Bill introduced to overturn LGBTQ and other anti-discrimination ordinances across Idaho
A Pride banner near the Statehouse before the beginning of Boise Pride in 2022. Photo: Don Day/BoiseDev
On Tuesday, Rep. Bruce Skaug, R-Nampa, got the greenlight to introduce a bill from the House Local Government Committee preempting non-discrimination ordinances adopted by cities and counties statewide. This would impact ordinances protecting against discrimination due to gender and sexual identity, as well as other ordinances preventing discrimination on the basis of familial status, source of income or other reasons.
It would mean local governments can only have ordinances on the books banning discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, disability and national origin.
Skaug said the goal of the ordinance was to block “burdensome” local ordinances that impose extra regulations on businesses and infringe on the religious rights of business owners. He gave the example of the North Idaho wedding venue The Hitching Post that was engaged in a legal battle with the City of Coeur d’Alene over its refusal to host same-sex weddings roughly a decade ago.
“Local anti-discrimination ordinances are frequently weaponized against small businesses, owners of those businesses and cause them to violate their sincerely held religious beliefs,” Skaug said. “…In addition to threatening our religious freedoms, all of these conflicting anti-discrimination ordinances create a tangled web of red tape that varies city to city and county to county that burdens entrepreneurs. It’s a real issue that’s come up. With so many local anti-discrimination ordinances around Idaho, one business could be required to comply with over a dozen regulatory regimes just to go to work.”
The bill would overturn anti-discrimination ordinances in Ada County and the cities of Bellevue, Boise, Coeur d’Alene, Driggs, Hailey, Idaho Falls, Ketchum, Lewiston, Meridian, Moscow, Pocatello and Victor.
Battles have raged at the Idaho State Capitol for years over the state’s anti-discrimination ordinance and whether or not the state should “add the words” to prevent discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity. Activists protesting the state’s decision not to expand its anti-discrimination laws to the LGBTQ community were arrested at the Idaho State Capitol building in 2014. Attempts by Democrats in the years since to expand the state’s laws have not gained any traction in the Republican-dominated state legislature.
The two legislators who voted against introducing the bill were Rep. Steve Berch, D-Boise, and Rep. Monica Church, D-Boise. Church asked Skaug to return with economic data showing these ordinances hurt the state’s economy, especially since many of the state’s largest employers are headquartered in cities with these ordinances on the books.
Berch said he opposed the bill because it infringed on local government authority.
“I find this legislation is irreconcilable of the principle that government is best when it’s closest to the people,” he said. “Different communities are different, and this is saying that a majority of 105 legislators decide who every community needs to govern over its citizens, and I cannot support this overreach of legislative power or state power over the cities.”