Boise council unanimously denounces white nationalism, refrains from calling out Trump
The Boise City Council voted unanimously Tuesday to condemn white supremacy and white nationalism with a resolution denouncing “bias and hate in all of its forms.”
The council opted not to specifically denounce the administration of President Donald Trump. Instead, members voted to approve language about how white supremacy/nationalism have been emboldened by national leaders.
The change came about after Council Member Scot Ludwig suggested that he would vote against the resolution if it specifically called out the presidential administration.
Ludwig explained that he doesn’t believe the role of City Council “is to make this sort of political statement regarding the president of the United States,” Ludwig said.
Ludwig is a Republican, but council seats are officially nonpartisan. He said that everyone has feelings on President Donald Trump and later told the Statesman that he opted to write in John Kasich instead of voting for Trump. But, he said during the council meeting, he didn’t want to make a political statement like that in the resolution.
Trump has been accused of emboldening white supremacy in speeches and online. A March poll from Pew Research Center found that 56% of people felt that he had done “too little to distance himself from white nationalist groups,” and white supremacy leaders such as David Duke, former grand wizard of the KKK, have praised Trump repeatedly.
“This is not because I’m a Republican,” Ludwig told the Idaho Statesman after the meeting. “It’s because I felt strongly about this being as nonpartisan as possible.”
Boise City Council President Lauren McLean said she felt that specific references to the presidential administration should be left in because she wanted to “set the example for a perspective as leaders that it’s never OK.”
Council President Pro Tem Elaine Clegg said it was appropriate to call out bias and hate no matter how they ended up describing it — and that a resolution would be stronger if the council supported it unanimously.
At the request of Mayor David Bieter, the council also removed language from the resolution on how hate groups “continue to view this area (Idaho) as a haven for white supremacist activity.” Bieter does not vote during City Council meetings except to break ties.
“I don’t really care how they view it,” Bieter said. “That may be true or not, it’s hard for me to know, but I think we can leave it.”
The council ultimately passed the amended resolution unanimously. Those gathered gave the council a standing ovation, and members of the council in response stood and clapped for those in the audience.
Council Member Lisa Sánchez told the Statesman after the meeting that she felt the changes ultimately made the resolution stronger.
“It’s more inclusive, because it’s not just one person,” she said of the change from “presidential administration” to “national leadership.” “It’s easy to push it all off on one person, but there’s many, many people involved in this (behavior).”
Bieter brought the resolution before the council with the help of United Vision for Idaho as part of the city’s deeper commitment to diversity and inclusion, his spokesman said last week. The resolution was passed just days after Patrick Little, a neo-Nazi from California, made headlines for running for City Council in Garden City.
Boise is the third city in the region to pass such a resolution. The first two were Portland and Eugene, Oregon.
This story was originally published September 24, 2019 at 1:47 PM.
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