Constitutional Politics

Out legislative committees meet in fairly small rooms downstairs from the floor of the house here in the old Ada County Courthouse, our temporary Capitol. We sit in big chairs around folding tables with maroon skirts around them and when we vote a roll call vote the ayes and nays snake around the table and table extensions sometimes in the shape of a big "E."
    I can't even count how many years people have been coming to the legislature with requests for authority to raise their own local sales taxes to address their own local needs. Again and again people have come to the legislature desperate for public transportation funding to address their own public transportation needs. After last year's public transit bill came darn close to passing to the floor, some Republican leaders who oppose public transportation generally said the bill needed to include local funding for local roads as well. The now statewide coalition supporting the bill complied and changed the bill to include roads.
    Next Rep. Mike Moyle, key opponent of public transportation, then said that we needed a constitutional amendment before he would allow a public transit bill to get out of Revenue and Taxation Committee. Canyon County legislators who at some point last year had heard their constituents and agreed we needed public transit funding, today seem to have bowed down to the idea that a constitutional amendment should be passed before we address public transportation needs.
    What does this mean for any community with broken buses, bare bones service or no service at all? What happens to businesses who suffer from a lack of parking or people waking up in wee hours to commute through dense traffic? What is the consequence to the elderly and people with disabilities, to those with no alternative but to walk, beg a ride or take a cab?  Delay.
    We will wait now while the legislature debates this constitutional amendment, while it goes to the voters for likely approval. Who wouldn't agree local people should be able to raise their own local taxes for their own local needs? A majority likely will, even statewide. But what does it gain us? Nothing. We can already let local people vote to raise their own sales tax and some communities around the state do just that for jails or for tourist services. It keeps them from having to raise property taxes and let's local folks set priorities for what is urgently needed locally rather than waiting on the state or feds to even care. Funny though, until we pass the "Moving Idaho Forward" bill waiting hostage to this constitutional amendment, we still will not be able to fund public transportation or roads by a local option tax.
    So all this is to say that the legislature is wasting tax payers time. We are just standing in the way of the needs of many areas where people sit in long lines of cars to get to work, where smog rises and the big federal hammer of air quality "non-Attainment" is about to come down. Let's not pretend there will be no victims to this political game. There will be. There already are.
    

Comments

[Julie in Boise]

Nicole, I thought the Dems did an excellent job exposing Moyle's hypocrisy today. I hope lots of Canyon Countians (and people from Moyle's Star district) can turn out for the hastily called, almost-avoided public hearing at 8:30 tomorrow morning.

I know that it's a long shot to keep this thing from advancing in the lopsided Legislature, but thank you for all that you and the Dem caucus are doing to try to get the truth out.

[Jim Hansen]

Rep. LeFavour, thank you for your honesty and persistence in fighting to genuinely protect taxpayers and the community assets we want to invest in.

It was clear at the hearing today that the sponsors of HJR 4 are unconcerned that Idaho already has among the most centralized control of government of any other state. They show astonishing disdain for local communities and their ability to solve problems through the few tools they do have. HJR 4 simply centralizes government more.

We heard again at the hearing that unlike most states, Idaho's legislature refuses to use the centralized power it has to invest in community assets like public transit options. They leave that up to local communities.

Yet, they do use that centralized power to give away tax breaks to privileged interests. Those tax breaks shift the burden onto ordinary taxpayers by narrowing the tax base. This further cripples our communities' ability to invest in long term assets that will strengthen our economy and the quality of life we work so hard to achieve. The sooner our community is able to invest in those assets the more we the taxpayers are protected from the long-term cost of neglected problems. HJR 4 adds to those costs with more delay.

Make no mistake, HJR 4 and the centralized policies of this legislature hurt taxpayers, the simplistic rhetoric of the sponsors notwithstanding.

We taxpayers are used to voting to tax ourselves and are ready to do it again if the state legislature continues to neglect investment in critical assets. If the sponsors of HJR 4 are so interested in having taxpayers vote on tax policies, they would require that ordinary taxpayers vote on each and every one of those tax breaks that they've hand out over the years.

[Julie in Boise]

Amen to what Jim said.

Here's hoping that five principled moderate Republicans will stand up in the House and defy their party leadership for its cynicism and its (un)constitutional monkey-wrenching.

Be sure to read Sisyphus' excellent commentary at 43SB:
http://www.43rdstateblues.com/?q=node/5010

Branden Durst has some good thoughts on his blog, too.