State lawmaker embarrasses with juvenile Facebook post

The job of governing a state of 10 million people with a 60 billion dollar annual budget is big and serious business that requires elected leaders to read, think, learn, listen and work with people of widely differing views.

Unfortunately, this basic premise of elementary school civics seems to have escaped Republican state Representative Keith Kidwell.

Kidwell — a veteran lawmaker who chairs three committees and ought to know how to behave like a grownup– nonetheless posted an image to his Facebook page this week of Gov. Josh Stein’s proposed state budget in a trashcan, along with the caption “appropriately filed.”

It was a juvenile and distinctly unhelpful stunt. First, Stein’s budget is a good proposal. Republicans will vote for most of it. Moreover, the governor has worked hard to build bridges during his first months in office and won praise from other GOP leaders for doing so.

The bottom line: even if Kidwell disagrees with some of the Governor’s budget, his disrespectful display is not the act of a serious lawmaker interested in governing. His constituents should be appalled.