The Republican-dominated Idaho Legislature has no respect for the citizen initiative process.

In 2002, lawmakers proved their contempt for initiatives and a propensity to protect their own political hides by repealing voter-approved term limits. House Republicans were especially bold, meeting in caucus, so their GOP overlords could count noses to ensure they had the votes for the repeal. Even Republican Idahoans who opposed term limits considered as arrogant the GOP legislators who overturned the people’s will.

Before that, the Legislature nearly eliminated the initiative process by loading it up with conditions that made it all but impossible to place one on the ballot. Ultimately, a court preserved the initiative process by ruling that the hurdles forced onto the public by lawmakers were unconstitutional.

Now, Democrat Sen. Elliot Werk of Boise is sponsoring a bill that would give voters a final say when the Legislature repeals an initiative. Senate GOP leaders oppose the idea, of course, which means it doesn’t have a chance of passing. However, that doesn’t mean the legislation isn’t needed, if for nothing else than to show how far out of touch with average Idahoans supermajority Republicans have become since they gained solid control a dozen years ago.

Idahoans have used initiatives to address matters that their legislators were unwilling to face, from making the Idaho Fish and Game Commission apolitical in the 1930s, to passing property tax relief similar to California’s Proposition 13 in 1978, to embracing the lottery in the 1980s. Lawmakers decreed the One Percent Initiative seriously flawed and continued to rework it until it emerged in the 1990s as a 3 percent cap on local government budgets that depend on the property tax. In Idaho, initiatives have no more standing than any other statute. Therefore, they can be amended or appealed at the whim of lawmakers.

In Washington, lawmakers can repeal or amend initiatives, too, but they need a two-thirds vote to do so in the first two years after passage.

Unquestionably, initiatives can play havoc with the state’s budget, as has been the case in Washington, where a series of tax-limiting measures promoted by activist Tim Eyman seriously hampered many government functions. But they can be an equalizer for the average citizen and deserve some protection when myopic lawmakers try to impose their will on the majority. Such was the case that led to the 2002 passage of the Idaho Indian Gaming Initiative. Idaho’s tribes launched the initiative after lawmakers, led by Republican leaders, refused to approve a common-sense gaming compact hammered out between Gov. Dirk Kempthorne and them. After the initiative won easily, bullheaded legislators tried unsuccessfully to muster support among colleagues to defeat it in the courts.

Werk’s bill would cause the imperious leaders of the Republican initiative assault team to pause before they attacked another initiative.

But its only chance of becoming law may be through the initiative process.