WestViews Opinions from newspapers in Idaho and the West commenting on Western issues

IDAHO COUNTIES ARE FAR AHEAD OF CAPITOL ON PROPERTY TAX DATA

Lewiston Morning Tribune

For as long as anybody can remember, Idaho's county assessors have been trying to get their hands on the prices people actually paid for property.

For as long as anybody can remember, the state's real estate lobby has resisted.

And, for as long as anybody can remember, the Legislature sided with the real estate lobby, making Idaho one of the few states where assessors have to guess a building's taxable value.

Yet logic seems to be prevailing at the local level. Seventeen Idaho county assessors, including Patrick Vaughn in Latah County and Dan Anderson in Nez Perce County, have signed contracts with their boards of Realtors to share information.

The contracts stem from a 2006 bill, which emerged after the last attempt to provide full real estate transaction disclosure failed in the Legislature. For assessors, it means access to sales prices on the Multiple Listing Service. Assessors are supposed to set a lot's, home's or commercial building's taxable value based on its fair market value. If you know what a group of similar properties brought in the market, you can more accurately figure out what it's worth.

Without that information, the assessor is left to his or her own devices. The assessor sends deputies out to a building and then has them guess its size. Property owners aren't required to allow these deputies to enter the structure.

This incomplete set of facts gets inserted into an abstract formula. Result: A lot of unhappy property owners and a tax shift. People whose property is undervalued pay less than they should. Those whose property is over-valued pay more than their share.

For the real estate brokers, the new arrangement provides instantaneous access to the assessor's records. Rather than physically visiting the local courthouse, the sales person can go online and obtain data such as lot size, the building's square footage, the year it was constructed and what similar properties have brought on the market. That takes some guesswork out of setting a price and marketing a property.

Who benefits? The taxpayer, for one. With less room for error, the taxable value of property is closer to what it's worth on the market. That puts the actual tax burden closer to where it belongs. It could improve efficiency at the assessor's office - and it may reduce the hours that homeowners and county officials spend each summer arguing about assessment appeals.

The real estate customer benefits, too. There's simply more information to determine a fair price.

Here's another example where ordinary Idaho communities are far ahead of their state government. In a third of Idaho's counties, the process seems to be working out. What possible argument could legislators have against applying this lesson to the remaining two-thirds?

NINTH CIRCUIT FINDS FEW FRIENDS ON U.S. SUPREME COURT

The Times-News, Twin Falls

During the term that ended this week, the U.S. Supreme Court disagreed with 94 percent of the rulings issued by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, according to the Los Angeles Times. One reason, experts say, is that the California-based court is perceived as too liberal.

In addition to California, Oregon, Washington and Hawaii, the sprawling 9th Circuit includes some conservative states - Idaho, Montana, Alaska, Nevada and Arizona. For years, judges, lawyers, defendants, plaintiffs and crime victims have often seen Idaho federal court decisions reversed by the 9th Circuit. Now the appeals justices are seeing something similar happen when their rulings reach Washington, D.C.

Sixteen 9th Circuit decisions went to the high court this term; 15 were reversed. That's part of a trend: The 9th Circuit - the only one in which a majority of judges were appointed by Democratic presidents - has had a larger-than-average share of its cases overturned in eight of the past 10 years.

One reason, certainly, is that the Supreme Court has a conservative majority - Chief Justice John Roberts and associate justices Antonin Scalia, Anthony Kennedy, Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito - that pays critical attention to cases from the 9th Circuit. Especially Kennedy, who served as a 9th Circuit justice for 13 years before Ronald Reagan named him to the high court.

Idaho Congressman Mike Simpson, who has led the charge in recent years to reorganize the 9th Circuit, is correct that activist judges would be less likely to reach the appeals court bench in a circuit that included just Idaho, Montana, Nevada, Arizona and Alaska.

Whether it's because of liberal leanings or not, the 9th Circuit isn't working as it should. It's time for Congress, finally, to split it in two.