Idaho
The Idaho Legislature seems to be following the Maryland Legislature’s lead with the same knee-jerk reaction, seeking to legislatively block future referendums after several appeared on the ballot last November. The key difference is that Maryland voters approved the legislature’s enactments in three referendums last November, while Idaho voters reversed the legislature for the first time since the 1930s, overturning three laws concerning education policy.
Police in Meridian are looking for information about the possible abuse of an 8-month-old puppy found wandering on Eagle Road last week with trauma wounds to its head. Veterinarians can’t say for sure if it was animal abuse, but believe the dog was struck with something hard and more than once. With his head wrapped in a cone so it can heal, this 8 month old Australian mixed puppy named Tanner is doing better.
The stormwater battle rages on for the City of Clarkston and Monday ended it up in court. The Respect Clarkston Committee is a group of Clarkston citizens and business owners who are seeking to repeal a Clarkston ordinance that sets up a utility fee to pay for a stormwater program.
A group of Whitefish city and rural residents are petitioning to put a referendum and initiative on the November 2011 ballot that they hope will bring control over the city’s two-mile planning and zoning “doughnut” area back to the local community. The group will submit their petition, referendum and initiative documents to the Flathead County Elections Office and the city and county attorneys for review before collecting signatures.
Last week Citizens in Charge Foundation - a partner organization to Citizens in Charge - sent a letter to Secretaries of State and Attorneys General in 12 states asking them to stop enforcing unconstitutional restrictions on ballot initiative rights. In light of recent legal action in which Kansas officials agreed with petition advocates that the state’s law against petition circulators from other states was unconstitutional, Foundation President Paul Jacob asked officials to “do the right thing” and stop enforcing similar
Sponsors of an initiative to make it easier for Idahoans to vote by mail if they want to have dropped their bid to get the measure on the ballot in 2012. “We needed 51,000 signatures, and I could just tell from the way we were going that we weren’t going to meet the mark,” said Larry Grant, a former Democratic congressional candidate from Fruitland, Idaho who led the effort. “I didn’t want people working on it for another couple months knowing we weren’t going to make it.”
The Richard A. Egbert Limited Partnership has filed a claim seeking to overturn a referendum vote by Tetonia city voters that overturned an annexation of 267 acres. Brad Egbert, who represents the partnership, applied for the annexation last year. After a recommendation of denial from the city’s planning and zoning commission and much public debate, the city council approved the annexation in December 2009.
A set of 17 voter initiatives, many aimed at strengthening Idaho’s state sovereignty, likely didn’t garner enough signatures from voters to appear on the November general election ballot. One of the backers of the slate of initiatives, called the Idaho Freedom Initiatives, said signature counts he’s received have been well below the 51,712 needed by April 30 to get on the ballot.
In a bid for a single Hailey City Council seat, incumbent Martha (Beaver) Burke will square off against challenger Anthony (Tony) St. George for a four-year term. Burke, a former Hailey planning and zoning commissioner, has positioned herself in interviews and debates as a defender of the “family-friendly” character of old Hailey. She has served four terms (16 years) on the City Council.
Several states –including Alaska, Colorado, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota, Oregon and Wyoming – ban or restrict paying people who collect signatures on a ballot initiative, referendum or recall petition based on the number of signatures they collect. Payment-per-signature allows citizens greater certainty in judging the cost of a petition effort. Moreover, in states that have passed such bans, the cost of successfully completing a petition drive has risen considerably, sometimes more than doubling.
A voter initiative to allow permanent mail-in absentee voting has passed final review by the Idaho Secretary of State Ben Ysursa and Attorney General Lawrence Wasden. A group led by Larry Grant, who ran for Congress in 2006 as a Democrat, wants to allow people to register just once with their county clerk to vote absentee, rather than having to do it again and again every year. Grant, chairman of Idaho Vote by Mail, is trying to get the initiative on the ballot for 2012 and must collect 52,000 registered voters’ signatures to do it.
Nearly twice as many efforts to recall public officials are underway this year than last, according to Citizens in Charge Foundation President Paul Jacob. In his daily Common Sense commentary, Paul points out several of the recall efforts from around the country, many of which have been mentioned on this site.
Backers of mail-in voting in Idaho have filed an initiative petition seeking to let Idaho voters put in a permanent request for an absentee ballot, rather than having to request one each election. Former Democratic congressional candidate Larry Grant, a board member of Idaho Vote by Mail Inc., said, “There are plenty of folks who need or prefer to vote by mail, but we are not asking that Idaho go to full voting by mail. The initiative simply provides that those folks who want or need to vote by absentee ballot don’t have to ask for one every time. It’s a good middle ground.
It’s a question Charles Seldon is asking and is hoping 51,000 other Idahoans will agree. “When we take the bible out of the foundation of our education, our Government and our way of life, our country will fail,” Seldon said. Seldon is the founder of the Idaho group, Our Godly American Heritage. He’s working to bring the Bible into Idaho public high school classrooms, by getting the issue put on a ballot initiative.
“The board felt a need to address the concerns of our patrons over the current economic conditions in the district. We will have to use money from our fund balance to balance the budget.”