Vote YES on SJR102
Our November 8 ballots will contain SJR102, an important amendment to the Idaho Constitution. After voters approve SJR102, the Idaho legislature will be able to convene itself in emergency legislative sessions without the governor’s call.
Currently the Idaho legislature meets once a year for its regular annual session which typically lasts 3 months. It then adjourns and cannot reconvene until the following year unless the governor calls it back into special sessions.
At the height of the Covid pandemic, the governor refused to call the legislature into special session. The governor then changed the May 2020 election laws by executive proclamation, ordered businesses and churches to close, and even decided how to spend billions of dollars in federal Covid funds without consulting the legislature, which by law, is the only body with the authority to change laws and appropriate money to governmental programs.
The legislature passed SJR102 in response to this problem. Voter approval will enable the legislature to call itself into a special session if 60% of both the Idaho House and Senate request a special session to conduct the specific business the 60% majority demands.
All of the Democrats in the legislature opposed the constitutional change, while 94% of the Republicans supported SJR102.
SJR102 will make Idaho like 36 other states. Right now, Idaho is only one of 14 states where the legislature cannot convene without the governor’s call.
Please vote YES on SJR102.
Mat Macdonald
Sandpoint, ID
Vice Chairman – Bonner County Republican Central Committee
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