BOISE, Idaho — Boise Mayor Lauren McLean has doubled down on the city’s decision to keep an LGBTQ+ Pride flag flying outside City Hall, despite a new state law banning the display of unofficial flags on government property, and threatened to take legal action against the new law in a letter to the state’s attorney general.

McLean on Thursday posted a response to Attorney General Raul Labrador’s letter that urged her to take down the flag. On X, formerly known as Twitter, the mayor accused the state of “acting in bad faith” if it imposes civil or criminal penalties on the city for continuing to fly the flag.

“The constitutional rights of our residents are not subject to — cannot be subject to — the political whims of legislative disapproval,” McLean wrote in her letter, “and we will not step back from them simply because the principles our community cherishes make some in state government uncomfortable.”

Labrador acknowledged in his letter that the law, which allows for the display of “official” flags such as U.S., state, city and military flags, did not contain any provisions for enforcement. In a separate public statement and letter to McLean, Ada County Sheriff Matt Clifford admonished lawmakers for passing a bill without “clear direction” for enforcement and said his staff was struggling to handle the volume of residents’ complaints about the flag.

In his April 15 letter, Labrador told McLean that lawmakers were already weighing adding an enforcement provision to the law during next year’s legislative session — and threatened to withhold state funding for Boise unless the city complied with the law.

McLean told the Idaho Statesman days after receiving Labrador’s letter that the law’s lack of an enforcement provision meant that flying the Pride flag “is not a crime.”

The city believes the law is “legally defective and unenforceable as written” and plans to challenge it “on a variety of valid legal bases,” McLean wrote in her Thursday letter. She added that the city would “take appropriate legal and political steps to stand up for members of our community.”

Maria Weeg, a spokesperson for the city, declined to say what those might be, or whether the city was planning to sue the state.

Idaho AG spokesman: McLean does ‘not understand’ law

Damon Sidur, a spokesperson for Labrador, told the Statesman on Thursday that “it appears the mayor and her legal team do not understand the requirements of state law.” He did not directly answer a question about whether Labrador plans to sue the city of Boise, or face a lawsuit from the city, but said “we will continue to review every legal option under Idaho law.”

McLean accused the Legislature of deliberately targeting Boise with the new law. In lawmakers’ debates over the bill, supporters shared pictures of the Pride flag outside Boise City Hall as an example of the flags they hoped the law would bring down.

Given the “true purpose” of the law, the city anticipates that it will be enforced “in an improper, selective manner,” McLean wrote.

“The responsibility to my community obligates me to stand firm in my commitment to a safe and welcoming city where everyone means just that — everyone,” she wrote.

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