Proposed Idaho initiative would raise cigarette tax, lower college tuition

BOISE - A group launched by former college friends is pitching a 2016 ballot initiative to raise Idaho’s cigarette tax by $1.50 a pack, and use the money to lower tuition at the state’s public colleges and universities. Bill Moran, a political consultant and 2014 Georgetown University law school graduate who recently moved to Idaho from Arizona, said, “We just started talking about this three to four weeks ago, and we already have about 114 people who have signed up to volunteer to be petition gatherers. That’s before we even did much of a blitz on the campuses.” It’s a tall order to qualify an initiative for the ballot in Idaho – it requires more than 47,000 signatures, including at least 6 percent of voters in each of 18 legislative districts. The 18-districts requirement passed in 2013; no initiatives have qualified for the ballot since. But Moran says, “What’s unique about this is the college campuses are strategically located, in a sense, so that you could take up those 18 out of 35 districts.” He said his group, called StopTuitionHikes.com, is seeing “tons of interest.” He’s done his homework, citing big jumps in Idaho college tuition since 2000, and the state’s high rates of student debt. The Institute for College Access and Success reported in 2013 that 68 percent of Idaho college students graduate with debt, with the debt load averaging $26,622. “So this is a tremendous issue,” Moran said. “Idaho ranks 4th in college completion. … As we walk around campuses, we keep hearing students have to drop out because they can’t get any more financial aid. .. Idaho also has one of the lowest national go-on rates. … It’s because the cost is getting out of hand, it’s creating too much of a barrier.” According to the state Board of Education, Idaho’s public college tuition and fees rose 80 percent from 2004 to 2013. Meanwhile, the share of the state budget going to colleges and universities has dropped from 13.5 percent in 1994 to 8.6 percent in 2015. Tuition and fees covered 7.2 percent of the cost of an Idaho public college education in 1980; it’s 47 percent today. However, Idaho ranks 13th among 15 western states for its resident university tuition, and is at 81 percent of the average; Washington is No. 1 in that group, at 155 percent of the average. Gary Moncrief, emeritus professor of political science at Boise State University and an expert on initiatives, said, “My position on initiatives is it’s an exercise in grass-roots democracy and more power to ‘em if they can do it. But it’s never easy in Idaho.” He noted that Idaho’s had few initiatives actually make the ballot over the years. And even among initiatives that qualify for the ballot, fewer than half pass nationwide, he said. Idaho hasn’t had an initiative on the ballot since 2006, when two measures failed – a proposal to add a penny to Idaho’s then-5 percent sales tax to increase funding for public schools, which narrowly failed just after lawmakers approved a separate 1-cent sales tax increase aimed at property tax relief; and another to require state and local governments to pay property owners when regulations decreased their property value or development options; that one failed with 76 percent opposed. The last statewide ballot measure in Idaho was Propositions 1, 2 and 3 in 2012, which were referenda, rather than initiatives. They overturned controversial school reform laws championed by then-state schools Superintendent Tom Luna, and all three passed by large margins. “It was well funded, it was extremely well organized,” Moncrief said. “I don’t think there’s a comparison to that. It doesn’t mean this person doesn’t have a shot at doing it, I suppose. … But doing it entirely with volunteers and trying to make the link between that tax and higher education is clearly a different kind of thing than what we were talking about in 2012.” In 2013, stung by the successful referenda, Idaho lawmakers passed and Gov. Butch Otter signed a law to make it harder for initiatives to make the ballot, adding the 18 legislative districts requirement. It wasn’t the first time lawmakers cracked down on citizen lawmaking. In 1997, the Legislature passed a law to require 6 percent of registered voters’ signatures in half of Idaho’s 44 counties to qualify an initiative for the ballot; that law was overturned by a federal court in 2001 as a violation of the one-person, one-vote rule. Though a 1998 term limits initiative had qualified for the ballot under the previous rules, no more initiatives qualified until the law was overturned in 2001. Between then and now, Idaho’s had just four initiatives on the ballot, two of which passed. The two successful measures were in 2002, when 63 percent of Idaho voters backed tribal reservation gambling, and 50.2 percent approved a measure to repeal term limits. There also have been multiple efforts to raise Idaho’s cigarette tax over the years; the state turned to the cigarette to fund its successful multimillion-dollar state Capitol renovation. But Idaho’s cigarette tax has remained at 57 cents a pack. The Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids reports that the average state cigarette tax is $1.60 per pack; Idaho’s ranks 43rd, and is the lowest among surrounding states, with Washington at $3.025 per pack; Utah at $1.70; and Oregon at $1.31. In 2011, an array of health groups backed bipartisan legislation to raise Idaho’s cigarette tax by $1.25 a pack with the proceeds to go to health care costs related to smoking; they cited a statewide poll showing overwhelming citizen support for up to a $1.50 per pack increase. But the bill failed, with a House committee refusing to hear it both that year and the year after. Backers estimated it’d cut Idaho’s youth smoking rate by 20 percent, while also funding health care. Moran, who has pushed for a similar initiative in Arizona and also has worked on various candidates’ campaigns, said he’s been reaching out to groups ranging from the Young Democrats and College Republicans to other groups from both sides of the aisle. “The reception’s been really positive,” he said. “There’s just not the same dynamic in a ballot initiative as there is with legislation. In legislation you get a lot of pushback internally, you have to deal with a lot of lobbyists. It’s something that should happen and should have already happened, but we’re taking it to the people.” Rod Gramer, president of Idaho Business for Education, said he met with Moran, but didn’t commit. “We did have a discussion about it,” he said. “We might take a position on it if it makes it on the ballot, but that’s a long ways down the road. … We’re not supporting or opposing the initiative at this point.”