When asked about his thoughts on President Obama following a federal mandate for the use of bathrooms by transgender individuals in schools, Governor “Butch” Otter was only half-joking in his response.
“Pack it up. Get the hell out of Idaho,” Gov. Otter exclaimed.
The top-down order requires public schools to permit transgender students to use bathrooms for whatever gender they identify with or face the loss of federal funding.
“It almost insults every person who believes in the responsibilities of the states for them to suggest that they [feds] have the authority, let alone the responsibility, for that sort of thing," Otter said.
“In other words, those are fighting words,” First Lady Lori Otter added.
The Otter family went on to clarify their problem is not so much with transgender bathroom use but the manner that the mandate was given to the states.
"For somebody to suggest that Butch and Lori Otter are against where people go to the bathroom is pretty ludicrous. It's really about what is the role that we've been cast, that we've been elected on a night such as tonight on a ballot by Idaho three times to defend the Constitution," Lori Otter explained.
Although it’s unclear at this time whether Gov. Otter will ignore the mandate with millions of Title IX dollars on the line, he alluded to the fact that legal action against the mandate is not off the table.
“Those are issues that should be handled at the state level, at the local level, not the federal level. I’m prepared to defend that," Otter concluded.
