Idaho was witness to a sorry political stunt this week. Gov. Brad Little signed an executive order designed to underline the fact that he is opposed to transgender kids participating in sports.
The order doesn’t do much of anything substantive. This is all about politics.
Little is likely to have to compete in the closed GOP primary soon against a challenge, almost certainly from his right, and Republicans almost unanimously favor banning transgender athletes from playing on teams that match their gender. Now, Little can’t do much of anything to give those voters what they want — on one hand, an Idaho law banning transgender athletes from participating in sports and subjecting female athletes to invasive biological sex exams has been held up by the courts, and on the other, so has an attempt by the Biden Administration to interpret Title IX rules to ban discrimination on the basis of gender identity.
What he can do is issue an effectless executive order, as he did Wednesday, officially directing schools to follow the law. What’s next, an executive order declaring that police should arrest people who commit drug trafficking? An executive order saying firefighters should put out fires?