OPINION: Will Idaho voters show self-respect if their wishes are ignored?

In 1994, voters in Idaho approved, with 59.3% in favor, an initiative to limit the number of terms a person could hold an office in Idaho. The issue was on the ballot again in the next two elections, and Idaho voters renewed their call for term limits each time.

Courts soon threw out the elements related to congressional offices (qualification for those being a federal matter), but despite many legal cases, the voter-set term limits on, among others, state legislators remained on the books.

Until early 2002, when sitting legislators were about to be impacted by it. The Idaho Legislature passed a bill repealing the voters’ term limits decision. It was vetoed by Gov. Dirk Kempthorne, but the veto was overridden. Idaho then became the first state Legislature (Utah later did likewise) to throw out a popularly enacted, term-limits requirement. The politics of this was notable: The move for term limits started with Republican groups pushing for it, and ended with Republican legislators killing it.

This piece of history demonstrates a legal fact: An initiative passed by the people has the same legal status as any law passed by the state Legislature, which means the Legislature can, if it chooses, alter or kill it. The only practical limitation on the Legislature’s willingness to do this would happen if voters are willing to punish — at the polls — legislators who disregard their will. In the case of term limits, no legislators suffered any political ill effects, despite their blatant rejection of their own voters’ intent.

This history is relevant because legislators today already are positioning themselves to kill or eviscerate a current initiative, Proposition 1, if it is passed by voters next month.

There’s no certainty it will pass. The Idaho Republican Party — the party organization, and most of its affiliated groups and top elected officials — is lined up against it, and so are other interests, and that’s no small thing. Idahoans have been buried under warnings about how awful, and how California-based (much the same thing) the measure is.

But a strong organization was formed to get the measure on the ballot — not an easy task under Idaho’s initiative laws — and to keep it there in the face of repeated challenges. If it does pass, that will constitute a direct repudiation of the state’s Republican leadership. If it passes in the same election Donald Trump easily wins Idaho’s electoral votes for president, as he likely will, that will represent a stunning piece of cognitive dissonance.

If you were a legislator in the 1990s watching the voters enthusiastically support turnover in the Legislature, you might understandably feel some, uh, lack of support from people out there. And there’d be a temptation to reverse their verdict, which is what they did.

So a recent story in the Idaho Capital Sun, outlining how legislators already are thinking of changing or killing the initiative as soon as they get back into session, isn’t surprising.

House Speaker Mike Moyle, R-Star, told the Sun, “If voters pass it and we have what’s happening now where people who signed the initiative say, ‘that’s not what they told me it did,’ if enough people have been misled, then I think that there would be an opportunity there to fix it. But I hope the voters do their research and kill this thing.”

If Moyle’s comments seem to have an air of diffidence, don’t be mistaken. This is better called a semi-subtle statement of intent. The legislation to “fix” Prop 1, should it pass, probably already has been drafted. The next question is what legislators, acting in the (prospective) face of Idaho voters’ opinion, will do about it.

The second question, of course, would be: Will Idaho voters once again show zero self-respect and shrug their shoulders, again, at the flouting of their preferences by their elected officials?

We’ve seen the answers to those questions before. The issue now is whether history will repeat.

Stapilus is a former Idaho newspaper reporter and editor who blogs at ridenbaugh.com. He may be contacted at stapilus@ridenbaugh.com.