GOP demands Scott reinstatement

SANDPOINT — Bonner County’s Republican Central Committee adopted a resolution Tuesday demanding the reinstatement of state Rep. Heather Scott’s legislative committee assignments.

Scott was stripped of her assignments by House Speaker Scott Bedke last week, after stating that the only way female lawmakers can earn committee posts is by providing sexual favors.

“In retrospect, I should have chosen my words more carefully,” Scott, R-Blanchard, said in a written statement distributed on Wednesday. “I apologize, to every member of the House, again, for not being more careful. I commit to be more diligent in speaking in the voice and words of a statesman in all my conversations.”

But the local GOP central committee argues that Scott has no reason to be apologetic.

The one-page resolution drafted and presented by local Republican Dan Rose argues Scott’s committee assignments should be restored because she was exercising her constitutional right to free speech. Moreover, one of Scott’s critics, Rep. Rep. Christy Perry, a Republican from Nampa, violated legislative ethics standards by allegedly committing adultery yet somehow managed to keep her committee assignments.

“ ... Representative Perry has retained chairmanship of committee assignment and constituent representation, and by contrast of crime and penalty prior to hearing(s), Representative Scott has been stripped of committee assignments and constituent representation ... ” Rose said in the resolution.

The resolution demands in the “strongest term of civility” reinstatement of Scott’s committee seats.

Scott remains enormously popular in Bonner County despite a series of criticisms that have been leveled against her as she enters her second term in office.

Scott displayed a Confederate flag during the Timber Days Parade in Priest River not long after gunman Dylann Roof shot and killed African American worshipers at an historic South Carolina church.

Scott was also sympathetic toward the occupiers of the Malheur wildlife refuge in Oregon, traveled to other lawmakers’ districts and badmouthed them to their constituents and damaging Capitol infrastructure by removing a piece of fire suppression equipment that she believed was actually and eavesdropping device.

Scott has denied damaging Capitol infrastructure, although two Republican lawmakers have gone on record as to witnessing the act, according an article published by the Idaho Spokesman-Review on Wednesday.0