New law gives Boise voters less choice in their government. Some say that’s better
On March 25, on the same day that he signed Idaho’s statewide stay-home order, Gov. Brad Little signed into law a bill that would require cities with more than 100,000 residents to create districts for members of their city councils. The goal: to increase geographic diversity in city government.
The law could create havoc on the Boise City Council, where it’s possible that as many as five current members could be lumped into one district, allowing only one to be re-elected.
- Any city with more than 100,000 people as of the last federal census must elect council members by district.
- Those districts must follow precinct lines and contain “to the nearest extent possible” the same number of people in each district.
- Candidates must live in a district to run in it, and they must be elected by the people in that district.
The problem in Boise is this: Three of its six City Council members live in the North End, one in the adjacent Highlands neighborhood north of Hill Road, and one in the far northwestern section of the East End, just east of downtown.
The five council members are practically neighbors. They’re all residents of the same legislative district, District 19, one of five legislative districts covering Boise. Voters expect them to work together on the council, but they may have to run against one another to retain their seats.
Only one council member doesn’t face that problem: T.J. Thomson, who lives in the Centennial neighborhood on the far west side of the city.
The three North Enders are Council President Elaine Clegg, who’s been in office since 2003, and newcomers Patrick Bageant and Lisa Sánchez. The East Ender is Holli Woodings, who began her term in 2018. The Highlander is newcomer Jimmy Hallyburton.
Redistricting might open the door for the election of a Republican council member, though Scot Ludwig, the council’s last GOP member, isn’t sure. Council races are nonpartisan, so candidates’ parties do not appear on ballots.
Ludwig told the Statesman in a phone interview that districts could lead to more people feeling involved in their government.
He said council members strive to be fair to all Boiseans, but in the latter half of his term, he noticed people in farther parts of Boise “felt disengaged.”
“They felt like their vote didn’t matter, because you had such a high concentration of council members in the North and East ends,” Ludwig said. “I really think that the election by districts is going to create more geographic diversity in our leadership. Of course it’s going to force that, but it’s also going to engage more voters and more people in activism.”
Boise, once a Republican city, has turned solidly Democratic over recent decades. Only two Boise Republicans still serve in the Legislature: Sens. Fred Martin of District 15, on the city’s western edge, and Chuck Winder of District 20, which mostly covers Meridian but includes a corner of Boise west of Eagle Road where Winder lives.
City considers challenging the law
The city opposed the bill in this year’s legislative session to no avail. Its sponsor was Rep. Joe Palmer, a conservative Meridian Republican.
Some council members say the law is fraught with problems.
“Problem No. 1? Precincts are drawn by the county based on registered voters, so when you draw lines for precincts, you’ll get different results” than when you draw for to include equal populations as the new law requires, Council Member Patrick Bageant said in a phone interview. “No. 2, the law says that we will elect all council people by district in the next election, yet a separate provision of Idaho Code says elections will be staggered. They’re incompatible with each other, but we have to figure out a way to thread the needle.”
The next general election in Boise is November 2021. If it were to be held under prior law, half of the City Council seats — the seats held by Woodings, Thomson and Sánchez — would be up for re-election.
A memo from the city attorney’s office to Mayor Lauren McLean and the City Council, first reported on by the Idaho Press, indicated the city could take legal action. The memo said the law “may violate the potentially affected Councilmembers’ substantive due process in a couple ways,” including property interests in their elected position and the benefits (including salary and health insurance) derived from it, as well as the fact that “it may be functionally impossible for the city to comply with the statute.”
Council members in 2020 make $26,430 and in 2021 will make $27,223. Their insurance plan, the comprehensive plan offered to all city employees, offers medical, vision and dental benefits.
Before district lines can be drawn, the Ada County commissioners must redraw precinct lines based on 2020 census data. After that, the law does not make clear who would draw the district lines.
Gerrymandering, litigation, fewer choices for voters to make
Bageant said he worried drawing the lines could lead to concerns about gerrymandering, or drawing electoral boundaries to benefit certain groups, and potentially create create a litigious “sideshow” at taxpayer expense.
A spokesperson for the mayor’s office declined to comment on the law, saying it affects only the council — although McLean, who was on the council for eight years before being elected mayor in December. told the Statesman in February that council members should “concern themselves with the business of an entire city.”
Woodings said the law will lead to fewer votes for each resident of Boise. The current system allows Boiseans to vote for three council members every two years. In a district system, residents would vote for a single council member every four years.
Karen Danley, who helped write the law said that is an advantage of the new legislation. Danley, who lives in the North West Neighborhood Association, ran for a seat on the City Council but lost to Bageant in November. Creating districts to increase geographic representation on the council was one of the tenets of her campaign.
“That one vote is more powerful, because it’s not diluted,” Danley said by phone. “Your representative (is) from your area, and they will be knocking on your door.”
She said the law will help break up what she called “a high concentration of power” in older neighborhoods such as the North End.
Census-timing problem
Timing is a problem, too. The 2020 census data won’t be available until next March, and new precincts cannot be drawn by county commissioners until Idaho’s bipartisan Citizen Commission for Reapportionment, which draws districts for legislative and congressional elections, completes its work, likely in the second half of 2021.
The city, however, must establish districts July 5, 2021, 120 days before the Nov. 2, 2021, general election. That means the city may need to hold elections with one set of districts in 2021 and another set in the 2023 election.
“From a resource standpoint, it is going to be incredibly expensive for us to draw districts and then turn around and immediately draw districts again,” Woodings said by phone. “I’m kind looking at how can we do this, but not waste taxpayer money doing it twice in such close succession.”
Vague language creates confusion
Woodings said she and other city officials are working with the Attorney General’s Office to make sure the bill can be implemented as intended. She say she believes the law should not affect the 2021 election, because the 2020 census numbers will not be available in time.
Woodings said similar laws, such as one creating districts for community college boards of trustees, layout how to transition from an old model to a new one. The council district law “lacks those details,” she said.
“We have a lot of latitude but with that latitude comes concern,” she said. “If we do it this way, are we going to get sued or get pre-empted? What happens then?”
The city is working to retain an attorney who is an expert on moving cities into districts, Woodings said. But she said the council is not planning to challenge the law itself in court, despite the city attorney’s memo.
“There are still some questions outstanding that will be subject to the way that the legislation actually implemented, but at this point, we’re not taking any legal action,” Woodings said. “Some things still need to be worked out, and hopefully we’re able to come up with a legal way of doing this.”
“Implementation-wise, this is kind of a nightmare.”
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