Initiative process thwarted by city officials in valley
Guest opinion by RYAN DAVIDSON
Ryan Davidson is the chairman of Liberty Lobby of Idaho based in Bellevue.
I?m writing to apologize to the voters of Sun Valley, Ketchum, and Hailey. For the last few months I?ve been telling them that our initiative to tax and regulate marijuana like alcohol and tobacco would be appearing on the November ballot. And as anyone who went to the polls last Tuesday knows, our initiative was nowhere in sight. It?s sad that I have to apologize, though, for the illegal actions of city attorneys, clerks, councils and mayors. Because it was only through outright lawlessness that our initiatives were prevented from appearing on the ballot.
When the Liberty Lobby began circulating our ballot initiatives in August, we were excited to have such overwhelming support from the people we talked to. Much to my surprise, city officials, as well, were expressing support for marijuana law reform. Unfortunately, I forgot the lesson that everyone learns at some point in their life--that politicians say one thing and do another. When put in the public spotlight, every one of them who expressed support did an about face.
All three cities allowed their city attorneys to advise their city clerks not to certify our petitions. This meant that we were not even legally allowed to gather any signatures after we submitted the initial 20. The city attorneys? reasoning was that because they believed the initiatives to be unconstitutional, the city clerks were not required to certify them. Hence, they could never appear on the ballot. Think about the implications of that logic for a minute, and what it means to our quickly eroding initiative rights. The entire point of the initiative process is to allow a group of people to place a proposed law on the ballot completely independent of the city council. If some city attorney can simply state that an initiative is unconstitutional, and that is enough to keep an initiative off the ballot, then we have no initiative rights. A city attorney could claim that every initiative that was proposed was unconstitutional in an attempt to save the city from holding special elections. If this is allowed to continue, the initiative process will not be about gathering signatures and spreading the word, it will be about who can afford a lawyer to sue the city to get a court to say what we can and cannot put on a ballot.
I?m confident that the three cities? actions will not stand. ?Any conflict between the initiative and the constitution has no bearing on the right of the people to enact it.? Associated Taxpayers of Idaho vs. Cennarusa, 111 Idaho 502.
The cities have put us in a position where we have no choice but litigation. Our precedent-setting lawsuits will end up affecting every city initiative in this state, one way or another. We have filed a suit against Sun Valley, and will be filing one against Hailey. Ketchum, on the other hand, was the worst violator, as the council themselves held a vote to reject the petition. This audacious violation of the First Amendment cannot be allowed to stand, and as a result, we are contemplating running a recall against Mayor Simon. As both the clerk?s and city attorney?s boss, he could have instructed them to follow the law and accept our petition. As an attorney himself, he should know better.
We are planning to host a community meeting in the near future to hear what voters have to say on this topic. In the meantime, I encourage anyone with any questions or concerns to call me directly, at 309-2554. I?d be happy to talk to you.
