Mr. Speaker Step Down! #BootBedke
by Bret Roush
It is time to call for the Speaker of the House to step down. His actions this week and his unstable leadership are just cause for questioning his ability to effectively run the House in an unbiased manner. His demeaning, condescending and aggressive behavior is unwanted, unprofessional and creates the fear of reciprocity towards anyone who openly or discreetly attempts to go against his wishes.
Based on past actions towards fellow House members including Rep. Heather Scott and Rep. Ron Nate by Speaker Bedke, some, particularly women, no longer feel his office, alone with him, is a safe place. The intimidation and harassment of those who challenge him, particularly women, must be stopped.
Speaker Bedke apparently decided to take words spoken during private conversations to express a legitimate concern about the ethics of Rep. Christine Perry’s infidelity and purposely leaked them to the media with distorted allegations in order to create a diversion from this black eye for the House. Instead of penalizing the unbecoming behavior of Ms. Perry, he chose to not only reward her with a committee chairman position but to then focus his anger and contempt on Rep. Scott by stripping her of her committees for expressing her concern about his favoritism and reward system.
When legislators break the law (Code 18-6601 Adultery) and are being promoted, there are major problems within our government. The fact that the larger ethical behavior problem still exists while rewarding the very perpetrator of the unethical behavior demonstrates his inconstancy in leadership and he is no longer fit to serve his duty as speaker of the House. As long as he remains Speaker, the House will never function in the proper manner it was intended to at its inception. How long do the Idaho citizens allow this to go on?
Speaker Bedke, through his vindictive actions have now lessened the voice of some 55,000 constituents in north Idaho. His actions have marginalized the effectiveness of Rep. Scott’s voice in northern Idaho by stripping her of all committee assignments with no apparent cause. It is pretty clear to this reporter that the speaker is trying to divert attention away from the root cause of the problem which is infidelity misconduct and instead using his bully tactics on some while with others, using his crony reward system of favoritism and rewarding pet legislators who will do his bidding.
The speaker’s timing is uncanny based on the release of the newly formed Growing Freedom Agenda released by Scott, Nate and other legislators this same week. Liberty legislators introduced a Growing Freedom for Idaho Agenda to help citizens track how their legislators are voting in committees, and hold them accountable.
All of this begs the question:
What does Speaker Bedke have to hide or gain through all of this circus he has created? House leadership needs to be reminded that legislators take an oath to represent the God given rights of their constituents and the Idaho constitution, not King Bedke.
Rep. Scott was overwhelmingly elected by the people in her district. The Speaker has never supported the people’s agenda and is trying to silence THEIR voice by silencing THEIR legislator. The Speaker should not have the ability to overturn an election by silencing citizen’s voice in the committee process. Bedke doesn’t want to hear from the people, he wants to maintain his power.