An ‘unbelievable hammer’: Could Idaho take money from cities that break the law?

BOISE (Idaho Statesman) — After Gov. Brad Little signed a 2025 law banning government entities, including cities, from flying non-“official” flags on their property, the city of Boise kept its LGBTQ+ Pride flag flying outside City Hall.

The law didn’t include a plan for punishing or fining those who didn’t follow it — which Boise Mayor Lauren McLean said meant that flying the flag was “not a crime.” In a high-profile back-and-forth that followed, Attorney General Raul Labrador urged McLean to take down the flag, though he acknowledged that the state couldn’t force her to do so.

But he warned her that lawmakers were already weighing adding an enforcement provision to the law during the 2026 legislative session — and he threatened to withhold state funding for Boise unless the city complied with the law.

A bill introduced Friday seems poised to take this approach for any local government or government agency that does not follow state law.

House Speaker Mike Moyle, R-Star, proposed a plan to allow the attorney general to sue any government entity or official not following the law, even if the law in question does not have its own provision for enforcement. It also allows Idaho to withhold state funds from these entities after filing such a lawsuit.

“It is expected that the prospect of the attorney general taking a public official, public employee, or state or local governmental entity to court to force compliance with the law” — and the possibility of thousands of dollars in fines or withheld state funding — will be “sufficient to recall such individuals and entities to their duty to comply with the law,” according to the bill’s statement of purpose.

House Minority Leader Ilana Rubel, D-Boise, told the Idaho Statesman after the hearing that she believed the bill was targeting Boise and its decision to keep flying the Pride flag. She said the bill was an “unbelievable hammer” against local governments, who could lose state funding even before lawsuits’ outcomes were decided and had no mechanism — under the provisions of the bill — to recover their attorneys’ fees even if they won their case.

“That feels deeply lopsided and unfair to me,” she told fellow members of the House Ways and Means Committee.

House Majority Leader Jason Monks, one of the bill’s sponsors, told the Statesman that Boise was “not necessarily” the focus of the proposal. Monks, a Meridian Republican, said state agencies like the Idaho Tax Commission had also flouted state law relating to audits in recent years. He said he couldn’t remember which years this issue had come up in the Legislature.

“We’ve got a lot of laws, and we really hope that agencies would follow those laws,” he told the Statesman by phone. “That’s their job.”

Moyle was adamant that the bill targets “anybody who’s breaking the law,” though he declined to provide examples.

“It’s easier just to tell everybody, ‘If you’re doing something you know you’re not supposed to right now, please stop,’” he said. “‘If you don’t want to stop, then let’s let a judge decide what you’re going to lose.’”

Maria Ortega, a spokesperson for the city of Boise, told the Statesman by email that it was too early in the legislative process for the city to weigh in on the bill, but that Boise is “definitely monitoring” it.

Monks noted that Rep. Ted Hill, R-Eagle, had separately taken up the mantle of enforcing the 2025 flag law. Boise circumvented the law by making the Pride flag one of its official city flags. Hill’s proposal would ban cities from deeming a flag official if it made that designation after 2023. His bill has been sent to the House’s amending order for changes.

Lawmakers voted Friday to introduce Moyle’s proposal, which is set to receive a committee hearing. Moyle said he did not yet know which committee would hold that hearing.