GOP state senator faces investigation for screaming at students

Idaho state Sen. Dan Foreman has put himself back in the doghouse by attacking the people he’s supposed to represent — for the second time this term.

According to the Associated Press, fellow stat Sen. Maryanne Jordan (D-ID) filed an ethics complaint against her freshman GOP colleague, calling his behavior “beneath the Idaho Senate.”

The complaint stems from a video, posted on Monday, which shows Foreman shouting at students from the University of Idaho after they asked him to support reproductive health care.

“Abortion is murder,” Foreman yells in the video. “I stand against it. I am a Roman Catholic. I am a conservative Republican. I think what you guys do stinks.” As he leaves, he threatens to call state police on the students.

This is how he treated us, his constituents when we approached him in the hallway. This is what is representing #Idaho pic.twitter.com/pX19Y4YP06

— Arely Ayala (@ArelyAy12) February 19, 2018

Shortly after this exchange, Foreman allegedly tweeted that the students should “go talk about killing babies” with Sen. Jordan instead of him, even though the students never mentioned abortion, are his constituents, and had an appointment with him.

The Twitter account alleged to be Foreman’s, @SenDantheMan, was shortly deleted, denying any affiliation with Foreman just before it went dark. A new account, @IDSenDanTheMan, went online soon after this, tweeting that Foreman switched accounts “due to all the liberal outrage I was getting.”

Foreman, who only barely won election in a swing district in Northwest Idaho two years ago, has consistently expressed the attitude that he has no responsibility to constituents who did not vote for him or who disagree with him.

Last year, in a similar incident, Foreman was caught on a sheriff’s deputy body camera screaming at a constituent who questioned him at the Latah County Fair, calling him a “liberal nut-tard” and telling him, “Go straight to hell, you son of a bitch.”

Foreman’s actions in the state legislature are as extreme as his conduct outside it. Last year, he introduced a bill to declare women who have abortions guilty of first-degree murder.

It is unacceptable for a state lawmaker to treat his own community and his own voters in this way. His fellow senators must hold him accountable for the sake of proper governance.