Fundamental rights under attack

‘Tyranny of the minority’ is the agenda of ID Legislature

By Sens. Melissa Wintrow and James Ruchti, D-Pocatello Reader Contributors

Our fundamental right to the initiative and referendum process is under attack again by the Idaho Legislature. This shouldn’t surprise anybody. Since Idahoans voted in 1912 to add to the Constitution their initiative and referendum rights, the Idaho Legislature has historically shown disdain for the process every time the voters use it successfully.

Between 1984 and 2021, for example, the Legislature made five attempts to take away the people’s rights to the initiative process or make it harder.

The current threshold of getting signatures from 6% of registered voters from 18 out of 35 districts is already hard enough. But in 2021, the Legislature passed Senate Bill 1110, a bill requiring signatures from 6% of registered voters in all 35 districts; that law was struck down by the Idaho Supreme Court as unconstitutional, because it gave a single district veto power over all the others and established an impossible standard to meet.

The court wrote the new law is, “not reasonable or workable” adding it “turns a perceived fear of the ‘tyranny of the majority’ into an actual ‘tyranny of the minority.’”

After that defeat, the Idaho GOP supermajority’s quest to end the initiative process appeared to be over.

And then Senate Joint Resolution 101 was born. SJR 101 proposes to enshrine the very standard from SB 1110 — the standard rejected wholesale by the Idaho Supreme Court — into the Constitution itself. The idea is the Idaho Supreme Court could not then criticize the standard, because the standard would be in the Constitution. But to pull off this plan, lawmakers have to convince voters to do it to themselves at the ballot box.

Considering the realities of SJR 101, the only honest question to put on the ballot would be, “Do the people of Idaho want to eliminate from the Constitution their initiative and referendum right?” The actual question will be much more confusing.

Those in support of the proposal claim it’s a step to “let the people decide,” but the people have already decided — repeatedly. This Legislature won’t take “no” for an answer out of fear that the voters, themselves, will take matters into their own hands as they have done in the past when faced with an unresponsive Legislature.

What the supermajority is “letting” the people decide is to take away a fundamental right from themselves. What other fundamental rights would the Legislature take away from Idahoans using this scheme? One’s right to life, liberty, and property, to free speech, a free press, freedom of worship and assembly… ?

The fact is there is no problem to solve. In the last 20 years, only Medicaid expansion in 2018 and a rejection of the “Luna laws” in 2012 were adopted in the initiative process — a process that is clearly not outof-control.

The only problem this seems to solve is the problem of Idahoans having the power to use their constitutional rights.

In its current form, putting an initiative on the ballot is already very difficult, requiring thousands of hours from volunteers to collect the necessary signatures. Under the current system, we are not California or Colorado where initiatives and referendums regularly populate lines on the ballot. No, Idaho has found a workable, balanced solution. Citizens have used their right judiciously — it hasn’t been abused.

Lawmakers should be working to protect the people’s fundamental rights, not find ways to degrade them. SJR 101 should be defeated for the good of Idaho and its citizens.

Sen. Melissa Wintrow is a second-term Democratic member of the Idaho Senate serving District 19, in Boise, on the Health and Welfare, Judiciary and Rules, and State Affairs committees. She is also the Senate minority leader, and served three terms in the Idaho House from 2014-2020. Sen. James Ruchti is a first-term Democratic lawmaker and assistant minority leader serving District 29 on the Commerce and Human Resources, Judiciary and Rules, and State Affairs committees.