Bills spark conflicts between legislators, Idahoans

BOISE — Controversial legislation this session has sparked conflicts in the Idaho State Capitol between legislators and the public.

Bills such as Senate Bill 1159 that would make it significantly harder for voter initiatives and referendums to get on the ballot; and House Bill 277, which is a redraft of H 249, would add “sideboards” to Medicaid eligibility.

Wednesday morning, Capitol halls were filled with protestors of both bills, demanding legislators to kill S 1159 and H 277 “to follow the will of the people.”

S 1159 would nearly double the number of required signatures and at the same time decrease the time allotted to collect signatures from 18 to six months.

After the Senate State Affairs Committee held two hearings for S 1159 last week, members held the bill in committee and left it up to Chairwoman Patti Ann Lodge, R-Huston, to bring it back for another vote.

Despite overwhelming opposition, after the last hearing Chairwoman Lodge expressed her plan to revisit the bill in committee the following week and take a vote in an attempt to advance it.

On Wednesday, the committee met to discuss S 1159 and eventually, the committee sent the bill to the 14th order where all Senators can propose possible amendments and debate them on the floor.

“I think there’s an error in the bill that needs to be dealt with at some point, and maybe if it gets off our floor, the House can deal with it,” Sen. Chuck Winder, R-Boise, said during the meeting.

Amendments to S 1159 consisted of clarifying when the time of 180 days to collect signatures would begin and changing one single petition sheet should only include signatures from one county and not one legislative district.

On Friday, the Senate suspended the rules to advance S 1159 from the second reading to the third in order to debate and vote on the bill. Ultimately, the Senate barely passed S 1159 with a 18-17 vote.

Since the introduction of S 1159 on March 5th by Senator C. Scott Grow, a Republican from Eagle, the public has expressed their concerns with the apparent retaliation from the Majority party in both houses.

“Under the bill [S 1159] being currently proposed, there is no way Medicaid Expansion would have made it on the ballot,” Luke Mayville, co-founder of Reclaim Idaho, said in a press conference on March 11th.

On March 20th, the Idaho Senate Republicans sent out a press release titled, “Setting the Record Straight on Initiative Bill.”

The purpose of the press release was to respond to “misinformation and false accusations” surrounding the drafting of the bill.

“[S 1159] is the result of a House-Senate working group made up of elected legislators who are concerned about the integrity, transparency and fairness of the initiative process,” the press release reads.

President Pro Tempore Brent Hill, R-Rexburg, told Idaho Press that “it wasn’t a formal working group” and he wasn’t a part of it.

Senator Lodge revealed in an interview that she participated in the joint group.

“The legislation was from a committee of House and Senate people, I happened to have been on that committee and we had several meetings. The intent of the meeting to begin with was, what are we going to do to protect the people of Idaho from being California…how are we going to keep people really informed,” Lodge said in an interview.

Lodge said she only attended a few meetings, but she knew about the group’s idea to increase the required legislative districts to 32 from 18 in an effort to encourage inclusion of rural districts in the initiative process and believed it would “better the state of Idaho.”

However, volunteers of Reclaim Idaho, a grassroots movement responsible for Medicaid Expansion’s spot on the ballot, say they collected signatures from all 44 counties and 35 legislative districts.

“If you wanted to ensure that rural interests were being heard then why would you cut the time to collect signatures? If anything, you would allow the petition gathers more time to reach small, rural towns,” Todd Achilles said in his testimony during the S 1159 hearing.

“No representative of a payday lending business had a part in drafting [S 1159]” was also stated in the press release in response to a story published by Boise State Public Radio after the last hearing for S 1159 on March 15th.

The story confirmed that Sen. Grow communicated with John Sheldon, a Moneytree lobbyist and former president of Treasure Valley Racing, for advice on the initiative process as Sheldon collected signatures for the horse racing initiative.

Reclaim Idaho released a statement on March 20th calling out the Senate GOP’s “misleading” information, saying that “they are attempting to shine a positive light on this bill…”

“The people of Idaho understand Senator Grow’s bill is an attack on our constitutional rights. Issuing such a false and misleading statement only confirms that,” Mayville said in the press release.

Senator Lodge was also active in the initiative process for the horse racing proposition as she collected signatures door-to-door. She said they were able to get enough signatures to get the initiative on the ballot in two and half months.

“Everything’s hard work. Going door-to-door is tough, but I wouldn’t say it was working in the salt mines. I had fun just gathering the signatures for the horse racing initiative,” Lodge said in an interview.

Supporters for S 1159 believe it will promote voter involvement and transparency in the initiative and referendum process.

In an unusually timed press release, the Idaho House Republican Caucus expressed support for S 1159 before the bill had a chance to pass the Senate.

“These new requirements would not hinder the referendum process; only create more concise standards for statewide ballot questions,” Rep. Jason Monks, R-Nampa, stated in the press release.

The press release came on March 15th, the same day Senate State Affairs Committee voted to hold the bill in committee.

House State Affairs Committee Chairman Steven Harris, R-Meridian, says he plans on hearing S 1159 once it gets to the House.

In frustration, Idaho Democratic legislators proposed draft legislation during a press conference on March 17th that would create “sideboards” for legislature.

“The small group of legislators making discussions without the consent of the rest of the legislature has shown that they do not have the political courage that it takes to collaborate and come to a compromise,” Sen. Michelle Stennett , D-Boise, said at the press conference.

Idaho Minority leadership say that the legislature should “face the same hurdles” as what’s being proposed in S 1159. The Democrat’s proposed legislation would prevent attempts to reverse initiatives for 180 days after signed into law. It would also require co-sponsors from 32 legislative districts and provide negative fiscal impacts in order to repeal a voter initiative or referendum.

Rep. John Vander Woude’s, R-Nampa, bill, H 277, was reported out of the House Health & Welfare Committee with no recommendation to pass. Committee members believed that allowing the bill to go to floor would give all Representatives an opportunity to debate and consider the bill.

Cheyenna McCurry is a legislative intern with the James A. and Louise McClure Center for Public Policy Research in Boise, and a student in the University of Idaho School of Journalism and Mass Media.