Latest / CrossPolitic Show / The Equal Protection Bill Idaho Won't Touch (ft. Senator Brandon Shippy)
Transcript
- and the No, not Knox. So, this is show basically, I mean on Idaho, because we got a legislator in here from the Boise Senator. Idaho Senator. It's the same difference. You know, I think you're a little sloppy with your language. It is from Boise, Idaho. So thank you Brandon for coming on the show, man. No, I appreciate you guys having me. Yeah, absolutely. So you actually were initially appointed in 2024 and then you ran for re-election in 2025. This is last year. So it was 20, it was 24. So I was appointed in July to fill the rest of the term and then was elected in November. Six months. Got it. Okay, so very quickly re-elected. And so now you're serving your second term technically. Yes. And you are a native of the Western treasure valley all the way up. Like a hundred generations. There's even a town named after your family. It's more of a village. It's not really a town. It's more of a village. More of a compound. I'll take it. I'll take it. I'll take it. Apparently you can Google that. Is it really shipping fill? Yeah. That's awesome. But now you're just telling me before the show and you saved out of kind of a cult basically. Yeah. And came a Christian. 2014. Yeah, in 2014 the Lord saved me. I heard the gospel on the radio. Yeah. Praise God on the radio. Praise God for Christian radio. A.M. Radio. It was an A.M. or F.M. It was C.S.N. radio. It was a gospel's better on A.M. Greg, Greg, Greg, Laurie. It wasn't really. Yeah. Praise God. Praise God. Praise the Lord. Yeah. And you're married, raising three kids in the faith. And you're... Did you come out of the same cult scene? Came out of? Yeah. Or French scene? Okay. Yeah. Yeah. So. And you served now on several committees. Tell us. Yeah. So because of the appointment that gave me a little bit of seniority in the Senate. So I'm a second term senator. That gives me seniority over. I believe it's seven other senators. Some were returning senators. Others were true freshmen. Some had served in the House and so forth. But it gives me seniority. So I was appointed to serve on the Senate State Affairs Committee, which is the leadership committee where all the big bills go through the legislature. I'm also on Judiciary and Rules Committee. I'm the vice chairman of Judiciary and Rules Committee. And then I also serve on Senate Health and World Fair Committee. And that's a heavy lifting policy committee. We meet four days a week, three PM. So afternoon committee. It's tough. You've already done the floor session. And then you're dealing with so many other topics of health and welfare is probably the heaviest lifting committee. As far as all the various topics you're dealing with. But I serve on those three committees. And it's it's a real privilege. It's a big learning curve for sure. That's fantastic. The government, Nido, has a health and welfare department. They do. It actually uses, I think it's the second line to the largest budgeter. It might be the largest budget in the state of Idaho. It goes through health and welfare. The second largest budget, like education or something. I think the P1 and 2 are the one and 2. That's exactly what it is. Education, health and welfare. Of course, we could because Medicaid runs through health and welfare as well. So that's in the billions of dollars. Yeah, so Christian nationalism would have neither of those. But I mean. So. But that's a different conversation from another time. Moving along. So in so our legislative term kicks off January. What's the date? So right now it's January 12th as the day of the state. The governor little will get up and and we will all parade in. Yep. As senators will set in that in the House chambers below all the House members. We'll set there and listen to the governor read off the teleprompter. And we'll clap at the appropriate points and and then we'll all parade back into our chambers. And you guys have a clapping teleprompter. Pop now. Please. Who is the one guy who said please clap? He read was a bite. He read in his teleprompter. I don't know. Yeah. So there are a lot of formalities. I don't despise the formalities. I actually appreciate the formalities, especially of the legislature and especially of the Senate. I think the formalities are there to slow the process down. Sure. You know, you have the different orders of business. Every day we're in session. We go through the first order, the second order, the third order. Whatever might be we advance to different orders and you can do different things. And very formal, we read the letters from the governor, letters from the House. It's very formal, but the purpose is to slow the process down. Yeah. So it's thoughtful, deliberate. So I don't despise the formalities of it. No. I'll laugh sometimes, but I appreciate it. And I will protect those formalities because it protects the people of Idaho. I mean, the founders of our country knew that we needed government to move slowly. Because otherwise it goes fast and it goes tyrannical. It goes mob rule. And so there's actually like intentional kinks. Yes. Slow it down, slow it down. And that's actually a protection on our liberties as poorly as things have gotten. Yeah. So you're working on some legislation, though, for this new session. I'm talking to us about it. Yeah. So I've got a, I've got a list of legislative priorities I was looking at it earlier. And it's actually made it up to 12 in number at this point. So I know that I'm going to have to trim and prioritize. I've actually had a couple of other folks reach out and say, hey, we'd really like to see it around this bill. And so at some point, some of these issues are going to have to drop off and wait. Shuffle around whatever. Because we have 105 legislators. And if each one of us rent 12 bills, we're talking, you know, I don't even know the math on top of my head. But north of 1300, we can't do that. We're even running 300 or 400 bills is a huge, huge lift for a three month session. When we're really there, constitutionally, just to balance the budget. So running, and these are all policy bills, of course, of mine. And they, they, they range from the issue of the right to life of our pre-born neighbors. Being the, I think the, the fundamental issue of all other issues to redoing our pornography laws, strengthening some of the penalties surrounding that. And then defining it more thoroughly. I'm trying to deal with that. That's a massive issue in Idaho. And then other issues surrounding building inspectors in Idaho. I'm trying to deregulate to the point of creating a more efficient marketplace for the building industry. Because what is the major issue in Idaho is the cost of housing. Well, I'm not in favor of taxing you in order to buy you a house. Which is being proposed in Canada. It is. Or limiting how much you can sell your house for rented out, etc. Those are all the wrong directions. So how can we make the market easier to play in so that, so that the houses can be built at an affordable price? So that's some of the direction there on the, the, the legislative, the legislation surrounding building inspectors. And we can get more into that if you'd like. I just want to question. We don't need to get too deep in that. But I'm like, I'm, there's a couple of problems in our town, particularly. We got this crazy liberal city council in addition to that. The staff tends, the city staff tends to follow them. And so, I mean, time takes to get a permit is too long. And then you, that's just for one house. And then you complicate that in a development. The time to get approval development is insane. It's insane. What they do here. So is that going to address some of that issue, those issues? This wouldn't initially address that. This is, this is really starting to go after one of the inefficiencies. Okay. So this wouldn't directly address that. I would like to move toward that in the future as well. So, I'm addressing some of those other issues because that's one of the big complaints. It's always the bureaucratic delays and inefficiencies. So wherever the bureaucracy touches the building industry, it creates inefficiencies. Yes. Which no business owner can just absorb that. It has to be passed along to the consumer. And so all these inefficiencies cost money. So, so that, that's really my primary motivation on running that on that legislation. And what it would do is actually have a transition period to face out our state inspectors for electrical plumbing and HVAC. Just a simple, simple lift at this point. And create the ability for the, for individuals to have their own private inspection companies that are recognized by counties and cities as any other. And this, you know, so the standards would be the same. But essentially you would, you would have a private market where you actually have customer service. You don't have a true monopoly and so forth. Oh, that's always, that's always better when you have actual competitions. It's amazing when you just start talking about simple solutions and you're like, yeah, of course. Any other particular, you know, you said there's 12 other legislative priorities that you think are probably going to make the cut. I mean, you said, you know, building inspections. You said pornography laws, obviously life working to end abortion. Any other other priorities? We have, we have a couple other bills that I'm looking at. They're just simple solutions for my, some of the constituents in my district, you know, whether it's dealing with how a local public school can excuse a child, whether it do be a doctor's note or parents notes a vice. That type of thing. So trying to do some tweaks to make sure that, you know, there are situations where a parents needing to excuse their child because of a hip replacement. And but they got to continually go and get pay for doctors notes in order to get this excuse. You know, and just they're living within that system and that's the reality they're facing. And so why not make things actually a little bit easier. Your parents work for that. Exactly. And that's what it does. It's recognizing parental authority over these children rather than that the parents are just some helping hand in the whole process of raising a child. Is there any like hot button issues that maybe other legislators also are going to be proposing? You know, what what's kind of the broader, you know, fight that might be happening. I'll be honest, I don't I'm not aware of any hot but did issue that we're going to be dealing with that's going to be first and foremost, obviously this is the this is election year. So everybody's everybody's going to be in a hurry to get in and out of there once the budget is going to be balanced. I would say the biggest issue is the budget itself this year. We've got the big budget shortfalls, the big 4% cuts that everybody's feeling and everybody wants their piece of the pie. And everybody's program is the most important program. So those are going to be probably the biggest policy is not going to be the major issue in the legislative session of my opinion. It's going to be the budget. I'm not on the budget committee. So I won't be a part of most of those conversations. But of course all the budgets need to come across the floor. And so we'll be dealing with that accordingly. But there there's a big budget deficit, not budget deficit, but the revenues are down in the state. And everybody still wants the same funding that they had before. And so how are you going to balance that? What are you think is going to happen? Education to get more money. It's I know that. So education. Right little loves doing that. Education likely will will still get the funding that they want. It's hard to say where the cuts are going to come. Yeah. There are a lot of programs in Idaho that could be cut. Whether it's our commission on the arts and various other avenues of funding that we do. The state probably shouldn't even be dealing with these issues. Right. I'm in the first place. Whether it's cutting back on public television or public radio. Those may be some issues that are looked at and cut. But at the end of the day, there's only so much money. And so something's going to have to get cut if our revenues are down. And you know, that was the warning that that, you know, people had concerns with that that appreciate more and more government programs is, hey, if we do these tax cuts, we're going to have revenue loss, especially as the economy slows and so forth. And it's happened. But you know, I don't I don't come from a status mentality that we have to have the most flush government. In order to live a have a prosper society. In fact, you know, government should be kept into their lane. And it actually wouldn't hurt to trim down various programs that are that are not even the proper function of government in the first place. Yeah. Right. We passed one question for you. We passed. There's a whatever school choice bill the past last year. And I know that's going into effect this coming year. I've seen some noise about it. What's your take on what we did? And is it, you know, from, you know, massive mistake to not my favorite to your cheerleader. And you got a new tattoo. I don't know. I love school toys. I mean, tattoo. You know, where would you where would you rate us on on our Idaho school choice legislation? I've been opposed to this measure from day one. And I'm coming from the perspective of homeschooling and having family members that have fought for homeschooling, having gone to jail for fighting for back in the 80s. Right. And really what they were fighting for is the right to educate their children without state interference or input. We are the parents. We have the authority from God to educate our children as we see fit. That was what they were fighting for. What the school choice bill did at House Bill 93 is it didn't further anything when it comes to parental rights or authority. What it did was it it was a fight for resources. And so money means choices. So that's why they get school choice. So that was that was really where the issue that I had with it is that where there was government or whether it was self and self reliance independent. Responsible people it's now going to create government dependence. And so where the school choice measure what it does is it offers free free money essentially through a tax credit up to $5,000 per child or $7500 for special needs or special needs children. I believe it is. And so the what's what it's going to do is it's going to become built into the budget of these parents. It's not going to get the children out of the school and this you know I've disagreed with great men on this. But this is this is where I'm coming from on this is this is going to become built into the to people's budgets that are already outside of the public school system. So the people that are the two income family that are sending their child to the local public school. This $5,000 tax credit does nothing in their situation to help. It's not even incentivize them to move their kid out of the public school. They have they have it doesn't even it doesn't give them the bill is you if they need to if they need to have these two jobs in order to pay their rent. This $5,000 to pay for private education is not enough to pay for private education. This $5,000 is not enough to do anything with homeschooling because it only pays for curriculum and tools it doesn't pay the parent anything. It's not a wage. So it really doesn't do anything for them what it does is it enables those who are already homeschooling or sending their children to private school. If they fall under a certain wage bracket income bracket to utilize money up to $50 million of the general fund money that they perhaps didn't even earn because it's a refundable tax credit. So if you didn't put anything it's not just hey I get to keep my money. This is a this is the state stepping in taking money out of the general fund and paying for your children's education. Which is other people's money. Is it other people's money it might be your own money. Maybe you are you pay a lot of taxes. But maybe you don't. So this as other people's money so what it does it creates government dependency whether with self-reliance. So that's the biggest issue that I see that it's going to to to culture a people that should be thinking in terms of self-reliance. Independently. Yep. And it's going to culture in the into them this idea that that of entitlement that we we need this money we deserve this money and so forth. And the first generation you know I say appreciates it the second generation expects it the third generation to dance and it's the process of entitlement. So those are my major concerns. Some said well no statistically it will draw people out of public school and various things and they have their various tactics for that. I've just not been in favor of it. I think I think if we had a system where you could keep your money that would be different. I would be in favor of what do you think about I mean so I'm pretty significant concerns with the fact that's a refundable as well. And I have very I'm very very simple. What do you mean refundable as a tax credit just kind of the mechanism. No that means you get other people's money. Yeah. So that's so a refundable credit. Yeah. So a regular credit. That's if you aren't paying into the system. Right. But a regular credit merely pays back any tax burden you already had. Yeah. But a refundable credit means you can get even more. Yeah. Essentially. So if you didn't even pay anything in if you didn't even work. Right. So the fact that it's a refundable credit was a kind of a you know add in so you know to it. It was it was that was that was kind of the worst part of it in my mind because I thought at least if it's just a credit. Then it's just people getting back money they actually paid in. Yeah. Right. That's all it would be. It's like like you get two thousand dollars back per kid. Yeah. That's a tax credit because you paid this much in taxes. Yeah. And so then but it's not it's actually but it's only up to what you've actually paid in. Uh huh. And then it and then it is that what the tax credit for children's child tax credit is it's a refundable tax credit to. Oh. So you're getting money from other people. Yeah. Well I'm paying in a lot. But but I'm just saying like that's those are the problems though. That's that's the that's the soft socialism. That's the socialism going on there where it's redistributing income. So that was my biggest concern. I don't know if there's any I mean you know with this budget and everything. I'm not one of the concerns I have is that like there is no way you can't like open up a massive other spigot to a bunch of other families take money out of the general fund. And then and then expect taxes not to go up. Right. Right. Yeah. So as the demand grows you've got to raise the taxes. So I mean I thought from from jump like I'm all for you know school real school choice real school freedom which means me keeping money to pay for the schools that I want to I want to provide the education. I'm all for that. But that's been my concern is I don't know how you you don't open up a big another massive influx of money to people and then you think like where's that money going to come from magically like no no it's going to raise taxes which means we're all going to pay for it. Right. And it's just more it's more socialist scam it's more Ponzi scheme. Yeah so it's moving the money around. So Idaho only generates I could be wrong on the numbers here but I believe they're close to this somewhere around eight billion dollars in revenue from Idaho taxes. But then we spend 14 or 15 billion and so what is exactly so I don't want to raise that my Idaho constituent taxes directly because it's going to make them unhappy at me and and kick me out of office so what I'm going to do is then vote for more federal grants and federal programs to come into the state because we just want the federal money where the problem is where does federal money. Well the federal government taxes you and then they just print it and then tax you through inflation. Right. So so it's lose lose but it's a softer blow on my constituents if I just so that direction rather than saying hey you want the program then let's fund it and I'm going to tax you for it. It's kicking the can down the road. So anyways I don't know if I wish you know if there was even a way to wait a minor tweak it and just make it just adjust a tax credit seems like that would at least put a cap on it and say hey you can get money back that you paid in and up to that much and that's it. But you know I doubt people have an appetite to actually mess with that right now but you remember my proposal to be my proposal was I was just talking with a brand about this yesterday. I've been working on trying to talk been taves into he's one of our legislators senators also. He's he he legislator or senator center. He's the he's the y'all look the same to me and I always do. They all look the same. Branden's now I'm a legislator racist but my proposal was you know an Idaho 50% of the property taxes go to the public school system. And so my my tax my my house taxes are about 4,000 or so 50% of that 2000 goes to the public schools. So my proposal was why don't we just whatever if I opt out of public education and I choose home school whatever one I get to keep that 50% tax is that portion that would have gone to the public school. It's just it could be it could be another exemption you like to have homeowner exemption and then well even this I was just like don't even pay it. Yeah I don't like it. Yeah they don't pay you don't pay a homeowner's that's a good idea. Yeah and so what that does it does two things for one it's actually the current money you get is 5,000 dollars per kid up to 5,000 dollars per kid this is just I just keep the 2000 dollars right right so super cheap program and then number two it starts to pack away at our property tax problem that we have already. Sure. Ben was telling me I think it was Ben maybe I talked to several legislators about this but Ben was the last guy talked to. But whoever was telling me like the county lobbyists on the town is would fight that tack they do not want you touching property taxes. So our counties are fighting against us on this and and and then of course you know the state would probably be fighting against the whole idea you that's like a God like the property tax thing. Sure. Yeah. No touch but I'm so it hadn't gone anywhere yet but that was my proposal. So I did want to I wanted to ask you about the abortion initiative that's going to be on the ballot likely next fall. You know what I'm talking about. Yeah I don't know where that one. What's the name of it the formal name? I don't remember what the formal name is about protecting women or something along the lines. So they're you know they're collecting signatures and last I heard you know that they have to have like 70,000 signatures something that and they had 50,000 last I heard and they have to have it by April. Is that right something like that? I believe yeah I don't remember the exact date. Anyways but it's on spring. Yeah it looks very likely that it's going to be on the ballot. Yeah it will. Most likely going to be on the ballot and and that initiative my understanding would basically you know basically return all Idaho legislation to you know. I don't know what is it a fetal viability or something like that like I haven't I haven't read the particulars of this one but yeah it's to obviously essentially make abortion make abortion more accessible in Idaho that's kind of the general goal of this of this proposal. Yeah I mean what are your what are your thoughts? It's an evil initiative to any initiative that would throw you know essentially try to make abortion more accessible. Obviously is an evil initiative that like at at the gate. I mean is I mean do you think it has a chance to pass? I don't think so. I don't think it will pass. Idaho it you know identifies I think largely as a pro-life state that will that will be on a if it let me see so it'll be on in a non-presidential election year. So you won't have the high turnout so it'd be a little unpredictable. I don't think it will pass honestly but as you need 51% or 61 51. Not a simple majority but my understanding is that in Idaho the legislature still has to approve even ballot initiatives. Yeah so there's an opportunity for the legislature then after let's say it passes in November of 26 by whatever percentage 51% or you know whatever. Yeah then the ledges it comes before the legislature and we can either ratify it or amend it or I believe reject it. So and you can amend it to oblivion or whatever it is you know so there's that there's that option there still it doesn't honor. Could you amend it to where it says Jesus is Lord and sort of rest of this does not apply I mean like like get back at him you know. Right. I mean I'm guessing that like the legislature would I mean it's like that's a pretty extreme thing for the legislature to reject something that 51% of the constituents in the state passed. Yeah yeah so I mean obviously it would it would take courage to do that because it would it would take an understanding that we don't live in a democracy. That we live in a constitutional republic that is to uphold the constitutionally protected rights government exists to secure the rights of individuals. Right. So as a legislator my my primary job is not to listen to whatever the voice of the people is saying in any given moment if they said we we want you to deny Toby Sumter of all rights. Even if 51% even if 66% said it. Yeah I have to say no right the constitute I cannot violate the constitution which has secured his rights. Right. Et cetera so that's that's where I have to that's where every legislator will have to stand up and uphold the constitution to the swore. Right. And got and God's moral law stands over all of that so you know that it's like even if even if a constitution was kind of shaky on something. Yeah. You could be like but it doesn't matter because God said. Right. Yeah. So talk to us about I know you are also you're planning to try to run legislation to further end abortion in Idaho. Talks about that. Yeah. Yeah. So so last year 2025 session I introduced a bill to essentially establish in law the equal the recognition of the equal humanity. We can't create the equal humanity but a but a establishing in law the recognition of the equal humanity of our preborn neighbors. Right. And then providing them the equal protection under the law. And this legislation was printed in committee and then was essentially passed around got we got bill sponsors. And this was the you know Senate leadership was was gracious enough I guess I'll say I did appreciate they allowed me to get it printed. This got a bill number obviously I will fight tooth and nail to to get it further than that. You know what and tried to last year as well but did it get a voting committee. It didn't it didn't even go to a hearing and just was a print hearing and there was that was one of the promises to Republican legislators so they would get all their bills printed. And so I you know held them to that you got the bill printed. Not every bill gets a get to hearing. Some can see that you can see that it's good or bad. If every bill got a hearing that we might be there for a long long time and not every bill is created equal. So the historically the chairman have always been given discretion to say this bill is not ready. And so that was used to say this issue is not ready essentially I was not ready or you know this isn't something we want to take up the session and so forth. And so that was really some of the reason given why we it wasn't given a full hearing but they they did say hey we think you should as a lawmaker have the right to put this out there and have the conversation at least. So we were able to get it that far obviously I would like to bring it back this session and and get a full hearing we you know that this this is something that that is I think the fundamental issue that we can even deal with as a legislature in our declaration of independence. The founding fathers acknowledge that we have unalienable rights given by the creator right and they list out three among these are life liberty the pursuit of happiness or you know blessedness fullness right this idea this old idea of happiness was not you know what we think of happiness but but the first if you don't have if you in the government was instituted to secure these rights right. So if you don't have the first right the second right is meaningless you don't have the right to life the right to liberty is the meaning is meaningless so to me if you don't if you don't have the right to life you can't even debate tax policy right you know how to debate tax policy if you're dead so to government exists primarily to secure these rights and so the first right is the right to life so that's why it becomes a way to your priority not as though I don't have other. I don't have other priorities that when working on as I as I talked about before but this becomes a way to your priority when I grow up I want to work for a woke company like super woke when I grow up when I grow up I want to be hired based on what I look like rather than my skills on be judged by my political beliefs I want to get promoted based on my chromosomes when I go up I want to be offended by my co-workers and walk around the office on egg cells and have my words police by H.O. I want to be obsessed with emotional safety and do workplace sensitivity training all day long when I grow up I want to climb the corporate ladder just by following the ground I want to be a conformist I want to weaponize my pronouns what are pronouns it's time to grow up and get back to work introducing the number one woke free job board in America red balloon red balloon dot work. Currently as a state what we've done is we've kind of spoken out of the bulls at both sides of our mouth so of our mouth and so what we've done is in Idaho code we recognize the equal humanity of the preborn child if a man were to kill pregnant woman for example and so they would get double homicide charges okay but what we've done is we've we've ignored our moral God given responsibility and authority and and our constitutional authority and we've tried to take to our self our own authority as the legislature and so if we think about gay animals and a deer a moose or whatever might be you know during the month of October it's legal to go shoot a deer but during the month of January it's not and we're going to be a couple of days later and we're going to be a couple of days later and I'm sure that's not and so what the state is doing in in saying you may kill a deer at się time at this place and under these circumstances and what these means and so forth what we're doing is we're saying we have the authority given by God in the constitution to regulate the issues of life and death surrounding this we have this authority but what we what we do when we do this with the image bears of God is we claim that the legislature has the authority to regulate the wind where we're going to regulate the our how and why a human being can be murdered and what I've argued is we have no God delegated authority to do this nor constitutionally delegated authority to do this the inserts the constitution is very clear in the state of Idaho and even the US Constitution but the constitution state about it was very clear that Article one section two that all laws are to be applied equally to every person person okay and so what we've done as we've said we don't have to do that we can apply laws differently to our pre-born neighbors and so we've violated the constitution we've violated God's standards of justice as as as setting in on on some of the things you were speaking about yesterday with standards of justice sometimes even we look at it and we say well that's it's not does that seems to be you know too hard to follow when to have two witnesses I saw the guy murder somebody you know yes God will make it right there might God would rather that not everything gets done perfectly in this life to make sure that justice is not perverted so the priority of justice becomes paramount so when we talk about and think about the the legislature the legislative authority that we have does the legislature have authority from God or the constitution to provide differing weights and measures differing penalties differing application of law based upon the circumstances of your conception based upon the circumstances of of you know or the size of your person or how developed you are etc it doesn't it has one justification the legislature has one justification of any law against the murder of an image bear of God and it's that they are created in the image of God that's the only justification that's the only moral foundation that we have and so when we look at the legislature's authority we have no authority to say we're going to provide you know life in prison or execution for the murder of a born person but we're going to provide five years for a medical doctor that murders somebody that's pre-born we don't have the authority to do that it's unconstitutional and immoral to do that and and so that that's why I have taken the approach that I've taken with it with the issue of of life itself we can talk all day about you know can we compromise on liquor licensing laws and various issues but right now what we're doing is we are claiming something about the very nature of the preborn child when we regulate the killing of deer and elk we are claiming something about the nature of these game animals and our authority over them and our authority over their lives as the legislature and so when we do this with our pre-born neighbor we are claiming this authority that we don't have its illegitimate authority we don't have the authority to do this we have one point of foundation that we have is the image bears of God and that's why the founders recognize an alienable right to life and so it's to be applied equally to all so I can't as a legislator I have to have a moral and biblical and constitutional principle by which I apply the application of law in these situations and so that's why I've approached it as I have have to say we cannot continue to perpetuate the denial of the humanity of the the preborn child because the very nature of this child is denied in our law we are actually equating them with an animal or whatever might be by the our law we're communicating it's we're teaching our society something about the nature of our preborn neighbors that actually is perpetuating a lie and that's why I've stood so strongly on this issue that this is this is not just you know how can we save some more babies and we can talk about that I'm and I like to kind of maybe get into some of some of that as well I know code actually doesn't the criminal code actually define the taking of human life even unborn life as a murder yeah so it does and so like it's actually in our code yeah right back in the day and then my understanding is that except for after roe versus wait or whatever there was some exception language built in that said you know except for you know basically if a mother decides to go and hire yeah so it was probably that so it was probably roe versus wait being overturned Idaho code actually acknowledged the the equal humanity of the preborn child that's still in Idaho code but it's really not applied in those except in those limited cases where somebody kills a pregnant mother mother in a car crash now they get two counts of of whatever the whatever the charge may be and so what happened was that in that code it created an exception for a board of woman wanted to kill her own child then the doctor and the mother had complete immunity and so what we did was we said we're going to as a state as a state legislature we're going to create these more restrictive laws now or versus Wade didn't allow us to really do anything so we created what was called the trigger law and so it was to go and affect if it should ever be overturned And so some legislators admitted later, or somewhat admitted that they voted for this and supported it because they thought it never. They had to cover. And they actually come out and apologize for supporting it. And so what happened was it created a completely separate crime. It's called criminal abortion. So it was a completely separate crime. It's criminal abortion. It's not treated as murder. It's not even acknowledged as murder. And this is the major issue with my issue with this law. Is it number one? It provides a three to five year penalty for abortion doctor if it performs an abortion and lose their license and so forth. If we did that with a, you know, anybody whose skin is darker than this, they get five years, but if they're darker than this, they get three years or two years or 10 years, whatever, if they're under this age, you get this amount. Like we would say that's unjust weights and measures. That's partiality in the law. We can't do that. And but yeah, we've done that with this so-called criminal abortion. And part of it was to make it more powerables. You know, we're gonna compromise. We're gonna meet in the middle somewhere and so forth. But then what it did was it created rape exception. So if you've, if you were conceived in a certain circumstance, we as the legislature of the state of Idaho have determined your life has no value or worth. We have no constitutional or God given authority to do that. We've done that as a legislature in the name of getting something done and saving babies. And so is our primary goal to save babies or is it to do justice and provide equal weights and measures and in providing justice save babies? So, you know, the Democrats say, we're saving lives every day by push, or you know, we're trying to save lives by pushing restrictive gun legislation and so forth. If we restrict the, you know, and I hear these arguments, we need to strict abortion pills. Do guns kill people or do people kill people? Do we restrict the murder weapon, the use of the murder weapon, or do we just rec... Do we criminalize the act of murder? So if we want to say, well, let's allow murder, let's decriminalize murder weapon. But there's a difference between something that has multiple just uses and something that's designed to do something that is just unjust. Wouldn't you say there's something different? So like, you know, guns are used for multiple just things. And of course, yes. So that's why the emphasis has to be on who's wielding it and so the people kill people. But if you have a pill, that's basically designed to kill on one of the ones or babies and it has no other real just use, then why not outlaw that? Because I mean, that's more... Yeah, so what it does is you set up a precedent and you violate the principle is what you do. So when you start to restrict the murder weapon, instead of criminalizing the act of murder. Yeah, unless I wouldn't say we should do it instead. Right, that's what's being proposed by a lot of groups and think tanks, we should restrict the use of this rather than actually treat this as an actual homicide. And so the major issue is some of these abortion pills, the chemicals used in there can be used for other medicinal purposes. And it's taken in combination with these two, it can murder your child. Sure. But the issue is what we're doing is we're violating the principle of really our freedom of movement to buy our own gun, buy our own various pills or whatever we want to do. But what we're saying is, we as a state are gonna step in and start restricting movement. And how are you gonna do that? Well, we're gonna start monitoring things, be all the name of saving babies. What I'm saying is you can justify any law, if as long as you can say, well, I can concede that it'll save a baby. Therefore, I'm going to support this law, that law, the other law. What I'm saying is our primary goal isn't to save babies. If I was a Christian ministry where like, hey, we exist to save babies. That's not my, I can't enforce law as a lawmaker. I can only create law if I get enough consensus, of course, in the legislature, but I'm a lawmaker. I can't enforce it. So I can't even, anything is we know that if you criminalize murder, it doesn't save every person. Murder still happens. But what we don't do is start restricting the possible murder weapons you can purchase and possess, observing every movement that you make so that you don't murder your neighbor. So we just criminalize the act. And if there's probable cause, or if there's articulable suspicion that you've committed a crime, then we launch an investigation. If we launch an investigation, we find probable cause for an arrest, we arrest, and with a warrant, and so forth, there's a process. So is the, the Democrats, honestly, they bring that approach, this status approach that we need to prevent every death possible of school children or whatever it might be. So we need to get rid of long range rifles or high capacity magazines and so forth because they believe they're going to save some school children. I guess I'll wait. I wanna, so I agree with you, you know, I wanna be careful about violating the principle here, playing the devil's eye of getting on this question here. But the problem I see is that we don't apply that to other areas. So meaning, I mean, we're just talking about public education earlier where you're proposing a bill, so parents have more parental authority in their public education. But we're still violating the principle that we have public education. You see what I'm saying? Yeah, sure. So when it comes to the principle of, and why I've really approached the issue of the Imagode, the image of God differently, even then other issues, such as, you know, should we be restricting the sale of liquor, should we just not be involved at all and so forth or can we take an incremental approach to stripping away some of these restrictions and making it free or to operate in the market? The fundamental difference is every time that we pass or promote these laws that show, that essentially are claiming this authority over life and death of an image bearer of God. We are actually denying the Imagode, when we are saying that they don't have a fundamental right to life. That's what we've done in Idaho law. We are saying you're committed, if you're conceived in rape, you don't have a fundamental right to life. You deny the Imagode, when you deny the Imagode, we are God's image bearers on earth. When you deny God's image, you are, is a denial of God himself. So to me, this is very fundamental in how we approach this, we have to affirm the Imagode, we have to affirm the truth about the nature of the preborn in the law itself. That's why I've approached it that way. But if all authority is given from God, then disobedience to that authority is defying God. Sure. And the Imagode, I 110% agree is absolutely... Foundation, it's our politics, yeah, yeah. But I don't know how you separate that from the principle you're arguing from. So the fact that we have government schools defies the living God, sure, defies like spits in God's face and says, no, our magistrates can tax people and run schools, even though you did not give, you didn't authorize them to do that. And you gave that to parents and families to do. Our state does that. And then we're gonna pass a law that says, parents should have more rights in those, I mean, aren't you playing that game? I don't know, I don't know. And the same thing with liquor licenses. Same thing with... I wanna open my own liquor store. We know, Gabe. But like, but the same principle that you're arguing for, I think Gabe is exactly right, is like in order to hold that consistently, you're... I don't know how you can participate in any of those things because in principle, you're going along with defying the living God. I think what it comes to the... I don't... I would separate it still in that what you are doing is you're denying the image of God itself. When I... If I were to support the Idaho Defense of Life Act, which has, it's denied the very nature of the image bears of God. And what it does is it perpetuates the lie that the legislature has this authority... But that's from liquor licenses are doing too. When we look at the Idaho Constitution, for example, as a legislator, we all swear to uphold the Constitution. And the Constitution says, the legislature shall establish and maintain a system of free common public schools. So for example, that is a constitutional duty of the legislature to do... Which is defying God. Exactly. And we can wrestle around all day about whether or not that a Christian can swear to uphold the Constitution. In the state of Idaho, can they swear to uphold the Constitution as I did? And that was something that I thought through, what could I swear to uphold this Constitution? The other thing is... So when I'm talking just about the legislative duty as a established by the Constitution, and then their job is defined by the Constitution, is that we are to equally protect all life under the law, equally to apply all the laws under the law. So on its face, it's blatantly unconstitutional where the other ones are constitutional in Idaho. And then we can talk about whether or not they're moral or immoral. But what I'm saying is this is clearly immoral and clearly unconstitutional. Toby, I want to ask you actually the same question. Because I agree the principle of life. Right. Right. But then how do we not violate that as smash mouth incrementalists? Right, well, I guess the part of it is... I guess the one I was going to ask earlier was going to say earlier is... I agree completely that principles of justice have to govern what we're willing to do and what we're able to do. Yeah. And I don't think that we get to make it up as we go along. And I also don't think that we get to justify breaking rules of justice based on utilitarian things. Like we think we're going to get more done. So I agree completely there. However, I do think that when you're in the middle of... I don't think that there's any judicial system that is pristine and perfect. There's no... Humans made it. There's... Perfect justice exists in God and in His Word. But what we're always doing is approximating that justice. We're always trying to do as best we can to make city code and county code and state code and federal code. We want it to be an echo. We want it to match what God has done. But it's always a... It's always an approximation. And so that's never going to be perfect. We're approximating it. And I think my argument would be I don't think limiting the number of abortions that happen in a state is on par with gun control. I just deny that as a premise. That's the same thing. I think that when you are in a position where you need to end the murder of unborn babies, you have to... You take whatever you can get to get there, and not whatever you can get, because that doesn't justify anything. But I think... Yeah, do I think that we ought to have a separate abortion code in Idaho criminal code? No, I don't think that's ideal at all. But I do think to the extent that it is teaching our state that abortion is murder, I think it's glorious, that we have brought the abortion rates down as low as we have. I'm so grateful for that. And I think what we need to do is... And this is the smash mouth part, and as we need to keep talking about this out loud, about, yeah, should there be rape exceptions? Of course not. Of course we should not punish a baby for the sin of its father. That's unjust. That's wicked. And the same thing would go for, should we have code that treats this kind of taking, unjust taking a human life differently than taking another unjust human life? No, I don't think we should have that long term at all. That's not good. But that means... But we've got to get there. We've got to work towards it. And yes, is it insane? Is it absolutely insane that we have to have that conversation? Is it absolutely... You're point about... Well, if you have this much melanin in your skin or this much or this much, here are the penalties. Everybody looks at that and says, that's absolutely insane. Exactly. And it's absolutely insane that we have to have this conversation about, no, you can't kill your baby. No, not at 20 weeks, no, not at 10 weeks. No, not when it has a heartbeat. No, it's insane that we have to have that conversation. But when you live in a land that has built altars to Molec and is busy offering babies to the fires of Molec, that's the insanity that you live in. Sin is insanity. And so I think that's why I would say, yes, we can't stop there. And so I'm very, very sympathetic. With the persistent, the calling out of pro-life organizations that think that because they got some regulation passed, they won. No, we didn't. We haven't won until Idaho Code simply says, murder is murder and it's gonna be prosecuted as such because all human life is sacred before God. That's, we gotta get there. That's the goal, absolutely the goal. The question I think where we differ is on how we get there. And when I would say is it's permissible to take steps to get there, which are not, don't you, every single step along the way doesn't mean you've arrived at that conclusion. And I don't think it's necessary to say unless that conclusion is, you know, unless that is, that immediate conclusion is what is on the table. I can't support anything else. I just, I just don't see that as, that doesn't follow the biblical pattern. I think all through Old Testament law God teaches us that when he's dealing with hard-hearted sinners, he deals with them in ways where sometimes he says, okay, this is what we're gonna do. This is the best that we can do right now. God himself does that and he sets the precedent and sets the pattern for us. And I think we learn wisdom from that and we say, okay, sometimes is the best we can do because of hard-hearted sinners. It's not an ideal law, it's not a perfect law, but it's what we can do for now to limit this bloodshed. And then we need to come back and we need to fix it. We need to do better next time. So I'm gonna take over this conversation now. Not let this go, repeat the debates that we already had. Toby mentioned here that Idaho portions have dropped because of the law that passed. You mentioned the other day when we're having lunch that you actually said adoptions have gone up likely because of the law. Yeah, so you wanna talk about, I'm not trying to set these things against each other, but what I'm trying to, you mentioned something very interesting that you didn't flush out for me. I'd love to hear more about that. Absolutely, so yeah, and this is really, I guess, even responding to what Toby had said as well. This, can we justify the laws we passed by the idea or reality, how are we gonna look at it that we say babies, is it justifiable? So that's more of the pragmatic, are we making steps in the right direction? Is this direct, are we actually moving in a direction right now? So health and welfare tracks how many babies are adopted at birth? So basically they're up for adoption before the birth and they have increased about four or five a year have increased under those circumstances and they don't know, but they attribute that to our restrictive abortion laws. So they attribute that. Just four or five a year statewide. Four or five a year statewide. Now that doesn't mean that there were and others who just decided to keep it and raise their own child. Yeah, we don't know that. I see, I see. When it comes to the abortion numbers themselves, basically we had a way of tracking them through health and welfare, through the abortion clinics. And when we passed our, or when the trigger law took effect, pretty much just eliminated that. And so, whether it's happening or not, because it's at least it eliminated keeping track of the data, because it's illegal for us to keep track of the abortion now. Exactly, so let's say you have murder centers of, grandmas and where you go in, you report that you murdered your grandma, it was all done publicly and it's reported through health and welfare. And, but now we say, no, you're not allowed to do that in this way. And so now, everybody, they're ordering their grandma murder weapons, but they're just doing it on their own because it's still legal. And not reporting. You just can't hire a doctor to do it anymore. You just have to do it in your own bedrooms. And so forth. But there's also reporting. So they've also seen that abortion numbers haven't decreased nationwide, nor in the states that have very restrictive abortion laws. They haven't decreased it, and they see that through. And they're very conservative on their numbers. So they believe only about 80 or so, about 20% of abortion pills that are ordered actually accomplish a murder. So that's kind of the number that they've established is probably reasonable through the areas where they know it occurs and so forth, because a lot of people just have stashes of them and whatever it might be. So what has happened is we've made certain modes unavailable with our abortion laws. And so abortions have just simply switched to other modes. And so if our justifiability of our laws is that they are saving babies, if that's the end all principle, arguably, we haven't really accomplished what we set out to accomplish. And if that's what we're trying to accomplish is saving babies, we haven't really made progress in that area, or at least in a way that we can be sure about. We can say, well, we've maybe made progress in this area or that area. But ultimately, babies are still dying legally in Idaho every day. Statistically, around, I think it's around, I think it's around eight a week, something like that, or nine a week, statistically. I won't hold you to that. Sure. I guess I think that goals are much broader than I think it is. I think it should be saving babies. And I think, I guess I'm not sure that it's accurate or true, that we actually aren't saving babies. The fact that their doctors are not legally performing these procedures anymore is glorious. I'm glad that it's just not happening. So Brandon, you would maintain that Idaho's abortion deaths every year are probably still some sort of similar to what they were before the law. What would you maintain there? That's what the data shows that they really haven't decreased. A lot of Idaho babies are simply being shipped out and aborted in other states, of course. And then, but there are a number of likely that are happening here. There's no, because the thing is, it's not being reported in the way that it was before, where it was something that was done in a medical clinic, and it was being reported. But that's glorious that it's not being reported. Like, I guess I'm gonna say like, in terms of our public life, I want it to be a shameful thing to murder your baby. So I think getting it out of, I can report this on an official doctor's form. That's wicked that we were, you know, that we were doing it. Now, you can still technically do that. It's crazy. Yeah, I'm brave. That's crazy. So even though I don't know how much abortion is decreased, I think it's glorious that the official numbers have catastrophically dropped. Yeah. That you had, you know, numbers where people were filling out paperwork and saying, this is how many babies I murdered. Amazing. And now it is dropped to virtually zero. It's very, very low. And some of them are actually maybe life of the mother, like true life of mother instances, which are still, they're medically technically called abortions, which it can include an instance where you have to deliver a baby because the mother's life is in danger and we don't have the medical means of keeping the baby alive. That's not murder. That's, we tried, we're trying to say, we're trying to say both. We're trying to say it was much life as we can, but medically speaking, that is sometimes still registered as an abortion. But my point is, is that even that, all by itself, is glorious because it's driving it out of the pump. It's saying that's shameful. It doesn't belong on official medical paperwork. You can't report that as a doctor and hold your head up high. And I know some wood and I'm sure there's some really bad doctors or whatever, but I'm just saying that all by itself is a win. I also think though that, I think people, you have the hard hearts of people and they're gonna go get their abortions one way or the other, which would still happen, as you said earlier, even if it was completely outlawed. Murder is outlawed and people still commemorate her. So people would still do that with abortions. Go across other states, other states, whatever. You do have the issue of going to other states and that's just a challenge that we're gonna have to figure out at some point, especially when you have states like Washington next to Idaho. That are actually not only just like allowing it to happen, but sometimes they're also paying for it to happen. And also have past. And also have past. And have passed laws that protect their doctors from any kind of lawsuits and all the rest of it. So I mean, there's some interstate stuff there that we have to work through and figure out. And I also know you've got the male problem where people are mailing out. A board of against. Yeah, I'm getting those things. But I guess I would just still say, I do believe the laws have significantly reduced what is at least publicly being advertised as we kill our babies. And I think that's glorious. So yeah, so a couple of things. So number one, we have to understand that God is a God of bringing beauty from the ugly. He can bring good from that. And we see it all throughout scripture. We see that in our lives all the time. But when it comes to, so the couple things, so number one, I would presume that there have been babies saved as a result of our pro-life laws. I believe that that is the case. And I can praise God and rejoice that babies have been saved. Praise God. Praise God. Praise God. Whatever he has done and brought about as a good from our pro-life laws. So praise God for that. From our ashes. But let me throw out a scenario here. I'm guessing you guys have teenage sons, but if your teenage son got a scurfer in pregnant and then he tried to argue to you that, hey, dad, this is actually good because look at your beautiful grandson. This is a beautiful grandson. He's got all this. He bears the image of God. And it's such a wonderful gift from God. This is a good thing. You say, no son, you need to repent and you shall not do this again. Right. And so just because laws have been passed, that laws that I've argued deny the image of God in the preborn child, they apply unjust weights and measures. It's they perpetuate a lie about the nature of the preborn child just because God has done something good from that. And I can rejoice in that. You can still delight in your grandbaby. But say son, never again. And you should. And so what I'm saying is as a lawmaker, do I look at statistics? Do I look at, well, this beauty came from this good thing came from this unjust law, therefore it justifies me participating in running more unjust laws or do I approach it from what is God's will? What is God's will for your son? No son, you need to get married. Yeah. Because they're actually, you know, we can even look at it from a practical perspective. There are long-term ramifications. So not following God's order of service. Single-parademic is statistically horrible. Yeah. So when I look at, okay, praise God that babies have likely been saved in Idaho. But as a lawmaker, do I look at the short-term things that are good and say, I'm going to base my future actions on that? I say, no, I have to look at the wisdom of God and then shape our laws and policy based on his will. Otherwise, the long-term, even just from a practical perspective, the long-term outcomes will not be good. Because we're going to continue to deny the equal humanity of our pre-war neighbor. And that has long-term ramifications. Now, when we think of a baby in the womb, we've been taught by our laws that they're different in nature than we are. And that has judicial precedents. And that has all kinds of other problems. Yeah. We are establishing a law. So as a lawmaker moving forward, I can say, praise God that babies have been saved. But that doesn't mean that I am supposed to move forward with the same action. I still have to ask the question, what should I do to establish justice? You know, so that's why I don't deny that God has done good. But that doesn't justify me in saying, well, I can continue to do this because God will surely bring good out of it. Sure. Yep. No, it's lunchtime. So I'm just going to, it's lunchtime. Brandon. Thanks for coming on, Brandon. Yeah, man. Senator. Senator Shippee. I tell, let's see, what are we going to do here? I don't know. Sometimes. This is shows coming out before Christmas. Maybe so. Hopefully. We don't know quite what we're doing. Anyways, love God without your heart. So I'm going to strengthen your neighbor's self. Go fight, laugh, and feast. This is cross-palted. He's intelligent about baptizing the babies. Baptism.