Bieter posts that McLean volunteers said he’s backed by, part of ‘Basque mafia’
Mayor David Bieter’s campaign posted several tweets Tuesday accusing opponent Lauren McLean’s campaign volunteers of saying that Bieter is “backed and part of the Basque mafia.”
Bieter, who is of Basque descent, shared a screenshot of a Facebook message in which an ex-Boise resident visiting the person’s parents in Boise reporting hearing the Basque mafia statement from volunteers who came to the parents’ door. Bieter went on to write in a Twitter thread that is was “disheartening” to see McLean’s campaign relegate “me and the entire Basque community to an organized crime ring.”
Robert West, Bieter’s campaign manager, said by phone that the campaign had heard such claims only from the person who sent the message, who wanted to remain anonymous. West said the person told the Bieter campaign that the volunteers had handouts and merchandise from the McLean campaign.
Melanie Folwell, McLean’s campaign manager, said the campaign had “never once at any of our trainings used the term, nor would we ever ask our volunteers to incorporate a slur.” McLean’s campaign does not “use or condone slurs, period,” she said.
Campaign staffers called the volunteers who had been knocking on doors Friday, Folwell said, and “none of them reported using this language.”
“We have a lot of Basque people involved in our campaign,” Folwell said by phone. “To intimate that we would do that is just gross.”
Basques are an ethnic group from an autonomous region of Spain. Bieter’s mother, Eloise, was the daughter of Basque immigrants and was active in the Basque community. Her love of it inspired Bieter’s father, Pat, to get involved in the culture as well, which eventually led to Pat’s founding of Boise State University’s Basque Studies and study abroad programs. Bieter’s brother, John, is a professor of Basque history at Boise State.
In the Twitter thread, Bieter wrote that he has seen immigrants being criminalized before, comparing the language to that directed toward “Mexican Americans and Latinx immigrants.” Latinx is a gender-neutral form of Latino.
Bieter goes on to call for McLean to “publicly apologize for allowing her campaign to use this type of language and decry any further degrading language from being used during what remains of this election.”
Folwell said the claims were baseless so there was no need for an apology.
“This seems like an attempt at distraction and deflection,” she said.
Bieter and McLean are facing off in a runoff election after no candidate got the majority of the vote in the November election. McLean won 45.7% of the vote and Bieter, seeking a fifth term, received 30.3%.
The runoff election will be held Tuesday, Dec. 3. Early voting has already begun.
This story was originally published November 26, 2019 at 2:41 PM with the headline "Bieter posts that McLean volunteers said he’s backed by, part of ‘Basque mafia’."
.jpg)