Sure, Idaho, Child Support Bill Will Lead To Sharia Law. What? No, You're Not Crazy At All

Left: State Sen. Sheryl Nuxoll (R-Cottonwood) Right: The International Radical Islamic Juggernaut, Everywhere But Idaho

The Idaho Legislature's 2015 session came to an exciting end Friday with a small group of nutjob Republicans killing off a bill to enforce child support judgments so Idaho wouldn't have to fear living under the yoke of radical Islamic law. The decision to kill the bill endangers the state's access to about $46 million in federal funding and to programs that help with processing child support payments and tracking down delinquent parents. But isn't that a small price to pay to remain free of the taint of Sharia?

The Senate version of the bill passed with no difficulty, but when it got to the House, state Sen. Sheryl Nuxoll -- who had voted for it in the Senate -- testified to the Judiciary Committee that she regretted that vote and urged the House to strangle the bill before it forced everyone in Idaho to pray toward Mecca five times a day. You see, Nuxoll had done some research, possibly on the internet, and believed that provisions in the bill that brought Idaho law into line with federal law were actually a super-secret backdoor that would Tread On Us by subverting Idaho's precious, precious sovereignty, since that language

incorporated provisions of an international agreement regarding cross-border recovery of child-support payments, the Hague Convention on International Recovery of Child Support and Family Maintenance.

And while none of the 80 countries that have signed on to the treaty actually operates under Sharia law, Nuxoll warned that some of them informally recognize the decisions of Sharia courts, and so Idaho would in effect be forced to also enforce freaky alien Sharia child-support judgments, maybe!

And then before you know it we'd have terrorist training camps all over the state (or at least ones that weren't being run by white supremacists).

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Nuxoll, you may recall, is the nice lady who staunchly refused to apologize for calling Hinduism a "false religion with false gods" after walking out on an invocation given by a Hindu cleric. She's very big on protecting what she thinks are Idaho's rights under the Constitution, which include theright to ignore the EPA and any other federal laws it dislikes, like Obamacare, which is just like the Holocaust. 

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This latest outbreak of Idaho Paranoid Stupid, it turns out, also has a connection to another recent episode of the illness:  Nuxoll and three other legislators went to meet state attorneys and the Idaho Department of Health and Welfare to express their worries about Foreign Sharia creeping into Idaho's child support system shortly after Rep. Vito Barbieri hosted a briefing for a dozen Republicans called "The True Face of Islam in Idaho,” which inspired one county GOP newsletter to warn that Muslims were targeting Idaho for a takeover. Obviously, we have us a Sharia Crisis right here in the Gem State, and some legislators are doing all they can to put a stop to it, even if it means dismantling the state's generally efficient and effective child-support system.

Never mind that the Attorney General's office and Health and Welfare reassured the nervous lawmakers that, no, Idaho would not be enforcing Sharia law. The Judiciary committee killed the bill by a 9-8 vote, and a few hours later the Legislature adjourned. This creates a bit of a problem, what with the potential collapse of child support processing and enforcement, because other programs would be affected, too:

Federal officials told the state Health and Welfare Department on Monday that Idaho’s child support bureau will lose $16 million in funding within 60 days without reversal. That is two-thirds of the child support division’s budget, program director Kandace Yearsley said.

Without a child support program in place, the state also stands to lose $30 million in temporary assistance to needy families, which covers such programs as Head Start as well as child care assistance for low income families. The Health and Welfare Department is looking at contingencies for the 160 workers in the affected division, which last year handled 155,000 child support cases

Yay, watch those dominoes go! Then again, it's only poor people and irresponsible parents whose lack of Family Values led them to get divorced or have children out of wedlock, so maybe it's no big deal if it ensures that no hint of Sharia will touch Idaho.

It's looking increasingly likely that Gov. C.L. "Butch" Otter will have to roll his eyes at certain members of his own party and call a special session of the Lege so they can pass the bill all over again. House Judiciary chair Rich Wills appears to have been blindsided by the bill's sudden rejection, saying

I didn’t have the slightest idea that this wouldn’t go through. It’s turned into a nightmare. I think we’re going to pay a terrible price if we don’t get it taken care of.

Presumably a special session will give the state's Defenders of Western Civilization a chance to bloviate about their concerns and to throw in a subparagraph saying "No Sharia or Wire Hangers, Ever," and then the Legislature can adjourn before it does any more harm. And if it doesn't fix the law, maybe we can look forward to former Illinois congressman Joe Walsh moving here.

[ The Guardian / Idaho Statesman / Spokane Spokesman-Review ]