GOP-controlled Idaho House kills memorial calling on Congress to impeach President Biden

U.S. President Joe Biden delivers remarks on canceling student debt at Culver City Julian Dixon Library on Feb. 21, 2024, in Culver City, California. The Biden administration announced it will forgive $1.2 billion in student debt for more than 150,000 borrowers who are enrolled in the Saving on a Valuable Education, or SAVE, repayment plan. (Mario Tama/Getty Images)

A nonbinding piece of legislation calling on Congress to impeach President Joe Biden over U.S. border security issues failed on Monday in the Republican-controlled Idaho House of Representatives. 

Language in House Joint Memorial 11 that referred to “cheap immigrant labor” appeared to doom the measure, even for an Idaho Legislature that rarely passes on an opportunity to thumb its nose at Biden or the federal government. 

In the Idaho Legislature, joint memorials don’t carry the effect of law. Instead, they are a nonbinding request usually addressed to the president or Congress that include a request for action from the official or body that is addressed, according to the Idaho Legislative Services Office’s legislation drafting manual. 

House Joint Memorial 11 called on Congress to “take action with all deliberate speed to adopt and implement actions against the Biden administration’s lawlessness and treason …” The memorial also states, “The United States House of Representatives should impeach President Biden for the high crime of willfully failing to enforce existing immigration law and sanctioning an invasion of the United States by millions of military-age men.”

Democrats and Republicans take issue with memorial’s language on labor

House Joint Memorial 11 is the second effort by Rep. Dale Hawkins, R-Fernwood, and Sen. Glenneda Zuiderveld, R-Twin Falls, asking Congress to impeach Biden. The first effort, House Joint Memorial 8, attracted opposition within Idaho’s agriculture and dairy industry for including the phrase “the thirst for cheap immigrant labor in Idaho has created a conduit for human trafficking and drugs like fentanyl and other related drugs that kill 190 souls in America per day.” 

Hawkins and Zuiderveld removed the two words “thirst for” and the specific reference to Idaho, but left the remaining phrase in the newer measure, House Joint Memorial 11.  

On Monday, Democrats and Republicans alike expressed opposition to House Joint Memorial 11.

“As I reflect on the language in this resolution I am seeing the kinds of inflammatory rhetoric, politicking, the impugning motives that we don’t allow in our floor debate generally, and I think that we’ve taken this turn makes this a sad day,” House Assistant Minority Leader Lauren Necochea, D-Boise, said in her debate against the bill. “And I think it’s part of this rhetoric, calling this an ‘invasion,’ is leading us to stop recognizing the humanity of the people impacted on the border.”

Rep. Stephanie Jo Mickelsen, R-Idaho Falls, also took issue with some of the language in the memorial.

“On the bottom of page 1, where it talks about the ‘cheap immigrant labor,’ I take offense to that as an ag employer that uses an immigration opportunity with the H2A (temporary agricultural worker) program,” Mickelsen said in her debate. 

Mickelsen said as part of the program, she pays temporary ag workers the H2A wage of $16.54 an hour, plus travel, visa fees, meals, transportation and housing for the employees.

“It’s very offensive to employers in this state that use legal immigration vehicles to bring in labor to say that they are ‘cheap,’ because they are not,” she said. 

Ultimately, House Joint Memorial 11 failed on a 34-34 tie vote, killing it for the year. Memorials require a simple majority vote in order to pass.    

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