When you get past the lofty parliamentary title, “joint memorials” are nothing more than legislative emails to Congress.
They are nonbinding. They carry no weight, but they give lawmakers a forum for carping about the federal gummint — something they might otherwise be reduced to doing around a Statehouse water cooler.
But they do send a message, all right. Sometimes, the message is that our Legislature is populated with yahoos with a tad too much time on their hands.
A case in point: on Monday, Rep. Shannon McMillan, R-Silverton, trotted out a memorial that would tell the Environmental Protection Agency to pull out of the Silver Valley within five years. The EPA says its objective is to clean up a century’s worth of mining contamination in the Coeur d’Alene Basin; the memorial breathlessly accuses Uncle Sam of seeking to “perpetuate its unconstitutional, economically paralyzing usurpation of state and local authority for another 50 to 90 years at an estimated cost of nearly $1 billion.”
Some members of the House Environment, Energy and Technology Committee questioned whether the state really has the power to shut down the EPA and its Superfund cleanup. That’s a rather important jurisdictional question, which could render McMillan’s memorial both nonbinding and nonsensical. The committee set aside concerns over such trifling details long enough to introduce the measure.
McMillan proposed a similar memorial a year ago, and it never made it as far as a public hearing. So there’s hope that reason will prevail.
As it did — but not without a fight — when the House passed a separate memorial last week.
The House urged Uncle Sam to create a third federal district judge’s position in Idaho. That’s a reasonable request. Idaho has had two federal judges since 1954, when ours was but a state of 600,000 people. As a result of the ensuing population growth and increases in caseload, more and more Idaho cases are heard by visiting out-of-state judges.
And that was just fine with 21 House Republicans, who voted no, because they’d rather Idaho muddle along with two federal district judges than allow the Obama administration to nominate a third. (Local lawmakers who voted no were Cliff Bayer of Boise, Brent Crane of Nampa, Reed DeMordaunt of Eagle and Marv Hagedorn and Joe Palmer of Meridian.)
I doubt the message of their small-minded protest vote will register in D.C. Forgive my naivete, but I hope it registers with voters at home.
LUNA ON LEVIES
Beyond voting in his Nampa School District — where administrators are floating a two-year, $7.16 million levy — Tom Luna says he is distancing himself from the spate of proposals coming before Valley voters on March 13.
But that doesn’t mean the state’s public school superintendent doesn’t have an opinion. In a Statesman editorial board meeting last week, Luna said he’d rather see districts hold the line on taxes, saying this isn’t a good time for schools to seek a tax increase.
“I do think it’s a very fragile economy, if we’re in a recovery,” Luna said.
So it doesn’t sound like Luna, a former Nampa School Board member himself, is all that enamored of the current board’s proposal, which would increase taxes by $65 on $100,000 of taxable property. Or a five-year Boise School District levy, costing about $99.70 per year per $100,000 in taxable value. Or the Meridian School District proposal, a two-year levy with an annual pricetag of $115 per year on $100,000 of taxable property.
Yes, Luna is adhering to the Republican Party line about how bad a time it is to raise taxes. Even though — after three years of cuts in state funding, orchestrated at a GOP-controlled Statehouse — local districts can either reduce teaching positions and instruction days, or seek an increase in the historically unpopular property tax. These levies, to no small degree, are a referendum on the state’s budget decisions.
If these levies pass, and if voters decide they value schools enough to approve a tax increase, you would think a state school superintendent might consider that a good thing.
PAY DIRT FOR PUNDITS
One of the early contenders for the silliest bill of the 2012 legislative session comes from an old reliable: Rep. Phil Hart, R-Hayden.
Hart’s House Bill 430 would allow Idahoans to use silver and gold coins as an alternative to paper money. With apologies to Burl Ives, it’s the Silver and Gold bill.
And, by the way, these coins would be exempt from taxation. Would you expect anything less from the House’s resident tax scofflaw — er, tax protester?
Where do these ideas come from? Well, last summer, the Idaho GOP Central Committee approved a resolution to study gold currency as a replacement for U.S. currency. So Hart’s bill may not be mainstream, but it should hardly register as shocking.
If nothing else, Hart once again proves to be pure column gold. Or silver. It’s all good.
Kevin Richert: 377-6437
