Should folks under 21 be able to run for Idaho Legislature? Senators say yes

BOISE – Idaho residents could soon run for state Legislature before they could legally drink alcohol under a proposal that won the backing of the Senate Tuesday.

It wasn’t the original focus of the bill, but the Idaho Senate today voted 34-1 in favor of allowing 18-year-olds – rather than just those 21 or older – to run for the Idaho Legislature.

That’s already allowed under the Idaho Constitution. But a long-standing state law puts the minimum age at 21.

The twice-amended bill originally was proposed by the Idaho secretary of state’s office in response to a court case that pointed out a different inconsistency. At issue was the requirement in state law to live in a legislative district for one year before running. But the constitution says a person must have been “an elector of the county or district whence he may be chosen” for a year before the election.

So the bill proposed to change Idaho’s requirement to run for the Legislature from having “resided” in the district for a year before the election to having been registered to vote in the district for a year.

In the case of Caleb Hansen v. Ysursa, a prospective candidate for the Legislature registered to vote at the same time he filed his candidacy. The secretary of state’s office rejected the filing, based on the one-year requirement. The case went to court, where it was dismissed on procedural grounds, but both the lower-court judge and a Supreme Court justice “said we probably ought to address that in the statute,” said Tim Hurst, chief deputy secretary of state and the original sponsor of the bill.

Left untouched was another provision within the same law: That a person would have to be 21 to run for the Legislature. Actually, the constitution didn’t specify an age limit. That was left over from when the age to be an elector in Idaho – to be eligible to vote – was 21. The state constitution was amended in 1982 to lower that to 18.

When the legislation was debated in the House State Affairs Committee, many legislators, including North Idaho Reps. Paulette Jordan, D-Plummer; Vito Barbieri, R-Dalton Gardens; and Priscilla Giddings, R-White Bird, objected to passing the bill as is, saying it limited younger people from running for office. It passed on a divided vote and then cleared the House 64-6.

Then the bill arrived in the Senate, where senators agreed to amend it to lower the age from 21 to 18. It took two tries to get all the relevant sections amended.

Senate Majority Leader Bart Davis, R-Idaho Falls, said he wouldn’t have advised anyone to vote for him when he was 18 or 19; at age 42, he said, he was finally ready. But, he said, “For me, this is not about the age. It is making congruent the statute with what our constitution says.”

Hurst said if anyone had challenged the prohibition against 18- to 20-year-olds running for the Legislature in court, they likely would have won, because of the constitutional provision.

Sen. Dan Foreman, R-Moscow, spoke out against the change on Tuesday, saying the younger age “does not afford a person the life experience necessary to make sound decisions.” But he cast the only “no” vote.

Sen. Steven Thayn, R-Emmett, had a question for Davis: If a prospective candidate for the Legislature is required to be a “qualified elector” in the district for a year, “Does that mean an 18-year-old couldn’t run for the Legislature until he’s 19?”

“That’s very logical,” Davis responded. “Right now they would be closer to 19 than 18,” by the time they met that requirement.

Sen. Grant Burgoyne, D-Boise, said, “Whether it’s 18 or 19, when I look around this body and the one across the rotunda, I’m not too concerned about the 18- and 19-year-olds taking over.” Idaho has no legislators under age 30, and has long had one of the oldest legislatures in the nation.

Burgoyne said when he first arrived in the Legislature at age 55, he was younger than many of his colleagues.

“While I have been here, we have gotten younger, and we have gotten more female, and I think those are very positive steps,” he said. He said if the Idaho Legislature had 19- or 20-year-olds, other lawmakers might learn some things from them.

Sen. Steve Vick, R-Dalton Gardens, a former Montana legislator, said, “I happen to have a good friend who was elected to a different legislative body when she was 19 years old. I felt like she was an excellent legislator.”

She was re-elected several times and chaired a legislative committee, Vick said. “I think there are people who are qualified” to run before they’re 21, he said. “I think that’s a choice the voters should be allowed to make.”

The amended bill now must go back to the House for concurrence in the Senate amendments, before it can head to the governor’s desk.