The Idaho Way: Firing squad would expose the barbarity of the death penalty
By Scott McIntosh, opinion editor
The Idaho Way is a weekly roundup of opinions, commentary and letters to the editor to encourage conversation on topics important to Idahoans. If you like this newsletter, forward to a friend, and they can sign up here.
Taking the life of another human being is the most serious act imaginable, whether it’s a murderer taking the life of a victim or the state taking a life.
A bill was introduced Wednesday morning to bring back the firing squad as a back-up method of execution in Idaho. That’s because Idaho is having a difficult time procuring the drugs necessary for execution by lethal injection.
Rep. Bruce Skaug, R-Nampa, introduced the bill to the House Ways & Means Committee, which agreed to print the bill.
After a history of executions by hanging, firing squad, gas chamber and electric chair, the method of lethal injection might seem a more humane approach, perhaps more palatable to folks on the fence or squeamish about the death penalty.
Lethal injection opponents argue that the paralytic element of the drug cocktail prevents the accused from expressing pain. In other words, we’ve tried to evolve the death penalty so that we can’t observe what we’re doing; we don’t want to see the consequences of our actions. In reality, a growing rate of mistakes have led to cruel and unusual punishment for some who found themselves at the sharp end of the needle.
But pulling the trigger is a much more violent act than pushing a plunger on a syringe, and bringing back the firing squad might actually turn some people off to the death penalty altogether.
Read my full column here on why that might be a good thing.
Maybe they’re fleeing from California’s libraries?
The Ada County Clerk’s Office approved 93 signatures from residents in the Meridian Library District to put a measure on the ballot asking voters to dissolve the district. It’s now up to the Ada County commissioners to hold a public hearing and determine whether to put it on the ballot.
I say put it on the ballot and let the voters in Meridian clearly and loudly swat down these so-called “Concerned Citizens of Meridian,” the Facebook group with 200 followers responsible for the petition.
The group’s leader, Phil Reynolds, is a failed candidate who ran for Congress in 2020 in California and lost with just 8% of the vote. He’s been in Idaho for just a couple of years and already knows what’s best for everyone and wants to close down our libraries.
Read my column here on how a ballot initiative might actually shut down these cockamamie culture wars.
Greater Idaho?
The concept of forming a “Greater Idaho” is a pipe dream, writes Idaho Statesman opinion writer Bryan Clark.
But the movement is a symptom of a greater problem: a growing urban/rural divide.
The Idaho House last week voted to advance a resolution in support of Greater Idaho, which would redraw the border between Oregon and Idaho to somewhere in the vicinity of Bend, chopping off most of the red portions of the Beaver State and tacking them onto the Gem State. Doing so, proponents say, would free the vast rural areas of eastern Oregon from the oppressive rule of Portland and other urban population centers, and join it to rural, culturally similar Idaho.
The easy thing to say about Greater Idaho is that it’s ridiculous — and that’s true. The interstate compact required would need to get through Congress, as well as both the Oregon and Idaho legislatures.
Read Bryan’s full column here on the serious problem contained within this persistent idea.
School voucher sticker shock
Vouchers are looking more costly by the day, Bryan Clark writes.
The fiscal note on Senate Bill 1038, which would create a system of vouchers to fund home-schooling and private schooling, claims the program would eat only about $44 million in education funding. That has never seemed to be a remotely credible figure — partly because the bill’s main sponsors, Sens. Tammy Nichols and Brian Lenney, haven’t demonstrated a credible grasp on the policy they’re proposing.
Luckily, Idaho does have people with a grasp of policy. And the picture painted by outside budget experts is dire.
Idaho Center for Fiscal Policy estimates, based on the history of similar programs implemented in Arizona and Florida, is that within one year, the budget would balloon from $44 million to over $360 million.
If that happens, and it likely will, how could legislators possibly allow spending that much money without any oversight?
Read Bryan’s full column here on why folks like home-schoolers wouldn’t want that.
Capitol Letters
Now that the Idaho Legislature is back in session, Idaho Statesman reporter Ryan Suppe and politics editor Hayat Norimine have you covered, keeping you updated on each day’s happenings and what to expect for the upcoming day.
Plus, I throw in our astute politics observations and opinions on a daily basis.
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I’m listening
Send me your story ideas, news tips, questions, comments, or anything else on your mind. You can reach me via email at smcintosh@idahostatesman.com.
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What you’re saying
This week, we received letters to the editor on legislative antics, student IDs, conspiracy theories, disenfranchisement, the wealth tax and maternal mortality. You can read these and more letters by clicking here.
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