BOISE, ID – An Idaho House committee on Monday advanced a bill that would block local policies that ban discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity.
House Bill 557 would prevent local governments in Idaho from having or enforcing antidiscrimination policies that go beyond state law.
Rep. Bruce Skaug, a Nampa Republican, is sponsoring the bill, which was written by the Idaho Family Policy Center, a conservative Christian lobbying group.
Skaug said local antidiscrimination policies “are often weaponized against different businesses and people.”
“It’s happened across the country. We see those in the headlines. We’ve heard stories: the bakers, the photographers, the wedding venues being forced to participate in ceremonies — which they hold a close religious belief that they cannot do that,” Skaug told the committee.
The bill comes after more than a decade of failed efforts in the Republican supermajority-controlled Idaho Legislature to add LGBTQ+ discrimination protections to state law. Idaho state law prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, national origin or disability.
More than a third of Idahoans — over 720,000 people — live in Idaho communities with local nondiscrimination ordinances, the ACLU of Idaho estimates. Since 2011, 13 Idaho cities and towns passed nondiscrimination ordinances including Sandpoint, Boise, Idaho Falls, Moscow, Lewiston, Meridian, Ketchum, Hailey, Bellevue, Driggs, Victor, Pocatello and Coeur d’Alene. In 2020, Ada County, home to Boise, passed its own.
Nikson Mathews, who is transgender, told the committee that the issue is more than just about cake orders or weddings.
“What we are talking about is people having the right to have a home, to have a home for themselves and for their families,” Mathews said. “We are talking about the right for people to have a job in order to make a living for themselves and their families.”
In the coming days or weeks, the bill could go up for vote in the House, before it would advance to the Senate.
Only one Republican opposed the bill — arguing the state shouldn’t interfere with local government
The Idaho House Local Government Committee advanced the bill to the full House on a nearly party-line vote Monday. All but one of the 14 Republicans on the committee supported the move, and the committee’s two Democrats opposed it.
Rep. Rick Cheatum, of Pocatello, was the sole Republican to vote against the bill. He said he opposed it because it preempts local decisionmaking.
“I don’t think the state should be fiddling with what happens in local government,” he said. “Let local government officials manage their own affairs.”
Rep. Steve Berch, a Boise Democrat, told lawmakers they need to recognize why the ordinances are in place.
“It is not a special right to not be fired from your job. It is not a special right to be evicted from your apartment,” he said. “It is not a special right to be asked to leave a restaurant because of who you are.”
Boise hasn’t prosecuted under its nondiscrimination ordinance, official says
The Association of Idaho Cities opposed the bill over it preempting local policies, said the organization’s deputy director Jonathan Wheatley.
In November, Sandpoint repealed its nondiscrimination ordinance after public complaints claimed a transgender woman used a local women’s locker room, the Spokesman-Review reported. The North Idaho city was the first Idaho city to pass a local nondiscrimination ordinance.
Sandpoint Mayor Jeremy Grimm testified in support of the bill. He cast tie-breaking votes in the city council’s decisions to effectively repeal the town’s anti-discrimination ordinance recently.
“That decision was not about withdrawing protections. It was about restoring clarity, consistency and defensibility to our local code and acknowledging the limits of municipal capacity,” he told the committee.
The city of Boise opposed the bill. Boise’s government affairs director, Kathy Griesmyer, told the committee that since Boise adopted its ordinance in 2012, no business complaints have been filed with the city, and there haven’t been “any prosecutions against any business resulting in their market departure”
“Instead, this false reasoning is being used to advance state legislation that restricts city authority while severely harming our LGBTQ residents in our community,” she told the committee.
The bill would allow Idaho Attorney General Raúl Labrador and local businesses and property owners affected to sue local governments that violate the block on local antidiscrimination policies.
To become law, Idaho bills must pass the House and Senate, and avoid the governor’s veto. If the bill becomes law, it would take effect July 1.
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