Idaho lawmakers should fork over their paychecks for predictable federal court ruling
Regular as rain, the Idaho Legislature has lost another lawsuit for passing an unconstitutional law, and it is paying those who sued the state with your money.
This time, the case involves a 2020 law that forbade transgender Idahoans from obtaining new birth certificates that match their gender identity.
Now, all legislatures sometimes pass laws that are later found to be unconstitutional. It can be hard to foresee how a court will rule on a bill, and sometimes lawmakers are taken off-guard.
This is not one of those cases. Here’s the short story of the bill to deny transgender Idahoans the right to obtain a birth certificate matching their gender identity:
- The Department of Health and Welfare adopted a policy that prevented transgender Idahoans from obtaining new birth certificates.
- A few transgender Idahoans sued, and a federal court found that the policy violated the Equal Protection Clause.
- The department complied with the court order, adopting a policy that would allow transgender Idahoans to get new birth certificates.
- The Legislature simply wrote the same policy — just ruled to be unconstitutional — into a bill.
- The Office of the Attorney General provided a legal opinion that said, roughly: If you pass this, we will get sued, and we will lose while looking like fools. Then we will have to pay the other side’s attorney fees — maybe $1 million worth.
- The Legislature passed the bill, and Gov. Brad Little signed it.
- The state got sued, and lost in a manner so predictable that the state looked indescribably foolish — it was an act of leniency not to hold the state in contempt of court. The state was ordered to pay the attorney fees of the other side, which luckily only came to about $321,000.
This isn’t a run-of-the-mill mistake or even negligence. This is like hiring someone to mow your lawn and coming back an hour later to find they’ve only mowed your flower beds — and also somehow set fire to your shed.
This is the kind of job performance where compensation is out of the question. So the lawmakers who supported this bill should give theirs back.
To start with, the bill’s lead sponsor, Rep. Julianne Young, R-Blackfoot, should refund all her pay for the 2020 legislative session. So should Sen. Steve Vick, R-Dalton Gardens, who sponsored the bill in the Senate. That knocks around $33,000 off the bill.
But responsibility doesn’t end with Young and Vick.
In the House, 52 others — all Republicans — voted for the bill, including legislative leaders like Speaker Scott Bedke, R-Oakley; Majority Leader Mike Moyle, R-Star; and Majority Caucus Chair Brent Crane, R-Nampa. And in the Senate, 26 others — again, all Republicans — voted for the bill, including Pro Tem Chuck Winder, R-Boise; Majority Leader Kelly Anthon, R-Burley; and Majority Caucus Chair Mark Harris, R-Soda Springs.
Split the remaining bill among those 78 lawmakers, and it comes to roughly $3,700 apiece.
That’s what these lawmakers owe taxpayers for doing their jobs in a manner completely unmoored from constitutional and legal reasoning, driven only by the desire to deny constitutional rights to a small, vulnerable minority group.
Of course, it’s highly unlikely they will pay. They’ve already appropriated some of your money to pay these bills. Each year, your representatives stuff some of your money into a jar called the Constitutional Defense Fund — ironically named because it exists to pay their legal bills when they do something unconstitutional, which they do each session with clock-like regularity.
So far, they’ve spent about $3 million of your money this way. Keep that in mind when it’s time to vote in November.