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.
Bedke’s actions should most definitely be questioned. It almost sounds as if he became angered, and succumbed to a “knee-jerk” reaction without having applied wisdom and thought to this decision. To alienate THOUSANDS of constituents in such a manner begs to question if Bedke is thinking clearly, or perhaps just lacks wisdom and discernment altogether? Who can look at this and NOT wonder if something is wrong with Bedke? Is he just punishing those with whom he disagrees? He is just a power-hungry thug who misappropriates the power granted to him by the good people of Idaho? Or is he, perhaps, hiding something underneath all of this? Whatever the reason, Speaker Bedke has a lot of explaining to do. My guess is that he just reacted in a knee-jerk manner protect someone he favors (Rep. Perry). She is most likely an ardent supporter of his, so he’s just protecting a loyal subject. Mr. Bedke, your loyal subject’s behavior was improper, for sure, but your expulsion of these two good Representatives from their committees, as retaliation, is even WORSE. Sounds like we have a Speaker who cannot separate personal opinions from business; therefore, Mr. Bedke, you need to relieved of your duties. You, Sir, are unworthy of your title.
My questions are primarily based on established timelines.
Everybody has a boss.
The Speaker exercised, what he considered, was his responsibility. What is the legal time frame that people, representing Rep. Scott have to appeal his actions and to who does the appeal go to?
Finally, what is the penalty for a Idaho elected or appointed official that distorts their authority in the performance of their duties?
It is truly amazing to see how far the liberal socialist agenda has crept its way into the minds of our people and yes sorry to say even our own State government. Obviously we here in this State have many issues we must confront, the problems do not just lie in our nations capital, but also right here in the heart of our own.
When a true Representative of the people stands up for our God given, Constitutionally enumerated rights and opposes corruption in our States Capital, we quickly see in to the darkness and it revels the enemies of our once great Republic.
Take a good look people of our State, see and remember these names. This issue is bigger than the topic at hand this is just the tip of the ice burg. Remember…
Only you can make America great again.
We Stand with Rep. Heather Scott !
Thank You Heather !!!