Don’t Let Legislators Silence The People

The arrogance of the Idaho Legislature toward the initiative process increases with each additional Republican.

Now, with Republicans holding a supermajority stranglehold in both houses, citizen’s initiatives are under full-scale assault from lobbyists, industry and politicians who don’t trust the average Idahoan.

The Republicans want to make the process harder by requiring a certain amount of signatures from at least half of Idaho’s 44 counties, by permitting court challenges before an initiative makes the ballot, and by limiting the time to collect signatures to one year.

So far, state Rep. Jim Stoicheff, D-Sandpoint, is the only North Idaho solon to speak against the attack. Said Stoicheff: “This is a bad, bad bill. It’s another attempt to see that the people never get another initiative on the ballot.”

North Idaho legislators are facing a watershed issue here. They have to decide whom they trust more - their constituents or the southern Idahoans who run the Legislature. If they vote for these “reforms,” they should be held accountable in the 1998 election.

The initiative process is the only recourse Idahoans have when the Legislature ignores them. By initiative, Idahoans created the 50-50 homeowners exemption, an independent Fish & Game Commission, the state lottery, campaign finance disclosure and term limits - all of which were rejected by the Idaho Legislature.

Interestingly, a broad coalition of business interests, including the Idaho Association of Commerce and Industry, the Idaho Farm Bureau and chambers of commerce support these changes.

It’s not hard to see why.

These groups heavily influence the Legislature; they don’t want Joe Taxpayer thwarting their self-serving schemes by adopting populist laws.

Their well-paid lobbyists, many of whom are former legislators, prowl the Statehouse looking for votes. They wine, dine and flatter amateur legislators no end. All these hired guns have to do to begin the law-making process is to talk one legislator into introducing a bill.

Meanwhile, initiative supporters must run a gauntlet that begins by collecting 41,000 signatures and may not end until a court challenge is decided.

In 1996, only four of 11 proposed initiatives made the ballot; just one was successful. In 62 years, Idaho has voted on only 24 initiatives, approving 12. So, an average of one initiative survives every five years.

Where’s the problem?

, DataTimes The following fields overflowed: CREDIT = D.F. Oliveria/For the editorial board