AG zings IFF lawsuit

COEUR d’ALENE — The Idaho Attorney General’s office came out swinging against a lawsuit filed by local resident Brent Regan to stop Prop 2 from taking effect.

Last month, Regan filed the suit seeking to stop Idaho Secretary of State Lawerence Denney from implementing Prop 2, which voters approved Nov. 6. Regan filed the lawsuit in his capacity as chairman of the Idaho Freedom Foundation. He also chairs the Kootenai County Republican Central Committee.

Regan’s suit alleges that the voter initiative is unconstitutional.

In the Dec. 21 respondent’s brief, Deputy Idaho Attorney General Scott Zanzig writes that the court doesn’t have jurisdiction to hear the lawsuit because Prop 2 “is no longer an initiative; it already has become a law.”

Zanzig further argues that the lawsuit should be dismissed because its claims “are not justiciable. They raise merely ‘hypothetical’ concerns.”

Medicaid is a voluntary, cooperative federal-state program, he explains. The state still has the power to tailor its Medicaid expansion plan and to fund the expansion. Therefore, said Zanzig, the state has not unduly delegated authority to the federal government.

Zanzig went on the offensive by arguing that the IFF should pay the costs of the lawsuit because “it is frivolous, unreasonable, and without foundation on several levels.”

However, Regan said the attorney general’s response was “exactly what one would expect. We say ‘Proposition 2 is unconstitutional’ and the AG says ‘no it’s not.’ They use a lot more words because they are lawyers. It will be up to the court to decide.”

Since Regan filed his lawsuit Nov. 21, Pocatello mother of three Deleena Foster and Boise mother of two disabled children Pamela Blessinger have become intervening parties to the suit along with family practitioner Dr. Bruce Belzer of Boise, and the Idaho Medical Association.

Regan added, “I am encouraged by how much of the AG’s argument is dedicated to trying to get this case dismissed on a technicality, like claiming it is now a law and not an initiative, because if it really was absolutely without merit they would simply point that out and be done. Obviously the case has some merit or the Supreme Court wouldn’t have agreed to hear it.”

Oral arguments for the lawsuit begin Jan. 29.