I once heard it said that when people trying to name the seven dwarves get only to six that the missing little person is always Bashful. I don’t know for certain that when a person trying to name the fifty states gets only to forty-nine that the missing one is Idaho. But if one had to leave out a state, Idaho would do very well.
Here is what Idaho has been up to in the last few years (listed in chronological order):
§ “Since Idaho enacted a faith-based healing exemption in the 1970s, child advocates estimate more than 180 children have died or were stillborn in families that practiced a religion that shuns modern medicine.”
§ “If you live in Idaho and you’ve recently flipped on the radio or picked up a landline phone when it rang, you may have heard a confident male voice on the other end, painting an ugly portrait of higher education in the Gem State. Public colleges are teaching students ‘to hate America,’ the voice says, in at least one version of the recorded message. These institutions are promoting Marxism and socialism. They’re ‘attacking law enforcement, the Second Amendment,’ and ‘pushing the cancel culture that threatens all of us.’
It’s time, the voice insists, to take a stand, and for Idaho to become the first state to stop ‘leftist indoctrination’ on college campuses. ‘Will it work?’ the voice asks before it answers in the affirmative: ‘We say, Yes.’
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§ “BOISE, Idaho — Education policy and curriculum taught in Idaho public schools have been a hot topic throughout the last few weeks of the Legislative session.
House Bill 377 passed the Senate Education Committee with a 6-3 vote and the Senate with a 27-8 vote.
HB 377 would prevent Idaho teachers and administrators from discussing any sort of belief system that claims racism or sexism are responsible for past actions in history with students. It would also prohibit any conversations claiming one group of people defined by their sex, ethnicity or race are better than or less than any other.”
§ “Trustees of North Idaho College — a community college in Coeur d’Alene — voted on Thursday to repeal a mask mandate that the college had imposed only days earlier.
Rick MacLennan, the college’s president, wrote in an August 19 message to the campus that health officials were estimating up to 30,000 new Covid-19 cases per week across the state by mid-October. The number of Idaho patients on ventilators is already high, he wrote, and local hospital administrators and physicians are very concerned they won’t have enough space, equipment, and staff to provide care for everyone who needs it.
For that reason, MacLennan wrote, students, employees, and visitors to campus would have to wear multilayer face coverings at all times in college buildings when two or more people were present, beginning on August 23 and continuing for at least two weeks.
But at a contentious special meeting on Thursday, the five-member board voted 3 to 2 to rescind the mandate.”
§ A County Turns Against Its College
Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, as in places across America, disdain for higher education is thriving.
“On a Friday morning in January, the new board chair unloaded his requests of the college president rapid fire.
‘Per your contract,’Todd Banducci wrote in an 8:44 a.m. email to Rick MacLennan of North Idaho College, ‘I believe you are to provide an accounting of leave days on an annual basis.’ Banducci said he’d like to get MacLennan’s most recent report within seven business days. . . .
[A]mid other requests, Banducci noted that a student had not uttered the words ‘under God’ when she recited the Pledge of Allegiance at the previous year’s graduation ceremony.”
§ “Idaho is the nation’s least vaccinated state.”
§ Idaho’s Proposed Ban on Trans Healthcare Could Jail Providers for Life
The bill, if passed, could become one of the most extreme new anti-trans bills in the country.
§ Justice Dept. Sues Idaho Over Its Abortion Restrictions
The Biden administration filed its first new litigation to protect access to abortion since the Supreme Court ruling in June that ended the constitutional right to terminate pregnancies.
§ “Barring court intervention, later this week, [Idaho] will impose a near-total abortion ban, with the exception of rape, incest or medical emergency. Physicians who perform abortions outside of these circumstances will be at risk of up to five years in prison.
The Justice Department sued Idaho to block this law. During a court hearing on Monday, a federal judge said there seems to be an ‘absolute conflict’ between that law and federal law regulating emergency care. The judge said he would issue a decision by Wednesday over whether or not to block the law.
Yet another law already in effect allows potential relatives of an embryo or fetus to sue abortion providers for up to $20,000 within four years of the procedure. That policy will not be granted for rapists, but still apply for the rapists' family members.”
https://www.npr.org/2022/08/22/1118635642/abortion-trigger-ban-tennessee-idaho-texas
§ Idaho librarian resigns over ‘atmosphere of extremism’ and ‘intimidation tactics’
Library director resigns after a group of enraged parents pressured local school board members to ban books on LGBTQ themes
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/aug/24/idaho-librarian-resigns-ban-books-lgbtq
§ “On Friday, the University of Idaho sent its employees guidance on what they can and cannot say about abortion under a statewide ban that went into effect in August. The restrictive guidance even ventures into the classroom.
In an email, the university’s general counsel told employees that Idaho may consider it a felony to perform an abortion, promote abortion, counsel people in favor of abortion, refer someone for abortion, provide facilities or training for performing abortions, contract with an abortion provider, or advertise services for abortion or ‘the prevention of conception.’”
§ “The Idaho Supreme Court upheld multiple state laws prohibiting abortion in the state on Thursday, ruling that there is no implicit right to abortion in the state’s constitution.
In a 3-2 decision, the court ruled that three state laws — prohibiting abortion at conception and after six weeks of pregnancy, as well as a Texas-style civil enforcement measure — are constitutional as the state has a ‘legitimate interest in protecting prenatal fetal life in all stages of development, and in protecting the health and safety of the mother.’”
https://www.politico.com/news/2023/01/05/idaho-supreme-court-abortion-ban-00076704
§ “Abolish race-conscious practices. End ‘leftist indoctrination.’ Fix what’s wrong with higher education in America. Those have been the long-stated goals of Republican governors, lawmakers, and activists who, empowered by voters and operating under state law, have for decades sought to remake the ideological climate on college campuses by taking control of the boards that govern public institutions.
But what happens when the actions of these boards violate long-established rules and norms regarding institutional governance, and in turn begin to imperil a public university or college’s financial and operational well-being?
That’s what could happen at North Idaho College, a 4,500-student community college that sits 13 miles from the state’s northwestern border. After three years of board interference and dysfunction, it now finds itself facing down a threat from its accreditor of a ‘show-cause’ sanction — which would functionally be a final warning to the college to shape up or risk termination of its accreditation from the Northwest Commission on Colleges and Universities.
And it’s the board itself that has put the college’s accreditation at greater risk. In a December 17 letter, the commission warned that ‘recent and subsequent public actions’ of the college’s board ‘appear to place the institution at significant risk of being out of compliance with a number of NWCCU Eligibility Requirements and Standards.’”
§ Bonkers Republican bill in Idaho would make mRNA-based vaccination a crime
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§ Idaho dropped thousands from Medicaid early in the pandemic.
§ “During the first two years of the COVID-19 pandemic, while the federal government was trying to prevent people on Medicaid from losing health coverage, Idaho dropped nearly 10,000 people from the safety-net program.
Federal law generally banned states from dropping people, and federal officials said Idaho acted improperly. Idaho officials, however, said they didn't think they did anything wrong.”
§ After Final Warning From Its Accreditor, North Idaho College’s Credit Rating Is Downgraded
§ “For most of the past two years, [North Idaho College’s] governing board has been a volatile experiment in turning grievances into governance. Trustees backed by the county Republican Party hold a majority on the board. They have denounced liberal ‘indoctrination’ by the college faculty and vowed to bring the school administration’s ‘deep state’ to heel and ‘Make N.I.C. Great Again.’
The injection of such sweeping political aims into the routine administration of a community college that had 4,600 students enrolled last year, one better known locally for its technical training programs than the politics of its faculty, has devolved into a full-blown crisis. The school has faced lawsuits from two of the five presidents it has had since the start of the previous school year. A district court judge ordered one of those presidents reinstated on Friday in a ruling that castigated the trustees for ‘steering N.I.C. toward an iceberg.’ The college has lost professors and staff and had its debt downgraded by Moody’s, which cited the school's ‘significant governance and management dysfunction.’
The troubles culminated last month in a letter from the regional higher education commission, which warned that the 90-year-old college could be stripped of its accreditation if changes were not made in a matter of weeks — an effective threat of closure and a potential catastrophe for Coeur d’Alene, a town of 56,000 in the Idaho Panhandle.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/06/us/politics/north-idaho-college-republicans.html
§ Citing State Law, an Idaho College Censored an Art Exhibit That Mentioned Abortion
§ Idaho hospital will stop delivering babies as doctors flee state due to abortion ban
https://news.yahoo.com/idaho-hospital-stop-delivering-babies-161508371.html
§ Idaho governor signs firing squad execution bill into law
§ “A bill that would have provided free menstrual products in girls bathrooms in Idaho public schools failed in the state House, with at least one Republican lawmaker calling the proposal ‘very liberal.’”
https://news.yahoo.com/idaho-bill-free-period-products-181400885.html
§ Idaho lawmakers pass a bill to prevent minors from leaving the state for abortion
§ “Idaho Gov. Brad Little “signed [a] bill just before 6 p.m. Tuesday to criminalize gender-affirming care for transgender minors.
The law takes effect on Jan. 1, 2024. It will keep transgender youth from accessing puberty blockers, hormones and surgeries in Idaho.”
https://idahocapitalsun.com/2023/04/06/all-kids-deserve-a-chance-idaho-u-s-react-to-governor-signing-law-to-ban-gender-affirming-care/#:~:text=Little%20signed%20the%20bill%20just,hormones%20and%20surgeries%20in%20Idaho.
§ “Two Idaho families are suing to block a law that makes it a crime to provide gender-affirming care for transgender youth. House Bill 71, passed by the Legislature this year and signed into law by Idaho Gov. Brad Little, makes it a felony for physicians to provide transition-related surgeries and medication, such as puberty blockers and hormonal therapy, to minors. Two Idaho families with transgender children on Wednesday asked a federal court to block the law before it takes effect Jan. 1, 2024. The plaintiffs include two transgender teenagers who are receiving ‘medically necessary care’ that would be banned by the law, the court filing says. The lawsuit alleges that HB 71 unconstitutionally discriminates against transgender minors.”
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That's as of June 1, 2023.
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But in all fairness, we should mention the one thing that Idaho has going for it:
