PRESS ENDORSEMENT: Vote 'no' on more government, regulations

Voters have a rare opportunity Nov. 8 to strap themselves with more government, more government spending and more regulations.

It’s called SJR 102, and if this badly conceived attempt to alter the Idaho Constitution is successful, more government and more regulations are soon headed your way.

For those who wish to preserve the integrity of the Idaho Constitution and its effective checks and balances, The Press editorial board encourages a NO vote on SJR 102.

The proposed constitutional amendment would allow legislators to call themselves back into session whenever they wish. A mere 60% from both chambers would need to agree on a special session, the lowest threshold among states that give legislators that power.

What might a legislature-called special session look like? You don’t need to exercise your imagination on that one. Last November, the House illegally conducted a special session to consider 29 bills.

It did not go well.

Not one of the bills was adopted. What did happen? Well, taxpayers paid about $100,000 for absolutely nothing — at least, nothing for the taxpayers. Legislators received a taxpayer-funded three day spree to preen and pose for prospective voters in the upcoming election year.

Compare that fiasco with the legal application of the Idaho Constitution. On Sept. 1, your governor — the only person the Constitution empowers to call a special session — summoned legislators and in one day, taxes were cut, education was funded and citizens became beneficiaries of significant rebates.

There’s a reason framers of our constitution wrote Section 5 of Article IV in these exact words:

The supreme executive power of the state is vested in the governor, who shall see that the laws are faithfully executed.

That supreme power ensures that whomever citizens select as the state’s top executive is solely responsible for calling special sessions, which may consider only clearly detailed agenda items.

Those sessions can last no longer than 20 days. As Gov. Little demonstrated, a whole lot can be done in one day. As legislators demonstrated, a whole lot of nothing can be done in three days.

SJR 102 would open the door to unlimited special sessions lasting as long as legislators wanted, at a cost of roughly $30,000 per day. A full-time state legislature is not hard to imagine — though it’s about as anti-Idaho as it gets.

Our constitution’s framers insisted on a part-time citizen legislature because they wanted limited government, an effective body that would create only laws essential to the preservation of life and liberty for all Idahoans.

Idaho’s annual legislative sessions average about 90 days. That could become only a warm-up exercise if SJR 102 passes.

Please help keep intact the checks and balances between our state’s executive, legislative and judicial branches. Ensure that only the governor — any governor — can summon the legislature — any legislature — back into session.

Preserve constitutional integrity and vote NO on SJR 102.