In this file photo, Reclaim Idaho Vista team co-leader Cameron Crow validates signature sheets from door knocking and collecting signatures for the Quality Education Act ballot initiative in Boise on Sept. 8, 2021. (Otto Kitsinger for Idaho Capital Sun) in Boise, Idaho on September 8, 2021. (Otto Kitsinger for Idaho Capital Sun)
The Idaho Legislature’s path forward on proposals to make it harder for voters to pass laws became a little clearer Friday.
In the Senate, lawmakers advanced to the Senate floor a proposed amendment to the Idaho Constitution to raise the threshold of signatures needed for initiatives to appear on the ballot.
But in a House committee, lawmakers rejected — on a deadlocked tie vote — a bill that would’ve let the Idaho governor veto successful ballot initiatives.
Following about two hours of public testimony Friday morning at the Idaho State Capitol in Boise, the Senate State Affairs Committee voted 5-3 to send Senate Joint Resolution 101 to the Senate floor with a recommendation to pass it.
The resolution, sponsored by Sen. Doug Okuniewicz, R-Hayden, calls for increasing the requirement to qualify a ballot initiative or referendum from the current threshold of 6% of registered voters statewide and 6% of voters in 18 different legislative districts to 6% of voters statewide and 6% of voters in all 35 legislative districts.
For the proposed constitutional amendment to pass, two-thirds of the members of the Idaho Senate and Idaho House of Representatives must vote in favor of Senate Joint Resolution 101. Idaho voters would also have to approve the proposed constitutional amendment by a majority vote.
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On a 7-7 tie vote, lawmakers on Idaho House State Affairs Committee on Friday rejected to advance to the House floor a bill that would’ve let the Idaho governor veto successful ballot initiatives that don’t have supermajority support.
Bill sponsor Rep. Bruce Skaug, R-Nampa, won’t pursue the bill, House Bill 85, or another bill he introduced this session to require 60% approval for initiatives to pass, he told the Idaho Capital Sun after his bill was effectively held Friday.
“I defer to the wisdom of my committee in this tie vote,” Skaug told the Idaho Capital Sun in an interview.
The committee rejected advancing the bill after hearing largely negative public testimony.
Despite mostly negative testimony, Senate committee advances proposed constitutional amendment
Twenty-four states allow voters to pass laws through the initiative process, bypassing state legislatures, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.
In Idaho, the ballot initiative and referendum powers are a form of direct democracy where the voters of Idaho – not the Idaho Legislature – decide whether to pass a new law or repeal an existing law.
Examples of initiatives include the successful 2018 Medicaid expansion initiative and the unsuccessful 2024 open primaries and ranked-choice voting initiative. Examples of referendums include Propositions 1, 2 and 3 from 2012, which rejected the Students Come First education laws.
Thirty-seven of the 40 people who testified Friday opposed the proposed constitutional amendment, with many of them saying the current initiative and referendum requirements already create a high burden just to bring an initiative or referendum forward to be voted on in an election.
Many people who opposed the resolution pointed out the Idaho Supreme Court ruled a similar law passed by the Legislature in 2021 was unconstitutional. That law would have created an identical requirement for the signatures of 6% of voters in all 35 legislative districts.
In the 2021 ruling, the Idaho Supreme Court called the initiative and referendum powers “fundamental rights, reserved to the people of Idaho, to which strict scrutiny applies.”
“When Idahoans want what the Legislature won’t pass, it provides a process for the people,” said Cynthia Gibson, government relations associate at the Idaho Conservation League, who testified in opposition to the proposed amendment. “The right has been enfranchised in our constitution since statehood, and it is the people’s right.”
Some opponents also said increasing the 6% requirement to all 35 legislative districts means that just one legislative district could block an initiative or referendum from making the ballot.
“The Supreme Court noted that if the 35 district requirement were in effect, a paid special interest lobby could derail a popular initiative it dislikes by focusing its opposition efforts on a single legislative district,” Boise resident Bonnie Shuster said in testimony against the proposed constitutional amendment. “That indeed is a real threat of venue shopping, and it would be created by passage of this amendment. There is no reason to put this on the ballot except to try to get Idaho voters to give away their rights and concentrate more power in the hands of this body.”
Kay Hummel, who testified in opposition to the proposed amendment, discussed the history of ballot initiatives in Idaho. Hummel said the state’s sunshine law that creates transparency by disclosing political funds and lobbying activities was created by a ballot initiative. Idaho voters also created the Fish and Game Commission by passing a ballot initiative, which Hummel said put an end to a politicized, uneven process for managing fish and wildlife in Idaho.
“The people of Idaho saw this problem, and they voted to fix it,” Hummel said.
Since the initiative power was created in 1912, only 15 ballot initiatives have been approved by voters in Idaho.
Resolution ‘is constitutional if the people pass it,’ sponsor says
Okuniewicz, a Republican from Hayden, sponsored the new proposed amendment that would increase the threshold to qualify an initiative or referendum. Okuniewicz said the difference between the new proposal and the unconstitutional 2021 law is that with the new proposal, he is asking voters to amend the Idaho Constitution to create the 6% requirement in all 35 legislative districts.
“The people brought this section of the Constitution into existence in 1912, and they can take it out or change it as they see fit,” Okuniewicz said. “Simply put, SJR 101 is constitutional if the people pass it.”
Okuniewicz said passing the new proposed constitutional amendment could help fight an influx of out-of-state money coming into Idaho for initiatives and political campaigns.
“Unless we change the initiative process to be consistent with modern technology, the original requirements will continue to be abused by these big money special interests who really have no business exerting their will over the residents of this state,” Okuniewicz said.
The proposed constitutional amendment does not mention campaign finance reform. Senate State Affairs Committee Chairman Jim Guthrie, R-McCammon, and several people who testified Friday said they don’t see how the amendment would curb out-of-state spending or increase transparency around campaign finance.
“While some see the out-of-state money as the boogeyman, that boogeyman’s not going to go away if we pass this,” Guthrie said.
Senate Majority Leader Lori Den Hartog, R-Meridian, and Sens. Mark Harris, R-Soda Springs, Ben Toews R-Coeur d’Alene; Ben Adams, R-Nampa; and Brandon Shippy, R-New Plymouth, voted to support Senate Joint Resolution 101.
Guthrie and Sens. Treg Bernt, R-Meridian, and James Ruchti, D-Pocatello, voted against it.
The proposal heads next to the floor of the Idaho Senate, where it requires a two-thirds majority to pass.
House lawmakers reject bill to let Idaho governor veto initiatives that pass without supermajority support
Another bill, brought by Skaug, a Nampa Republican, would’ve let the Idaho governor veto voter-passed law. He said that’s similar to how the governor can veto laws passed by the Idaho House and Senate.
Skaug has said letting the governor veto petitions “is a good protection for a misinformed electorate” if they don’t get information like the Legislature gets, like hearing from experts and staff to understand bills.
Under the bill, if voters pass a ballot initiative with less than two-thirds support, the governor could veto or approve it.
But if an initiative passes with at least two-thirds support — the same threshold at which state lawmakers can override a gubernatorial veto — from voters, the bill says the initiative would be approved without the governor’s approval.
The Idaho Constitution lets voters pass laws independent of the Idaho Legislature, through ballot initiatives. But Skaug says the constitution “is silent on the role of the governor.”
In the last 113 years in Idaho, Conservation Voters Idaho Program Director Ryan McGoldrick testified only 15 ballot initiatives passed, compared to 40,000 pieces of legislation that passed in the Statehouse.
“It’s much easier to get bills proposed here. If we do want to make the two equal, then it would require going out and gathering 70,000 signatures before you can post legislation in the Statehouse,” he told the committee. “I don’t think anyone’s suggesting that that’s the way we need to go about this, but just — they’re entirely separate processes.”
Debating governor veto bill, lawmakers disagreed over additional ballot initiative restrictions
Debating the bill Friday, lawmakers on the House State Affairs Committee disagreed about placing more limits on ballot initiatives.
Rep. Vito Barbieri, R-Dalton Gardens, called Skaug’s bill a creative check on initiatives to ensure voters aren’t misled.
“I think that this constitutional requirement that all the states be a republic in order to be part of the union is very, very important. True or pure democracy really has no place in a republic, and that’s what we’re looking at here,” he said. “… I do think that there’s a lot to be said … for the idea that the people should have some say in the law. And I think that this check is a very creative way of making sure that they do not get misled.”
Skaug said his bill wouldn’t affect the Idaho Legislature’s power to repeal or amend laws passed through ballot initiatives.
Laws passed through initiatives can take effect immediately, through an emergency clause, Skaug said, including when the Legislature isn’t in session.
“A lot of damage can be done if it’s a bad one, in my view, without any check on it from the Legislature,” Skaug told the committee. “So I’d like to see the governor have the opportunity to veto if he so chooses. We have to face that as a Legislature. Why shouldn’t the initiative process?”
If the Legislature has an issue with an initiative, Rep. Stephanie Mickelsen, R-Idaho Falls, pointed out that state lawmakers can call themselves back into session to fix it, even if the initiative law took effect immediately.
And she talked about how roughly 20 years ago, Idaho lawmakers repealed a voter-passed law establishing term limits for elected officials.
In 1994, Idaho voters approved that law through an initiative. In 2002, the Idaho Legislature repealed it — and overrode the governor’s veto on the repeal bill.
“I totally believe that there’s enough checks and balances in the system for the people’s voice to be heard,” Mickelsen said. “And I’m just concerned that when we start limiting stuff for the voters to have their voice heard, I think we hurt our country and I think we hurt our state.”
Rep. Todd Achilles, D-Boise, argued the bill wouldn’t put voters’ power to legislate on the same level as the Legislature, where bills can become law with at least 50% support in the House and Senate and by avoiding the governor’s veto.
Now, “we’re saying they’ve got to pass with a super majority,” Achilles said. “… We’re violating the principle of one person, one vote here.”
For initiatives to appear on the ballot, organizers must submit around 70,000 signatures from registered Idaho voters, with at least 6% of registered voters in at least 18 of Idaho’s 35 legislative districts.
Idaho Farm Bureau governmental affairs vice president Russ Hendricks was the only person who testified in support of the governor veto bill Friday.
Under Idaho’s current ballot initiative process, he said the group’s members, who largely are from rural Idaho areas, “are primarily ignored and excluded” from the process to qualify initiatives from the ballot.
“We hope that this would never happen, but it would be possible for entirely urban voters to gather the signatures needed and secure the votes for a measure that would be detrimental to rural interests here in Idaho,” Hendricks said.
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