Dick Harwood

The Idaho Legislature is in a slow state right now, for understandable reasons – more needs to be done on the matter of budgets and revenue before the pace can pick up to normal. But that seems to be allowing all sorts of . . . creative . . . stuff to take up some of the quiet time and committees.

Like the special from Representative Dick Harwood, R-St. Maries, introduced today in the House State Affairs Committee (the vote was 13-4). It would have Idaho “declare its sovereignty” from the federal government.

Declare its sovereignty? As in independence, as in sovereign nation? Well, no.

The Harwood measure, a resolution, isn’t on line yet. (We’ll post a link when we see it.) But you can get a sense of where this is intended from the New With Views web site, which in turn cites a measure in Washington state. Read that touted measure, House Joint Memorial 4009, and what you find are, well, several indicative things. First, it is a memorial, which as people familiar with legislation know, is the same thing as a letter stating an opinion, just arriving on legislative stationary – it has no force or effect. (Harwood’s seems to be a resolution, but it is evidently structured much the same way.) Second, its description says it is “Claiming state sovereignty under the Tenth Amendment” – which is certainly a part of the constitution, and has been, for a very long time; the reach and meaning of the 10th amendment (like all others) is determined by the courts, not by state legislatures. And third, HJM 4009 isn’t going anywhere; its been immobile in committee since January 30.

Which may be the fate of the Harwood measure as well. If it does go further, even if it passes, it will have no practical effect. How could it?

So why is a legislative committee spending its time with this? Only two reasons suggest themselves. One is that political people in Idaho never lose a cheering section by bashing the feds. And the other is that, well, they seem not to have a lot else to do right now.