The Meridian Library on Cherry Lane is a popular place for residents to find books to check out, and find community resources and activities for all ages. Darin Oswald Idaho Statesman
Tuesday was a good day for freedom in Idaho.
In almost all cases, the forces of censorship far-right candidates whove attempted to take over local library boards took a thumping. Candidates who pledged that public libraries would remain places of free intellectual inquiry triumphed.
Perhaps the most hotly contested races were in Meridian, where there have been efforts to simply disband the district because the library has sex education books and books that make reference to the lives of gay people. Incumbent Destinie Hart, who has pledged to protect free expression, beat challenger Xavier Torres, who had signed the petition to disband the district, by more than a two-to-one margin. The results were essentially identical in the race between incumbent Josh Cummings and challenger David J. Tizekker.
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The pattern repeated at the Ada Community Library board, where anti-censorship candidates Mary Anne Saunders and Sandra Taylor prevailed over candidates who had pledged to govern the library according to conservative ideology.
And the trend of anti-censorship voting held up not just in the Treasure Valley but across much of the state. From North Idaho to eastern Idaho, library trustees committed to freedom generally prevailed.
The one exception was in Kootenai County, where pro-censorship challengers Tom Hanley and Tim Plass defeated incumbents Regina McCrea and Judy Meyer.
Hanley built his campaign on a lie. He pledged to protect children from the hardcore pornography that is available to children in our libraries, as the Coeur dAlene Press reported.
The assertions that libraries are full of porn and inappropriate material are ludicrous. But you can expect Hanley to call books he doesnt like pornography for the purposes of censoring them.
Kootenai County home to perhaps the most extreme faction of the Idaho Republican Party, which has increasingly been willing to link arms with characters like David Reilly is increasingly a pocket where censorship and indoctrination are advancing as freedom recedes.
Reilly has made shocking antisemitic statements, including Judaism is the religion of anti-Christ.
Reilly resigned from his job as a radio host in Pennsylvania after his supportive tweets and footage of the 2017 Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, became public, as the Daily News of Newburyport reported. As the Inlander subsequently reported, four days before the rally, a user later identified in court testimony as Reilly suggested the idea that participants march straight through the commons with torches for the night rally for the purpose of producing propaganda footage. The footage Reilly posted after the rally, with advertisements for another rally the following day, was exactly the kind of propaganda footage discussed in the post.
First, they took over the community college, which is now a shambles, and now the library, which may soon follow.
But the damage has largely been contained to Kootenai. And, given the incessant calls for censorship, calls that became one of the central themes of the last two legislative sessions, thats reason to celebrate.
Statesman editorials are the unsigned opinion of the Idaho Statesmans editorial board. Board members are opinion editor Scott McIntosh, opinion writer Bryan Clark, editor Chadd Cripe and newsroom editors Dana Oland and Jim Keyser.
CORRECTION: This editorial has been updated to remove an out-of-context quote attributed to David Reilly and to remove an inaccurate statement about Reillys involvement in the 2017 Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville.
Corrected May 17, 2023
This story was originally published May 17, 2023 11:12 AM.
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Idaho library election results are in. For the most part, freedom prevailed | Opinion - Idaho Statesman