Debt amendment dies in House
BOISE – A state House vote fell short Tuesday of the margin needed to put a state constitutional amendment on the ballot. The amendment would have made it easier for cities, counties and publicly owned hospitals to sign long-term leases or sell bonds, as long as the debt isn’t repaid with taxpayer money.
The 36-33 vote was short of the two-thirds supermajority needed for passage. The Senate passed the measure unanimously earlier this month.
The issue isn’t dead, however. After the House vote, the Senate passed a separate bill limited to hospitals to help address a stalled $200 million expansion of the Portneuf Medical Center in Pocatello. It’s now in the House.
Lawmakers who opposed the debt measure, prompted by a 2006 Idaho Supreme Court ruling that crimped Boise’s effort to expand an airport parking garage, argued that the anti-debt fundamentals that guided framers of the Idaho Constitution in 1889 remain valid today.
Those lawmakers said voters, not government officials or even their elected representatives, should be the ones to approve any debt of longer than a year to prevent government from undertaking risky ventures.
“I think it’s really important for us to remember who we are here to represent,” said Rep. Raul Labrador, R-Eagle. “Are we here to represent the bureaucracies, or are we here to represent the people of Idaho?”
The proposed constitutional amendment would have replaced the existing two-thirds voter approval requirement for cities to go into debt with a simple majority vote, as long as the debt on the new structures was repaid with revenue generated by the project.
Under the plan, publicly owned hospitals also would have been able to pay for capital needs without voter authorization, as long as tax dollars weren’t used to pay the debt. And cities and counties would have been cleared to enter long-term contracts for everyday goods, services and leases, and even power purchase agreements, as long as the contracts were for less than five years and paid for with user fees, or if the local governments could cancel the contracts on a year-to-year basis.
Two years ago, the state Supreme Court upheld a lawsuit by community activist David Frazier that upended Boise’s push to expand its airport’s parking garage without first getting the two-thirds voter support required in the constitution before entering into long-term debt.
The justices ruled the expansion lacked the urgency required by the constitution to waive voter-approval requirements.
Before the House vote, Frazier on Tuesday told the House State Affairs Committee that local government officials were trying to circumvent a vote to erect structures that compete with private enterprise and undermine the county property tax rolls.
“The highest court in the state of Idaho has told them they have to go to the voters,” Frazier said. “And they don’t like it. The cities and counties must keep their mitts out of our pockets – unless we allow them to stick them in there.”
Since the 2006 ruling, local governments have chafed under new hurdles to expanding local hospitals, buying snowplows and even purchasing office equipment. For instance, in addition to killing the Boise airport garage expansion, the ruling forced Ketchum to hold an election last November to approve a $1.5 million bond to buy snow-removal equipment, a purchase it normally would have done over time.
“Cities should be able to buy a police car or a sheriff’s car or a new fire truck without having to go to the voters,” said House Minority Leader Wendy Jaquet, D-Ketchum.
Proponents of the now-failed amendment also argued the state’s 119-year-old constitution didn’t foresee the need of governments in the 21st century to use modern financing tools to keep their day-to-day affairs running. The document was good, and the amendment would modernize it, said Rep. James Ruchti.
“They want to return our local governments to the 19th century,” Ruchti, D-Pocatello, said of opponents. “Financing tools are more sophisticated than they were in 1889, when our constitution was drafted.”