It is no secret that the far right and the Idaho Freedom Foundation have taken control of Idaho politics and the Idaho GOP. https://idahodems.org/moonattacksprominentrepublicans/; https://www.idahostatesman.com/opinion/opn-columns-blogs/article267635822.html.

I am running against a moderate GOP, Dustin Manwaring. I have appreciated having a clean campaign season with Dustin, with neither of us attacking each other’s character. Dustin is a fine person. It is critical, however, that voters understand their choices and that they understand what is at stake on November 8 in Idaho.

Running as a moderate Democrat, I cannot be pressured by the IFF. I do not need their dark out of state money. I will not get primaried by my own party, as Dustin was. The pressure on Dustin will intensify if he returns to Boise in 2023, and it sounds like he is already feeling that pressure. This week he received an Independent Expenditure from the Idaho Federation for Children PAC. This PAC is funded by out of state dark money with the express purpose of defunding our public education system. https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/The_American_Federation_for_Children

Dustin also revealed at a Pocatello Rotary candidate forum last week that he will support the Idaho Freedom Foundation’s “money follows the child” proposal, which will by definition gut public education funding. It is my view that Idaho already offers a lot of taxpayer support for charter schools and homeschooling. Idaho has underfunded public education for decades. I cannot support more diversion of money from public education without a thorough economic analysis of how that will impact the economies of scale built into the current system. By necessity, taking money away from the public education system and giving it back to parents will increase the per student cost of maintaining the same facilities and programs, and there is no feasible way to size down costs in the short term. As a result, we may lose important secondary systems like music, art, and high school athletics. This kind of social experiment is irresponsible public policy without a full and thorough economic projection and analysis of how it may impact our current systems.

I am a civil rights and family law attorney with over thirty years’ experience. I understand how these laws impact your fundamental rights, legally, and I am vested in finding out how they impact our constituents on the ground when they are passed. A vote for me is a vote for making sure your own voice, and not the voice of the far right GOP, is heard in the Idaho legislature.

REPRODUCTIVE RIGHTS

At League of Women Voter’s Forum held October 18, 2022, Dustin Manwaring denied that he voted for any of Idaho’s trigger bans. 

In fact, Dustin voted for the 2021 Fetal Heartbeat Preborn Child Protection Act, and he co-sponsored the 2022 Amended Fetal Heartbeat Preborn Child Protection Act.  The 2022 statute is modeled after the Texas “bounty hunter” law, which allows family members even of rapists to sue for a minimum $20k of damages for illegal abortions.  Idaho law does not give these same relatives, except for the parents, the right to sue for wrongful death or visitation or custody of alive child relatives.  Both statutes were trigger bans and both also criminalize doctors who perform illegal abortions, with limited exceptions for life and health of the mother and rape and incest.  Links:  https://legislature.idaho.gov/sessioninfo/2021/legislation/H0366/; https://legislature.idaho.gov/sessioninfo/2022/legislation/S1309/.  

Dustin was absent for the vote on S1309 in 2022, but he was a co-sponsor.  

The criminal penalties for the 2021 and 2022 bills are superseded by the criminal penalties of the 2020 trigger ban, which bans all abortions done after conception (but excludes the use of contraceptives including Plan B from the definition of abortion).  The civil liability part of Dustin’s 2022 bill – the bounty hunter part of the 2022 statute- survives.  All three statutes are pending review by the Idaho Supreme Court, but the Court did not enjoin enforcement, which is not a great sign.  The two active statutes, the 2020 extreme criminal statute and the 2022 bounty hunter 6 week ban statute Dustin co-sponsored, are currently modified by Judge Winmill’s ruling that the federal EMTALA statute requires Idaho to allow abortions in emergency medical situations. 

Dustin did not even remember what he supported, in this election year where this issue is on everyone’s mind following the Dobbs decision. Everyone who cares about this issue should be concerned.

The Idaho Medical Association recently passed resolutions denouncing the current legislation as unworkable from a provider’s perspective. https://www.boisestatepublicradio.org/news/2022-10-14/idaho-medical-association-passes-resolutions-to-protect-pregnant-patients-amid-abortion-bans

If we get another shot at drafting these bills, and I think there is a good chance we will, I will listen to the stakeholders, including the medical providers and people of reproductive age, to make sure I fully understand how the bills will work in the real world. Too often bills have been passed in Idaho based on ideology and how it plays to a certain base, and without understanding the legal, financial, and practical costs. Please see my blog posted a few weeks ago, where I break down the legal and practical problems with the current legislation. I will add that two thirds of all pregnant people do not even know they are pregnant at six weeks, which is only two weeks past a regular period cycle. Dustin’s position on reproductive rights cannot be characterized as moderate. He has supported some of the harshest and most draconian abortion laws existing in the nation.

Dustin also voted for the No Public Funds for Abortion Act in 2021:https://legislature.idaho.gov/sessioninfo/2021/legislation/H0220/ 

The stated purpose of this act is nonsensical, because no Idaho public funds have ever been used directly for abortion services, except for medically necessary abortions through Medicaid.  Medically necessary Medicaid abortions are still allowed by this statute, because there is a federal court order from 1992 compelling it in Idaho on equal protection grounds.   The real purpose of this law was to defund Planned Parenthood in the wake of the fake “baby parts” scandal.  https://www.kivitv.com/news/political/inside-the-statehouse/gov-little-signs-bill-to-defund-abortion-providers-in-idaho; https://www.plannedparenthood.org/uploads/filer_public/fd/de/fddee2ba-5ae1-4a89-9c4f-7e72c8a4db02/210218-fact-sheet-cmp-fetal-tissue-backgrounder-prod.pdf.

The effect of the bill is to strip Planned Parenthood of federal Title X money coming through Idaho to support family planning education and services.  In other words, from a policy perspective, it is a disaster for reducing unwanted pregnancies in Idaho.  https://www.guttmacher.org/state-policy/explore/state-family-planning-funding-restrictions. 

If we really want to reduce “elective” abortions, we need more family planning and education services, not less.  The number of “elective” abortions in America has been trending down, and that is also true in Idaho.  Due to lack of providers, as well as culture, we have had a much lower than national average abortion rate in Idaho to begin with.  Abortion rates peak in Idaho, and everywhere, during times of financial stress.  https://idahocapitalsun.com/2022/07/18/idahos-annual-abortion-reports-tell-us-the-demographics-of-who-gets-them-when-how-and-where/; https://www.guttmacher.org/fact-sheet/state-facts-about-abortion-idaho

We could really make a difference here with good sex ed and contraception availability.  The people really being hurt by our current laws, including the laws supported by Dustin, are the doctors who risk criminal prosecution for practicing standard of care medicine; the women facing terrible health and life risks or the emotional harm of carrying nonviable babies to term; and the rape and incest victims forced to engage with law enforcement and wait for a report before they can abort.  

The No Public Funds for Abortion Act also has the additional effect of chilling speech on public universities about abortion services.  The statute does not allow abortion providers like Planned Parenthood to offer any kind of reproductive education in Idaho public facilities.  It is one of the statutes relied on by the University of Idaho general counsel in the memo issued September 26, 2022.  The statute is so broadly written that it has been misconstrued to prohibit any speech by public employees or sanctioned by public entities that could be viewed to “promote” abortion.  I think that interpretation leads to a First Amendment violation, and a lot of civil rights attorneys agree with me: 

https://maryforidaho.com/some-thoughts-on-the-idaho-university-reproductive-rights-censorship-controversy/ The ACLU and others are preparing to sue.

CENSORSHIP

In addition to supporting the abortion censorship bill discussed above, Dustin also voted for our “Critical Race Theory” legislation. The bill itself is vague, and to my knowledge it has not been prosecuted. Most reasonable prosecutors don’t want to violate the First Amendment. While defending the bill on the House floor, GOP Representative Heather Scott stated that books like To Kill a Mockingbird would violate this law and should be banned by it. Jake Stevens, running alongside of Dustin, has stated that Howard Zinn’s People’s History of the United States would also be banned by this statute, because it teaches history from the perspective of explaining the actual consequence of policies on marginalized people in America. This statute is a dangerous infringement of our free speech rights. We should not be afraid of ideas in this country. We should be afraid of the people who would silence us.

Dustin also voted to criminalize librarians in 2021. That statute was killed in the Senate, but it would have subjected librarians in public schools and libraries to misdemeanor criminal liability for checking out material that is deemed “harmful” to minors. Checking out books like The Art of Being a Wallflower and the Judy Blume books, and any books that feature LBGTQ+ characters, could subject librarians to prosecution under strained and very subjective interpretations of what is and what is not “harmful” to minors. This is also a dangerous bill, and if it is resurrected in 2023, I am not sure you can trust Dustin to vote against it. I will vote against it, because I do not believe in book bans. There are already standards in place to protect children from obscenity and pornography. Any more protection from “harmful content” should be provided by parents, not by librarians.

Vote for Mary Shea for House Seat 29A. I will listen to you, and I will vote my conscience and for what is best for all Idahoans.