‘Writing on the wall’: Why Idaho legislators target LGBTQ+ protections
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- Idaho legislators move to preempt city LGBTQ+ nondiscrimination ordinances.
- Local ordinances followed lawmakers’ refusals to pass legislation sought by LGBTQ+ advocates
- Debate traces to a 1994 ballot fight and shapes recent Idaho political campaigns.
Meridian Senator Treg Bernt faced a hard choice.
It was September 2018 and Bernt was one of six Meridian City Council members deciding whether to adopt a nondiscrimination ordinance protecting LGBTQ+ Meridianites. Bernt told the waiting audience that he was appalled that the Legislature, which had for years heard calls to protect LGBTQ+ residents at the state level, had not moved on the issue. But he still didn’t believe that it was the city’s place to include that protection.
“I believe in equality for all,” Bernt told residents, before voting no on the ordinance, which ultimately passed.
Now Bernt could face a hard choice again.
His compatriot, Rep. Bruce Skaug, R-Nampa, brought a bill to preempt city nondiscrimination ordinances, including Meridian’s. The bill passed the House and awaits a hearing in a Senate committee. If it advances, then it would go to the Senate floor, where Bernt would have the opportunity to vote on it.
His path echoes how deep LGBTQ+ protections have affected Idaho politics, stretching from a 1994 ballot initiative to prohibit laws that protected LGBTQ+ people from discrimination
The initiative failed after the LGBTQ+ community organized itself in response. It galvanized LGBTQ+ advocacy, leading to the “Add the Words” efforts at the state level, the city nondiscrimination ordinances, and now the Legislature’s backlash against LGBTQ+ protections.
In 2021 before he ran for the state Senate, Bernt fended off a slate of challengers from the right who focused on their opposition to Meridian’s ordinance. One of those challengers, Mike Hon, spoke on Feb. 9 during a House committee hearing in favor of a bill that would ban Boise’s Pride flag.
Rep. Barbara Ehardt, R-Idaho Falls, who spoke in favor of Skaug’s legislation this year, told the Statesman that she was the first candidate in the 2013 Idaho Falls City Council race to come out against the town’s proposed nondiscrimination ordinance. Ehardt has led Idaho’s efforts on transgender bills. Her 2020 bill banning trans girls from girl’s sports was the first in the nation to become law.
On Monday, LGBTQ+ Idahoans spoke at a press conference, saying lawmakers had gone from not protecting them to actively attacking them.
“These local ordinances are the only explicit protections preventing someone from being fired, denied housing or refused service simply because they are LGBTQ+,” said Nikson Mathews, chair of the Idaho Queer Caucus.
LGBTQ+ history in Idaho
For nine years in the 2000s and 2010s, Idaho lawmakers refused to even hold a hearing on legislation called “Add the Words” that would protect LGBTQ+ people from discrimination.
In 2015, that changed. Hundreds of people signed up to testify, and some lawmakers were brought to tears over three days of hearings. But lawmakers killed the bill on party lines.
Instead, some local governments like Meridian’s passed their own ordinances. Supporters like Chelsea Gaona-Lincoln, of a group called Add the Words, Idaho, told Boise State Public Radio in 2018 after Meridian’s ordinance passed that they hoped legislators took it as a sign.
But the group ultimately shifted from a political action committee focused on nondiscrimination ordinances to a nonprofit, because of an unfavorable political landscape, said Gaona-Lincoln, the group’s volunteer executive director.
“The writing on the wall was very telling,” Gaona-Lincoln told the Idaho Statesman by phone. “Things have become far more polarized now. That landscape really shifted.”
Stephanie Witt, Boise State University distinguished professor of public service, said Idaho isn’t alone. There’s a nationwide backsliding as the Trump administration has rolled back diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives, Witt said.
“I still think this is an issue that works really well for Republicans,” said Witt, who pointed to the upcoming May primary as a reason legislators are focusing on LGBTQ+ issues this year.
Witt also added that the Legislature often preempts city regulations. “I’m not sure what’s drawing them more to this policy — that it’s anti-gay or it’s a way to smack some cities around,” she said.
How will Bernt vote now? He declined to comment.
Boise, Meridian and others have ordinances
Today’s politics echo those of the ‘90s in Idaho. In 1994, Idaho activists put an initiative on the ballot aiming to do exactly what Skaug is trying to do now: prevent laws that protected gay Idahoans from discrimination. At the time, only the city of Troy, just outside of Moscow, had a nondiscrimination policy.
“I ask you for uniformity in our state laws on discrimination to defend women’s private spaces, to protect businesses from the ambiguity of these (ordinances),” Skaug told the House on Feb. 5.
Now there are 12 Idaho cities with ordinances on the books. Sandpoint was the 13th, but the City Council repealed its code in 2025 after a debate about someone using a bathroom that aligned with their gender identity.
That 1994 ballot initiative would have prohibited the legal recognition of gay marriage, prevented teachers from saying that being gay was normal, limited access to library materials that discussed being gay, and allowed private sexual practices to be considered “non-job factors” in public employment.
But in 1994, House Speaker Mike Simpson of Blackfoot said the voters had spoken.
“The people of Idaho have had the opportunity to vote on this,” said Simpson, now a 14-term congressman representing Western Idaho’s 1st District. “I don’t see any reason for the Legislature to really deal with the issue.”
This story was originally published February 19, 2026 at 3:14 PM.
