Boise City Hall is located on Capitol Boulevard, which is the sort-of grand entrance road leading to the front steps of the Idaho Statehouse, and only about two blocks away from the capitol. You can see the Statehouse from the city hall. You can almost see two units of government glaring at each other.
The Statehouse is dominated by Republicans, in its executive and legislative offices, and the city hall (notwithstanding that elected city offices are non-partisan) by Democrats, in the mayor’s office and strongly on the council. A clue to the latter reality shows up in one of the flags – there are several – typically aloft in front of the building, visible from the right angle from the Statehouse.
It is a Pride flag – one of those with rainbow colors, adopted most specifically by gender and sexual minority groups but also by others as well.
That’s the flag which implicitly though not specifically was targeted by House Bill 96, recently passed by the legislature and signed into law. The new law says that, “A governmental entity shall not display a flag on its property other than the following,” listing several exceptions which do not include the Pride flag.
Boise city hall’s Pride flag has not come down. Attorney General Raul Labrador and the Ada County sheriff’s office both contacted the office of Mayor Lauren McLean about it. At this writing, there’s been no change.
And there’s no real reason why there has to be. The new state law doesn’t say what happens if a city, or any other government entity decides to fly it anyway. There’s no fine, no penalty, certainly no prison time. Failure to comply is not declared to be either a misdemeanor or felony. (It did declare that an emergency was found to exist, though you really have to stretch the meaning of “emergency” to include the flying of a long-standing flag.)
This is really the legislature saying: This is what we want.
On that level, with no statement indicating a compelling state interest in the policy, and no consequences for flouting it … well, if you’re a city government (or for that matter a city) that doesn’t much like what the legislature does anyway, why comply?
The Substack Political Potatoes opined “Neither McLean nor Labrador is being subtle here. This is political virtue signaling, pure and simple. McLean is playing to her left-leaning base with the added bonus of triggering the far-right, and Labrador’s letter is designed to give his base something to post on X and Truth Social. It’s all the same playbook — pick a political hot potato, rally the base, and make it go viral.”
The symbolism for both sides plays out just fine.
Presumably, then, both sides benefit from an ongoing rhetorical shadow war, for which there’s really no incentive for either side to specifically prevail. While you’d never necessarily want to predict a hot-button topic will never go to court, my guess is that this one doesn’t.
The only problem here is for the people of Idaho, whose law books are being cluttered with statutes that have no practical purpose, no real benefit to the public, and intended only to fire ideological missiles over at the other side.
A point to ponder: Will those on the right start to wave a flag of their own? Representative Heather Scott, who was the originator of HB 96, is well known for a picture posing alongside a Confederate battle flag. Maybe that would suit their purposes in places where people like the backers of the flag law could mark their territory. (If you wanted to get creative, one category of allowed flags – “Official flags of countries other than the United States to commemorate special occasions” – might be made to squeeze in.)
No doubt it would make clear where certain Idahoans are coming from. Warnings, after all, may be needed.
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