The election of Attorney General Raul Labrador could be a game-changer for Idaho. We have already seen AG Labrador stop the ridiculous and costly prosecution of Sara Brady and he is now entering the fracas in the Caldwell School District. The school district board closed down a recent meeting because of strong controversy over their adoption of new policies on Gender Identity and Sexual Orientation.
Idaho is slowly finding out just what its many boards of education are up to when it comes to these new policies that are finding their way into more of our school districts year after year. If it weren’t for state senators like Sen. Chris Trakel, who are opposed to the new policies we may have never known what was happening in our school system regarding gender identity and sexual orientation.
The fact that Raul Labrador our newly elected Attorney General is stepping into the arena and will be launching an investigation into these new policies which he thinks may violate Idaho law is giving us some comfort in this matter. It appears that Idaho law may be in conflict with Federal regulations according to Debbie Critchfield the State Superintendent of Education, however, Sen. Cindy Carlson from District 7 asked Critchfield to take action immediately and inform school boards that enacting or enforcing these policies could subject them to criminal charges under Idaho’s laws.
Thanks to Gov. Little, Idaho has been sucking up to the federal government for years because 33% of Idaho’s budget comes from them. The problem with taking funds from the feds is that they always come with strings attached to them. This is the same reason that our governor instituted the draconian rules during his State of Emergency Orders as much of the money coming from the Feds had Memorandums of Understanding attached to them.
The federal government pays Idaho $32 million a year in PILT money which is supposed to reimburse us for its sequestration of 62% of our land that we have no access to. Our land and the natural resources on and under it are worth billions of dollars yet we have no access to them, and it is not much different for many other western states. They want to tell us what we can and can’t teach in our schools about sex and gender orientation while they tie up our natural resources without a valid reason. They continue to force government overreach on a sovereign state, and it must stop.
It is high time for our representatives in Washington to step up to the plate and do something about this onerous and unfair sequestration of our state’s wealth. Our natural resources are worth billions if we were permitted access to them. The federal government only pays us a mere pittance of 32 million dollars, and it is high time not only for Idaho but for every western state to take back control of their land.
There is no reason for the federal government to control this land. They do nothing to solve the problems with our forests and the terrible wildfires they have produced because of poor management. They do nothing to make the minerals under the surface available to us so we can mine them and bring better jobs and wealth to our state. It’s time our elected officials did something for the people of Idaho besides taking federal money and burdening us with their rules and regulations. Maybe our new Attorney General will find a way to get our land back, so he won’t have to do battle with so many of the federal regulations that are imposed on our state.
