I know Idaho is not the usual hotspot of positive actions yet once in a while the sane folks here actually stop a bad idea.
Now Idaho has one of the most restrictive citizen initiatives of the states and required that we get 7% of voters to sign initiatives in 18 of the 35 voting districts to get it on the general ballot (just so everyone can vote on it!).
This annoyed Republicans since over the last 15 years the citizens put on the ballot and passed three initiatives such as:
1. Rejection of the “Luna” education laws which everyone did not like (well except for Republican politicians)…they had to accept that one.
2. Term limits; they found a way around that one and struck it down.
3. Expansion of Medicaid through the ACA; they have tried to negate and/or erode that one and have failed.
Well being good Republican Politicians when the public speaks and you do not like to listen you change the initiative laws so that public initiatives would be impossible…..so they changed the law to be 6% of voters in all 35 voting districts!
This would have made public initiatives, like the one I am helping on to increase education funding in Idaho, impossible to get on the ballot. well unless you were a well funded wealthy elite or a large corporation where you can pay people to gather signatures.
The group I work with is Reclaim Idaho and they did the Medicaid expansion and it was all volunteer, passed by majorities in 33 of 35 voting districts and GrOPers hated it.
(the faux claim is that urban elite liberal democratic intellectuals are ignoring the poor rural masses and passing laws they don’t like…..fake concern for a minority)
We have been waiting on the State Supreme Court to weigh in on the new impossible restrictions and they have ruled against the GrOPers…..this will piss them off to no end.
So yes the, in my opinion, we won this time!
p.s. the education initiative would raise revenue by raising income tax on those making >$250K singly or >$500K jointly on income earned above those numbers by 1%….and we would move the state business income tax back to where it was in 2000 upping business income tax by about 1%…..all to raise $350 million (the amount the Idaho Leg stripped last year from education to pay for road work).
p.p.s. Oh by the way last year Income taxes raised ~$2 Billion, Sales Taxes raised ~$2 Billion, local real estate taxes raised ~$2 billion and……corporate income taxes raised a piddly ~$250 million…..poor, poor, bidness folks….pikers!
P.p.p.s When I was in high school (many decades ago) Idaho had a three legged stool of revenue with equal amounts raised by Sales tax, Income Tax, and Business Income Taxes….the GrOPers pulled on the legs off decades ago.