The people behind Reclaim Idaho, a grassroots movement that helped pass the Medicaid Expansion Act, made a whistle-stop at One World Café in Moscow Saturday afternoon to speak with Idaho citizens about opposing a bill they say will silence voters and make passing new initiatives nearly impossible.
This stop was one of several in an Idaho wide tour. Reclaim Idaho hopes to use this tour to mobilize Idaho citizens in opposition of Idaho Senate Bill 1159 and put pressure on the Idaho Governor, Brad Little, to veto the bill. The bill has already been passed by both legislative bodies, the House and Senate, besides the amendments, present in House Bill 296 — which must still clear the Senate.
If the bills pass the Senate, Little would be the only person with a say in whether the legislation becomes law.
Luke Mayville, co-founder of Reclaim Idaho, said the bill has started a political crisis in Idaho. If it is passed, he said it will move power away from citizens and further into the hands or politicians and lobbyists. He said two days ago the bill was amended in a closed-door meeting of the House of Representative Ways and Means Committee. Mayville said the amended bill is just as unacceptable as the old one. The amended bill will still make initiatives more difficult to qualify in the legislature, a process Mayville said is already hard to complete.
“If you put a forty-foot wall in front of me and tell me to jump over it I’ll tell you that is unreasonable and if you then put a thirty-foot wall in front of me and say ‘look we’ve compromised now jump over this one’ it’s still impossible,” Mayville said. “That is exactly what they are doing. They have lowered the barrier slightly, but it is still an insurmountable barrier.”
The amended bill, if the House and Little approve it, will change the percentage of signatures from Idaho voters needed to get an initiative on the ballot, from 6% to 10%. The distribution requirement will also be changed from 18 legislative districts to 24 of Idaho’s 35 districts.
This means for an initiative to get on the ballot it would not only need to accrue signatures from 10% of Idaho voters but also from 10% of the voters in at least 24 districts. Additionally, initiatives would only have nine months after being granted a ballot title to fulfill these requirements, instead of the 18 months that they have under the current rules.
Senate Bill 1159, without the amendments, would make it so petitioners have 6 months to obtain signatures from 10 percent of registered voters from 32 or the 35 legislative districts, the Idaho Statesman reported.
Rebecca Schroeder, executive director of Reclaim Idaho, said the bill should not be considered a partisan issue because it comes down to revoking the constitutional rights of Idaho citizens. She said that over the past weeks she has spent in Boise hearing people on both sides of the ideological spectrum speak out against this bill. She said it is important for Idahoans come together during this time to protect their constitutional rights and let representatives know that they will be held accountable for their decisions.
“This is going to define Governor Little’s administration,” Schroeder said. “We are going to see the rubber hit the road. Is he going to stand with the special interests or the people? We are trying to let him know this is his chance to be a hero to the people of Idaho and we hope that he does the right thing.”
John Morse, a Moscow resident who attended the event, said he was there to show support for the work Mayville and Schroeder are doing. He said he hopes that Governor Little will veto the bill.
“That bill is making it nearly impossible for anybody to put anything on the ballet, to me at least, that seems to run counter to democracy,” Morse said.
Gavin Green can be reached at [email protected]