Scott reinstated to House committees

BOISE — Rep. Heather Scott was reinstated to her seats on the Commerce, Environment and State Affairs committees on Wednesday, Feb. 1 after apologizing for the comment she made back in December regarding her fellow female legislators.

Speaker of the House Scott Bedke’s decision on Jan. 12 to strip Scott of her committee seats made for a divisive opening week of the 2017 legislative session, during which the sophomore legislator railed against Bedke and the Republican establishment for unfairly singling her out and distracting citizens from the real issues plaguing the political landscape in Boise.

“We all have the right to speak,” Scott told Nate Shelman during a radio interview a few days after Bedke’s punitive action was made public.

“And when someone’s telling us we have to suppress our speech, we need to start looking at what the real issue is. This is not the real issue. This is the red herring.”

Over the course of the next couple weeks, an army of Scott’s constituents reached out to lawmakers at the capitol to express their grievances.

While many of them took to social media platforms, the Bonner County Republican Committee took a more formal approach, passing a resolution on Jan. 17 demanding that their representative’s commmittee assignments be restored.

The following day Scott issued a public apology statement, saying, “In retrospect, I should have chosen my words carefully. I apologize, to every member of the House, again, for not being more careful.”

Bedke, however, did not consider this an adequate apology and recommended that she speak personally with the women she offended.

“I think there’s a list of ladies that she needs to talk to, and then when she has, she and I should talk,” the speaker said.

While Scott’s initial reaction was to lambast Bedke yet again for making it a “personal issue”, she appears to have followed the speaker’s advice in the days since, as Bedke released this statement on Feb. 1 after Scott’s reassignments were formally read in session:

“Rep. Heather Scott has acknowledged that what she said and did, on numerous occasions, was wrong. She seems to have taken ownership and responsibility for her offensive comments. She has made efforts to apologize to those who were personally harmed or offended by her statements and actions. It’s unfortunate that it took her this long to do so, but that is all I required her to do. I expect her future actions to confirm her sincerity. I hope she has learned something from this that will make her a better legislator.”

Scott, who can’t seem to let sleeping dogs lie, continued her outspoken rebuke of Bedke in a newsletter that she sent out to her constituents shorty after being reinstated.

In that newsletter, she refers to Bedke’s actions as “unprofessional” and his statement to the media as “disingenuous”.

She also maintains her position that Bedke’s “overreaching authority” was simply a diversionary tactic by GOP members opposed to the freedom agenda touted by her and other self-dubbed “liberty legislators”.

“I believe this situation may have been used as a political distraction from bigger political issues, but time will tell,” she asserts in the letter.

“That said, I will continue to work hard to represent the people of District 1.”