Lawmakers Turn Backs On Campaign Reform Twin Falls Republican Says Change May Require Citizens Initiative

It’s going to take a citizens initiative to reform campaign finance laws in Idaho, a frustrated lawmaker said Tuesday.

“I don’t think this body is capable of making this kind of decision,” said Rep. Mark Stubbs, R-Twin Falls, after a House committee refused even to introduce five campaign finance reform bills. “It’s almost one of those things that’ll have to be a citizen initiative.”

Lawmakers are looking at the issue as insiders who are in the campaign business, he said.

“I think they need to step back and say, ‘If I wasn’t running a campaign - if I was just an ordinary citizen - what would I want to happen?”’

Stubbs was the sponsor of one of the proposals, which would have required reporting when a candidate transfers campaign funds to another campaign, and co-sponsored three others with Rep. David Callister, R-Boise.

By refusing to introduce the bills, the House State Affairs Committee stopped them before they could be assigned bill numbers and be printed and distributed for discussion.

“I thought all of them should have been printed,” Rep. Jim Stoicheff, D-Sandpoint, said afterward. He was one of just a few dissenters on the committee.

“They say there’s no problem in Idaho, that nobody wields any influence because of money,” Stoicheff said. “How naive can you get? If somebody puts a thousand dollars in your campaign, you’re going to listen to them.”

Stoicheff earlier introduced his own campaign finance bill, which would ban all contributions from anyone except individual citizens. Idaho now allows unlimited contributions from anyone, and is one of only eight states to allow direct corporate contributions to campaigns.

Gov. Phil Batt called for campaign finance reform in his State of the State address this year, and a package of bills containing his proposals for contribution limits has been introduced in the Senate.

Rep. Jeff Alltus, R-Coeur d’Alene, was among the opponents of the bills proposed Tuesday in the committee.

“I just don’t think they did anything,” he said. “I’d love to vote for some good campaign finance reform, I really would. I just don’t think they addressed the issue.”

The bills proposed Tuesday, in addition to the one addressing moving money from one campaign to another, would have:

Increased reporting requirements for last-minute and small contributions.

Limited candidates to no more than 10 percent of their money coming from a single contributor.

Required candidates to raise at least 25 percent of their money within their district.

Limited out-of-state contributions to $100.

Alltus said he hasn’t heard of any reform proposal that he sees as completely fair. He views Stoicheff’s plan as possibly helping incumbents, and isn’t sure what he thinks of the governor’s proposals.

“You have to make the premise that money corrupts people, and I don’t think it does,” Alltus said. “I’ve certainly never noticed it here.”

Rep. June Judd, D-St. Maries, voted to introduce the reporting requirements bill, but said she wasn’t sure she’d vote for it later. She voted against introducing any of the others.

“Several of them would have been too difficult, probably, to do all the record-keeping,” she said. Others, she said, didn’t appear to accomplish their aims.

“Some of the legislation that was proposed looked like people may be accusing Idaho legislators of being on the take or dishonest,” Judd said.

Callister, a first-term lawmaker, said he was surprised and disappointed by the reception from the committee. People want reform, he said.

“I’ll bet that Stoicheff’s bill in an initiative would pass overwhelmingly. If we don’t learn to get in touch with the feelings of our electorate, we’re missing the point.”

, DataTimes