Posts published in “Jones”

The preamble of the US Constitution starts with these powerful words: “We the People of the United States.” Those words mean that all power arises from the people. Article I, section 2 of the Idaho Constitution says that all political power is inherent in the people. When our elected representatives in either the state or federal government fail to heed the voice of the people, they deserve to be replaced by those who will.

I refuse to believe that the majority of Americans want to be allied with Vladimir Putin’s murderous regime or to throw Ukraine to the dogs or to dump our NATO alliance into the trash heap of history. But the Trump Administration seems to be headed toward accomplishing each of those unthinkable objectives. Idahoans have elected two Senators and two Congressmen who should know that those goals are completely counter to America’s national security interests. But, instead of standing up for America’s vital interests, they are keeping their heads down for fear of losing their precious offices.

The rest of the Republican power structure in Congress is well aware of the danger posed by Trump’s despotic moves, but most are too fond of their jobs to stand up and speak out. House Speaker Mike Johnson has been a strong supporter of substantial aid to Ukraine. On March 2 he told CNN: “I think Vladimir Putin is an old-school communist, a former KGB agent, and he’s not to be trusted and he is dangerous.” If that be the case, should he not be raising holy hell about Trump’s inexplicable actions? Instead, he declines to exercise any leadership to help Ukraine or to keep our NATO ties strong.

Some GOP Senators have had the courage to call Trump out for his dangerous actions. Senator James Lankford of Oklahoma said the call of Trump allies for the resignation of Ukrainian President Zelenskyy “would spiral Ukraine into chaos right now.” Senator Lisa Murkowski of Alaska put a finer point on the outrage. She said, “I am sick to my stomach as the administration appears to be walking away from our allies and embracing Putin, a threat to democracy and U.S. values around the world.”

On the less principled hand, our Senator Risch, Chair of the Foreign Relations Committee and long-time champion of NATO and Ukraine, stands mute as Trump thumbs his nose at both of those essential allies. The rest of our delegation has nothing to say on these issues that are so vital to our national security.

What is truly frightening is the March 2 assessment from the Kremlin that: “The new administration is changing all foreign policy configurations. This largely aligns with our vision.” It is terrifying when our life-long mortal enemy has good reason to believe that our leader is starting to see things through its blood-stained lens. As an American who volunteered to fight that barbarous regime’s proxy in Vietnam, this is totally shocking.

Closer to home, we see the same disdain for the peoples’ best interests. Governor Little ignored the overwhelming demand of the people to veto a bill that violates Idaho’s Constitution and which will pay for religious education for the first time in Idaho’s existence. He claims the $50 million tax drain won’t take away from public school funding. At the same time he admits that Idaho will be losing massive amounts of funding from the federal government and that a proposed state tax cut is $300 million more than the state can afford. The failure to veto is not founded in truth and seems to have been largely based upon orders from Donald Trump.

In both cases–Ukraine and religious subsidies–people are asking what they can do to change the behavior of their elected representatives. Well, all political power arises from the people. The people must make it perfectly clear that policies counter to their best interests will not be tolerated. The people have to get engaged, to let the politicians know that what they prize the most–keeping their prestigious offices–can only occur when they follow the public will. That means keeping abreast of important issues, making repeated communications with the delegation, attending public forums and holding their feet to the fire. It can and will work if the people fully engage and don’t relent. As I recently told the Kootenai County Democrats, the key to success is to organize, demonstrate, litigate and carry the banner of truth, across party lines with a can-do attitude. We must fight to preserve our great country and our marvelous state.

Our politicians must be shown that the support of the people–the Idaho voters–is more essential for maintaining their privileged positions than threats from either the national administration or out-of-state monied interests. In other words, Idaho politicians must come to fear Idaho voters more than the outsiders.

 

When the results of the May Republican primary were announced last year, many were shocked to learn that Chuck Winder, the well-regarded GOP Senate leader, had been defeated. House Speaker Mike Moyle received just 799 votes more than his GOP challenger. It was even more surprising that an out-of-state dark-money group, Make Liberty Win PAC (MLW), had campaigned heavily against them. The group spent $107,473 to defeat Winder and $112,852 attempting to get rid of Moyle.

What was particularly mystifying is that MLW’s claim to fame is supporting school voucher schemes across the country. It is an affiliate of Young Americans for Liberty (YAL), which has also been active in Idaho, financing waves of door knockers who pass out scurrilous handouts that trash responsible legislators. They may appear to be dedicated volunteers, but are often college students earning up to $4,160 per month, plus gas and housing.

Oddly, the voucher issue did not figure in the MLW attacks against the two leaders. Winder has been skeptical about voucher schemes, but the MLW handouts claimed he was a “Swamp King” supporting “Never Trump liberals”. Moyle has supported vouchers, but MLW claimed he was also a “Swamp King” and “anti-gun” to boot.

It is not entirely clear why MLW targeted Moyle. Some have speculated it is because the group supports legalization of marijuana and saw Moyle as a roadblock. Others thought it was because the extremist Idaho Freedom Foundation has opposed his continual tax cuts for big business. Whatever the reason, it was a rather stupid move on the part of MLW. They overlooked the old saying that “if you take a shot at the king, you best not miss.” They missed and we are now seeing the consequences.

Moyle and the House GOP leadership have just come out with 4 bills targeting the dark-money sleaze merchants. House Bill 307 would authorize the Secretary of State to investigate and publicize false claims against a candidate, House Bill 308 deals with electioneering and House Bill 309 increases lobbyist disclosure requirements.

House Bill 306 makes it a felony offense to smear public officers with “malicious lies.” It criminalizes the kind of reprehensible conduct that MLW targeted Moyle with in the primary election last year. To be sure, MLW and YAL have been using this kind of gutter politics against many other political opponents in recent years, particularly in the closed GOP primary. Their objective is to defeat responsible, problem-solving legislators and replace them with pliable culture warriors. The group has been quite successful in purging the GOP ranks of pragmatic legislators like Julie Yamamoto, Kenny Wroten, Jeff Agenbroad, Chenele Dixon, Greg Lanting and Linda Hartgen.

Even though it took being personally targeted for Moyle to react, he now proposes to address a real travesty–allowing unscrupulous candidates to win elections by using false claims or malicious lies to tar their opponents or just standing by while out-of-state sleaze merchants do the dirty work for them.

HB 306 has some warts that need to be worked out, like a potential First Amendment problem and a bit of overkill in the penalty provision. It calls for punishment of up to five years in prison and a $100,000 fine for violators, even though the Statement of Purpose says most violators would end up getting “a suspended sentence and probation.” It calls for the Attorney General to prosecute those accused, which would be a real problem with our present AG, who is primarily motivated by political considerations.

Several legislators, who have taken advantage of the dirty campaign tactics of MLW and YAL to win office, have attacked Moyle for his reform bills. Christy Zito, Glenneda Zuiderveld, Josh Kohl, Faye Thompson, Lucas Cayler, Kent Marmon, Clint Hostetler and David Leavitt, all culture warriors who gained office by unfairly attacking reasonable Republicans, have cried foul. They contend that Moyle is using dictatorial tactics to unfairly target them. This should be an interesting cat fight to watch.

HB 306 could be a valuable conversation starter, because the sacred right of the people to vote is seriously cheapened if rogue political actors can, without consequences, manipulate their votes by filling the campaign atmosphere with malicious lies and false claims.

 

House Bill 93, which passed the Idaho House of Representatives on February 7, would exempt most families who take advantage of the $5,000 per student tax credit from paying any state income tax whatsoever. If their tax liability is less than the $5,000 subsidy, the state is required to send them a payment to make up the difference. In the words of the bill, “If the credit exceeds the tax imposed by [the income tax], the excess credit amount shall be refunded to the taxpayer.”  So, they get out of paying any income tax and get a bonus payment to boot. That fits nicely into the category of having their cake and eating it too.

The subsidy bill would drain $50 million from the state treasury during the first year. Based upon what has happened in other states, that drain would likely increase to a torrent in future years. About 90% of that taxpayer money would go to subsidize religious teaching. And, by the way, Idaho’s Constitution strictly prohibits public money from being used to support any form of religious education. Every legislator has been informed of the prohibition, but some have turned a blind eye to the Constitution.

One of the most preposterous arguments in favor of the subsidy bill was made by Senator Scott Grow on February 8. He said that private school families “have been subsidizing our public school system,” and “it seems fair to me that we can return some of the tax money that they’ve been paying.” If the Senator would consult the Idaho Constitution, he would find that Idaho’s founding fathers expected families who educated their kids in nonpublic schools to pay the full cost. And, why should private and religious school parents, except for the wealthiest, be able to use our roads and every other governmental service provided by the state without having to pay a dime in income tax? Some would call that freeloading. If some legislators want to subsidize religious schools and excuse private school families from paying income tax, they ought to take the lawful route by amending the Constitution.

Nor does HB 93 meet the standards laid out by Governor Little. He stated: “Just like we do with every taxpayer dollar that is spent in government, we will ensure there is oversight in school choice. Why? Because accountability in government is an Idaho value, and it is what taxpayers demand and deserve.” Quite to the contrary, HB 93 specifically states: “A nonpublic school shall not be required to alter its creed, practices, admissions policy, or curriculum in order to accept students whose payment of tuition or fees stems from a refundable tax credit under this section.” That certainly flies in the face of the Governor’s standards. Additionally, the subsidy bill has no requirement that teachers be certified or that they undergo a background check.

The Statement of Purpose of HB 93 says the Tax Commission, which is tasked with administering the program, “may refer suspected cases of fraud to the Attorney General for investigation and prosecution.” That provides cold comfort, given our current AG’s propensity to see practically every issue through a political lens. He is an unabashed supporter of school voucher schemes and would likely have no inclination or ability to find any fraud in this program.

Idaho’s government ethics law requires public officials, including members of the Legislature, to disclose conflicts of interest before taking official action. A conflict of interest exists where the effect of the action “would be to the pecuniary benefit of the person or a member of the person’s household.” A legislator may not vote on a bill where he or she has a conflict and has “failed to disclose such conflict.”

A number of legislators have school age children who do not attend public schools and who may well plan to take advantage of the subsidies. For instance, Senator Brian Lenney, a self-styled “political refugee” from California, proclaimed on his campaign website that he and his wife have “been homeschooling our four kids (who are now in K-12) for over a decade.” If all of those kids are still being taught at home, Lenney could get a total of $20,000 in taxpayer money under HB 93.

Lenney and any other legislator who might benefit from the bill have a clear conflict of interest and must publicly disclose that fact. Better yet, they should recuse themselves from voting on the bill or publicly pledge they will not seek subsidies under its provisions. That would clear the air of the stench of self  interest. Best of all, they should just vote “no” on this taxpayer boondoggle.

 

On January 20, Donald Trump solemnly swore that he would, to the best of his ability, “preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.” Immediately afterwards, he began churning out a slew of executive orders, a number of which violated that sacred oath. He put an unelected chaos agent, Elon Musk, in charge of shredding the US Government in clear defiance of our Constitutional order. There has been no effort by Trump or the Republican House and Senate to stop his lawlessness.

All four members of Idaho’s Congressional delegation have placed their hand on a Bible and sworn in the presence of God that they “will support and defend the Constitution.” God may well be greatly disappointed that our Senators and Congressmen have stood by like frightened deer in the headlights, watching governmental agencies that were established and funded by law being taken down single handedly by a self-interested multi-billionaire who displays utter contempt for the rule of law. So much for their oath.

Just for the benefit of our delegation, the Constitution established three branches of government with checks and balances to keep the various branches from riding roughshod over one another. Government offices were to be established and funded by laws enacted by Congress and approved by the President. Getting rid of those offices must be done through that same process.

Presidents have often wanted to short circuit the lawful process, but have been stymied at every turn–well, until now. A Republican Congress passed the Line Item Veto Act in 1994, authorizing the President to unilaterally amend or repeal parts of statutes passed by Congress. The Act was challenged in court by a number of groups that had suffered the effects of such vetoes by President Clinton. One of those groups was the Snake River Potato Growers, Inc. The US Supreme Court struck down the law as violative of the separation of powers. When an agency has been established and funded by law, the President has no power under the Constitution to kill the agency or its funding.

My former boss, Senator Len Jordan, inspired an earlier law designed to prevent a President from refusing to spend legally-appropriated money. Jordan provided the spark for passage of the Impoundment Control Act of 1974, which prohibits a president from making the kind of funding cuts being imposed by Musk. Jordan took the lead against Richard Nixon, a President of his own party, because Nixon was trying to usurp the Constitutional power of Congress to control the nation’s purse strings. Sadly, our submissive delegation does not have the courage to protect that power.

The most alarming action taken by Musk and his band of marauders is their breach of the Treasury’s computer center that sends out payments to practically every person, business and agency in the country. We are talking about $6 trillion in payments each year. Every taxpayer’s information is at risk. Any person receiving Social Security, Veterans benefits or any other type of payment from the government is subject to scrutiny by Musk and his marauders. The marauders have not been properly vetted to access such highly confidential information and they are not subject to any type of adult supervision. The prospect of some of America’s closely-held secrets being used for personal gain or, worse, making their way into the hands of an enemy, is frightening.

In the absence of any pushback from spineless Republicans, a federal judge took action to stop the lawless plundering by Musk and his marauders. The judge issued an order on February 7 to halt the unlawful seizure of government financial data. The Trump forces huffed at the court’s ruling and it remains to be seen whether they will obey. Musk has called for impeachment of the judge.

If Trump decides to blow off the courts, the do-nothing GOP Congress will not have the courage to stop him. They may not realize that if Musk can use the payment system to halt payments for purposes he doesn't like, he also may be able to direct payment of the halted funds to uses not authorized by law. Musk could stop payments to his competitors or to anyone who dares criticize him. Trump could also stop payments for purposes he doesn’t care about, like benefits earned by my fellow veterans, and use the money for things he does like, such as bestowing tax benefits upon his fellow billionaires or financing a fantastic resort and golf course on the Gaza Strip.

If Trump and Musk thumb their noses at the federal court system and are able to continue seizing unfettered control of the nation’s finances, the US Constitution will be on life support and we will be on our way to a dictatorship. We will have a gutless GOP House and Senate to thank for it.

 

Without prior warning to state water managers in California’s Tulare County, federal officials suddenly dumped a torrent of water from two lakes in the state’s Central Valley. The deluge almost caused flooding on its way to the ocean, where it served absolutely no useful purpose. Farmers were incensed that they would not have the precious water for this year’s growing season. The water community was left scratching its head.

A spokesman for the US Army Corps of Engineers sheepishly explained that the water release was required by a January 24 Trump Executive Order, issued to override California water policies. The spokesman said the release was made “to ensure California has water available to respond to the wildfires” in Los Angeles. Anyone slightly familiar with how water flows would know that there was no way the water could have reached LA. That did not stop Trump from claiming victory over the LA fires.

The most troubling aspect of this episode is the apparent misconception that the federal government can do whatever it wishes with water stored in a federal reservoir. Quite to the contrary, the great majority of the stored water belongs to irrigation companies and other state water right holders. Regardless of the party in control of semi-arid western states, those states have fiercely safeguarded their precious water resources from federal overreach and waste.

Idaho has fended off attempts by federal officials to control state waters since gaining statehood in 1890. In my lifetime, former Governor Len Jordan nixed a single high federal dam in Hells Canyon in 1952 in favor of three smaller Idaho Power dams so as to maintain control of Snake River waters. When Jordan became a US Senator in 1962, he and Senator Frank Church inserted clauses in every law reserving federal lands in Idaho, requiring any associated water right to be acquired under Idaho water law.

When I became the state’s Republican Attorney General in 1983, I worked closely with former Democratic Governor John Evans to keep state control over Snake River flows in what became known as the Swan Falls water fight. I wrote a book about the fight–A Little Dam Problem–in order to document Idaho’s history of preserving and protecting the state’s control over its water resources. Incidentally, because of its historical relevance, the book was in demand during the contentious water fight between Magic Valley and Eastern Idaho water users last year. The fact is that there is simply not enough of this precious resource available to adequately serve those who presently hold valid water rights. Just as a watermaster in the recent California water dump declared, “Every drop belongs to someone.” Idaho waters are not and should not be available for poaching by federal officials for any use or in any quantity not specifically authorized by a federal statute, certainly not by a stream-of-thought executive order.

To prevent a repeat of the Central Valley debacle in the Gem State, our Congressional delegation should immediately educate the President and his staff of the long-standing tension between federal and state interests in the water rights field. Idaho and the other western states have spent countless hours in planning, litigating and compromising how water within our borders should be allocated and managed to best suit local conditions. We might not always make the best choices, but since we have to live with the system we devise, we are much better positioned to do the job than any unschooled eastern bureaucrat.

I know Senator Crapo and Representative Simpson understand that the livelihoods of their constituents are tied to the water rights and management system that Idahoans have put together for themselves. They both came into the State Legislature at a time when the Swan Falls water fight was at fever pitch. I drove over to Blackfoot to help get that young dentist, Simpson, elected for the purpose of helping Idaho water users in the fight. I relied on the legal heft that Crapo brought to the struggle.

When Trump announced to Californians on September 13 last year that he wanted to send them Columbia River waters, I looked for pushback from our delegation. I was unaware of a peep of concern from them. When a similar idea was publicized in the mid-1960s, every political figure in the Gem State said, “Hell no.” Senators Frank Church and Len Jordan raised the roof and rushed legislation through Congress to prohibit studies by federal agencies for transfers of water resources between river basins.

Idahoans are entitled to hear from their elected representatives in Washington that they will not support proposals to either export Idaho water to other states or allow federal intrusion into water rights and water management issues in Idaho.

 

Let’s be honest. The push to require Idaho taxpayers to subsidize private and religious schooling is not about “choice.” Experience in voucher states indicates that the great majority of those who get the subsidy money are already sending their kids to private or religious schools. That will undoubtedly be the case in Idaho. The only real question is who benefits from the money extracted from taxpayers and who gets stuck paying the bill–who wins and who loses. Just follow the money.

The money trail started early in the nation’s history in a struggle between those who wished for an egalitarian society on one side, and the ultra-rich, who felt entitled to chart our destiny with a trickle-down society, on the other side. America’s public school system was established for the egalitarian side to give every child a fair chance in life. However, there has always been strong pressure by those with extreme wealth to take the reins and skew the national playing field toward the trickle-down side.

In the last decade or so, the ultra-rich have targeted the public schools, apparently seeing them as a threat to their control of society. The billionaire class and its right-wing allies, including the Koch network, the Heritage Foundation and the State Policy Network (SPN), are doing their utmost to privatize K-12 education in America. Those groups are represented in Idaho. The Idaho Freedom Foundation (IFF) and the Mountain States Policy Center (MSPC) are both part of the SPN. IFF wants the state to get out of the public school business. MSPC is a member of  the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025, which advocates a universal voucher system.

Some of these dark-money-funded groups may have a profit motive, while others may see it as a way of indoctrinating kids in their world view. Whatever their motivation, the fact is that out-of-state billionaires have been pouring campaign money into Idaho in the last several years to elect legislators who will do their bidding on school voucher legislation. Their campaign money has been effective in knocking off many voucher opponents, particularly in the closed GOP primary. They now have an army of lobbyists roaming the legislative halls to grab as many tax dollars as possible to privatize education–$50 million in Rep. Horman's bill and $250 million in Rep. Hostetler’s bill. Of course, those figures would skyrocket in future years.

Many well-meaning Idaho parents have joined the out-of-state lobbyists to push for voucher legislation. One person who lobbied last year had four children enrolled in Nampa Christian School. He said, “I’m already paying taxes that the public school benefits from that I don’t receive any benefit from.” If he gets a tax credit or voucher payment of either $20,000 (Horman’s bill) or $38,000 (Hostetler’s bill) for those kids, he might not have to pay any state taxes for any government program. Many people pay state taxes for programs from which they do not personally benefit.

Any number of churches that operate religious schools have been lobbying for subsidy money, even though it would cause legislators to break the Idaho Constitution’s strict commandment against using public funds for religious education. About 90% of subsidy payments would be used for religious education. I certainly don’t begrudge Nampa Christian, Cole Valley Christian, Catholic schools, Lutheran schools or any other schools from seeking government subsidies. But, it seems the proper way to do it would be to first amend the Constitution to remove the prohibition against religious school funding. As it is, religious school parents are being used as an inadvertent battering ram against the public school system–to support the billionaires’ effort to weaken that system, while also injecting religious doctrine into taxpayer-financed education in Idaho.

Idaho churches that do not operate schools will receive absolutely no benefit from subsidy programs. Take, for instance, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, which  has a strong and historic presence in the State of Idaho. Church members have been stalwart supporters of public education, but the church does not operate a system of religious schools. They handle religious teaching the right way– without use of public money in their seminaries. Many communities of the church’s faithful are located in rural areas around the state, particularly in the southern part of the state. These factors indicate that Mormon public-school patrons will suffer disadvantages in a subsidized system–no public education funding for church members and a reduction of state funding for the rural public schools that their kids attend.

The best way to prevent the families of Idaho’s 313,160 public school students from losing, while subsidizing about 36,000 kids schooled privately, is to vote down any subsidy program. The solemn commandment prohibiting publicly-subsidized religious schooling has worked well since statehood and will serve us well into the future.

 

Kudos to Idaho House Speaker Mike Moyle for starting a crusade against “outdated, obsolete and unnecessary” laws. Moyle’s House Bill 14–the “Idaho Code Cleanup Act”--would cleanse Idaho’s statute books of laws that are void, unenforceable and not in the public interest. It is high time to comb through our laws and get rid of those oldies that are no longer relevant. But we should not overlook newer laws that serve no purpose, nor legislative proposals that would just add to the clutter.

The House could do itself a favor by tossing Rep. Jaron Crane’s House Bill 11, which seeks to insert the state into the immigration field. Immigration law is in the legal wheelhouse of the United States Government. A Texas law, upon which the bill is modeled, has been blocked from being enforced in Texas for over a year. HB 11 starts off with making it a crime for an alien to enter Idaho “directly from a foreign nation.” According to my recollection of grade school geography, that would only be possible from Canada. And the bill would require Idaho judges to take actions that exceed their authority. HB 11 would certainly qualify for the “unnecessary” category of Moyle’s Code Cleanup bill.

Another measure that should never darken the pages of the Idaho Code is Sen. Ben Toew’s anti-DEI proposal. It has been politely described as “an unabashed mishmash” but it is much worse than that. A court would find it to be a herculean task to winnow through the mind-numbing definitions to determine the conduct that is being targeted.

Like much of the culture war legislation these days, it suffers from a number of constitutional problems–free speech, vagueness, etc. It would give our Attorney General enforcement authority, making Raul Labrador Idaho’s campus speech czar. Plus, any student, staff member or alumnus of a college could bring a civil suit for damages against the college for its violation of whatever it is that the bill is designed to prohibit.

In addition to these beauties, there are a number of recently-enacted culture war laws that are totally useless. These laws were imported from out of state to stir up fear and outrage in order to help extremists defeat reasonable Republicans in the closed GOP primary. They have worked quite well to shift the Legislature ever further to the right.

Idaho Code section 33-138, which prohibits the teaching of critical race theory, is a prime suspect for removal. Legislative sleuths searched high and low to find any instance where CRT had been taught in an Idaho school and came up short. Nevertheless, they enacted the prohibition against it, although failing to define exactly what it is. I suspect the sponsors knew it was constitutionally defective, but culture war laws are made primarily to intimidate, rather than constitutionally regulate.

The bathroom law, which requires separate facilities for kids in public school based on their sexual designation at birth, was imported from out of state by vote-seeking culture warriors. There had been no discernable problem in our schools before its passage. The law gives a student who “encounters” a person of the opposite sex in a restroom the right to file suit and collect $5,000. The law was placed on hold by a federal appeals court in October of 2023.

And, of course, there is the book ban law, requiring librarians to relocate “materials harmful to minors” or face a penalty of $250. Christian nationalist Blaine Conzatti of the Idaho Family Policy Center was the guiding hand behind the legislation. He as much as admitted that the law was primarily intended to intimidate librarians into self-censoring books that he deemed impure. He crowed that the $250 penalty would drive up liability insurance costs for libraries.

These and other culture war laws should be eliminated in the Code Cleanup. Idaho legislators first enrage their supporters with fake culture war issues and then make a big show of “fixing” them. The remedy is usually hastily-conjured, ambiguously-worded legislative measures that often exceed constitutional limitations. Targeted groups are intimidated into compliance for fear of prosecution or the cost and expense of litigation.

Legislation should be designed to fix real problems, not to create them.

 

Dorothy Moon, the current chair of the extremist faction of the Idaho Republican Party, proclaimed on election night that: “We’re not ever going to let Reclaim Idaho bring another initiative.” Moon was honked off that the citizen initiative group had just run a third initiative drive seeking reform of Idaho laws.

Reclaim Idaho ran its first initiative drive in 2017 to expand Medicaid coverage for low-income Idahoans, after the Legislature had refused for years to take a 90% federal match to provide for their medical care. Resistance to that initiative was fierce. Raul Labrador, then running for Governor, claimed: “Nobody dies because they don’t have access to health care.” The voters disagreed and approved the initiative in 2018 with more than a 60% vote. It has been a life-saver for about 100,000 Idahoans of modest means and for counties, whose medical indigency funds were stretched to the limit.

Reclaim’s second initiative, the Quality Education Act, forced a special session of the Legislature in 2022, resulting in an increase of $410 million in K-12 educational funding. That would not have happened without Reclaim’s good work.

The third initiative was designed to break the Moon faction’s control over what kind of Republicans get elected in the closed GOP primary. Moon apparently saw no value in allowing voters to speak their mind on the issue, even though they sided with her.

Moon followed up her election-night vow to stop citizen initiatives with an embarrassing word-salad op-ed that confused constitutional amendments, initiatives and referendums. She proposed “raising the threshold for constitutional amendments by requiring signatures from at least 10% of registered voters in 23 out of 35 legislative districts, up from the current 18 districts. This change aims to strengthen the initiative process, creating a higher threshold for addressing statewide Referendums.” Say, what?

The fact is that constitutional amendments are proposed by the Legislature and do not start with signature drives. Initiatives, which make laws, are completely different from referendums, which veto laws passed by the Legislature. If Moon meant that her 10% of 23 district requirement was intended to apply to initiatives, it would be an unlawful limitation on voter initiative rights that would undoubtedly be challenged in court.

Rep. Bruce Skaug and several other GOP right-wing legislators have proposed another unconstitutional restriction on the right of voters to make laws with the initiative. They would require initiatives to get a 60% vote in order to become law, rather than the current majority vote. That would change over a century of Idaho and most certainly invite a lawsuit. If the Legislature needs only a majority vote to make a law, there is no basis to require 10% more for a voter-approved law.

Skaug seems to believe that the initiative system is “broken” because outside interests put a lot of money into the Prop1 campaign, which failed by a substantial margin. The extreme GOP usually tries to make it harder to run initiatives when one is approved or comes close. Now, any outcome brings calls to squelch the initiative rights of voters.

There is a problem with out-of-state money being spent in Idaho elections, but it is not related to the initiative. Rather, about 1.5 million dollars of dirty money from out-of-state interests flowed into Idaho in the 2024 GOP primary election to defeat reasonable, pragmatic Republicans who opposed school voucher schemes.  Skaug might notice that many of his former colleagues–Julie Yamamoto, Matt Bundy, Melissa Durrant, Kenny Wroten, Chenel Dixon and Greg Lanting–are no longer in the House with him. They were viciously attacked and beaten in the primary by out-of-state monied interests. Several good GOP Senators were also defeated–President Pro Tem Chuck Winder, Goeff Schroeder and Linda Hartgen. Even more tainted money flowed into the state against moderate Democrats in the general election. The real money problem plaguing Idaho is that it is being used to push the Legislature ever-further to the far-right fringes.

Rather than taking away the right of Idaho voters to make laws, perhaps Moon’s extremist faction of the GOP could start acting in the best interests of Idaho voters by adequately funding schools, providing health care to less fortunate Idahoans, and dispensing with pointless culture war issues. If the Legislature would govern in a reasonable, responsive manner, voters might not have the need to initiate laws.