Judgment Day Can’T Come Soon Enough

Daily, habitual offenders enter our courts to beg for one more chance. We’ll change our ways, they tell the judge. It wasn’t our fault. We were out of our heads. The liquor made us do it. We were just tagging along with friends. Please don’t throw the book at us.

A wise judge will ignore the pleadings of a recidivist and ship him off to jail or prison to pay his debt to society.

The Idaho Legislature is a repeat offender of the worst kind. For six years, it has endangered the lives of Idaho children by failing to address an estimated $700 million in school building needs. Now, the state attorney general’s office is asking that a judge delay a lawsuit filed by a group of school districts until next spring to give legislators another chance to act on the building crisis.

That motion should be denied.

When she meets with the two sides today, Fourth District Judge Deborah Bail should schedule a trial on the lawsuit, to begin as soon as possible. Unless the court steps in, there’s no reason to hope that the 2000 session will be any different than those of the recent past. The 1999 session was the worst of all. Even with the lawsuit in the pipeline, legislators shot down several relatively minor bills targeting school building needs.

“If we wait,” said Robert Huntley, attorney for the school districts, “the effect will be that we will really lose another year.

“We want it set before the Legislature comes to town, so the Legislature will have directions from the court as to what needs to be done.”

Indeed, pressure is mounting for the Legislature to act. In a recent poll, Idahoans identified education as the state’s most important public concern, easily outdistancing growth, the environment, drugs, crime, taxes and government spending. Seventy-three percent wanted more money spent on education. Additionally, Gov. Dirk Kempthorne has appointed a 25-member task force to upgrade the 1993 study that fixed school construction needs at $700 million.

Anyone who’s followed the Idaho Legislature for any length of time realizes, however, that it doesn’t respond to polls. Or threats of lawsuits. Or even the governor. The tin gods who run things in Boise routinely ignore outside pressure, unless it is applied by high-priced lobbyists for business and industry. Lawmakers will continue to fiddle with school construction needs, unless a judicial sword is hanging over their heads..

Let the opening arguments begin.