POCATELLO — Democrats who gathered to hear a postmortem on the 2013 Idaho legislative session and to talk to local legislators Roy Lacey, Elaine Smith and Carolyn Meline Saturday morning, also painted a bull’s-eye on Pocatello Mayor Brian Blad and Councilman Craig Cooper.
Blad and Cooper are up for election in November and they both voted Thursday to kill an anti-discrimination ordinance that would protect members of the LGBT community when it comes to housing, employment and public accommodations.
Councilmen Steve Brown and Jim Johnston also voted against the ordinance, but they are not facing election this year.
“This decision Thursday night was not the Pocatello I have loved for 40 years,” Rep. Meline said.
“Now is the time to stand up and be counted,” Sen. Lacey said. “Everybody here should be involved if they’re unhappy with the council.”
Pocatello attorney and former Democratic legislator James Ruchti was more blunt.
“It is our obligation to replace people who voted against it,” he said about Thursday’s vote on the proposed ordinance.
Ruchti said the Democratic Party in Pocatello has secured “very good candidates” to challenge the incumbent mayor and councilman Cooper. He said those people would be announcing their candidacies in the near future.
In addition to Mayor Blad and Cooper, councilmen Roger Bray and Gary Moore face election this fall. Both Bray and Moore voted for passage of the anti-discrimination ordinance at last Thursday’s council meeting. The council vote was split 3-3 with Blad casting the deciding vote.
“We need leadership and we don’t have it,” said Bannock County Democratic Party Chairman Dave Finkelnburg. “Watching what happened here Thursday night, there were a lot of people who were disappointed and I’m one of them.”
He said county Democrats would meet in Idaho State University’s Pond Student Union Saturday, at 10 a.m. to discuss city election strategies.
“Things are starting to happen,” he said.
Lacey got a chuckle from the two dozen people gathered in city hall to speak with the legislators when he said he couldn’t feel sorry for the one phone call councilman Johnston complained about receiving prior to Thursday’s council vote.
The state senator said he had received hundreds of calls and threats when the Legislature was considering Second Amendment and health insurance exchange bills this past session.
“We need to be leaders,” Lacey said. “I wanted to say ‘welcome to politics Jim Johnston.’”
Smith said she was dismayed that the city allowed outside counsel from a national conservative “think tank” to lobby the council prior to the first hearing on the anti-discrimination ordinance.
“Someone paid for her to come,” Lacey said about Heritage Foundation lawyer Jacki Pick. Pick spent several hours April 4 talking to individual council members about concerns her organization had about the language of the proposed ordinance.
(4) comments
I think the ones who voted for the ordinance should be fired. I am glad to see that there are some leaders who don't "cow" to threats and who actually vote the way they should................as the voice of the majority of the community that elected them.
I don't understand why more protection is needed. Real Estate contracts have that they can not discriminate against someone for familial status and sexual orientation. My job would fire me if I said something to a gay person about his or her lifestyle but the LGBT can comment about our sexual preference all they want. There is one girl at work that walks around saying "I love v****" all day long. I can not say anything to her nor can I walk around saying "I love p***'" or I'd get fired. I believe there is more important things for the people in government to concentrate on than making life harder for the christians and heterosexuals by having to tolerate, listen to and be forced to accept what is morally, biblicaly, historically wrong and that which is rejected by the majority of society, for human society. Otherwise, LGBT's would be the majority.
Thomas Jefferson's wrote a letter to the Danbury Baptist Association in 1802. In that letter, referencing the First Amendment to the United States Constitution, Jefferson writes: "Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between Man & his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legitimate powers of government reach actions only, & not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should 'make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,' thus building a wall of separation between Church and State."
I can't help but wonder whether there is a separation between Church and State in our local government.
I don't think you need to wonder. Their has always been a strong church factor in this comminity. Which can be a wonderful thing as long as it stays at church and stays out of our State and Local Governments.
Welcome to the discussion.
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