Lawmakers seem ready to take on school bond vote

When Gov. Dirk Kempthorne first asked lawmakers to lower the supermajority for school construction bonds from two-thirds to 60 percent, the idea didn’t go anywhere. It would take a change in the state Constitution, and that means, first of all, each house of the Legislature would have to favor the change by a two-thirds vote, and then it’d have to pass with a majority at the next general election.

However, several things have changed this year.

First, the Idaho Supreme Court ordered the Legislature in no uncertain terms to make major changes in how Idaho pays for school construction, in a ruling shortly before the session convened. Lowering the supermajority was one of the items on the justices’ list of suggestions.

Idaho has long been considered the toughest place in the nation to build a school, because it’s the only state that both provides no direct state funding, and requires local taxpayers to vote by a two-thirds margin to raise their own taxes to foot the bill. Some small steps toward state subsidies have been taken in recent years, but it’s been one step forward, one step back.

Here’s the other thing that’s changed: Since the Supreme Court ruling, the top GOP leaders in both houses both say they’ll support putting a constitutional amendment before the voters. House Speaker Bruce Newcomb, R-Burley, told me, “I think the court has instructed us we need to do something in that regard, so that’s it.”

Senate President Pro-Tem Robert Geddes said, “I think I could support that under one condition: if elections are consolidated in May and November.”

In Kempthorne’s State of the State message on Monday night, that’s exactly what he proposed – lowering the supermajority to 60 percent if the vote takes place at the primary or general election.

“Place the issue before the people – let them help resolve this issue, the very same people that have the wisdom to elect us,” Kempthorne told a joint session of the Legislature – and they applauded him.

The shoe heard ‘round the state

When Sen. Shawn Keough, R-Sandpoint, and Rep. Dennis Lake, R-Blackfoot, made their presentation to legislative leaders this afternoon about the outcome of the interim committee they chaired – which is proposing major property tax relief – Senate President Pro-Tem Robert Geddes, R-Soda Springs, started it off by telling her, “Sen. Keough, I’ll run the gavel if you promise to keep your shoes on.”

That was a reference to Keough’s calming of a rowdy Sandpoint hearing over the summer, when Keough famously pulled off her navy-blue pump and banged it on a table to restore order.

“The operative word there is gavel – you have one, I didn’t have one,” she responded.

Keough said the committee’s final report will be hitting legislators’ mailboxes soon, but noted that with residential property taxes rising more quickly than any other category, the committee heard an earful from about 1,500 people around the state at its dozen public hearings.

Among the questions members of leadership from both parties had for the committee co-chairs: How losses to schools from reductions in property taxes would be made up.

“Job well done,” Newcomb told Keough and Lake at the end of their presentation. “And I think my conclusion from your efforts is that Sen. Keough and Rep. Lake, you’re going to have to serve in the Legislature forever, because you know too much about property taxes, and we can’t afford to see you take that knowledge away.”

Frank’s on the job

Rep. Frank Henderson, R-Post Falls, attended his second meeting of the Joint Finance-Appropriations Committee on Wednesday, and he was closely following the proceedings and asking questions.

“It’s a marvelous challenge,” said the freshman representative. “It brings me back to prior experience in budgeting, which I did with corporations for almost 30 years and then cities and counties. I enjoy this.”

Henderson, who clearly is the youngest 83-year-old ever to briskly walk the halls of the Statehouse, is the former mayor of Post Falls and a former Kootenai County commissioner. He wasn’t fazed when presented with a huge binder that serves as the legislative budget book for JFAC members.

“It’s thick because it’s the entire state budget,” he said. “I like the opportunity to have some influence on how the public’s money is spent.”