College district voting change rejected
BOISE – Gov. Butch Otter suffered a second major legislative setback in two days Wednesday when a House committee rejected his plan to make it easier to form a community college district.
Only three Republicans on the House Revenue and Taxation Committee voted for the GOP governor’s proposal to allow a 60 percent, rather than two-thirds, vote to form a district if the vote occurs at a general election. Five Democrats voted for the bill, HB 84, while 10 Republicans – including three members of House GOP leadership – voted against it.
“They’re entitled to their opinion,” Otter said a few hours after the vote. “I believe those that really want it are going to go and get it for the two-thirds supermajority, and I’m gonna help ‘em if I can.”
Otter has proposed a $5 million “carrot” to encourage the formation of a new community college district, such as one proposed in the Treasure Valley. That area, the state’s largest population center in Ada and Canyon counties, is among the largest metropolitan areas in the nation without a community college.
“I’m gonna leave the 5 million bucks on the table,” Otter said.
Otter made expanding community college services a centerpiece of his campaign for governor and proposed in his State of the State message to lower the voting requirement to form a new district from two-thirds to 60 percent if the vote took place at a primary or general election. Lawmakers, at the urging of House Education Chairman Bob Nonini, R-Coeur d’Alene, already had scaled back the plan to apply only to the general election.
Wednesday’s defeat of the measure came just a day after the same House committee rejected Otter’s targeted grocery tax credit proposal, passing a different, across-the-board credit instead.
“I think we feel pretty strongly that whenever you assess property taxes, you need to do it with a pretty high threshold,” said House Assistant Majority Leader Scott Bedke, R-Oakley, in defending the two-thirds supermajority requirement .
House Majority Caucus Chair Ken Roberts, R-Donnelly, said, “This committee is charged with helping protect the taxpayers of the state of Idaho.”
The panel voted 10-8 against the bill, which Rep. Dell Raybould, R-Rexburg, decried as “the camel’s nose under the tent.” Raybould said if lawmakers approve less than a two-thirds supermajority for community college district formation, pressure will build to allow other tax increases without a two-thirds vote. “This is a big camel,” he said.
Backers of the bill, including the Idaho Association of Commerce and Industry, the state Board of Education, the Idaho Chamber Alliance and the Nampa Chamber of Commerce disagreed.
John Watts, lobbyist for the Idaho Chamber Alliance and a former state Fish & Game Commission member, said he’s been watching the House tax committee since 1983. “I have full faith in this committee right here to shoot the camel between the eyes if it gets more than the nose under the tent,” he told lawmakers. “… This committee will not allow a stampeding herd of camels.”
M.C. Niland, board chairwoman for the Nampa Chamber of Commerce, told the lawmakers, “We’re not asking this committee or the Legislature to force anything on anybody. We’re asking for the citizens of that district to tax themselves and determine their own fate.”
Rep. Nicole LeFavour, D-Boise, said people from the Treasure Valley have been waiting and waiting for a way to expand their area’s access to community college services, and the committee shouldn’t close off tools that would help with that.
Rep. George Sayler, D-Coeur d’Alene, agreed, saying, “I think we would be doing a disservice to 40 percent of the state’s population if we were to hold this.”
The committee’s other North Idaho members – Reps. Dick Harwood, R-St. Maries, Jim Clark, R-Hayden Lake, and Phil Hart, R-Athol – voted against the bill.
House Minority Leader Wendy Jaquet, D-Ketchum, said after the vote, “I felt the governor really listened to the people.”