Committee advances RS 32794 to make county highway district commissioners countywide, allow partisan races and primaries

The Ways and Means Committee voted to introduce RS 32794, a proposal to change how countywide highway district commissioners are elected. Under the RS, commissioners would continue to live in district-created zones but would run in countywide elections, could run as partisan candidates, and would face party primaries if they have intra-party opponents. Representative Monks moved to introduce the RS; the motion passed with Representatives Achilles, Birch and Rubel recorded as nays.

Rep. Mike Moyle, District 10, presented the RS and described how the change would align countywide highway district elections with the process used for county commissioners. "Under our current way that county wide highway districts are elected, they're elected within a zone. They create those zones as a commission, and then they run within those zones," Moyle said. "What this bill does is changes that. It makes countywide highway district commissioners run like county commissioners. They still will have to live in the zone that those countywide highway district commissioners will create, but they will be elected county wide." He added the proposal would "allow them to run as partisan races and it will require them if they have an opponent in the party from which they come to have a primary next May."

The committee considered a substitute motion from Representative Kiehlis that would have introduced RS 32794 with edits, including inserting a new section to repeal Idaho Code section 34-904A. Kiehlis argued the substitute was appropriate because opening more races to primaries raised questions about whether party primary rules should be re-examined. "Private political parties do not have a right to use public funds to exclude voters. So, those are my reasons for this substitute motion," Kiehlis said. The substitute motion failed on a committee vote.

Opponents of the original RS argued at-large, countywide elections would weaken localized accountability. Representative Rubel urged the committee to consider earlier districting debates, saying the same rationale that supported sub-city districts for accountability should apply to county highway districts. "I am now stunned to be told that because the county is even larger, now we don't need regionalized representation and that the people elected do not need to be particularly accountable to the people of the subsection," Rubel said. "The only overlapping rationale that I am able to find from this is that apparently, we are to pick whatever mechanism will get the most Republicans elected."

Representative Birch said the position should not be partisan: "There's absolutely no reason for elections for this position to be partisan. None whatsoever." The committee ultimately voted to introduce RS 32794; Representatives Achilles, Birch and Rubel were recorded as voting no.

The committee did not adopt the proposed repeal of Idaho Code section 34-904A; that change was part of the failed substitute motion. RS 32794 will move to the committee's second-reading calendar for further consideration.