It must be nice to be an Idaho legislator. You get to flee all those pesky constituents for the spring and hole up in a cushy office in Boise, complete with heating and the governor’s jelly beans to munch on. And this year, you have so much free time that you can devote it all to piddling taxpayer money away.
That’s what the Idaho Senate did this week by considering and passing — by a vote of 20-15 — a bill making English the official language of the state.

That’s right: In a state with a reputation for having one giant, English-speaking, Caucasian population, where all official state business is already conducted in English, we need a bill cementing a situation unlikely to change anytime soon.
But wait, says the bill’s sponsor. Idahoans speak 82 different languages. Oh, and we don’t want to turn out like California, that dreaded state to the south, which printed 137 different election ballots because of its diversity.

It’s refreshing to know that Idaho is diverse enough to count 82 languages among its residents, but the overwhelming majority is still white and English-speaking — look at the 2000 census, which reported only 4 percent of Idahoans spoke English less than “very well,” and barely 9 percent spoke something other than English at home. That’s including all other languages, not just Spanish, Chinese or Bosnian. Are we really in that much danger of printing ballots in both English and Swahili?
The inherent problem with this kind of bill is who benefits. In a state like ours, this bill will only provide justification for the quiet cultural racism that’s always here, whether we acknowledge it or not. These aren’t just the people who see anyone who speaks a different tongue as a danger to Idaho society, who want to shoot illegal immigrants as they cross the border because they’re “not people.” These are everyday folk like you and me who may avert our eyes from someone with a different skin color and who unconsciously band together with others of the same race. As much as I hate to quote Broadway lyrics, everyone’s a little bit racist, and this bill encourages that.

Our esteemed senators could focus on pushing through a scholarship appropriation recommended by Gov. “Butch” Otter, deciding what to do about Idaho prison overpopulation or working on any number of other important problems. Or, it could put the time toward finishing the current session early to allow renovation of the Idaho Capitol to begin, something Senate President Pro Tem Bob Geddes instructed senators to remember in an October e-mail (cautioning them to avoid becoming “horse’s asses”).
But instead, the House will now pay lip service to the Senate’s redundant bill, serving absolutely no one, and then go back to their own long afternoon naps. Idahoans should consider billing their legislators for wasting their time and ours and in the process becoming the “horse’s asses” Geddes warned they might be.

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