Idaho far-right lawmakers flinch at condemning racism in Coeur d’Alene incident

A symbolic vote in the Idaho Legislature to condemn racism devolved Thursday when far-right Republicans doubted that high-profile reports that a women’s basketball team faced racial harassment in Coeur d’Alene this month had even occurred.

Several Republicans on the floor expressed doubts about the accounts, and two of them left the chamber before the vote.

Concurrent Resolution 135 referred to a racist incident against the University of Utah women’s basketball team, which was staying in North Idaho this month as it competed in the NCAA basketball tournament in Spokane, Washington. The team’s coach, law enforcement and county officials reported that a group in trucks revved their engines at team members, who were staying at the Coeur d’Alene Resort and walking to and from a restaurant for dinner, and yelled racial slurs at them, including the N-word. One of the trucks had a Confederate flag, according to the reports.

The team later left Idaho over the incident, according to previous Statesman reporting, and the FBI is involved in a hate crime investigation.

Online far-right influencers and lawmakers have since tried to cast doubt on the events and implied that they may have been part of a political agenda to overtake the local Republican party. The hesitations from far-right lawmakers came to a head on Thursday.

The resolution stated that the reported events were likely to incite fear in the players and that “Idaho’s leaders must do more than issue public statements denouncing racist acts after they occur.” It denounced racism and prejudice.

Concurrent resolutions, which are essentially formal statements, are generally voted on with a voice vote. But Senate Minority Leader Melissa Wintrow, D-Boise, requested a roll-call vote, which would require that each senator’s vote be recorded. Two Republicans — Sen. Phil Hart, R-Kellogg, and Sen. Brian Lenney, R-Nampa — by then had left the room.

Moments later, Senate Pro Tem Chuck Winder, R-Boise, requested a call of the Senate, a rare measure that requires all members without an excused absence to present themselves and vote. Lawmakers are forbidden from leaving the chamber after it’s locked, and any lawmakers absent without an excuse must come back to the floor.

After a few minutes, Lenney and Hart reappeared in the chamber, and further debate began.

“I haven’t seen any actual evidence of this happening,” Lenney said, and added that he thought the vote was “premature.”

Hart said he didn’t have time to review the incident and examine the facts. “What is the urgency of this?” he said.

“I don’t know how much time it takes people to decide if you are against racism, racial slurs, racial intimidation and hatred,” Senate Assistant Majority Leader Abby Lee, the Fruitland Republican who sponsored the resolution, said in response.

“I think it’s completely inappropriate that we suspend rules and vote on something as sensitive as this without us knowing what was going on,” Hart replied. He was the lone no vote on the resolution, which ultimately passed in a 33-1 vote.

Sen. Tammy Nichols, R-Middleton, said the events reminded her of a 2020 incident when a Black NASCAR driver —one of the only Black drivers at his sport’s top level — thought he had been targeted when he found a hanging noose in his race car stall. Investigators later determined the noose had been there for months, but the incident roiled a sport that has long faced accusations of racism.

Nichols said she would condemn racism generally, but that she “was not familiar with what this is all about” and could not “find a lot of information about what has transpired.” A Statesman reporter contacted Nichols on Tuesday about the incident, asking for comment. She did not respond. National news outlets reported on the incident, including ESPN, NPR and NBC News.

Law enforcement in Coeur d’Alene said Tuesday they were still working to identify victims and witnesses of the incidents. On Thursday, police announced they had obtained a video of the incident and were looking for more, according to the Spokesman-Review reporting.

Nichols later said the resolution was too specific, and that “it doesn’t need to just be a certain race, or a certain gender, because racism can happen to anyone at any time,” she said.

Sen. Dan Foreman, R-Viola, said he opposed racism but wanted to make clear that the message should not be an “apology.”

“The people who should be apologizing are the people who committed the act,” he said. “We as a state have nothing to apologize for.”

Sen. Scott Herndon, R-Sagle, said regardless of the details he supported the resolution’s conclusion.

Sen. Chris Trakel, R-Caldwell, voted for the resolution but said he thought it was a “knee-jerk reaction.”

“If it comes out that this is a hoax, I find it really weird that we’re going to jump on this so quickly before the police have even come out and said … whether or not this has happened,” Trakel said. “I want to push for an abundance of caution in the future.”