Bill's Legacy

Some folks like to assert that Million Dollar Bill was and will be an effective legislator. This AP story contradicts that notion.

Sali's key issue was anti-abortion, yet he was unable to get any legislation passed that withstood constitutional scrutiny, and instead just cost taxpayers big money. The problem with Bill's bills is that they were poorly drafted and unconstitutional.

The Legislature has made several attempts – most recently last March – to pass legislation requiring girls to get their parents' permission before having an abortion. Each time the laws have been struck down by judges as unconstitutional – but not before the state spent hundreds of thousands of dollars defending them in court ...

The state spent more than $350,000 on the failed defense of a 2000 parental consent abortion law against a Planned Parenthood suit. A judge ruled last April that the state must also pay Planned Parenthood's more than $380,500 legal bill.

Sali's ideological efforts have cost Idaho taxpayers "close to a million bucks".

"Every time, we spend another couple hundred thousand dollars in defense of an unconstitutional law," Stennett said. "We're close to a million bucks, and that's from trying to stand up and protect and prove the constitutionality of something that always pushes the edge."

So, failed efforts at enacting law that will stand up to constitutional challenge, and nearly a million dollars wasted. Some legacy.