Some elections are about deciding who decides. This year, Idaho voters are being asked to give away a piece of their own power, likely forever, to the Idaho Legislature. This vote will say a lot about the real nature of Idaho.
Welcome to Idaho Proposition 4 (aka House Joint Resolution 4), an under-reported but stunning grab of power that if passed likely would result in the legislature grabbing much more.
It is not deceptive. The formal title of the proposed amendment to the state constitution says, “Grant Legislature Exclusive Authority and Prohibit Citizen-Initiated Measures on Marijuana, Narcotics, and Psychoactive Substances Amendment.” In other words, law related to certain drugs would have to be made by legislators, and could not be changed directly by the voters. Once the legislature decides (even if, one day, to legalize everything), the voters would have no way to weigh in. After all, revisions to the constitution have to go through the legislature.
Proposition 4 would not in itself change Idaho drug law, either toughening or loosening it. It would end the ability of voters in future to make such a decision for themselves.
Today, Idaho voters can pass an initiative – a law – on just about any subject they choose that comes under the heading of a state government responsibility. That could change.
A website called the Idaho Liberty Project, noting the implications of the measure, said “HJR 4 is not just about substances. It sets a precedent. Once voters accept that one subject is off-limits, the larger question becomes: Who decides which topics voters are allowed to decide at all?”
That would seem to be the legislature.
The Idaho Freedom Foundation, so influential at the Statehouse, is in support of this amendment, which more than anything else tells you how twisted and perverse its concept of liberty has become. (Taking away power from the voters and giving it to a government agency in their view has become a +1 for liberty. The IFF’s founders likely would be nauseated.)
When I recently talked about Prop 4 with a veteran observer of national politics, his immediate reaction was that the voters likely would reject the proposal: Voters in many states, he noted, have refused to give up their own power. And he may be right; most Idahoans I’ve asked about this recently said they feel the same.
Still, this measure was passed and put on the ballot by a large majority of the Idaho Legislature, supported by every Republican in the chambers. (It also has Republican Party support.) To what extent do the constituents who elected them agree?
Seven other states do have subject restrictions on initiatives, but those concern the structure of state government, relating to state finances and the operation of courts, not policy decisions. This Idaho decision would be the first by voters to deliberately chop away at a part of their own freedom – and the first I can think of in Idaho history.
The implications are national too. A drug policy website noted, “If HJR 4 passes, it provides a template for legislatures in states like Wyoming, Kansas, and South Carolina to constitutionally insulate their prohibition laws against citizen action.”
But the big issue here isn’t the details of drug policy but citizen control of the laws that govern them. Just pick a hot button topic some well-funded interest would like to see decided only by legislators – who often are vulnerable to campaign spending and lobbyist pressure – rather than by the voters, and you can easily see interest group-imposed law in many areas.
Even this year it’s part of a broader theme. Idaho Proposition 1, which concerns state abortion law, is an attempt to reset legislative action over the last half-decade or so on that subject – to weigh in on whether the legislature did the right thing. Already legislators have been pledging to repeal the initiative if it passes, telling the voters in essence that their choices don’t matter, only those of the legislature. A vote against Prop 1 therefore has become a statement by voters that this would be just fine with them. (If Prop 4 passes, you can bet on legislative efforts to ban public votes on abortion policy.)
This is an attempt to grab permanent power from the people.
Prop 4 already has revealed the character of the legislature. The vote in November will be a test of the character of the voters of Idaho.
(image/Wikimedia commons)
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