Idaho Republican’s bill would have let her husband sue Boise. Rules say it’s OK
As Sen. Codi Galloway pushed for a state law to ban public camping, she told the Idaho Statesman that she became aware of concerns about homeless encampments because “dirty, dangerous, and deadly public camping is a public safety issue of the utmost importance to homeowners, businesses owners and Greenbelt recreators.”
The Boise Republican had sponsored a bill to ban such encampments in large Idaho cities, including hers. In its initial form, the bill would have allowed business owners to sue cities that failed to enforce the ban.
“Boise can be a beautiful, safe city,” she told the Statesman. “My constituents care deeply about protecting it.”
She did not disclose, to the Statesman or in public hearings about the bill, the fact that her husband could be one of the people filing such a lawsuit.
Her husband, Scott Galloway, owns a business called Create Spaces, a retail office equipment company, along Americana Boulevard near Interfaith Sanctuary and many of Boise’s homeless services providers. People experiencing homelessness have frequently camped in the area, using or selling drugs and at times harassing residents living and working nearby, according to emails between eight business owners and Boise officials, obtained by the Idaho Statesman through a public records request.
Jason Galloway, one of Create Spaces’ leaders, was copied on the emails, in which the business owners shared images of trash-filled campsites, reported incidents of their customers being harassed and expressed frustration over what they said was the city’s failure to address the issue.
“Car camping, litter, and overall neighborhood safety are big points of pointed concern with prospective tenants who are wary of investing in and relocating their business and employees to the area,” a developer in the area, Meagan Curtis, wrote to Boise in one email. “We intercept current tenant concerns around these issues multiple times a week, if not daily.”
Idaho lawmakers are required to publicly disclose conflicts of interest if a bill could benefit them personally or financially. Such declarations are common, and known as ”Rule 80” in the House and “Rule 39” in the Senate: Representatives who own property have publicly declared the rule during discussions of bills relating to property ownership, for example, and senators who lecture at Boise State University have declared it during discussions of public universities’ budgets. After they make these declarations, they are still free to vote on the bills in question unless they volunteer to abstain.
But Galloway made no such disclosure about her connection to the business on Americana Boulevard.
She told the Statesman in April that, under Idaho law, her personal connection to the issue did not need to be disclosed because her interest coincides with that of a “substantial group or class of others similarly engaged” in the same profession or trade.
The bill to ban camping “does not disproportionately benefit my husband as a business owner over all other business owners in a similar situation,” Galloway told the Statesman by email. “There was nothing to disclose. There is a substantial group of business owners and citizens with concerns about how public camping affects their business.”
Ritchie Eppink, a constitutional rights attorney who has fought legal battles against the Legislature for years, pushed back on that idea. He said such an interpretation was not “fulfilling the spirit” of the conflict of interest laws.
“If that read on the rule is the way the rule is supposed to apply, then I’m not even sure that we have a conflict of interest rule at all,” he told the Statesman.
‘Protecting Boise from becoming Portland’: Galloway
Boise has had a camping ban on the books for decades. The rule allows police to ticket people who camp outside if there is shelter space available — but that “available” space is narrowly defined. It must be able to avoid separating children from their parents and must accommodate residents’ mental and physical health needs, among other considerations.
Supporters of Galloway’s bill argued that the city’s enforcement of its ban has been lax, forcing residents and business owners near encampments to confront people experiencing mental illness, using drugs or making customers feel unsafe. An amended version of the camping ban bill, which Gov. Brad Little signed into law, allows only the state’s attorney general — not residents or business owners like Galloway’s husband — to sue cities that fail to enforce the ban.
Still, Eppink expressed concern about the relative toothlessness of the ethics laws governing legislators’ behavior. Though disclosures of conflicts of interest are entered into the day’s written record, lawmakers are still allowed to vote on the bill with which they have a conflict.
“Those rules are absolutely a joke,” said Eppink, who founded Wrest legal collective. “The fact that the legislators can use their office to advance legislation and policy proposals that benefit them, personally and monetarily, with just — at most — disclosing that” is a “recipe for corruption.”
House Minority Leader Ilana Rubel, a Boise Democrat and attorney, noted that lawmakers are required only to state that they have a conflict of interest, but not to divulge the exact nature of the conflict.
“There’s actually very little disclosure around it,” she told the Statesman. “The public doesn’t really get a lot of insight into what exactly the conflict is.”
It’s often up to other lawmakers to report the possible ethics violations of their peers, and there’s no anonymous process to do so, Rubel added. She said that creates a disincentive for lawmakers to report one another, as lawmakers aim to preserve their working relationships. She declined to comment on whether she believed Galloway had committed a violation.
Senate President Pro Tem Kelly Anthon, R-Rupert, and Senate Majority Leader Lori Den Hartog, R-Meridian, did not respond to emailed requests for comment.
Galloway told the Statesman she did not propose her bill to help her husband’s business.
“I sponsored the camping bill because protecting Boise from becoming Portland was a campaign promise,” she said. “Helping vulnerable people find shelter and the help they need is the compassionate choice.”
