Letters to the editor: Jane Doe, child poverty, dam removal, Legislature, critical race theory, Interfaith Sanctuary, Cheney ouster

Jane Doe

Jane Doe had just finished testifying to the House ethics committee that Rep. Aaron von Ehlinger had sexually assaulted her. She was curled in a fetal position on the floor of the People’s House, and the Idaho State Police officers present wouldn’t protect her from her pursuers because, “We’re not allowed to take sides.” Really? What has the ISP got to say about this damning allegation?

Why did the ethics committee not arrange for her safe, secure and anonymous passage to and from their hearing?

James Runsvold, Caldwell

Dams are not like an airport

On Thursday at the Andrus Center’s PNW Revisited conference, Central Washington Representative Earl Newhouse claimed Congressman Simpson’s plan to breach the Four Lower Snake River dams (which are in Washington) was overreach. Newhouse analogized the proposal to if a Washington congressperson tried to get rid of the Boise Airport. This was a fallacious argument. Newhouse’s comparison would be correct if there were two other airports in Boise making the Boise airport obsolete, if Boise Airport were insolvent and raising airfares as fewer people used it to travel each year, if the Boise Airport were 100% replaceable with a new technology to transport people even faster at a cheaper price, if the Boise Airport were ruining the livelihoods of thousands of Washingtonians, killing a $500 million industry, and driving Washington’s Olympic Marmots to extinction. If these conditions were met for the Boise Airport, as they are for the four dams, then honestly the Washington delegation would be in their place to propose its removal. It’s common sense: Breach the dams and save our fish.

Shiva Rajbhandari, Boise

Cut child poverty

We can cut child poverty in half — permanently.

The Biden administration just proposed extending support for workers and families enacted earlier this year, by making permanent both an increase to the earned income tax credit for younger workers and others not raising children and an expansion of the full child tax credit to all low-income families. He also proposes extending the increased child tax credit amount ($3,000-plus per child) until 2025.

These steps are important, but Congress must make all the child tax credit changes permanent, including the credit increase. Columbia University estimates this new child tax credit will cut child poverty by 45%! We can pay for this by asking the wealthy and corporations to finally pay their fair share.

If you could cut child poverty in half, why would you not do it? I urge our representatives and senators to make the new child tax credit and earned income tax credit provisions at 2021 levels permanent in recovery legislation.

Janet McClenahan, Boise

Idaho Legislature

The behavior of the Idaho Legislature this year has been very disturbing. First, they refused a $6 million federal grant for early education which local communities have worked together to plan for pre-K services to ready students for elementary school. Next, members of the Legislature tried to bully, then blackmail, and then exhibited vindictive behavior and cut $2.5 million from the already underfunded, pandemic-stressed higher education budget. How else do they plan on handicapping the students of Idaho? Students need to be ready to start school on a level playing field. Students need education beyond the high school level and critical thinking and analytical skills to succeed in life. Please Idaho voters vote for legislators who care about students and prioritize education so that we have educated citizens who are prepared for tomorrow’s economy.

Karen Martz, Boise

Critical race theory

The recent focus of Republicans in our Legislature on limiting topics involving “critical race theory” in the state’s classrooms and cutting education funds as a result, is a great disservice to our students. As Dr. David Adler, Idaho’s preeminent constitutional scholar, recently noted, this theory dates back perhaps 50 years when scholars asked “Which of our laws and practices need revision because they affect specific races unfairly in comparison to other races?” They had in mind practices as, for instance, “redlining” in real estate transactions to refuse home loans to African-Americans.

Somehow, the Republicans see this general idea as un-American, a threat to their view of what Idaho should be. But that doesn’t mean the idea is wrong, or that it shouldn’t be included at every level of our educational system. The link they wanted to make to their traditional bogeyman, socialism, is ridiculous.

Walt Thode, Boise

Interfaith Sanctuary

Boiseans are struggling with the expansion and relocation of a large homeless shelter in the middle of a residential neighborhood. It’s obvious that State Street isn’t an ideal location but merely one that was cheap and easy.

It’s clear developers are salivating over the downtown land Interfaith Sanctuary’s current shelter sits on and are pushing the proposed move to State Street.

What to do? Let’s look to downtown Seattle for inspiration. The new Mary’s Place shelter, built in partnership with Amazon as part of Amazon’s headquarters building is a model for how development and serving the homeless can go hand in hand. If Seattle and Amazon can incorporate a shelter into high-rise development in the core of downtown where all of the services are, so can Boise.

As more and more downtown development builds upwards, I challenge the developers and the corporations to incorporate a shelter into their designs. Even the leaders of Interfaith, Our Path Home, CATCH and Boise City/Ada County Housing Authorities agree that all the necessary services are in downtown, making it the perfect location.

Denise Zimmerman, Boise

Cheney ouster

I do not support the Republican Party’s ouster of Sen. Liz Cheney from her leadership position in the Senate and being one of the few true Republicans left in the Senate, ousted from her position for not kowtowing to the false narrative that Trump won the election.

Not only did her fellow Republicans exhibit their lack of commitment to their vote, they did it by secret vote, which is absolutely pathetic. Quite obvious that freedom of speech and truth isn’t part of the new platform.

I was a committed Republican but will never vote the Republican ticket again.

Claudia Havery, Nampa