Bill repeals unconstitutional ban on state cottage-site conflict auctions

Idaho’s state Land Board was unanimous in asking lawmakers to approve SB 1145 to repeal two existing sections of state law regarding cottage sites and grazing leases that have been determined to be unconstitutional, and the Senate State Affairs Committee this morning agreed unanimously, sending the bill to the full Senate. The grazing lease provision that the bill repeals was ruled unconstitutional by the Idaho Supreme Court back in 1999; it’s remained on the books, but been unenforceable since then. The clause included such factors in grazing lease awards as the importance of the lease to “the current lessee’s total annual livestock operation, and the ability of the lessee to remain economically viable without the lease.” The Land Board, when leasing state endowment land, is constitutionally required to get the maximum long-term returns for the endowment’s beneficiaries - chiefly public schools - not to protect other interests, like a rancher’s “economic viability,” the high court ruled.

The second clause was the subject of a recent injunction in district court; it protects state endowment cottage site leases from conflict auctions at the end of the lease terms, partly on the grounds that some of the leases have been in the same family for 50 years and conflict auctions “caused considerable consternation and dismay to the existing lessee at the prospect of losing a long-time lease.” That, too, is not an interest the Land Board is constitutionally charged with protecting, the district court found; a ruling from the state Supreme Court is pending. Idaho Secretary of State Ben Ysursa said the Land Board is in unanimous agreement that the clause has to go, “which in everybody’s mind is unconstitutional,” he told the Senate State Affairs Committee. “We’re asking you to repeal that.”

Ysursa explained that the Land Board has agreed to move toward disposing of at least some of the cottage sites through exchanges or auctions. But he said that will be a “long-term process.” As long as Idaho has leased cottage sites, Ysursa said, “We would make it very clear that in the future, they could be subject to conflict auctions.”

Representatives of the beneficiaries, including Idaho schoolchildren, testified in favor of the bill, as did representatives of the governor, state controller and attorney general. The bill now moves to the full Senate.