Speaker’s Power Play in Idaho House “Comparable to a Coup”

By Jill Kuraitis, 12-12-06

“I don’t know of any Speaker who would have done this,” said Ken Robison, a highly respected former state legislator and political reporter from Boise. “It’s the worst transgression I’ve ever heard of, and I’ve been watching the legislature since 1963.”

Robison is talking about the new Speaker of the House, Lawerence Denney, refusing to grant Democrats an additional seat on the all-important joint budget committee (JFAC) even though their caucus grew by six members and, by longstanding, unbroken tradition, they are entitled to it.

It happened last week in the 2007 legislature’s organizing session, and Robison said, “It’s comparable to a coup.”

Whatever you call it, it has never happened in the Idaho legislature - but however unjust, it’s perfectly legal. There are no written rules or laws about committee proportions in the Idaho House. But they’ve always been done proportionate to the party makeup of the chamber.

Always. Our research showed that not once in twenty-one years and almost certainly much longer has the minority party in the House or Senate ever held fewer seats on JFAC than the number to which they are entitled. Denney is the first to break that record of fairness.

JFAC has ten Senate and ten House seats. The House Democrats, with six additional members, now make up 27.14% of the House. Sixth-grade math tells us that 27% of ten seats is 2.7 seats, and under the only system of rounding-up-or-down which anyone has heard of, that makes three seats.

Some examples of how rounding has played out in the legislature:

-Back in 1995, 20 percent of House JFAC seats went to Democrats even though they held only 18.6 percent of the House.

-In 2001, Republicans rounded 8.6 all the way up to ten so that just three Democratic senators, or 8.6 percent of the Senate) apparently qualified for a full ten percent of JFAC seats.

-When Democrats held 22.9 percent of House seats in 2003, they got 20 percent of the seats in JFAC.

According to the National Conference of State Legislatures, seven states do not use proportional representation in legislative committees. 15 states require it and have it written down in one or both chamber’s rules. 21 states, including Idaho (House only) don’t require proportional representation, but follow it. (The Idaho Senate requires it and has it written down – if a little vaguely – in their Rule 19.)

When the Idaho House Democrats walked out of an official floor session last week – “it was a shame that’s the only thing they could do,” said former Idaho Attorney General Tony Park. “It was just wrong of Denney,” he said. “Idaho has a long populist tradition, and this should make people mad. It’s too important to let it drop,” he said.

I called Speaker Lawerence Denney with many questions.

Asked if he’d known that denying the Democrats the JFAC seat was unprecedented, Denney said he had not known. If he had, would he still have done it? “Yes,” he said. “We looked at other morning committee assignments, and the Democrats deserved 17 total seats, which they got.”

I asked him to respond to the statements I’d collected from quite a few sources of both parties saying essentially the same thing: JFAC is the only committee that really matters, since it sets the budget. Would he please address the questions specifically about JFAC and not about the total seats on all the committees allotted to each party?

Denney said, “I don’t know that JFAC is any more important than the other morning committees. There’s Revenue and Tax, Education, and State Affairs – they’re all important.”

Pushed again to talk specifically about the JFAC assignments, Denney said, “Again, they were entitled to 17 total committee assignments, and that’s what they got.”

One more time: why did he feel it was so important that he was willing to ignore the math and the history of the House? “There has to be a first for everything. The Speaker has the power to do what he wants.”

Breaking with tradition isn't wrong, but breaking down the foundations of democracy is another matter.

When the voters of Ada County defeated five incumbent Republicans and replaced them with Democrats on November 7, along with a new Democratic seat courtesy of Idaho Falls voters, they thought they were voting for fair, proportional representation. Instead, what they got was a blatant power play. Why have elections at all?

Republicans will stick with "but they got the right number of committee seats overall." I'm sticking with, "Beside the point. JFAC is not divided according to every rule of fair play, mathematics, trust, and representative government of which I'm aware."

“All bad precedents begin as justifiable measures,” said the Roman general Julius Caesar.

“Men moving only in an official circle are apt to become merely official – not to say arbitrary – in their ideas, and are apter and apter with each passing day to forget that they only hold power in a representative capacity.” said William Adams, a 16th-century English explorer.

House minority leader Wendy Jacquet (D-Ketchum) who negotiated with Denney over all committee assignments, is resigned to the reality of just two JFAC seats. “'They screwed us – now let’s go forward,' is what I hope my caucus will say,” she said. Was it “comparable to a coup”? “I know they felt that way,” Jacquet said.

Brian Cronin, Chair of the Ada County Democratic Party, said that an e-newsletter he sent out about the House D’s got a lot of responses. “I take that to mean people want us to do something,” he said. “We’re in the planning stages.”

Democrats have few choices about further action, but Jacquet could renew her effort for the JFAC seat at any time, since there is no official certification of committee seats. All legislators’ assignments are at the pleasure of the Speaker, and he can change them or revoke them at any time.

“The Speaker is the Speaker of the House, not of his caucus,” said Robison. “It reflects so poorly on the other legislators [for Denney to deny the seat] I’d be ashamed for my party if my leader did it. The facts are clear,” said Robison. “It’s simple math. Besides, what difference does it really make to deny the third seat? It’s still just three out of 10.”

“That was just my decision,” said Denney. But is it possible that House Republicans had anything to fear from Democrats having three, instead of two, JFAC seats? Or is it just a petty move to punish Democrats for defeating six key House members?

What seems petty to some could be far from it to others. The rural conservatives who now dominate the House Republican caucus have a gritty mind-set about slashing expenses and budgets, and may believe there is nothing more important than curbing increases in spending, according to a former legislative official who doesn’t want to be identified. “It really says that they think JFAC has been too independent, and in their eyes, a third seat for Democrats is taking too much of a chance of more of that,” he said.

Ken Robison said, "Many, many decisions are made in JFAC which affect the people of Idaho. It's the most important committee in the legislature. Everyone should care about the loss of fair representation."

Let's hope Jacquet and her caucus reconsider their decision to accept this abuse of power. "Moving on" may be the right thing to do when it's the loss of a piece of legislation, but when it's the loss of fair representation which sets a a dangerous pattern and in effect negates the results of a statewide election, staying put seems more than called for.

If defending this principle isn't something for which Democrats are willing to go all the way to the wall, then what is?





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