Stoicheff Would Give Counties A Role In Setting Term Limits

Rep. Jerry Stoicheff has a plan she believes will solve all the fuss about term limits.

The bill would only affect the term limits of local officials up to the county level. Each county’s voters would decide on whether they want to retain term limits for their locally elected officials.

“In smaller counties that have trouble getting people to run for the school board or coroner they might not want term limits,” said Stoicheff, D-Sandpoint. “But in the larger counties, like Ada County, they may want to have that option.”

Term limits promise to be a hot issue before the legislative session ends this year. Sparking the debate is a lawsuit in Power County that questions the constitutionality of Idaho’s term limit laws, which was imposed by initiative in 1994. Citizens for Term Limits has threatened to resume an effort to put a tougher term limits initiative on the ballot if legislators touch their own term limits.

The current law affects all elected officials, from school boards to the Legislature. It also aimed at Congress, but the U.S. Supreme Court said states can’t limit congressional terms by initiative.

Only one member of the House Local Government Committee spoke out against Stoicheff’s proposal, Rep. Reed Hansen, R-Idaho Falls.

“I refuse to piecemeal this thing,” he said. “We either need to have them (term limits) or we don’t.”

The committee voted to introduce Stoicheff’s bill, and refer it to the House State Affairs Committee, where other term limits bills also are expected to surface.