The Idaho Supreme Court has ordered the attorney general and secretary of state to pay the Open Primaries supporters nearly $80,000 in attorney fees.
The court entered the order Monday for Attorney General Raúl Labrador and Secretary of State Phil McGrane to pay $79,968 to Idahoans for Open Primaries, after it ruled against the officers in August for Labrador’s ballot titles.
The court ruled that Labrador acted “without a reasonable basis in law in this matter,” the substitute opinion states.
“The Attorney General’s short and general ballot titles contained a blatant misstatement concerning what the Initiative would require,” the opinion states. “The general title failed to fully and accurately explain how the ranked choice voting method would work. Finally, both ballot titles instead contain the never-before used term ‘nonparty blanket primary.’”
The court awarded attorney fees but declined the petitioners’ request to prohibit Labrador’s office to write the new titles and declined to extend the deadline for gathering signatures to get the initiative on the ballot.
The titles explain to voters what the initiative seeks to do, and the court ruled that Labrador’s did not follow state law requiring them to use knowledge that is commonly used, the Idaho Capital Sun reported. The court ordered the office to submit titles, which it did Aug. 11.
The majority of the court ruled that the new titles complied with the law and were written consistent with its Aug. 10 opinion.
Justice John Stegner dissented with the majority opinion, writing that he believed there were still flaws in the new language. Stegner took issue with the short title, which states “Measure to (1) replace voter selection of party nominees with a top-four primary; (2) require a ranked-choice voting system for general elections.” He said it would replace voter selection of party nominees for the Republican Party, but that wasn’t necessarily true for Democratic primaries in the state, which are open. He wrote that the new titles also don’t inform voters that if a candidate receives the majority of votes in the first round, then no ranked-choice system would go into effect.
Jim Jones, a former Idaho attorney general, former Idaho Supreme Court justice and spokesperson for Idahoans for Open Primaries, said, “The people of Idaho will now have to pay $80,000 to the Open Primaries coalition’s attorneys because Attorney General Labrador’s ballot titles were unlawful.... That is not a surprise because he vowed to run a political office and he was strongly opposed to the initiative. We expected he would try to undermine the initiative with biased ballot titles, but the Court refused to put up with his misconduct. Unfortunately, the taxpayers will have to pay the price.”
A sppokesperson for the attorney general’s offices, Beth Cahill, said in an emailed statement, “Reclaim Idaho asked for an excessive fee award from the state. The Supreme Court rejected their full request and ordered a more reasonable amount.”
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.