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'Local Control': Has the conservative philosophy been reflected in recent proposed state legislation

Idaho conservatives have always believed in 'local control,' but some recent bills call into question if that conservative philosophy still remains.

BOISE, Idaho — The phrase "local control" has been stated to be one of conservatives' core principles. This means allowing those at the local level in Idaho cities to dictate policy instead of those at the statehouse. 

However, within the last few years, Idaho lawmakers brought forward legislation to determine how an issue should be handled at the local level or would override what has been implemented. 

During Idaho's 2024 legislative session, we have seen proposed bills such as banning certain books from libraries, deciding which pronouns should be used for transgender students, prohibiting mandating the use of masks to prevent disease spread in schools, and determining whether cities can impose its own regulations when it comes to affordable housing.

However, are the proposed laws examples of a breach of conservative principles? KTVB spoke with the former chair of the Idaho Republican Party, Trent Clark, who, eight years ago, wrote about the very question of conservatives' idea of "local control."

Clark told KTVB that local control is a political philosophy that has always been associated with conservatives and "at least in the past, have always believed in local control." However, Clark believes there is a critical component missing in today's ideology. 

"You're missing the actual human dialog that needs to go on," Clark said. "Dealing with those issues on the local level requires a one-on-one interface, dealing with that issue in Boise allows you to get your way without having to talk to your neighbor, and when you try to solve a problem that way, you may miss something."

Clark calls it, "venue shopping," when you are worried you won't get the solution you want at the local level. He stated that some lawmakers care more about the "win" than good policy, or solving the problem they aim to correct.

"Traditional conservatives would call that out as 'well if liberals did this, we would object to it.'", Clark said.

Representative Ted Hill responded to Clark's statement and said it was a good point.

"This gets to be a great challenge because we love our local control, then we're finding ourselves poking around in local control, and the libraries are a fine example. What we have seen are the attempts of a few people to label certain books as pornographic," Hill said.

Another debated topic at the Statehouse is HB415, proposed by Rep. Hill, which allows K-12 teachers to be able to carry concealed firearms on school property.

Hill points to Idaho law allowing school districts to regulate guns as they see fit but believes that policy hasn't done enough to protect Idaho students. 

Hill continued and said local control is the best way to go because school boards act autonomously but believe there has to be an "overarching guidance."

"It's like the military. Do you want to have every single platoon across the country do as they please? No, you gotta have some sort of generalized, centralized, I would say this point, some strategic level, and in this case, Idaho is a strategic level," he said. 

KTVB asked Clark if Republicans are being hypocritical in these types of policies.

"There are members of the legislature who I do think know that they're being hypocritical, but they are making a choice between do I want to be accused of being hypocritical or do I want to be accused of not acting on an issue my constituents want me to act on," Clark said. 

Clark said he agrees with the idea of, say, librarians knowing their local community. If you take those decisions away from that librarian you'll end up with really bad decisions being made.

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