INITIATIVE: Leave well enough alone

Rep. Jim Addis says the Idaho Legislature’s effort to make citizens’ initiatives nearly impossible has the purest motives. (Don’t call it “revenge on voters.”) History suggests otherwise.

After citizens repealed the “Luna Laws” (the first initiative to overturn the Legislature since 1936), legislators enacted a law making citizens’ initiatives much harder. They ignored, and still ignore, that the majority of voters statewide repealed the Luna Laws.

Then Idaho voters initiated and passed Medicaid Expansion against the will of the Legislature. So legislators naturally followed the will of the people, right? No. They put “sideboards” on the citizens’ law to reduce its effectiveness and increase its cost.

Now they want to make initiatives nearly impossible. Is it coincidence that the last two times voters took the reins of government into their own hands, legislators’ response both times was to limit citizens’ power?

Is it suddenly, coincidentally time to “improve” the already well functioning initiative process? Or is it revenge on voters?

DANIEL PETERSON

Coeur d’Alene