Cheers to Idaho Republican senator for saying ‘no’ to budget cuts | Opinion

Sen. Guthrie

Cheers to Senator Jim Guthrie (District 28) who last week chose people over power. With courage and integrity, he led the way to killing a health and human services budget that would add to harming services to vulnerable Idahoans in every community in our state. Perhaps now we can start looking at logical and real necessities that will have long-term consequences in the state budget. An obvious necessity is passing the Idaho Child Care Program, so Medicaid recipients who are required to work can get some help finding safe and affordable child care for their children. In the recent past, didn’t state policymakers, including governors, prioritize young children’s safety, development and learning? What happened?

Mary Lou Kinney, Boise

Voter suppression

Voter suppression seems to be a major policy in our current political climate even though independent experts have debunked the claim of massive voter fraud. One of the biggest problems in the modern era of mass communications and get out the vote efforts is the outdated Electoral College. Every four years a small number of voters in the swing states which currently includes Arizona, Georgia, Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania and sometimes Nevada and North Carolina decide who will be president. Political consultants can target voters through various media techniques and ignore the vast majority of nearly 150 million voters. In the city of Boise for example a general runoff election is held. If no candidate gets a majority after the first round the top two candidates face each other in a second round. There is a clear winner and all votes actually count equally. Why shouldn’t the popular vote replace an Electoral College where only a few votes decides the election? In the 1920s New York governor Alfred Smith stated that “the only cure for the ills of democracy is more democracy.” All votes should “count” not just a few in a few states.

Sidney Asker, Boise

Bathroom bill

A wrathful poem by Marge Piercy about pay stalls in public restrooms has the line “what only the dead find unnecessary.” The Idaho House just passed a bill criminalizing what only the dead find unnecessary. Trans individuals who were born gender but have gone through a long, medical process of becoming the gender they know themselves to be, become a criminal if they use the “wrong” restroom in Albertson’s or a bar. Stall walls not with standing, the bill just passed mandates they be arrested and fined. If they are in a business, that business will be fined.

So not only are the police supposed to hunt down immigrants, they are supposed to patrol rest rooms? Are stalls on the routes of street cops? That is our tax dollars.

This bill does zilch to protect women and girls. It would not prevent the bruises or broken bones that battered girl friends and wives deal with. It would not teach a teen girl whose first boyfriend turns out to be a batterer that she does not have to tolerate such treatment. The Idaho Senate should not pass this bill.

Janelle Wintersteen, Boise

Women’s bathrooms

Those who oppose HB 752, the Idaho bill that keeps males out of women’s bathrooms, locker rooms, and changing facilities are turning a blind eye to reality.

Safety and privacy are non-negotiable. Women did not ask for this fight. We never asked for men, regardless of how they identify, to enter our most intimate, private spaces.

Women are increasingly pushing back that self-identification grants access to women’s language, protections, and the legal safeguards that recognize girls and women as a protected sex class. These protections were hard-won, built on the recognition that biological differences matter.

The agenda to redefine reality relies on classic authoritarian tactics: endless slogans, mantras, and repetitive propaganda. Phrases like “inclusive,” “marginalized,” “discrimination,” and “trans women are women” are weaponized to manipulate truth, control thought, and create false reality. This linguistic campaign doesn’t change biology, it only pressures people to deny it.

No special category of men gets a free pass to override women’s consent, breach our boundaries, or invade our spaces. Facilities must align with one’s birth sex. Biology matters. Privacy matters. Safety matters.

I urge everyone, especially those wavering, to stand firmly on these undeniable truths. Support HB 752. Protect women’s dignity, safety and privacy.

April Chainey, Boise

Bob Kustra

I read with incredulity Jason Monks’ opinion letter in response to Bob Kustra’s column about Monks’ resolution. I stand with Kustra on this; the Idaho legislature seeks only to marginalize constituents with whom they feel uncomfortable or those who do not show up on their contributor lists. Please show us where and when “justice, compassion and unity” has been achieved or even attempted with bills that are anti-transgender, anti-immigration, anti-women’s healthcare or anti-education. Vouchers for private for-profit, exclusionary schools benefit the well-to-do suburbanites and neglect the rural and poor districts. Where are the efforts to address real issues affecting so many of our state’s population, I.e., lack of housing and poor access to healthcare, failing public education and rising utility costs as the State caters to big business and interminable quest for tax cuts and energy grabs? We don’t need your words, Mr. Monks; we need the actions that they supposedly seek to compel.

Constance Carlson, Eagle

SAVE Act

The SAVE Act is an unnecessary and unfair poll tax on women. This act requires proof of every legal name change and places the cost of obtaining copies of these documents on her. Frequently in several states, all across this country and requiring a fee to get the records. It places an unfair burden on us and every other person whose income is connected to her. Bad idea, especially since most, if not all states require identification to register to vote already.

Teresa Murray, Emmett

Voting

Voter fraud is not a problem in Idaho or the United States. I am very upset that the House of Representatives voted to pass the SAVE America Act because it will create barriers for people like me to register to vote.I am an older American and do not have a passport. I also don’t drive but I do have a Star ID card.

The problem is the name on my birth certificate doesn’t match my current identification.Finding the paperwork to track my name change will be a challenge.We don’t have widespread voter fraud in America and the SAVE America Act creates unnecessary burdens for voting in our elections.If our senators vote to pass the SAVE America Act, I won’t be able to vote for them in coming elections.

Lynne Schnupp, Boise