns that do not correspond with the biological sex of the individual seeking to be referred to by such titles or pronouns.

The legislation explains the prohibition is necessary to "ensure that the constitutional right to free speech of every person in the State of Idaho is respected."

Teachers, moreover, are empowered under the law to sue their school district if they are forced to comply with someone's preferred name or pronouns. No student, teacher, or government employee can be disciplined for not using someone's preferred pronouns or for refusing to call someone by a name other than that person's legal name, the law states.

The law takes effect on July 1.

A spokeswoman said Gov. Little signed the Republican-backed bill because he supports policies that advance "free speech and parental rights."

"While Gov. Little expects state employees to treat each other and members of the community with dignity and respect, he does not support government compelling speech at risk of penalty or excluding parents from significant decisions impacting a child’s health and wellbeing," spokeswoman Madison Hardy said.

Progressive organizations, meanwhile, have voiced their opposition to the law.

The American Civil Liberties Union of Idaho claimed the "human cost" of the law is "devastating."

"Transgender people live in and call Idaho home. By creating exclusionary public work and school environments, the state is subjecting them to predictable and dire harm," the organization claimed.

Planned Parenthood said that Gov. Little should be "ashamed" for supporting H.B. 538 and H.B. 421, a bill that would change the legal definition of "sex" in Idaho to "an individual’s biological sex, either male or female."

Mistie DelliCarpini-Tolman, Idaho state director of Planned Parenthood Alliance Advocates, called Little "callous and cruel" for supporting "harmful bills that target LGBTQ+ Idahoans."

"We’re heading in the wrong direction. Our state needs more kindness, compassion, understanding – not permission to discriminate against others," DelliCarpini-Tolman said.

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"The provisions of this act are hereby declared to be severable"

Idaho governor signs legislation allowing firing squad executions



Idaho's Governor Brad Little (R) signed legislation Friday allowing execution by firing squad beginning July 1.

"The families of the victims deserve justice for their loved ones and the death penalty is a way to bring them peace," said Gov. Little in a transmittal letter to Idaho's Speaker of the House, Rep. Mike Moyle (R).

"Fulfilling justice can and must be done while minimizing stress on corrections personnel ... For the people on death row, a jury convicted them of their crimes, and they were lawfully sentenced to death."

Idaho's House Bill 186 calls for the director of the Idaho Department of Corrections to determine within five days of a death warrant being issued whether lethal injection is available. available. If lethal injection is available, lethal injection will be used as the method of execution. If the director does not so certify, fails to file the certification, or determines lethal injection is not available, the method of execution shall be firing squad.

In addition, the bill says if a court finds lethal injection to be unconstitutional, the method of execution shall be firing squad.

The legislation applies to all executions carried out on or after July 1.

Pharmaceuticals used to carry out executions by lethal injection have become more challenging to acquire due in part to pharmaceutical companies barring the use of their drugs for that purpose, the Associated Press reported.

The Idaho Department of Corrections estimates the cost to retrofit a death chamber for firing squad executions at about $750,000, CBS News reported.

Idaho became the fifth state to permit execution by firing squad when Gov. Little signed HB 186. Other states allowing the method include Mississippi, Utah, Oklahoma, and South Carolina. South Carolina's law, however, is currently being challenged in court, AP also reported.

Ronnie Gardner, the most recent person to be executed by firing squad in June 2010, chose the method himself, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.

How are executions via firing squad carried out?

TheBlaze cautions readers that the following section contains graphic descriptions of death via firing squad.

The death row inmate sentenced to execution by firing squad is typically first bound to a chair with leather straps across his or her waist and head, DPIC explains. Sandbags surrounding the chair are meant to absorb the blood. The chair is positioned in front of a canvas wall.

A black cloth is pulled over the prisoner's head. A doctor pins a cloth over the target, the prisoner's heart.

A number of shooters either 3 or 5, depending on the state, stand in an enclosure about 20 feet away. Each shooter has a .30 caliber rifle with single rounds. One of the shooters is given blank rounds. In South Carolina, each shooter's rounds are live.

Each shooter aims his or her rifle through a slot in the canvas wall and fires. If the shooter(s) miss the prisoner's heart, the prisoner slowly bleeds to death.

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'Idaho should be one of the most conservative states if not the most conservative ... but I think Covid really brought out the true colors of our supposed-Republican leaders,' said Sara Brady.

Horowitz: Chairman of the Idaho House Health Committee refuses to hold hearings on dangerous COVID policies



The state motto of Idaho is Esto Perpetua – "it is perpetuated," as if to say that God's blessing and bounty for the Gem State should last forever. But in the mind of Fred Wood, the state House Health and Welfare Committee chairman, it means that the imperial administrative state and federal executive control over our bodies, property, and health care should be perpetuated and last forever without any legislative check or balance reflecting the will of the people. Who needs California when you have Idaho Republicans who behave like this?

To begin with, it took months to even get the GOP supermajority legislature back in session to place a check on this dangerous executive power. Now that leadership is back in session and rank-and-file members have introduced nine bills to reorient the immoral response on COVID to reflect more compassion, science, parental choice, and informed consent and to restore the doctor-patient relationship, the committee chair flat-out refused to hold hearings on them.

"I profoundly disagree with all nine of them," Wood (R), told the Idaho Reports.

"If you don't like that company and you don't like its policy, go work somewhere else," Wood said. Wood also added, "I have the right not to be infected by somebody that has a communicable disease."

Well, gee, if you have your shot and your mask, and they work so effectively, why does someone else who has not chosen to get these shots affect your health? Moreover, how are you to get another job when it is the federal government forcing all businesses across many industries to require the shots?

Hey, Mr. Wood, if you don't want to be a committee chairman or a legislator, then just resign. How dare you decline to hold a single hearing for 19 months probing both sides of a debate that affects every aspect of our health and wellness? For example, two of the bills being blocked would prevent the state medical licensing board from attacking doctors who actually seek to treat patients with FDA-approved drugs that are infinitely safer than the shots or remdesivir. We have people dying, including those who got both shots, because of a war on treatment. How could Mr. Wood not even conduct a hearing on the state of play with therapeutics and treatment of COVID? How many patients has Mr. Wood treated? I can personally attest to the fact that Dr. Ryan Cole of Boise has saved hundreds of lives, yet he is being attacked by Idaho's licensing board.

Here are some of the commonsense bills rejected by Rep. Wood:

  • HB 424: Prohibits any person, individual, business, or school from releasing one's vaccination information.
  • HB 426: Bars any state or local governing entity from discriminating based on injection status or any employer from discriminating against one not showing proof of injection.
  • HB 428: Affirms a parent's right to consent to any vaccination of his or her child.
  • HB 432: Bars any requirement of a vaccine that has not been fully approved by the FDA.
  • HB 433: Bars any licensing board from punishing doctors for prescribing FDA-approved drugs to treat COVID and prohibits pharmacists from blocking such prescriptions.
  • HB 435: Prohibits any local government from enforcing Biden's injection mandate.

The ball is now in the court of Speaker Scott Bedke. If he really wants to stand up to Biden and support health care freedom, he will make sure these bills get a vote. Six other bills that were routed through other committees did pass the House yesterday. One of them was HB 429, which allows parents to opt out of school mask mandates. Shockingly, 16 Republicans still voted against it, including Wood, House Education Committee Chairman Lance Clow, and House Speaker Scott Bedke, who is also running for lieutenant governor. Wood and Clow also voted against HB 414, which prevents employers from questioning sincerely held religious beliefs in the context of injection mandates. Now these bills head to the even more liberal Senate.

Also, where exactly is Gov. Brad Little when it comes to standing up to Biden and the war on treatment for COVID? The reality is that the shots are not working, people have the right to access safe and effective therapeutics, doctors have the right to prescribe them, and state and federal bureaucrats have no right to block them while coercing people to take unsafe and ineffective therapeutics. I can't think of a more important topic on which to hold a hearing.

What is so disappointing about people like Wood, especially as committee chairmen in critical red states, is not just that they are California liberals ruining red states. It's that they have zero interest in representing the people in what was supposed to be the strongest branch of government and the one closest to the people.

We live in a time when the federal and state bureaucrats are essentially running all of the policies that matter to our lives – and now our bodies – through executive fiat without any legislative oversight. They are directing spending for a sum of COVID funds that is larger than the entire state's general fund. How can it be that committee chairs throughout the country like Wood have zero interest in holding hearings on the shots, remdesivir, hospital treatment, early treatment, masks, lockdowns, conflicts of interests, and spending priorities even from a facially neutral standpoint? Wouldn't he want to call in experts from both sides and get to the bottom of some of these disputes?

For those wondering why there is no check and balance on Biden in a state with 4-1 majorities in the legislature, people like Fred Wood are the culprit. They literally agree with Biden – up to and including his sentiment that somehow the unvaccinated could affect the protection of those who are already supposedly protected ... but the "protection" failed to protect them.

Second-In-Command Bans Vaccine Mandates For Schools While Governor Leaves Idaho

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Idaho gov repeals lieutenant gov's executive order banning mask mandates, unloads on her 'irresponsible abuse of power'



Idaho Gov. Brad Little (R) on Friday repealed an executive order overriding local mask mandates, blasting his Lt. Gov. Janice McGeachin (R) for issuing the order in his absence.

"The action that took place was an irresponsible, self-serving political stunt," Little said in a statement.

The governor accused McGeachin's order of usurping legislative powers with an "over-the-top executive action" that "amounts to tyranny." His repeal order aims to "restore local control" over public health ordinances, permitting Idaho localities to impose mask mandates, including for children, if they deem it necessary to protect public health.

Idaho never adopted a statewide mask mandate because Little believed a top-down order from the state government would violate conservative principles respecting local government.

Earlier this week, Little was out of state to attend a meeting of the Republican Governors Association in Nashville, Tennessee. Idaho law elevates the lieutenant governor to serve as acting governor with all the governor's powers "in case of temporary inability to perform his duties or in the case of his temporary absence from the state."

While he was away, McGeachin used her temporary authority to issue the executive order banning local governments from implementing mask mandates.

McGeachin announced last week that she will run in the Republican primary for governor. She did not notify Little, her primary opponent, of her intention to issue the order.

"Taking the earliest opportunity to act solitarily on a highly politicized, polarizing issue without conferring with local jurisdictions, legislators and the sitting governor is, simply put, an abuse of power," Little said, blasting McGeachin. "This kind of over-the-top executive action amounts to tyranny — something we all oppose."

Little accused McGeachin's order of violating Idaho state law, which provides that school district trustees, cities, counties, and public health districts have the power to enact policies to protect pubic health. The law also prohibits executive orders from changing state law.

"How ironic that the action comes from a person who has groused about tyranny, executive overreach, and balance of power for months," Little said.

"Furthermore, the executive order presents some pretty alarming consequences," he continued. "For example, we would not be able to require safety measures for social workers visiting homes of at-risk individuals, or workers in our state testing lab, or employees at congregate facilities that are particularly vulnerable to outbreaks of infectious disease, threatening loss of life and added strain on the health care system we all depend on."

Then his statement got personal:

The executive order also conflicts with other laws on the books.

This is why you do your homework, Lt. Governor.

Let me offer some advice as Idaho's duly elected Governor – governing in a silo is NOT governing.

I am always reluctant to engage in political ploys, especially when I have been steadfast in meeting the simultaneous goals of protecting both lives and livelihoods.

I do not like petty politics. I do not like political stunts over the rule of law.

However, the significant consequences of the Lt. Governor's flimsy executive order require me to clean up a mess.

Responding, McGeachin told supporters in a statement that Gov. Little "chose to revoke your personal freedom by rescinding my order and imposing mask mandates on thousands of Idaho children."

"I understand that protecting individual liberty means fighting against tyranny at ALL levels of government — federal, state, and local. It is your God-given right to make your own health decisions, and no state, city, or school district ever has the authority to violate your unalienable rights," McGeachin said.

"As your Lt. Governor, I remain undeterred and unwavering in my commitment to defend your rights and freedoms against all who would violate them. Now, more than ever, we must stand together against those who prioritize their own power above individual liberty."