Boise doesn’t want council elections in even-numbered years. But Idaho House persists
A bill to switch large cities to district-wide city council elections is not dead yet — despite a request from the original sponsor to drop the issue this year.
Senate President Pro Tem Chuck Winder, a Boise Republican, killed the redistricting bill he sponsored after attempts from House members to make substantial changes. Now, House Republicans are trying again.
Winder’s bill was intended to clarify a law passed by the Idaho Legislature last year that requires cities with populations above 100,000 to elect council members by district instead of at-large. In Idaho, that would affect Boise, Meridian and, depending on the 2020 census, possibly Nampa.
The bill, Senate Bill 1111, passed the Senate but was amended when it reached the House floor. The last-minute amendment inserted changes — taken from a separate bill by Rep. Gayann DeMordaunt, R-Eagle, that had failed to move forward — to hold all council elections on even-numbered years starting in 2024.
The bill went back to the Senate. Winder then killed it by sending it back to a committee.
On the Senate floor Monday, Winder said he wanted to address redistricting next year and put this bill to rest, because the House amendment had several mistakes. He said yet another bill would be needed to fix them, which would have further delayed the session that is slated to become Idaho’s longest ever, at 122 days when they return Wednesday. Winder said he was unwilling to do that.
Winder told the Statesman later that many senators opposed the process that the amendment went through and believed the amendment was substantial enough to warrant a public hearing.
Two days later, though, House Republicans approved their own version of the bill. DeMordaunt resurrected her original bill on council elections, House Bill 319, with redistricting and a few technical corrections. The House approved it in a 41-21 vote.
The Senate will decide what to do with the House bill when legislators return from a recess next week. Winder said he requested that DeMordaunt not send the bill to the Senate this year because he didn’t think it would pass.
“I asked her not to send it over,” Winder told the Statesman on Thursday. “I said I would take it up next time and I would help her next session, but I preferred not to have to deal with it when we’re already done.”
Boise officials favored Winder’s original clean-up bill but oppose DeMordaunt’s plan to move city elections to even-numbered years.
Kathy Griesmyer, government affairs director for the city of Boise, told the Statesman on Friday that she fears more partisan races would be conflated with local issues. She didn’t know the House would try to move forward with the bill.
“We were surprised,” Griesmyer said. “There was certainly a level of frustration that again cities had been asking to come to the table when 1111 was amended. And then you basically see the same bill pop up again, and cities were not consulted.”
More ‘partisan’ local elections in Boise?
DeMordaunt didn’t respond to requests for comment Thursday. DeMordaunt on the House floor maintained that hers was a voter participation bill, saying that city elections on even-numbered years would increase turnout as voters head to the polls for presidential races and midterm elections.
House Minority Leader Ilana Rubel, D-Boise, said the change would make the local races more partisan as more candidates would run on party values. Rubel also fears higher-profile races would drown out any media coverage of council candidates.
“Even those that do vote are not going to know what they’re voting on,” Rubel told the Statesman.
Griesmyer said higher voter turnout would come at the expense of less engagement in local elections with such a long ballot. She sent statements to House members on Tuesday about Boise’s “strong opposition” to the bill.
“We remain opposed and will remain opposed until the bill is officially dead,” Griesmyer said.
