Liberty Bros, Part 2: “Legacy”
The story of the bastardization of a philosophy, the perpetuation of bigotry, and the Idaho Freedom Foundation.
This is Part 2 of a three-part series.
Part 1: “Origins” covers the history of bigotry in Idaho, the formation of the Idaho Freedom Foundation, and its controversial lobbying tactics.
Part 2: “Legacy” covers how the group uses a veil of libertarianism to perpetuate bigotry
Part 3: “Frenzy” is still being written, and will cover the actions of the Idaho Freedom Foundation and their allies during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Note: This part of the series features quotes from the longtime face of American libertarianism, Ron Paul, that would not have been uncovered if not for reporter James Kirkich’s incredible piece “Angry White Man” in The New Republic. ¹ Keep in mind that Wayne Hoffman, President of the Idaho Freedom Foundation, helped bring Ron Paul to Boise for a speech in March 2010, years after these quotes were uncovered.
Indexing Independence
The Idaho Freedom Foundation (IFF) uses a subjective scoring system to rate bills, called the Idaho Freedom Index. These scores then form the basis for a legislator’s Idaho Freedom Index Score, which rates each legislator’s adherence to IFF’s positions on the rated bills.
“Bills that grow government or take more money out of the private sector and put it in the hands of government will be a negative score on the Freedom Index. Bills that shrink government, lower taxes, reduce fees, those bills will be a positive score on the Freedom Index… [A]t the end of the legislative session, you can see whether, cumulatively, your [state] senator and your [state] representatives voted for less government or bigger government.” - Wayne Hoffman, 2016 ²
Bills in the state legislature are subjected to a battery of try-hard questions like, “Does it increase barriers to entry into the market? Examples include occupational licensure, the minimum wage, and restrictions on home businesses. Conversely, does it remove barriers to entry into the market?” These questions give IFF’s bill rating system the veil of reasoned analysis. However, not every bill is subjected to the same questions. Rather, IFF cherry-picks the questions to back up their already held positions. As you can imagine, ideological consistency can be difficult to come by when you are getting dictates from a corporately-funded national shill group like the State Policy Network and balancing the idiosyncratic conservatism of your staff and members, so this practice gives IFF the flexibility to twist their definition of libertarianism to accommodate a variety of ALEC-inspired legislation.
Parrish Miller, a self described “small ‘l’ libertarian,” was IFF’s primary author for most of it’s Freedom Index blogs in 2020. Screenshot from Miller’s public Twitter page, retrieved 4/15/20.
The ratings for these bills loosely build up to ratings for individual lawmakers - their Freedom Indexes, scored from 0-100. In 2020, no Democrat scored over 50. So, let’s learn more about the top three most freedom-loving “libertarian” legislators in the Idaho Statehouse: Representative Chad Christensen, Representative Christy Zito, and Representative Heather Scott.
Representative Christy Zito: 97 Freedom Index Score
In 2015, the Idaho Freedom Foundation identified a group in desperate need of liberating: teens who want to get tan.
This was the third time in five years that tanning restrictions were being debated in an Idaho Legislative committee room. The bill would ban anyone under fourteen years old from entering a tanning booth and require anyone aged fourteen to eighteen to get parental consent to get bronzed. This renewed effort to restrict tanning bed use came on the heels of the advice of the incredibly obvious statements from the U.S. Surgeon General and, puzzlingly, the Food and Drug Administration, that beaming radiation into your skin might lead to some issues, like cancer. This time, the bill might actually pass.
But not if the Idaho Freedom Foundation could stop it.
In 2012, Hoffman condemned that year’s version bill on his group’s site:
And for Idaho, assuming the tanning bed requirement passes, what comes next? If kids spend too much time outside, exposed to the sun, might that be considered a crime? Would a child’s sunburn lead to police investigation? Might police or other government agents order children back into their homes after they’ve exceeded daily sun exposure limits?- Wayne Hoffman, February 2, 2012 ³
In 2015, like in 2013 and 2012, they testified and argued, decrying overreach by the nanny-state, and fighting for the freedom of babies to be allowed into tanning beds, as God intended.
Unfortunately for freedom, that bill finally passed through the legislature and became law. IFF punished the legislators who voted in support of the bill - which, I must emphasize, would prevent teens and toddlers from using tanning beds - by lowering their Freedom Index Scores.
In 2020, Representative Christy Zito, representing a few thousand Republican voters in Owyhee and Elmore Counties, sponsored a bill that would make providing gender affirming therapies to trans minors a felony, punishable up to life in prison. This should raise two big libertarian red flags: 1) it creates a new crime based on a voluntary act between two consenting parties, and 2) youth should be allowed to seek medical treatments with probably at least the same amount of freedom they should have to use a tanning bed.
However, the Idaho Freedom Foundation was silent on Zito’s anti-trans bill. No testimony to protect the freedoms of trans-youth. No impact on Zito’s score of 97. Nothing. Luckily, the bill didn’t make it out of committee, but unfortunately two other bigoted anti-trans laws were passed and signed by Governor Brad Little. IFF casually watched those pass while it’s staff peddled transphobic bigotry on Twitter, like calling Chris Mosier, trans triathlete and advocate, “braindead” after he affirmed that a trans girl is a girl.
Hurst is IFF’s Communications Director. Screenshot from his public Twitter page, retrieved 4/15/20. His Twitter profile has since been made private.
Zito’s bill is a clear affront to libertarian principles, severely impacting the freedoms of individuals seeking gender-affirming care. For the Idaho Freedom Foundation to celebrate a legislator who sponsored this bill (and who also voted for many other bills that limited the freedoms of vulnerable communities), suggests they don’t actual care about ideology. It’s more likely that the Indoor Tanning Association, a prolific lobbying organization in its time, urged the State Policy Network to fight back against anti-tanning bills, and SPN passed that edict down to its affiliate groups. As for why the Idaho Freedom Foundation didn’t speak up for LGBTQ+ people, well, that’s a lot easier to explain.
“Homosexuals, not to speak of the rest of society, were far better off when social pressure forced them to hide their activities.”
Representative Heather Scott: 97 Freedom Index Score
In 2020, the Idaho State Senate killed a bill, SB 1297, that would have required insurance plans to provide coverage for a six-month supply of birth control. This was particularly important for rural women who live large distances from pharmacies. The bill failed on the Senate floor 13-20, indicating some bipartisan support (there are 7 Democrats and 28 Republicans in the Idaho Senate).
The Idaho Freedom Foundation scored this bill a -2, indicating their opposition to the bill. They argued that the mandate was a breach of free market principles - which of course makes the wild assumption that insurance coverage exists in a free market in the first place (it doesn’t). Basically, the bill infringed on the freedom of all those mom’n’pop health insurance companies to force women to visit the pharmacy once or twice a month instead of twice a year. Fair enough.
A few weeks later, Heather Scott, a far-right Christian separatist, militia advocate, prepper, anti-government activist and Idaho State Representative for a few thousand Republicans in Bonner and Boundary Counties, sponsored a new bill. She called House Bill 361 the “Idaho Abortion Human Rights Bill.” The bill would make it illegal to “perform, procure, or attempt to perform an abortion.” People who break the law could be charged with murder, punishable by state-sponsored homicide. The bill also included a piece about the Idaho Attorney General to ignore federal laws and the Supreme Court. ⁴
Libertarian red flags: 1) prevents the voluntary exchange of goods and services between two consenting parties, 2) mandates government actions onto an industry instead allowing the free market to decide, 3) state-sponsored murder is an infringement on liberty, and 4) the bill is explicitly authoritarian and usurps the social contract. But there was no libertarian outcry from the Idaho Freedom Foundation. Meanwhile, their staff continued to rail against and insult pro-choice advocates on personal social media accounts.
IFF ignores authoritarian bills like this extremist anti-choice bill while fighting against bills like SB 1297, despite the fact that their darling representative’s bill would be much more onerous than the bill concerning an insurance mandate for six-months worth of birth control.
Furthermore, Heather Scott is also a renowned far-right activist, visiting with and vocally supporting anti-government militia members when they occupied federal property in an armed standoff with the federal government, circulating conspiracy theories, and fraternizing with extremists like Washington Representative Matt Shea, who has come under scrutiny for alleged domestic terrorism. Her extreme abortion bill didn’t make it to a full House vote, but many other of her bills have, including a ban on affirmative action that was strongly supported by the IFF. That will be discussed later in this piece.
“[Former Ron Paul congressional staffer, Gary North] has advocated the execution of women who have abortions and people who curse their parents.”
Representative Chad Christensen: 98 Freedom Index Score
One of the most unstable legislators to ever grace the marble halls of the State Capitol building, freshman Representative Chad Christensen earned IFF’s highest score in 2020. A tantrum-prone pinkneck from Soda Springs representing a few thousand Republicans from District 32 in the southeast corner of the state, Christensen is an anti-government activist who imagines himself the hero of a Turner Diaries-esque battle against a tyrannical government and, as he calls them, Teton County Leftists. Teton County is the only moderate bastion within his rural legislative district.
In 2019, the Teton County School Board voted to drop the local high school’s racist slur of a mascot, the “Redskins.” The decision came after years of local discussion about the issue, including input from indigenous nations, like the Shoshone-Bannock Tribes. The Tribes asked the state to stop public schools from using indigenous mascots.
“The non-Indian, Euro-American rationale of public schools and communities that using mascots such as Savages, Redskins or Indians ‘honors’ Indian people is grossly inaccurate. The continued use of those names would only honor the non-Indian ideology created by dominant mainstream society, whose ancestors directly or indirectly killed, sold, removed or demoralized the original Indian residents… Every day the expression of racial misunderstandings, of lack of education of mainstream society of Shoshone and Bannock people and history, is seen on social media postings. It is absolutely harmful to retain these names, mascots, and to continue the misappropriation of American Indians.” - Shoshone-Bannock Tribes, 2019 ⁵
Christensen was clear in his response, rebuking the tribe, despite having many tribal members within his district.
“This lawmaker won’t be helping the Shoshone-Bannock Tribe.”
Christensen went on to write a resolution that would uphold and celebrate the state’s use racialized caricatures of ingenious people, while discouraging the removal of such mascots. No indigenous nations supported his resolution. As follow-up to this incident, Christensen referred to people at a fair as “gangsters” who were “kinda different looking.” He assumed they were members of the brutal Salvadoran gang MS-13. He assured everyone that he wasn’t “trying to stereotype anyone.” ⁶
A prolific social media poster, Christensen has also taken stands against tampons being present in Boise State University bathrooms:
“This is what your taxpayer dollars are going towards, District 32 constituents! This is a gender neutral bathroom at BSU. There are 2 toilet stalls, a urinal, and a sink. This is NOT a single use bathroom. I will do my best to decrease BSU's allotted budget this session! I have had it with this immoral garbage. Yes, this is going on in an Idaho university! Does this not encourage sexual assaults? Does this not set up men and women for false accusations? This is happening courtesy of the new uber-liberal president, Marlene Tromp. President Tromp, in your quest to implement your atrocious leftist agenda; you have opened up Idaho taxpayers to possible lawsuits. The liability issue regarding these bathrooms could be outrageous.” - Rep. Chad Christensen, Facebook post 8 October, 2019 ⁷
Christensen’s first brush with infamy came when he called for a boycott of a Boise restaurant after he and a few of his sweating, paranoid militia buddies came in for a meal while prominently displaying firearms. The owner of this private establishment courteously informed them that the display of guns was intimidating staff and customers and accomodated them by placing a curtain between Christensen’s crew and the rest of the customers. This curtain, apparently, was a breach of Christensen’s rights. “By allowing us to purchase food he (the owner) entered into a binding contract. At that point, we had rights to sit without being harrassed (sic),” he wrote on his personal Facebook page. ⁸
Like Rep. Zito and Rep. Scott, Christensen also holds extreme views on abortion and supported Scott’s tyrannical legislation.
Christensen’s behavior does not reflect libertarianism. It reflects self-victimization, religious extremism, white supremacy, and transphobia. For a freshman Representative to get IFF’s highest score after 2 years of blatant right-wing activism and temper tantrums says a lot about the things IFF values. Rep. Christensen, like Reps. Zito and Scott, are IFF’s dream legislators, not because of their commitment to liberty and empowerment for all, but because they are authoritarian in the ways that IFF tacitly endorses.
Affirmative Animus
There is a strong red thread linking Bill Sali’s behavior in state and federal government to the behavior of the three legislators mentioned above. Towing that thread of ideological consistency is Wayne Hoffman himself.
In a fulfillment of the xenophobic impulses that so alienated Sali from many conservatives during his time in office, in 2019 Hoffman’s group organized a team of far-right legislators to unite against Boise State University’s diversity and inclusion programs. 28 State Representatives - all white, straight, and cis - signed a letter criticizing the university for a series of programs meant to celebrate and welcome students from diverse backgrounds. The letter states:
“The following are some initiatives and goals mentioned that are antithetical to the Idaho way:
- Support for multicultural student events including Pow Wow, Rainbow Graduation, Black Graduation, Project Dream, etc. instead of helping all students;
- Six graduate fellowships for “underrepresented minority students” instead of merit-based awards;
- A gender-based violence community-coordinated response team, instead of letting the police handle the matter;
- A gender-based equity center proposal for funding to provide LGBTQIA+ focused sexual misconduct prevention and response programming;
- A system that spends valuable time assessing the proper use of names and pronouns versus educational pursuits that lead to a career;
- Revisions to the university’s search committee training curriculum to include a section on identifying and addressing implicit bias in hiring decisions;
- A graduate school preparation course only for underrepresented students rather than all students.”
- Representative Barbara Ehardt, from a letter on 7/9/20 co-signed by 28 other Representatives, including Reps. Zito, Scott, and Christensen. ⁹ Emphasis mine.
Hoffman asserted that “Idaho’s post-secondary schools have joined the legion of left-leaning institutions that are using their campuses as state-sponsored platforms for intolerance, division, and victimhood.” ¹⁰ The letter is itself evidence that the university's inclusion programs are crucially important in this time of re-invigorated, institutional white supremacy. Hoffman and his cadre of dimwitted lawmakers perpetuate the myth of white victimhood and entitlement from the perch of their own privilege. While this controversy made its way through the state’s media, the Idaho Freedom Foundation fundraised off of the issue. They profited from their ability to incite division, racism, homophobia, and transphobia while making Idaho’s most vulnerable students feel unwelcome, alienated, and unsafe while sometimes hundreds of miles away from their families and support networks.
Hoffman decried the idea that a group of black students might celebrate their graduation and culture together as “neo-segregation.” ¹¹ He cites a group called the National Association of Scholars as proof that “neo-segregation” is a big deal. Hoffman doesn’t mention that, despite having an official sounding name, the National Association of Scholars is a conservative advocacy group that opposes multiculturalism, affirmative action, climate science, and the purported “liberal bias” in academia and reality. ¹² This is far from an unbiased association of well-regarded academics. Just like IFF, it is merely another conservative front-group that publishes faux-research papers that can be wielded in testimony and guest editorials to artificially inflate the right-wing’s clout.
In 2020, IFF’s darling legislator Representative Heather Scott sponsored a bill, HB 440, to ban affirmative action in state employment. IFF scored the bill a +1, characterizing affirmative action as “state discrimination,” ¹³ apparently against white people. The purpose of affirmative action is to reconcile the ongoing effects of discrimination, misogyny, and racism by creating a policy framework that supports groups of people who have previously suffered discrimination. The political positioning used by HB 440 and IFF’s support of the bill co-opts the language of civil rights leaders and anti-racists to instead identify whites as the primary victims of discrimination, not the primary perpetrators of it. Implicitly, IFF denies the existence of institutionalized white supremacy, the long-lasting effects of slavery, Jim Crow, the exclusion laws, redlining, and the litany of examples of past and ongoing discrimination. When Idaho’s only lawmaker of color spoke out against the bill, the Idaho Freedom Foundation merely called her statements “false.”
Screenshot from IFF’s Twitter page.
The legislature passed the bill (after amending it, to IFF’s chagrin, to align with federal funding requirements) and Governor Brad Little signed the law, making the denial of institutional racism the official policy of the State of Idaho.
“[A communist sympathizer], if not an actual party member, and the man who replaced the evil of forced segregation with the evil of forced integration.”
This stance is firmly in line with the values of former U.S. Representative for Idaho, Bill Sali, the right-wing firebrand who railed against multiculturalism and decried the presence of a Muslim in the U.S. House of Representatives. By couching racist and xenophobic views in terms of libertarianism, Hoffman and IFF has far surpassed Sali in pushing the state rightward on the very cultural issues that ended Sali’s reign.
Perpetual Victims
In the 90s, conservative flight gripped the nation. A moderately liberal president gave more space to liberal states to pass progressive laws, making it harder for people to practice a life of discrimination, religious bigotry, and economic exploitation. Conservatives, as they have many times in the past, looked to states like Idaho for refuge. The pearl-clutching “refugees” dreamt of the same “rugged individualism” that had become part of Idaho’s story. In that individualism, they imagined space for their version of right-wing libertarianism. They sought unmitigated freedom, no matter whose freedom they needed to trample to get it.
Many were evangelical Christians or Christian Dominionists - people who seek to build a nation of laws based in their interpretations of the bible. Most were ultra-conservative, paranoid, and retired. And some were also ambitious and extremely wealthy, like IFF’s board chair and intellectual leader, Brent Regan.
Screenshot from Regan’s Twitter page, referencing a canceled Elizabeth Warren visit to Boise.
Before moving to Idaho from California, Regan inherited a fortune and, with it, the free time to help Wayne Hoffman ruin Idaho’s political discourse. Regan serves as Chair of the Kootenai County Republican Central Committee, one of the most extreme groups of far-right Republicans in Idaho. Regan successfully usurped moderate control of the county’s Republican Party in the late 90s and early 2000s. For his efforts, he’s often labelled as some sort of genius, but it’s easy to be a genius when you are rich, are surrounded by sycophants, and have a lot of time on your hands.
Regularly inspiring genius tweets like “Making free Healthcare a ‘right’ also makes slavery a fact,” Regan’s brand of far-right extremism embodies the right-wing entitlement so deeply held by people who have the privilege of being able to leave moderately-liberal states on a political whim. The philosophy of American libertarianism fits nicely with the self-aggrandizing, self-righteous stories they build around themselves. Their interpretation of libertarianism leads people like Regan to believe that their successes are due to solely to their own intelligence and hard work, but their failures are due merely to tyrannical distortions to the libertarian contract, like feminism, egalitarianism, affirmative action, equality, multiculturalism, diversity, refugees, immigrants, antifa, etc. They believe those that are ahead deserve to be ahead and those that fall behind deserve to fall behind. American libertarianism is a convenient ideology for rich, white men who have a vested interest in protecting their own power and influence, whatever wave of injustice they rode to acquire it.
Representative Heather Scott, Freedom Index Score: 97, posing with what we can only assume is the libertarian flag. Photo from Scott’s Facebook page.
That’s what makes American libertarianism so popular among people who hold white supremacist views, like Ron Paul and his starry-eyed young supporter Richard Spencer. If white, straight, cis men hold socioeconomic hegemony, American libertarianism would lead you to believe they got there by working harder and being smarter than any other group. That’s where the right’s gospel of economic deregulation kisses the social, gender, and racial discrimination of American hierarchy. This marriage of economic hierarchy and social discrimination is the result of decades of work by the modern Republican Party to stitch together a political coalition poorer racists and ultra-rich capitalists. Regan, Hoffman, and the Idaho Freedom Foundation represent the synthesis of these two poles of conservative ideology.
When Regan left California in 1999, he could have taken his fortune anywhere. He chose Kootenai County, Idaho, one of the whitest and most conservative places in America. He’d undoubtedly heard the same stories that scores of militias, anti-government activists, Christian Dominionists, survivalists, the Aryan Nations, and every Idahoan has heard about the northern reaches of the state. They’d heard of a place where the government is weak and individualism rugged. A place where “independence” and “frontier culture” is alive and well. They heard about the “Idaho Way.”
“Our priority should be to take the anti-government, anti-tax, anti-crime, anti-welfare loafers, anti-race privilege, anti-foreign meddling message of Duke, and enclose it in a more consistent package of freedom.”
The sooner Idahoans grapple with the truth of our state’s faux-history of independence the sooner we can effectively combat the policies and positions it justifies. Those policies aren’t “libertarian,” they aren’t built upon a real culture of unique-to-Idaho independent thought. They are constructed from the same reactionary impulses and historical foundations that perpetuate white supremacy and depraved socioeconomic policies throughout the country. Only by recognizing the normalcy of the politics poisoning our state can we work toward something truly “independent” from them. Otherwise, the Idaho Freedom Foundation and its morally bankrupt worldview aren’t going anywhere. ■
footnotes
Kirkich, J. (2008, January 7). Angry White Man. The New Republic. Retrieved from https://newrepublic.com/article/61771/angry-white-man
Wayne Hoffman explains the Idaho Freedom Index. (2016). Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dnWEpSe9K34&feature=youtu.be
Hoffman, W. (2012, February 25). Tanning measure is government overreach. Idaho Freedom Foundation. Retrieved from https://idahofreedom.org/tanning-measure-is-government-overreach/
Rep. Heather Scott introduces new bill that would completely ban abortions in Idaho. (2020, January 24). KTVB. Retrieved from https://www.ktvb.com/article/news/local/capitol-watch/rep-heather-scott-introduces-new-bill-that-would-ban-abortion-in-any-circumstance-in-idaho/277-ac8bf355-17d4-49d6-b48d-c8367efd1db2
Lycklama, M. (2019, July 25). Savages, Indians or Braves: Idaho tribe asks state government to ban all Indian mascots. Idaho Statesman. Retrieved from https://www.idahostatesman.com/sports/high-school/article233137341.html
Boner, J. (2019, September 8). Local lawmaker causes stir with gun, comments at East Idaho State Fair. Idaho State Journal. Retrieved from https://www.idahostatejournal.com/news/local/local-lawmaker-causes-stir-with-gun-comments-at-east-idaho/article_b90054a7-2192-5de6-99ac-1cac16ef6f3d.html
Richert, K. (2019, October 7). Lawmaker blasts gender-neutral restrooms, pushes for Boise State defunding. Idaho Ed News. Retrieved from https://www.idahoednews.org/kevins-blog/lawmaker-blasts-gender-neutral-restrooms-pushes-for-boise-state-defunding/
Calling for boycott, Christensen abused his office. (2019, February 28). Post Register. Retrieved from https://www.postregister.com/opinion/editorials/calling-for-boycott-christensen-abused-his-office/article_65df9a66-396c-5944-b4d8-39cc2b2b1670.html
Ehardt, Rep. B. (2019, July 9). Retrieved from https://idahoednews-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/Ehardt-letter-July-9-1.pdf
Hoffman, W. (2019, June 14). Idaho’s public colleges’ “inclusion” efforts promote victimhood. Idaho Freedom Foundation. Retrieved from https://idahofreedom.org/idahos-public-colleges-inclusion-efforts-promote-victimhood/
Idaho Freedom Foundation misleads readers. (2019, August 4). Post Register. Retrieved from https://www.postregister.com/opinion/editorials/idaho-freedom-foundation-misleads-readers/article_1a15505f-7609-5b0f-97a3-5051eb1f184d.html
Wikipedia: National Association of Scholars (n.d.). In Wikipedia. Retrieved from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Association_of_Scholars
Louis Herber was born and raised in rural Idaho and currently works in the nonprofit sector. They reside in Meridian, hate fascism, and work too closely with political leaders to safely share their identity while retaining a professional paycheck.
