Idaho

Idaho

Opponents of Michael Law, the Kuna School Board trustee who opposed a two year, $6.38 million levy in March, say they will file a petition for his recall on Tuesday, which is election Day.

If the signatures are verified, a recall election could be held on Aug. 26.

Terri Reno, a Kuna grandmother with two grandchildren in district schools and five more who will likely be attending, said she waited for election day because she did not want the recall to overshadow the district’s second attempt at passing the levy Tuesday.

She also said she wanted the petition submitted before the outcome of Tuesday’s vote is tabulated, so voters wouldn’t think the levy outcome made a difference in their decision to seek the recall.

The Idaho Legislature altered ballot measure rules earlier this year, making a successful petition campaign more difficult to achieve. Starting July 1, when Senate Bill 1108 goes into effect, it will be harder for Idahoans to gather enough signatures to place initiatives and referendums on the ballot.

Governor C. L. “Butch” Otter signed a bill into law on April 2 thatwill require petitioners to gather six percent of registered voters’ signatures from a minimum of 18 districts. Currently, petitioners must collect six percent of registered voters’ signature statewide. SB 1108 originally required each signature sheet to be separated by legislative district, but the statehouse quickly pushed through Senate Bill 1191 last month to remove that stipulation.

A good salesman can sell anything to anyone, even if what they’re selling would end up being detrimental in the long run. This is exactly what the Idaho Farm Bureau Federation has accomplished in the Gem State, according to Lewiston Tribune reporter William L. Spence.

The sale was completed when Governor Butch Otter’s signed Senate Bill 1108 into law on none-other-than April Fools Day.


By touting fears of urban-liberal agendas clogging citizen-initiated ballot measures, the Farm Bureau had been successful in selling the legislature a signature distribution requirement that will make Idaho’s petition process even more difficult than it already is.  In the last 77 years, only 35 initiatives have been put to a vote.

Former state senator Gary Schroeder of Moscow may have been the first to share with me the old saying about laws and sausages.

I can’t quote it exactly, but it’s something about “two things you never want to watch being made are laws and sausages” - the point being that the process of crafting bills can sometimes be messy and unappetizing.

I’ve heard other legislators make similar remarks over the years, but I’m not sure it captures the true flavor of this place. Rather than a sausage factory, the Statehouse is more like a dealer’s showroom: It’s less a place where things are made than a place where things are sold.

Read more at the Idaho Statesman

Idaho legislators, in a bid to backpedal from the thorny problems caused by passage of Senate Bill 1108, with its negative impact on the initiative and referendum petition process, have fast-tracked a new bill, Senate Bill 1191, to correct some of the vague and likely unconstitutional provisions legislators just enacted via passage of SB 1108. 

SB 1191 removes the requirement that each petition form contain only signatures from a single legislative district, opting to restore the past system whereby signatures are organized on separate sheets by county. This would eliminate extraneous paperwork and potential for errors that could lead to signatures being thrown out.

The Senate has voted 33-1 in favor of SB 1191, a “trailer” bill to SB 1108, the bill that makes it tougher to qualify initiatives or referendum measures for the Idaho ballot. Sen. Curt McKenzie, R-Nampa, said the idea behind the trailer bill is to ease the signature-gathering process in counties like his and Ada County, where there are multiple legislative districts. SB 1108 requires signatures from 6 percent of registered voters in 18 of Idaho’s 35 legislative districts for a measure to qualify for the ballot, and it requires signature-gatherers to have a separate petition for each district, and signers to face penalties if they signed the petition for the wrong legislative district.

After passing the Senate with bipartisan opposition and only Republican support, Senate Bill 1108 passed the House State Affairs Committee in similar fashion and could soon hit the House floor.

In hearings, testimony has been bipartisan and overwhelmingly against Idaho’s SB 1108, a bill that makes qualifying an initiative or referendum much more difficult.  In addition to an already very onerous statewide signature requirement, SB 1108 would add a severe new condition that petitions also contain 6% of registered voters in at least 18 legislative districts. Adding 18 new petition drives to qualify a ballot measure would dramatically drive up costs.

Testimony so far this morning on SB 1108, the Senate-passed bill to make it tougher to qualify an initiative or referendum measure for the Idaho ballot, has been almost all against the bill. Anne Nesse of Coeur d’Alene brought a petition against the bill that she said has 580 signatures collected online from all over the state, both from rural and urban areas, and is getting 100 more signatures a day. “I have met personally with Kootenai County Republicans, who were appalled, frankly,” she said. “They were practically hugging me when I left, and I’m a Democrat.” She told the committee, “I would guess that you should check with your constituency on this.”

Testimony so far this morning on SB 1108, the Senate-passed bill to make it tougher to qualify an initiative or referendum measure for the Idaho ballot, has been almost all against the bill. Anne Nesse of Coeur d’Alene brought a petition against the bill that she said has 580 signatures collected online from all over the state, both from rural and urban areas, and is getting 100 more signatures a day. “I have met personally with Kootenai County Republicans, who were appalled, frankly,” she said. “They were practically hugging me when I left, and I’m a Democrat.” She told the committee, “I would guess that you should check with your constituency on this.”

Citizens in Charge Foundation has released a report on Initiative and Referendum in the State of Idaho, entitled, “Image Idaho: The Citizen Check.” The paper details the travails Idaho citizens face when seeking to take their constitutional part in the governing of the Gem State. Specifically, the report addresses Senate Bill 1108, which would impose a severe signature distribution requirement and complicate efforts to circulate petitions. The analysis also includes detailed appendices comparing Idaho’s I&R requirements with those in other states.

Download the report Here

 

The Idaho Senate voted today to make it tougher for initiatives or referenda to qualify for the state’s ballot, while saying repeatedly that the move had nothing to do with the successful repeal of “Students Come First” legislation in November.

Under SB 1108, measures wouldn’t qualify unless they had signatures from 6 percent of the voters in each of 18 of Idaho’s 35 legislative districts, rather than just 6 percent statewide, as current law requires. It passed the Idaho Senate on a 25-10 vote; the bill now moves to the House.

“This allows rural Idaho to participate in this process,” said Sen. Jeff Siddoway, R-Terreton.

In a party-line vote this morning [ Wednesday, 6 March], the Republican majority of the State Senate Affairs Committee approved a bill that would alter the way Idaho initiatives are put on general election ballots.

Traditionally, petitions have required a percentage of the state’s registered voters, but Senate Bill 1108 would parse that process out by requiring 6 percent of voters from at least 18 legislative districts across the state.

For those who are wondering, the Senate State Affairs Committee didn’t vote this morning on SB 1108, the bill from the Idaho Farm Bureau to make it tougher to qualify initiatives or referendum measures for the Idaho ballot, in an attempt to increase the voice of rural residents in the process. For a second time the committee took testimony on the controversial bill, which would require signatures from 6 percent of voters in 18 of the state’s 35 legislative districts, instead of just 6 percent statewide, to make the ballot. But it ran out of time. Now, the vote has been pushed back

Read More: Here

Today’s legislative hearing on Senate Bill 1108 in Idaho was begun and then postponed until Monday after running out of time due to so many individuals and groups in attendance to testify against the legislation.

SB 1108 would dramatically increase the difficulty of qualifying an initiative or referendum for the statewide ballot via petition. Currently, citizens must gather signatures from six percent of registered voters statewide to qualify a ballot measure. Under this requirement, only eight citizen-initiated measures have made the ballot in the last 15 years – most notably the three referendums on last November’s ballot, whereby voters rejected three laws passed by legislators.

According to state law, to get a referendum on the ballot, 6% of the state’s registered voters are required to sign a petition.

That’s not hard enough, says one lawmaker.

“Currently, you could easily gather all those signatures from a single location,” says Senator Curt McKenzie (R – Nampa). “Ya know, if an entity came in, paid people to gather signatures, you could get it from one spot in the state.”

McKenzie’s Senate Bill 1108 forces referendums to reach signature quotas in areas all around the state, not just one. But, Democrats say the bill is aimed at certain voters.

Read more Here