Considering they call themselves the party of fiscal responsibility, the party of limited government, the party of personal freedom, the party of anti-cancel culture and anti-virtue signaling, the majority of the Idaho GOP sure seems to embody none of that.

The Republican members of the Idaho Legislature would say they’re looking out for all Idahoans, but from what I’ve seen in the last few sessions, the vast majority of bills they’ve proposed or passed are 1) legislation to give themselves more power, 2) legislation to take power away from the people, 3) legislation that addresses things that aren’t even an issue and 4) legislation that our own attorney general assures them will be overturned in court but they proceed anyway.

In the latter instance, the legislation does get overturned in court — shocking, I know — thus wasting millions of taxpayer dollars just to virtue signal to their followers that they are on the same side. So much for fiscal responsibility.

Speaking of fiscal responsibility, is it fiscally responsible for lawmakers to pick a multi-year legal fight with the state treasurer over whether they can kick her out of her offices in the Capitol building so they can have more office space? That debacle ended up costing taxpayers almost $700,000, so I don’t think so.

It’s no secret that I don’t agree with our Legislature on much, but if they at least made an effort to pretend they were trying to help out Idahoans and not just themselves, I’d have less of an issue with them. And there’s some low-hanging fruit that would get them kudos from most Idahoans. I mean, how long have we been talking about getting rid of the grocery tax?

This year is especially frustrating. We are in the middle of a pandemic that has gone on for more than a year — a pandemic that has killed more than 1,700 Idahoans and more than 430,000 people nationwide, in addition to leaving millions of Americans with long-term health issues and more who are struggling to get by. You would think that our elected representatives would, for once, be trying to pass legislation that would help businesses, would help individuals and generally help get the state back on its feet.

You’d be wrong. Instead, they’re up to their usual nonsense.

Here’s a sampling of activities that lawmakers have been up to in just the past three weeks:

Regarding giving themselves more power and taking away power from others, they have:

— Introduced bills to limit the governor’s emergency powers, giving more to themselves, and to limit the already limited powers of health districts.

— Introduced a bill to immediately open up all gatherings without a capacity limit.

— Proposed a constitutional amendment that would allow the Legislature to call itself into special sessions without the governor’s consent.

— Proposed a constitutional amendment that would put a prohibition on legalizing any drugs that weren’t legal last year, which would eliminate the people’s power to change things regarding that issue via ballot measure in the future.

— Introduced two bills to increase its own funding: one that adds $4 million for its legal defense — presumably so they can take to court more of those bills that the attorney general assures them will be overturned — and one that increases funding for legislative operations by 26 percent annually.

— Introduced a “monument protection” bill that would require legislative approval for any city, school district, etc., wanting to change a school or street name or move any monument. (What happened to promoting small government?)

They have introduced a couple bills that no one was asking for:

— A bill to give tax breaks for lemonade stands run by kids under 18. (This was not an issue. Even the bill’s sponsor said he wasn’t aware of any instances in which this problem had arisen.)

— A bill to allow for “free-range parenting.” (Also not an issue.)

And these ones are just cruel and unusual:

— They refused to pass a rule to allow for legislators who have serious underlying health conditions to be able to attend the session remotely.

— They proposed a ban on regulating rental fees and deposits in a time when people are struggling to pay bills.

— Some of them are attempting to impeach Gov. Brad Little — a member of their own party — for apparently overstepping his bounds regarding the coronavirus pandemic when in fact he did the absolute minimum compared with pretty much every other state in the U.S. and almost every country on Earth. (Talk about cancel culture.)

Regardless of whether you think any of the above has merit, Idaho has serious issues that need to be addressed now, and it’s infuriating that the Legislature is prioritizing these kinds of things. These people aren’t working for the people who elected them; they are working for themselves.

Even Idaho GOP mainstay U.S. Rep. Mike Simpson and a fellow former speaker of the Idaho House of Representatives, Bruce Newcomb, gave Idaho legislators a piece of their minds in a scathing statement addressing the lawmakers’ recent actions in regard to limiting the governor’s emergency powers, which reads, in part: “The Idaho Legislature’s reckless and careless attempts to end the COVID-19 emergency declaration and weaken Idaho’s response in future emergencies puts this generation and future generations of Idahoans at risk.”

They added, “In the immediate days and weeks ahead, ending the COVID-19 emergency declaration would slow down the vaccine rollout. Hospitals would lose access to critical equipment and staffing resources. It would jeopardize the state’s ability to tap the Idaho National Guard to assist with vaccine administration, testing and support for food banks and medical facilities. Financial support for small businesses would end. It would burden local communities — the entities that requested the emergency declaration to begin with. It would limit the state’s ability to remove regulatory barriers that stand in the way of better health care access for our citizens.”

The Republican leadership of our state needs a complete reset. They need to stop prioritizing things that don’t matter, that don’t help the citizens of Idaho and that in fact sometimes hurt us and take away our power. They aren’t even prioritizing traditional Republican platform items; they are prioritizing idiocracy.

Remember when after they failed to act on Medicaid expansion for years, we decided to take it into our own hands, passing a ballot measure on the issue with a large majority? They tried to punish us and make it much, much harder for Idahoans to get initiatives on the ballot. That attempt failed because of the reasonable person who is our current governor.

But I remember and I won’t forget, because they will try again, and Gov. Little might not be around to protect us next time.

We deserve better.

Danae Lenz is the business editor at the Idaho State Journal. A Montana native, she graduated with a bachelor’s degree in journalism from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln in 2014 and has been a Pocatello resident ever since. She can be reached at dlenz@journalnet.com.