Restless ideologues tilting at windmills

By Ben Olson
Reader Staff

I read a story once about a woman who constantly rearranged the furniture inside her home. Every few days or so, she’d try the couch on the other side of the room, shuffle the TV stand into a different corner and rotate the rug 90 degrees. She’d try silverware in a different drawer, or switch around the cups and plates from cupboard to cupboard.

She drove her family and neighbors insane in the process. Her husband would return home from work and try to hang his hat on the rack by the door, but it would fall to the floor since the hat rack now stood by the fireplace. The kitchen was filled with sounds of cupboards and drawers banging open and closed while her children searched in vain for a dinner plate and a fork. The constant sound of furniture scraping on the hardwood floor led to her neighbors glaring instead of smiling at her in passing.

For her, the constant rearranging wasn’t a restless annoyance, but an attempt to tweak the dials until everything finally clicked into place and became perfect. For her family, it was an irksome change for change’s sake that left everyone feeling discombobulated and resentful, wishing that they could just relax instead of always shuffling the furniture around.

That character made me think of some of our more ideological elected officials in Idaho, who always seem to be “rearranging the furniture” of the state’s laws to better suit their personal desires. Notably, I’m thinking of outgoing Dist. 1 Sen. Scott Herndon, who has spent way too much time tilting at windmills over the past decade.

There was his yearslong effort to sue the city of Sandpoint because it leased publicly owned War Memorial Field to the Festival at Sandpoint, which has a no-weapons policy at its concerts. The lawsuit ultimately failed, but not before costing Bonner County taxpayers more than $300,000 in the process. Herndon appealed the decision to the Idaho Supreme Court, but failed again, the court holding that the lease between the city and the Festival was valid and the Festival — as a private tenant — had the authority to limit who visited the premises of the leasehold. Out of spite, Herndon used his Senate seat to pass a law earlier this year that imposes a number of limitations on the rights of leaseholders of public property regarding the prohibition of weapons. To tweak a borrowed phrase: “If you can’t beat them, pass laws to ensure you don’t lose again.”

Before that, Herndon’s biggest bugaboo was his identity as an “abortion abolitionist,” which compelled him to haunt farmers’ markets or sidewalks outside public school buildings holding giant images of aborted fetuses and engaging with everyone — adults or children — about his view on the topic. 

Imagine seeing one of those street urchins holding a sign that reads, “The end is near!” and realizing several years later that the nutter was elected to represent your district at the Statehouse. That only begins to describe Idaho politics.

Now, in his final weeks as an elected official, Herndon has donned his cardboard helmet and launched yet another Quixotic effort, this time to declare outgoing Dist. 1 Bonner County Commissioner Steve Bradshaw’s seat “vacant” just weeks before the latter’s term of office expires in January. 

(To read the news report on this story, go to Page 4.)

This political stunt to oust Bradshaw exemplifies Herndon’s shrewd, pedantic nature to insert himself and his politics into every situation possible. In other words, he’s moving the furniture around again. 

Poor Scott, the big red wave broke over the entire country and he was left high and dry on the beach after losing his seat in the primary to Jim Woodward. Now, Herndon returns to his fiefdom as chair of the Bonner County Republican Central Committee, where he reigns over the precinct committeemen like some kind of feudal lord.

After reporting on the BCRCC special meeting Nov. 19, it was clear to me that this is exactly how Herndon views himself: As a benevolent king who is duty-bound to move the furniture around, whether his subjects want it or not. 

It was downright embarrassing watching Herndon trot several other individuals into the room to provide testimony that supported his personal assertion that Bradshaw was no longer a resident in Idaho. When some committeemen opposed Herndon’s unilateral move to send three names to the governor to fill Bradshaw’s seat, he simply shut them down and proceeded to the nomination process, claiming that his hands were tied because Idaho Code forced his actions. 

The BCRCC promptly sent three nominations to the governor’s office, but not before three committeemen penned a letter outlining the improper way in which this process had played out. 

The governor’s office replied with a letter that kicked it over to the Bonner County Commissioners to determine whether a vacancy does or does not presently exist. Which is hilarious in itself because, as a commissioner, Bradshaw would have tasked with voting on whether he was vacant or not. It’s like a coroner asking a dead body to raise their hand if they’re really dead. 

What it comes down to is Herndon trying to settle a score with Bradshaw at the 11th hour. Herndon hides behind his “duty” to follow Idaho Code, but in a letter to the governor’s office he lamented the fact that, “Unfortunately, in the case of county commissioners, there is no authority designated in Idaho Code to declare the position vacant by reason of changing one’s residency out of the district, county or state.”

It’s fair to say that Herndon obsessed over sticking it to Bradshaw, admitting that he’d, “visited Mr. Bradshaw’s former property approximately 10 times in the last two weeks,” to knock on the door to see if anyone was home. 

Dude, he’s just not that into you.

For his part, Bradshaw has provided some hilarious responses to the governor’s office regarding Herndon’s actions, including this little number: “I have not resigned nor do I have any intention of doing so. Mr. Herndon has been a thorn in the side since I trespassed him from my church and campaigned against him. This is nothing more than a Narcissist refusing to come back down to reality.”

The amount of paperwork and time Herndon has put into this vindictive move to oust Bradshaw tracks with the wasted motions he’ll make everyone endure just so he can flex his muscles. What’s really at stake isn’t quite so funny, as Herndon has attempted to position the BCRCC as some sort of politburo that has the power to oust duly elected officials as it sees fit.

The chef’s kiss came from Gov. Little’s press secretary Joan Varsek just before deadline, who replied to Reader Staff Writer Soncirey Mitchell’s questions about the matter: “The Governor’s Office has no appointment to consider because our office has not received a letter of resignation from Commissioner Bradshaw and the Bonner County Commission has not taken a position on the existence of a vacancy.”

Game, set, match. 

My advice to Herndon? Get a hobby, sir, and stop moving around the furniture.