Voter initiatives again a hot topic in Idaho

BOISE — A new attempt to make it more difficult to pass voter initiatives in Idaho was introduced Wednesday.

The House State Affairs committee voted unanimously to introduce a bill sponsored by Rep. Bruce Skaug, R-Nampa, that would require statewide initiatives to pass by at least 60% of the vote, raising it from 50%.

Voter initiatives are laws that come from residents rather than the Legislature. Idaho’s most recent statewide initiative that made it on the ballot was Prop 1, also known as the Open Primaries Initiative, which was rejected by voters in November.

The bill will return to the committee for a full hearing. Skaug asked legislators to move the draft legislation forward, and “flesh out” the issue.

Rep. Todd Achilles, D-Boise, said that he and the other Democrat on the committee, Rep. Brooke Green, usually opt to vote to introduce bills “out of respect for the legislative process,” but it doesn’t mean they support the content of the legislation.

Committee Vice Chairperson Rep. Heather Scott, R-Blanchard, responded, “We can always vote them down, if we don’t even want to touch them,” regarding proposed legislation.

Achilles also said he would have questions during the hearing about the bill given the Idaho Supreme Court has previously ruled the initiative and referendum process are “fundamental rights.” He also said he would question why a 60% vote threshold would be required when the Legislature has a 50% vote threshold on bills.

“I think it’s important to look at the totality of this,” Achilles said.

The Idaho Supreme Court ruling came in response to a bill passed by the Legislature in 2021 that would have increased the number of signatures required to qualify for the ballot from 6% of registered voters in 18 of Idaho’s 35 legislative districts, to 6% in every district, the Idaho Press reported.

The court ruled that the bill was too restrictive, and took away voters’ rights to use the initiative process.

“We conclude that the Legislature has acted beyond its constitutional authority and violated the people’s fundamental right to legislate directly,” the court’s opinion stated.

In 2023, Rep. Joe Alfieri, R-Coeur d’Alene, sponsored a resolution to put to the voters whether to amend the state Constitution to require 6% of registered voters in all of Idaho’s districts. The resolution failed to pass the House with the needed two-thirds majority, the Idaho Press reported.

The last statewide voter initiative to pass in Idaho was Medicaid expansion in 2018, which passed with 60.6% of the vote.

Guido covers Idaho politics for the Lewiston Tribune, Moscow-Pullman Daily News and Idaho Press of Nampa. She may be contacted at lguido@idahopress.com and can be found on Twitter @EyeOnBoiseGuido.