The fight over the tax conformity bill and same-sex marriage; link to full story

Here’a link to my full story at spokesman.com on how 18 members of the Idaho House, including five from North Idaho, voted against a routine income tax bill Thursday over same-sex marriage issues, though the measure must pass before Idahoans can start filing their state tax returns. “That gives us a legal basis for those returns,” said Idaho State Tax Commission official Mike Chakarun.

Rep. Ron Nate, R-Rexburg, charged that conforming Idaho’s state income tax code to IRS rules, as the state does each year to allow Idaho income tax filers to use their federal adjusted gross income as the starting point for their state tax return calculations, puts the state at odds with a now-invalidated clause in the Idaho Constitution forbidding same-sex marriage. Federal law allows married same-sex couples to file joint returns. Federal courts overturned the Idaho ban and repeated appeals failed; same-sex marriage became legal in Idaho in October of 2014.

Nate argued that he thought the U.S. Supreme Court decision legalizing same-sex marriage nationwide was in error, and that he believes states can choose not to abide by high court decisions if they don’t think they are constitutionally correct.

That’s the same concept Rep. Paul Shepherd, R-Riggins, put forward in new legislation he introduced in a House committee on Thursday. His proposed bill would declare that Idaho lawmakers can overturn “any executive order, federal law, federal regulation, federal court or U.S. Supreme Court decision” that they deem “not constitutional as compared to the original intent of the United States Constitution.” Such state “nullification” efforts have long been deemed unconstitutional.

In September, an Idaho Attorney General’s opinion advised Shepherd that his concept violated both the Idaho and U.S. constitutions.

Last year, an identical bill aroused similar debate in the House, but passed the Senate, 32-2, and was signed into law by Gov. Butch Otter.