JEERS ... to Chairperson Nick Woods and the Nez Perce County Republican Central Committee.

Their ambush last week of Rep. Lori McCann, R-Lewiston, was worthy of a Soviet-era show trial.

Miffed at McCann’s even-handed approach to representing the voters of her district — rather than taking the doctrinaire approach they prefer — the local arm of state Chairperson Dorothy Moon’s GOP gave the Lewiston Republican about six days’ notice of its intent to nail her with a vote of no confidence.

Even worse, they left McCann with little opportunity to defend herself. When the vote occurred March 30, McCann was stuck in the Capitol.

And what were her offenses? Here are some examples:

McCann thought a state sitting on a billion-dollar surplus could afford to spend roughly $750,000 so that any young woman could obtain free feminine hygiene products from public schools.

Before the state siphons off hundreds of millions of dollars from public schools into private school tuition — and drives up local property taxes in the process — McCann suggested asking voters what they thought through a 2024 election ballot advisory question.

She supported Gov. Brad Little’s “Idaho Launch” program, expanding scholarship opportunities for high school graduates and remedying Idaho’s need for a skilled workforce. Not only had Idaho voters ratified this aspect of last year’s special legislative session during the 2022 election, but the measure cleared the House by a 36-34 vote and the Senate by 20-15. That translates into a Republican governor, Republican voters and Republican legislators supporting it.

McCann sinned by supporting local and school librarians against harassment from overzealous litigants who think they know what’s best for other people’s children. Little, the elected leader of his party, agreed and vetoed the bill.

All of which were no-nos, the Nez Perce County GOP says.

Who do they think they are?

Nez Perce County is less than a quarter of the vote in McCann’s Legislative District 6, which also includes Latah and Lewis counties.

Was somebody snoozing during math class?

CHEERS ... to the six House Education Committee Republicans who joined with three Democrats to block the well-funded campaign — backed by former President Donald Trump’s education secretary, Betsy DeVos, among others — to rob your child’s public school of tax dollars just to subsidize the private education of Idaho’s economically privileged.

After the state Senate defeated a monumentally expensive universal voucher bill by a 12-23 margin, the strategy shifted toward incrementalism — figuratively, the camel’s nose under the tent. As Idaho Business for Education President and CEO Rod Gramer painstakingly documented, what starts out as a pilot project inevitably becomes a universal program.

Some heavy hitters — Senate President Pro Tem Chuck Winder, of Boise, Senate Transportation Committee Chairperson Lori Den Hartog, of Meridian, and legislative budget committee co-Chairperson Wendy Horman, of Idaho Falls — were behind a plan to transform the $30 million Empowering Parents grant program into a private tuition experiment.

After it cleared the Senate, however, the measure stalled in House Education, thanks to:

Chairperson Julie Yamamoto, R-Caldwell.

Vice Chairperson McCann.

Rep. Mark Sauter, R-Sandpoint.

Rep. Jack Nelsen, R-Jerome.

Rep. Greg Lanting, R-Twin Falls.

Rep. Dan Garner, R-Clifton.

Rep. Steve Berch, D-Boise.

Rep. Sonia Galaviz, D-Boise.

Rep. Chris Mathias, D-Boise.

That won’t be the end of it. Already, a billboard campaign in Caldwell is recruiting an election opponent for Yamamoto. As noted above, McCann’s drawing flack from her local partisans.

But at least Idaho’s public schools — and the taxpayers who support them — live to fight another day.

JEERS ... to Reps. Mike Kingsley, R-Lewiston, Brandon Mitchell, R-Moscow, and Charlie Shepherd, R-Pollock.

Your right to bypass a stubborn Legislature and enact laws through the initiative process survived, no thanks to them.

Each one supported a constitutional amendment that would make it all but impossible to qualify a grassroots initiative for the election ballot. And no wonder. Every time an opportunity to rebuke the Legislature has come up — whether it’s education, public health or tax policy — the voters have acted on it.

But when Sen. Doug Okuniewicz’s handiwork arrived on the House floor, it turned out his measure was even more draconian than he claimed or may have realized. As a result, several predictably supportive House votes broke away last week— and the proposed constitutional amendment fell about eight votes short of the required two-thirds majority.

Kingsley, Mitchell and Shepherd did not budge, however.

The next time you see them, ask them who they think they’re working for.

CHEERS ... to Washington Gov. Jay Inslee.

It may be news to Idaho lawmakers, but the Gem State does not exist in a vacuum.

Just because Idaho criminalized a woman’s reproductive rights does not mean it can impose those views on the Evergreen State — which, by the way, provides abortion services for virtually all of the northern Idaho women who seek them.

For instance, in 2020 — before the U.S. Supreme Court overruled Roe v. Wade — all but three of the 345 northern Idaho women who obtained abortions got them out of state.

So when the Idaho Legislature sought to make it a felony to help an Idaho minor cross the border to obtain an abortion, Inslee urged Little to veto a law that carries a five-year prison sentence.

“Regardless of your decision on this bill, we welcome Idaho’s patients and health care providers with open arms in Washington,” Inslee wrote. “And, as we did during COVID, we will care for your residents in a manner consistent with their health care needs as determined by trained medical professionals, not politicians. But, make no mistake, Governor Little, the laws of another state that seek to punish anyone in Washington for lawful actions taken in Washington will not stand. We will protect our providers, and we will harbor and comfort your residents who seek health care services that are denied to them in Idaho.”

Whatever you can say about Inslee, he looks out for his people.

Little, on the other hand, signed the bill into law. — M.T.