Sen. Winder’s defeat highlights rise of California’s radical right in Idaho politics | Opinion

It’s that time of year in the capital city when state legislators who are not returning for a new session in January are cleaning out their desks to make way for the new crop of lawmakers. This year’s election results delivered a significant leadership change that underscores how the state of Idaho is falling in line with the radical right agenda of a changing Republican Party.

Sen. Chuck Winder, president pro tempore of the Idaho Senate, lost in the Republican primary election to yet another California migrant, Josh Keyser, who has lived in Idaho since 2018 and who won the general election in Boise’s Senate District 20.

Keyser answered the Idaho Statesman Voters Guide question as to why he was running by claiming, “It’s time for a fresh perspective to tackle challenges and to preserve Idaho culture and way of life.” That might make sense if he was running against a hubcap, but he was running against Winder, whose significant multifaceted career in business and government qualifies him for Mr. Idaho when it comes to standing up for Idaho culture and way of life, not to be confused with Mr. California, who flipped the truth.

In a far more revealing statement that is standard fare for Idaho’s far-right California transplants, Keyser accused Winder of “not adequately representing my values.” And therein lies the Idaho experience with former Californians importing and demanding Idaho install “their values” into state law. Winder estimated that 30%-50% of the people he encountered as he campaigned door to door had moved to Idaho within the last three to five years.

That is certainly no shock to anyone who drives around the Treasure Valley and sees California plates on the car in front of you.

Winder summed up his defeat by saying, “The party changed, and I didn’t.”

He added, “I’ll take blame for that, but I also wear that with pride, too.”

And wear it with pride he should. Winder joins a growing number of civic-minded Idahoans who were rejected at the polls by right-wing agitators, some funded by dark money, who are very good at campaigning against something, but sadly lacking in the temperament and skill required to craft public policy for all Idahoans. Winder worked for the compromise, a downright dirty word in far-right lingo.

I cannot claim a lifetime of Idaho experience, but when I arrived in 2003, Idaho was a conservative state safely in the hands of majority Republicans in the state Legislature and in the governor’s office. The agenda in those days followed a basic tenet of conservatism: Allow local government officials to do their job without dictates from the state Legislature, and keep state laws to a minimum, especially out of the private lives of citizens. Thus, the reason for a relatively short three-month session compared to many states.

I don’t remember any Republicans trying to run local libraries, where librarians are perfectly capable of setting up the rules and protocols as to who has access to books. I don’t remember Republicans already in a state strapped to fund public education then deciding to fund private schools as the religious right seeks today. As far as abortion is concerned, Roe v. Wade was in place. Even staunch conservatives like Ronald Reagan chose not to challenge the Supreme Court’s ruling.

Butch Otter was governor during most of my years in the Boise State president’s office. Another staunch conservative out of the Reagan mold, Otter believed in Idaho’s universities and actively supported funding to university programs, including his Idaho Global Entrepreneurial Mission (IGEM), which provided funding for universities to help Idaho businesses bring new products and technologies to market. Today’s Idaho’s Republican Party platform earns the “extreme” epithet with its opposition to any state funding beyond high school.

When they’re not trying to cleanse the teaching of American history of racial injustice, they are targeting diversity and inclusion efforts on Idaho campuses, as though it were a communist plot. I find it amusing that Micron, the behemoth engine of economic opportunity for Idahoans, has an impressive section of its website devoted to diversity and inclusion, but Republican state legislators scold university presidents for such emphases and threaten to remove state funding for universities who violate the all-white dictates of extremist right-wingers.

Idaho’s homegrown Simplot Company also has a “Diversity, Equity and Inclusion” website that recognizes the role Simplot plays in creating a culture of acceptance, support and inclusion.

Use those DEI words on a university campus in Idaho these days and Republican legislators pull state funding, teaching their own lesson — this one on depravity.

In one sense, the Democrats in the state Legislature have taken on the mantle of leadership that was once the province of the Republicans. Now it’s the Democrats who show up every day during session to object to the latest interference in the private lives of Idahoans.

The best example of Democratic legislators coming to the rescue of Idaho women and families is the issue of abortion. Radical Republican busybodies with their near-total ban on abortion force Idaho women and families to conform to their own set of beliefs and values, and seem to have all the answers for how we lead our private lives.

Gov. Brad Little is either afraid or unwilling to use the veto pen, and that adds fuel to the fire of the extremists. If Republicans continue to police Idaho’s bedrooms and insert themselves as family planners, what’s to prevent them from prohibiting in vitro fertilization and intrauterine devices (IUDs) in the upcoming session?

Radical Republicans from California don’t just land in Idaho to upend state government and politics. It’s at city halls, school district meetings and in other local governments, where they expect everyone to conform to their own political and religious beliefs.

Life in Eagle, Idaho, may be the best example of an Idaho city overwhelmed with Californians having a partisan picnic in local elections charging each other with who might be the liberal spook who snuck into Eagle while no one was checking license plates at the city’s boundaries. It’s downright laughable to hear candidates accuse each other of not being conservative enough for Idaho, when they bring so little of value to the table. For even more of this, head up north to enter a twilight zone of extremists interfering in the work of local governments.

How many more messages like Winder’s defeat will Idaho experience before Idahoans standing on the sidelines decide to ramp up their political activism? It is so easy to assume someone else will step up and halt the radical rush to the far right in Idaho’s Legislature, yet there are so many ways to support moderate candidates, Republicans and Democrats, who challenge extremists and their intent to shape Idaho law to their own personal values.

Dark money can be defeated with Idaho money. Voter turnout can always improve to bring more Idahoans to the polls who just assumed their vote wouldn’t make a difference. Today more than ever, Idahoans need each other, and we do not need any more extremists from California — who come from the right, not the left — making a mess of a state once proud of its civility and good governance.

And one final note to the far right from out of state looking over Idaho: Have you tried Wyoming?