Gov. Little can evade debates all he wants. But he can’t evade Idaho voters

Gov. Brad Little evaded debating his May 17 GOP primary opponents on Idaho Public Television.

So he will avoid the kind of tough questioning he would have received at that forum.

That leaves it up to you. The next time you see Little, press him on these points:

• Who won the presidential election of 2020, Joe Biden or Donald Trump? Do you stand up against Trump’s “big lie” that the election was stolen or are you unwilling to challenge segments of your party’s base?

• As the Los Angeles Times noted last month, Trump has turned against only two GOP incumbent governors. In Georgia, Trump has endorsed former Sen. David Perdue against Gov. Brian Kemp. And of course, Trump has backed Lt. Gov. Janice McGeachin over you.
  
  Trump’s irritation with Kemp is plain enough. The Georgia Republican refused to invalidate Biden’s narrow win in his state.
  
  But what did you do to earn the former president’s wrath?

• When you signed into law a bill banning virtually all abortions within the state of Idaho, why did you write that you were “concerned for those vulnerable women and children who lack the capacity or familial support to report incest and sexual assault. Ultimately, this legislation risks retraumatizing victims by affording monetary incentives to wrongdoers and family members of rapists”?

• Why would you sign away Idahoans’ rights to pass their own laws through the initiative process if, as you wrote, whether “Senate Bill 1110 amounts to an impermissible restriction in violation of our constitution is highly fact dependent and, ultimately, a question for the Idaho judiciary to decide.”

• If you believed the debate over so-called critical race theory sent “the wrong message to Idaho teachers, parents and students,” and that it has been “nothing short of a distraction from meeting our constitutional and moral obligations to public education in Idaho,” then why did you sign a bill banning the teaching of CRT?

• The Legislature’s imposition of an asset test for low-income seniors who depend on circuit breaker property tax benefits will deprive some of them of that help. The State Tax Commission looked at a sample of 12 of Idaho’s 44 counties and estimated more than 1,000 households would lose that benefit. “I fear these changes may have unintended consequences for some individuals and families,” you wrote.
  
  Yet you signed it into law, anyway. How come?

• Given that you routinely sign legislation that you clearly disagree with, how much difference does it truly make if you’re reelected or McGeachin becomes the next governor?

• Name one occasion when you’ve stood up and expressed alarm about rising extremism within your own political party — involving methods such as doxxing police officers, social workers and health care providers, taking protests to the homes of public officials, including yourself, and disrupting public forums, from health board meetings to legislative sessions.

• Senate President Pro Tem Chuck Winder, R-Boise, has called the Idaho Freedom Foundation “one of the biggest threats we have to our democracy in our state.” Do you agree?

• Although you were willing to sign an anti-abortion bill that you agreed retraumatized rape and incest victims, you vetoed a bill that would have prohibited businesses from imposing COVID-19 vaccine mandates in the workplace. So why does the opinion of the Idaho Association of Commerce and Industry matter more to you than that of Idaho women and their families?

• After taking some initial steps during the COVID-19 pandemic, you refused to impose mask or vaccine mandates — even though the state’s hospitals were so overwhelmed by COVID-19 infections that twice they operated under crisis standards of care. From here on out, are you telling us that Idahoans can not count on you to protect the public health against another outbreak of the coronavirus?

• If you care so much about the immigration issue that you would allocate scarce Idaho State Police resources to the Arizona border, what are you doing about the dearth of workers needed at Idaho’s farms and dairies?

In refusing to debate, Little’s campaign has asserted his record is “non-debatable.”

That’s not his call to make.

That’s for voters to decide. — M.T.

This story was originally published April 26, 2022 at 4:00 AM.