Scott Herndon is an American politician serving as a Republican member of the Idaho Senate from the 1st district. Born in Richmond, Virginia, U.S., he is a graduate of Missouri Military Academy and Arizona State University. He has had a 25-year career in finance and computer programming and is a self-taught homebuilder, acquiring the skills by building his own home in 2005.
Herndon assumed office on December 1, 2022, after defeating incumbent Jim Woodward in the Republican primary and independent candidate Steve Johnson in the November Senate election. His current term ends on December 1, 2024. He has been serving for the past 18 years near Sandpoint and enjoys the outdoors, boating on Lake Pend Oreille, and building a new workshop on his property.
He is a born again Christian and has served five years as a Bonner County jail chaplain. He is also the current chairman of the Bonner County Republican Central Committee. In January 2023, he introduced legislation to eliminate marriage licenses and instead directed officiants to issue marriage certificates following a ceremony between “two qualified people, a man, and a woman”. This bill appears to codify that “there would only be marriage recognized between a man and a woman” in Idaho, which would violate Obergefell v. Hodges, the U.S. Supreme Court case guaranteeing same-sex marriage in the United States.
Herndon advocates for “restraining encroachments on individual liberty from all levels of civil government”. He opposes abortion and is a founding member of the Idaho Freedom Caucus. In his first session in 2023, he carried 12 pieces of legislation, and 8 of his bills received either unanimous, bi-partisan support or unanimous Republican support and were signed into law.
