Unconstitutional constitutional amendment

The Idaho legislature is considering HJR 4, which would amend the constitution to require a two thirds super majority for localities to impose local option taxes. Since the legislature already has to power to give cities and counties the ability to impose local option taxes, the amendment is not necessary to allow such.

Opponents argue that the amendment is really a poison pill that will prevent the Treasure Valley from imposing a local option sales tax to try to fix transportation problems. Proponents say the amendment is the only way that localities will be allowed to levy the local option tax because it is the only way it will pass the legislature. That is, opponents of allowing localities to use the local option tax will vote against it unless it’s virtually impossible to impose the tax.

Let’s have a closer look at this. First off, the amendment is to read “The legislature may authorize counties or cities to levy a sales and use tax within their jurisdictions.” (emphasis added) So this doesn’t give localities the ability to levy the taxes. They will still be dependant on the legislature allowing them to do so, something the legislature can already do.

Even worse, in my view, is Section 2 of HJR 4. This section says

“The question to be submitted to the electors of the State of Idaho at the next general election shall be as follows:
"Shall Article VII, of the Constitution of the State of Idaho be amended by the addition of a new Section 19, Article VII, to allow the Legislature to authorize counties or cities to levy a sales and use tax within their jurisdictions, …” (emphasis added).

This is clearly misleading. It implies that the legislature cannot currently authorize such a tax, which is incorrect. Not only is it misleading, it’s probably unconstitutional.

In Van Valkenburgh v. Citizens for Term Limits, the Idaho Supreme Court held that misleading and unnecessary statements on a ballot are unconstitutional. I’m not going to do a full analysis here, but this quote gives you the flavor.

Thus, the statute creates the very real possibility of state-sponsored, misleading information appearing on the ballot. Finally, allowing a state official to place a particular political message on the ballot, and to determine the circumstances under which such message should be placed, appears to be in conflict with Article I, § 19 of the Idaho Constitution.

The Court also wrote

The information the State seeks to make available to the voters is easily obtainable through a variety of other sources, namely media sources and the candidate's own voter information materials. The statute cannot be said to be necessary to provide that information to voters.

Here the ballot statement is very close to the wording of the amendment, so if you can understand the statement you can understand the amendment and the statement is unnecessary.

Risch and the legislature did a similar trick when they had the voters affirm their bogus property tax relief. The ballot question then was

Should the State of Idaho keep the property tax relief adopted in August 2006, reducing property taxes by approximately $260 million and protecting funding for public schools by keeping the sales tax at 6%?

Since this was a question to be voted on and not an explanatory statement, it probably didn’t violate the Van Valkenburgh case. Still, it’s an incredibly dishonest and misleading statement, and the legislature ought to be called on this type of stuff. I’m hoping someone files suit over the misleading statement on HJR 4, if it ends up passing.

Idaho Chooses Life

Idaho Chooses Life is one of the more visible pro-life (no, not the person formerly known as Marvelous Marvin) PACs in Idaho, so its campaign finances are worth a look. (ICL PAC is closely related to Idaho Chooses Life Alliance, but the principals appear to be trying to keep them at least ostensibly separate. More on that later.) I don't see anything questionable, just trying to shine some light into the workings of a controversial organization. The most interesting point is that David Ripleyis paid quite a bit of money through this PAC.

As you can see below, in 2007 ICL PAC started out with $6,479, received $41,359 in contributions, and spent $31,635.

In 2007, ICL PAC received 204 donations. Some of the more interesting are:

$5,000, Larry Knapp, Star
$1,000 Dean Goss, Nampa
$4,100, Norm Brown, Caldwell
$100, Gerry Sweet (yes, that Gerry Sweet)
$200, Dennis Mansfield (2 x $100)
$250, John Vander Woude
$100, Sen. Russel Fulcher (a good investment)
$1,000 Bill Litster (the lawyer who advertises via magnet)
$350, Curt Bowers ($100 & $250) (a good investment)
$100, Shirley McKague

Much of the money was spent on printing, mailing, and what not. However, $8,716 was paid to David Ripley as “consulting fees.” See itemization below.

On November 12, ICL gave $1,000 to “Fulcher Reelection Committee.” Fulcher’s $100 donation is dated November 30. On Nov 12, ICL gave $1,000 to “Bowers Reelection Committee.” Bowers donated $250 on March 1, and $100 on December 6. Both men donated in earlier cycles as well.

Troupis Law Office got $250 on Feb 10, for consulting.

Lifeline Pregnancy Center, Nampa, got $350 on April 17, as a donation.

House Leadership Victory Fund, $500 on Nov 14.

Phil Kline, $4,274 for “honorarium and reimbursement of travel expenses.”

Ripley received:
1/2, $900
1/13, $350
1/23, $220
2/7, $310
2/15, $320
2/26, $370
3/16, $600
4/13, $740
4/28, $200
5/18, $360
6/15, 340
6/30, $320
7/24, $500
9/2, $436
9/14, $240
10/26, $520
10/30, $100
11/12, $1,000
11/22, $440
12/4, $300
12/13, $150

In 2005, David Ripley received $10,595.69 in consulting fees from ICL PAC, and $2,369.55 as expense reimbursement, for a total of $12,965.24. In the same year Wendy Ripley received $4,150, which was recorded as loan repayment.

Enuff z'nuff

A tip to the Statesman. If you want to cut expenses, stop delivering me 6 copies of the JC Penny ad on the same day.

Trophy

I used to hunt, ducks mostly, but I lost my taste for it somewhere along the line. I've got no problem with hunting, or hunters. When done sportingly it's a fine sport. The pictures I see of a person holding up the head some some dead animal kind of creep me out though, especially when accompanied by a quite like this from 11 year old Jamison Stone after he killed the huge pig pictured to the right.

"It feels really good," Jamison said in a telephone interview with The Associated Press. "It's a good accomplishment. I probably won't ever kill anything else that big."

Good accomplishment. Well.

Anyway, with that set up, the picture below made me laugh.

One to watch

There are any number of PACs registered with the Idaho Secretary of State. Some are active, some not so active. Most are not high dollar entities. Here's an interesting and well funded one. Winning for Idaho. (Click to enlarge)



$75,200 cash on hand. Not too bad, given that it had $0 at the start of the year. Note below that $75,000 of that came from Coeur d'Alene Racing Limited Partnership. Also note that all donations came in the last few days in December.



Who is in the partnership? 3 guys from Alabama.



I wonder what they want? It'll be interesting to see who benefits from their largess.

Update: See interesting speculation in the comments about slot machines in the N. Idaho Racetrack.

What's he up to?

A look at State Sen. Russ Fulcher's 2007 year end financial disclosure raises some questions is interesting. As shown in the oval below, Fulcher had $6,507.50 cash on hand on January 1, 2007. He had contributions of $17,500 during the year (box), and spent $3,731.65 (line 5). Even without the new contributions, Fulcher had enough cash to cover his 2007 expenses.

Click to enlarge

But, look at line 1 below. You can see that on December 28, 2007, Fulcher loaned himself $12,000. He got $5,500 in contributions, plus his loan.



If he's got excess cash, why the loan? Why December 28? (Tax purposes, I guess, though a loan isn't deductible, so I don't see the tax angle.) Why not wait until he sees how contributions are going before loaning his campaign more money?

Another thing to note. Like Jim Risch, Fulcher isn't accruing interest on his loan to himself, nor paying it back.

Update: Saying "raises some questions" seems to imply that this is questionable, or wrong somehow. That's not the case at all. It's just interesting, to me, to see the machinations politicians go through with their finances, especially as they approach reelection.

Cook's Two Hole

Julie has a great thread going on road food here. This inspired me to go have some, so I went to Cook's Two Hole in Melba, and here's some pix. Click to enlarge.

First, check out the sign. The name "two hole" apparently comes from a two seat outhouse. Also note the precise elevation.



Shot of the inside. It has become a popular place for motorcyclists, like the one here in the do rag. It's a nice ride to Melba, a burger and a beverage, and ride back. There were 4 cyclists there today.



A shot of the burger and fries. That's a black olive on a toothpick stuck in the middle of the bun. Hand formed pattie, shredded lettuce, onion, pickle and mayo. I added mustard. Fry sauce served with every burger.

Just for fun

Let's resurrect this photo from the archives.

This photo takes on a new meaning since the Craig "wide stance" incident. Not to imply anything about Bill Sali, 'cause there's no basis to, but just kind of fun to look at the two of them, and Craig's cheesy smile, and Sali's pumpkin shirt, and wonder exactly where Craig's left hand is, and chuckle.



Does Sali have his yellow sticker over his flag pin, or is he not wearing the obligatory Republican flag pin? Either way, a Republican faux paux.

h/t to Julie for reminding me.

This is annoying

For three reasons. The Statesman reported on a Forbes article ranking Boise as "the second best place in the country for business and careers."

This is annoying because it just encourages people to move to Boise, and plenty of folks are doing that even without this cheer leading. Of course, the Statesman loves it. More people, more circulation. No wonder they give it prominent coverage.

It's also annoying because it doesn't make sense (at least to me.) How can they say that Boise is such a wonderful place to have a career when wages here are substantially below national averages?

Finally, it's annoying given the Idaho House's Revenue and Tax Committee looking at lowering taxes for business. The Statesman reports that the Forbes article said that "Boise ranked highest in job growth at 13. It also ranked 17th for the cost of doing business..." As I noted in the previous post, if things are so peachy for business now, if costs are relatively low, why do we need to cut taxes on businesses?" Low unemployment, good growth and low costs under the current tax structure. Revenues are down this year; why lower them even further?

I just don't get why these conservative Republican legislators keep getting reelected, even in the face of actions like this that shift taxes onto voters. Which brings me to the next annoying legislative effort, again reported in the Statesman.

Senate lawmakers voted 23-9 to require proponents of citizen initiatives to list their initiatives' possible fiscal impact on state revenue, local government, private property and business.

The Republican proponents of this bill tout it as a way to make sure that citizens signing a petition are adequately informed. Riiight. It looks to me like an effort to make citizen initiatives more difficult to succeed. Do they think we're stupid? Do they think we won't see through an obviously phony excuse for preventing citizen involvement in legislation? Apparently so. And maybe we are. We keep reelecting them. Even after they overturned the citizen initiative for term limits.

And you gotta love this.

Senate Minority Leader Clint Stennett asked Pearce if his own fiscal impact statement on the bill [to impose the fiscal impact statement requirment on citizen initiatives] would meet the standard it demanded.

Pearce said, "Likely not."

Fairly? Maybe. Not particularly well, though.

The Statesman has posted an opinion saying that the legislature has treated state employees well with its recent compensation decisions. The legislature approved a 3% raise, but with it also approved a 29% increase in benefits expenses that state employees pay. Essentially, state employees will pay more of their health insurance premiums. I believe that retired state workers have their health insurance benefits substantially cut back.

So, let's look at the numbers. Per the Statesman, a single employee pays around $25 per month for health insurance, and a married employee with a family pays around $90 a month. These are to increase by 29%, almost a third. Let's say by $8 and $30, respectively.

I know several state employees making about $10 per hour, or about $1,750 per month. A 3% raise is $52.50 per month, around $45 after taxes. Taking the health insurance into account, the low paid employee nets $37 ($45 - $8) if paying the single insurance rate, but nets only $15 ($45 - $30) if paying the family rate.

$15 is in the ball park for lots of state employees, which is About $2,600 per month. 3% raise is about $78, or say $60 after taxes. So, the single guy nets $52 ($60 - $8), and the family person nets $30 ($60 - $30).

Note that the raise will be a merit raise (they all are), not a cost of living adjustment. This allows agencies to pay some employees more than 3%, but others less. Not good for the morale of those who get less.

While a 3% raise is nice and will be appreciated, several things make this less than thrilling. One is the "net of health insurance" issue above. Another is that moving salaries to a market rate is postponed and will happen gradually over several years, if at all. Benefits increase are not equally phased in; they happen right now. Most galling is the rationale behind the 3% instead of the 5% the Governor requested.

The legislature cites a $38 million shortfall in revenues as the reason. Well, okay, that's understandable. The galling part is the tax cuts given to business. If the state is so short on revenue, why are they cutting taxes THIS YEAR? If employees have to wait for good times, why don't businesses? If our unemployment rate is 2.9%, that tells me Idaho's economy is humming along pretty well. If so, why tax cuts for business?

Finally, the Gov raised expectations with his 5% request. Getting 3% after hoping for 5% is disappointing, not exciting. Yes, it was an appreciated effort to raise salaries, but I don't think it's going to improve morale or reduce turnover.

Update: Sisyphus has more here. Rep. LaFavour has an outstanding list of inconvenient truths here. Well worth a look.

The Statesman reports on a Forbes article about Boise being such a swell place to have a business or a career. "Boise ranked highest in job growth at 13. It also ranked 17th for the cost of doing business. ... Boise is the second-best place in the country for business and careers, according to Forbes magazine." If Boise has the 17th best rating for cost of doing business, the rest of the state must be even better. So, again, why did the House Rev and Tax Committee pass this bill? Shifting taxes during a revenue shortfall year, when business is doing just fine, doesn't make sense. It just looks like Rev and Tax are toadys to IACI.

Sometimes I feel this way

But not that often.

In case you can't read it, it says "Welcome 2 Idaho Now Go Home". Yep, Idaho has its share of rednecks.

It looked like the guy just freedhanded the lettering on his tailgate. Black paint on a white tailgate. Must have gotten irked one night.

Took the pic driving into work, about 7:20 AM, dark, in the rain. Had to slow way down (from 65 to 50, dammit!) to take the pic.

No way to treat your customers

I met some folks after work on Friday at Harry's, a bar and grill on Overland in front of the Majestic theatre. Parking is limited in the little strip mall where harry's is located, so people tend to park in the dirt lot behind the mall. See dirt lot below, with the theatre behind it.



The owner of the Majestic really gets his knickers in a knot over this parking, - I guess he owns the dirt lot - so he has a towing service come drag off the cars every couple of hours. In the picture above, the two skid marks are from a car that was towed away. The pic below is of the car being picked up.



When the tow truck showed up, patron/parkers ran outside and moved the cars away, into a more distant lot. Except the one poor guy who got towed. Some folks had seen the car driver come into Harry's for a drink, then walk over to the Majestic to watch a movie. So the Majestic had one of its customers towed.

If you look closely at the pictures, you'll see a white pole in the middle of the field, with a Don't Park Here sign. It's so far from the edge of the lot that it realy isn't noticible, and doesn't deter parking.

Scuttlebut at Harry's was that people who park at the Harly dealer get the same treatment. Word was that the majestic owner doesn't like motorcycles, so he torments the bike shop, and that his religion forbids alcohol, so he tormets Harry's patrons. Who knows? All in all, just a really cheesy way to behave. I expect the guy who got towed was freaked out when he looked for his missing car, seriously inconvenienced, and out around $150 (plus the price of the movie).

Wingnuts exposed

Chris at Unequivocal Notion is all over the Nampa censoring issue. Chris's most important point, I think, is the poor reporting by local media. They call Jackson a concerned parent. Being a parent is Jackson's cover and excuse. Jackson is also a right wing activist. Check out Chris' posts here, here, and here. Chris also links to this Statesman story about the issue

And boy, talk about your buried lede, the very last clause in the last sentence in the story notes that library staff supported keeping the books available. Professional librarians, the ones most committed to the library and to principles underpinning libraries, wanted the books available. The wingnuts overruled that and voted for censorship.

To the Nampa library board, you are hereby bestowed with the IdaBlue Wingnut Award for outstanding wingnuttiness, Censorship category.

Why we can't let them run unopposed

I spend a bit of time looking at state campaign finance disclosures, and I conclude that Dems must run candidates against Rs whenever possible. Conceding the seat without a fight is bad enough. It means the Rs will get the seat, obviously.

Something that may not be so obvious is that conceding the seat helps Rs all across the state. How? Legislators who run unopposed tend to donate their basically unneeded campaign cash to other Rs to help them in their contested contests. This helps the challenged R candidates, and it buys influence for the donating candidates.

First off, let's look at Rep Bill Deal's 2006 campaign financing. (I'm using '06 because it was the most recent full cycle.) Deal was in his 8th term in 06. He gave lots of $$ to Republican candidates and causes, even in Sept and Oct, right before the general election. Unopposed, he could afford to give a bunch away, almost $9,000.







Rep Harwood, who was in his 3rd term, was opposed by Richard Taniguchi. Harwood won by 56% to 43%, a fairly easy victory. However, look at his donations. Not much there, only $575.





One more example. Sen. Joe Stegner in 2006 was running for this 4th Term, and was appointed the Assistant Majority Leader. Look at his donations. $2,250, of which only $1,250 went to candidates.



Granted, I cherry picked my examples a bit. Some guys who ran opposed, like Sen. Little, still donated big to other legislators. However, he won by 77% to 23%, so didn't have much of a race on his hands. The best comparison would be to look at a legislator who ran opposed one time, and unopposed another, and see what they donated. I don't think that is really necessary. It seems pretty obvious that legislators who don't have an opponent can use their resources for party building and influence buying. I hope Dems can contest every seat this year. It will help to start breaking the cycle of Republican uber dominance in Idaho.

This is telling

Statesman Reporter John Miller reports that

Idaho developers are closer to being able to organize special tax districts to sell bonds to pay for roads, bridges and sewers, under legislation that narrowly cleared the House Revenue and Taxation Committee.

A lobbyist for developer M3

said the new bill gives developers another way to build major infrastructure in advance, with future buyers of properties paying for it.

This bill allows developers to shift the expense of certain items to future home owners, rather than paying the expense themselves. The City of Boise objected to it as contributing to sprawl.

Do I have this right? To a homeowner, paying off a bond is pretty much the same as paying taxes, isn't it? The House Revenue and Taxation Committee, those staunch opponents of giving Idaho cities the ability to impose local option taxes, are trying to give developers the ability to impose taxes. Developers, okay, cities, no way.



In the comments to the Statesman story, commenter jwinget says that these developer bonds can really stick it to a homeowner moving into the improvement district. If home sales stall and the bond bill kicks in, fewer homeowners than planned will be paying, so each owner's share is higher. This added cost discourages new people from moving into the development, so the few there tend to get stuck there. They can't sell their homes, and the bond payments stay high.

It appears that to the House Rev and Tax committee, this acceptable. Letting Boise and Nampa tax to fund a transportation fix, not acceptable.

Church Dinner Keynote speaker

3 minute video of clips of Markos speaking at the Frank Church Dinner.

Church Dinner Speakers

Short video showing snippets of speeches of Dave Bieter, Larry Grant, and Walt Minnick.

Frank Church Banquet - Roark

Brief video of Idaho Democratic Party Chair Keith Roark starting off the evening.

Republican primary

I'll tell you, Gov Mike Huckbee gave a great, rousing capitulation speech. Remember the Alamo he said, essentially, which is a bit odd for a conciliatory speech. But, man, Huckabee is a riveting and engaging speaker. I hope he sticks around.

He is too much of a morals candidate for me, but he is/was right on class warfare issues. I enjoyed his humor. A fond adieu.

Church banquet revisited

Below are several more pix of the banquet. I didn't use a flash, trying for a more natural look, but the downside is they can tend toward blurriness. Click to enlarge.

Comments on the banquet: The group did tend toward the older, but that's understandable given the $75/head ticket. To do my part, I'll pledge right now to sponsor a young person for the next banquet. Young being, oh, twenty something or younger.

The salmon dinner was quite good, and the portion so generous that I didn't finish it.

The sign in was pretty chaotic. See pix below.

Most of the speeches were either interesting (Markos) or mercifully short. Minnick talked too long, and holy cow did Ruchti drone on forever. He could have honored Richard Stallings in 3 minutes, instead of 15. Painful.

Save the keynote for the end. Have the auction during dinner. Keep Jeanne Buell at least 10 yards from any microphone. (I kind of enjoyed the drama and spectacle of someone who appeared to be, er, tipsy, but it wasn't fair to poor Mayor Bieter to harangue him into bidding. Made for a fun memory. Maybe we should always have her...)

Markos was well versed on Idaho politics. He bid on the ugly coat. He didn't charge a speaker fee. He met with bloggers. He seemed to have a good time. He was personable and friendly. All in all, I gotta say, great guy. Anybody who leaves his young kids to go to Idaho to energize the downtrodden Dems, and doesn't charge, is clearly committed to changing America. Great job by John Foster getting Markos, and great job by Markos.

And now for the pix... If anyone is pictured and doesn't want to be, email or post a comment and I'll drop the pic. And if so, sorry in advance.

*** Pix follow ***

Sign in table, the good side. Is that the ghost of frank Church in the background?



Sign in table, my side, of course. The pages were all asunder, and we had to cast about to find our names. Very slow.



Jim Hansen chatting during the sign in.



A view toward LaRocco's hospitality room. Tough to get to past the scrum blocking the hallway.



Before the dinner started.





mcjoan taking a pic of Her mom with Markos.



After the speeches. (out of order). Note Markos talking to Andrus wearing Andrus' old plaid coat. LaRocco seated at the table.





Cece with mcjoan's mom.



This is the stuff (other than the big 171 handout) that was waiting on every place. No wonder there was a lot of stuff left over.



During the speech.



Quanah, er, forgot his last name and specific tribe. However, pretty engaging guy, nice looking and a good speaker. A real up and comer. Keith Roark off to the left. Amy, er, forgot her last name, in the white coat off to the right.





My only regret; I failed to take a pic of the meal. Sorry, Chris.

My Sunday

After an early meeting with some friends, I spent the rest of my morning getting a periodic (read, pre-deployment) health screening. We're not deploying yet, just have to be ready.

The "lab". The lab has smelling salt poppers taped to a cabinet door, in case someone gets woozy.



Blood draw. The soldier with the blues gloves said to her boss "This is my first real miss of the day. It wasn't just a wobbler." So, she stuck the guy again, this time successfully.



The EKG machine being prepped to EKG my tender heart. I passed.



I learned that I need glases to read (already knew that), that I've sustained hearing loss (I was a tanker for a decade, what do ya expect, knew that also), that my teeth are okay, and various more personal facts.

Have you ever taken the beeper hearing test? You go in to a small sound proofed room, put on headphones and press a button every time you hear a tone. The tones vary in register and loudness After straining to hear the really faint ones, you start to hear things and start pressing the button at false alarms. I was doing that and a recorded voice came over the headphones and jacked me up for it. Told me to wait for a tone. (Some guys try to game the system by just pressing the button hoping to get it right.)

Church banquet

The photo below gives a better idea of how big the room was, and how many folks attended.

A great part of the banquet for me was meeting fellow bloggers. In no particular order, Sissyphus, Serephin, Tara, d2, Markos, Idaho Rocks, and meeting again others I had been introduced to before, Jill, Julie, McJoan, Irv H. and Tom from Fort Boise. I even saw and have a picture of, though did not meet, the infamous Binkyboy.

Frank Church Banquet

The annual Frank Church banquet was a smashing success. The large ballroom in the Riverside (can't keep track of who currently owns it, formerly Red Lion) was full, and there was also an overflow room. My guesstimate is around 600 folks in the main room. Here are some pix. More info later.

Markos gave a nice speech that contained lots of Idaho references. He had done his research; very impressive. Also, lots of fun digs at Republicans. Example, and I paraphrase, he said he knew he wasn't at the Republican banquet because he hadn't seen any whisky soaked cowboys in tight jeans. Interestingly to me, the loudest, or one of the loudest, applause lines was when Kos said that George Bush cares more about immunity for telecoms than for middle class people. Pretty politically tuned-in crowd.

Since there were only 3 videos and candidate speeches, that didn't take up to much of the evening. LaRocco and Grant stuck to right around 3 minutes. Minnick, around a 7 minute speech.

A classy little cover over the candles.



New West swag.



Jill Kuraitis hard at work during the banquet, lit by the glow of her laptop.



I'm often not sure whether folks like to be identified. (I don't.) So, another blogger guest.



Markos speaking, wearing a coat he bought in an auction. It fit him pretty well.



Unidentified guest posing with cardboard Walt Minnick. At one point, Minnick was also wearing Kos's coat, and it fit him pretty well as well.



Final note: don't let Jeanne Buell around a microphone again. One, she hectored Mayor Bieter into bidding $750 for an auction item. Poor guy really didn't have a choice, as Buell was relentless in calling him out from the podium until he made the bid. Also, Buell was talking about a signed Hillary campaign sign. Buell said she brought it back packed next to her "personal items." Okay, we don't need to know that the sign was packed with her underwear. Sheese.