Idaho legislators introduced the “abortion trafficking” legislation in February. The law added a new section to Idaho code that made it illegal for an adult to help a minor procure an abortion “with the intent to conceal” the abortion from the minor’s parents or guardian. Gov. Brad Little signed the law on April 6, and an emergency enactment provision meant it went into effect in early May, about two weeks before the Swainstons traveled to Bend with Kadyn’s underage girlfriend.
The law had abortion access advocates on high alert, and it was challenged in court by an Idaho attorney, the Northwest Abortion Access Fund and Indigenous Idaho Alliance in July. By then, an investigation into the Swainstons was already underway.
“I think that case and others like it is just an example of the reality that post-Roe America is forcing everyone to evaluate,” said Kelly O’Neill, an Idaho attorney for Legal Voice, in an interview with the Statesman. Legal Voice, a nonprofit advocacy group for gender equity is part of a cohort that sued the state in July over the abortion travel law.
Since the U.S. Supreme Court reversed federal abortion protections in June 2022 with the repeal of Roe v. Wade, Idaho has instated some of the most restrictive abortion laws in the country. They include a complete ban on abortions except when the life of the pregnant person is at risk or in cases of rape or incest that have been reported to police.
In the US, the majority gets much more representation than their population has due to a mixture of FPTP and gerrymandering.
Look at statewide elections vs legislature representation, most WA elections go ~50-55% to the Dem, and 40-45% to the Republican, with 5-10% going to independents and third parties. Here’s the state legislature breakdown:
WA is actually one of the better states at not gerrymandering districts (though not Fed seats, 80% went to Dems), however, if elections were proportional, I’d expect 1-3 Senators and 3-6 House reps to be independent/third party, and probably more if people no longer feel obligated to vote strategically.
Oregon is in a better spot since they actually have an independent and a third party in their Senate, though their House is also a bit skewed vs other statewide elections (58% D, 42% R in House, must governor elections go ~50/45%, so the independent/third party vote is getting absorbed by D).
Other states have a much bigger disparity, and that’s due to gerrymandering. For example, Idaho, which is usually pretty similar to WA and OR in terms of statewide elections partisan split (like 50-60% R, 35-45% D), has a very skewed legislature (80% R in the Senate, 84% R in the House, no independents or third parties).
I wish we’d move toward proportional representation for state legislators, I think that would solve a number of problems since it would eliminate gerrymandering.
If we keep state boundaries the same, implement proportional representation where people vote for parties for the House and the parties select the reps. Here’s how I see it working:
If 3 is unpopular, we could instead just have a ranked statewide primary where you vote for your favorites and the top N get seats. However, I worry that would geographically centralized reps since population centers would probably produce a disproportionate number of candidates. Also, this could encourage career politics, since the same candidate is likely to win one of the seats year over year. It would also be weird because “your” rep could change each election.
I think a lot of this is just reaction to the statewide control the other party has.
I currently live in Utah, which is very conservative, yet our statewide officers tend to be pretty moderate and the Dem candidates are, imo, unelectable because they’re reacting to conservative control in the rest of the state. It doesn’t help that we just gerrymandered the crap out of our federal seats to ensure all four go to Rs (we had one go to a moderate Dem, can’t have that in a state with 25-30% Dem vote). I think my state should move to proportional representation to even out the state legislature and fix our stupid congressional maps (we should have one Dem district and one up for grabs).
So nutjobs like Shae are a symptom of a feeling of lack of representation. If you push people too much in one direction, they’ll overcorrect too far in the other.
I agree. I’m merely saying I think they have a point. There’s a very obvious demarcation at the Cascade mountains where culture and needs are very different on either side. Traveling from one side to the other is like going to a completely different state. Imo, this is how the states should’ve been formed:
I grew up in W. WA until I moved out (still have lots of family there), and that tension was always there. I’m now in Utah and considering moving to E. WA or E. OR when I retire, mostly because I like sun but want to be close to the awesome hiking in the Cascade and Olympic mountains.