BOISE, Idaho — Amid a legal dispute over the current state treasurer’s office in the Idaho Capitol, a new group has formed to advocate against the legislature approving a remodel to give House representatives private office space, according to the Idaho Press.
The group, called Priorities Over Private Offices, sent out a press release Monday decrying the possibility of the state spending $10.6 million to renovate the House wing of the Idaho State Capitol to give legislators walls between their offices. The group announced its formation a week before a Jan. 7 hearing in the lawsuit, during which attorneys will debate whether the Idaho Supreme Court should hear the case. The legal mechanism for taking the case to Idaho’s highest court is an interlocutory appeal — meaning an appeal to a higher court before a trial itself has concluded.
That hearing falls a day after the 2020 legislative session starts on Jan. 6.
Idaho State senators have private offices, but most House members work in small cubicles while meeting with constituents at the Capitol during the session.
The identities of the founders of the group have not been released, but one of the group’s spokesmen was identified in a news release as former Idaho State Treasurer Ron Crane. The Priorities Over Private Offices Facebook page had 190 likes as of Monday evening.
A representative of the Treasurer’s Office was unable to confirm by the end of business hours Monday if current Treasurer Julie Ellsworth is involved in the group.
In its press release, Priorities Over Private Offices said it would be inappropriate to spend these funds on offices only used roughly three months out of the year and argued legislators should not be holding closed door meetings. Spokesperson Bibiana Nertney also said private offices could lead to a longer legislative session.
“It’s always been that our legislature has really prided themselves on getting in there and getting out, but we feel that offices would make for longer sessions and down the road we really don’t want that,” Nertney said by phone Monday. “We want to keep our part time legislature.”
Crane said by phone Monday the group has support from “Pocatello to Sandpoint” and is focused on fiscal responsibility, despite an ongoing legal dispute over the possibility of moving the State Treasurer’s Office from the first floor of the building to make way for the planned private offices. Crane added that the legislature should focus on the essentials of governing after Gov. Brad Little requested state agencies make cuts to their budgets both this year and next.
“(The legislature is) under 1% hold back and 2% next year and they want to spend $11 million to have these private offices?” Crane said. “And I think that is the height of arrogance. That money could be used for education, for roads or bridges or for the expansion of Medicaid, and we’re going to remodel the capitol building for private offices for legislators? That’s absurd.”
During the 2019 session, the state Senate was one vote short of passing legislation to approve spending $10.6 million on the renovation. This included $3.5 million to “acquire, remodel, or renovate reasonable office space for the state treasurer’s office and staff;” $710,000 for remodeling in the north wing of the first floor of the Capitol; and $6.4 million for remodeling the east wing of the first floor and the Capitol’s garden level, or basement.
Speaker of the House Scott Bedke, R-Oakley, would not comment on the group Monday due to the pending legal dispute, but he disputed their use of the figure $10.6 million. He said a “close reading” of the bill shows that number also included the purchase of property near the Capitol, which could be used for additional state office space and was not all for the renovation itself.
House Minority Leader Ilana Rubel, D-Boise, said while she understands the need for state representatives to have private office space like their counterparts in the Senate, she believes the current fiscal reality of the state means now might not be the right time to approve an upgrade.
“If there’s not a willingness to fund the basic things people need, I think it will be hard to make the case that legislators need better offices,” she said. “If there’s some demonstration that the people’s needs are being met, then I think it’s a worthwhile conversation to have on the office upgrade.”
Talk of a renovation set the stage for the ongoing lawsuit between Ellsworth and the Legislature’s two leaders, Bedke and Senate President Pro Tem Brent Hill, in their official capacities. In the suit filed in June, Bedke and Hill maintain the legislature has constitutional authority to relocate the treasurer’s office, but Ellsworth referred to the plan to construct private offices for House members as “frivolous.”
A press release about the lawsuit from Ellsworth this summer said she and her office have “acted in good faith and tried to offer up alternatives,” including sharing office space.
“Her offer was met with this lawsuit,” her release stated. The suit has its next court date on Jan 7.
House Majority Leader Mike Moyle, R-Star, said Monday he could not comment on the possibility of money being spent for private offices in the Capitol until the lawsuit is decided.
When told about Crane’s involvement with Priorities Over Private Offices, Moyle said the reason the private offices for the House were not constructed at the same time as the last renovation on the Capitol two years ago was because of an agreement that the state treasurer’s office not be moved until Crane left office.
“I would remind everyone that Ron Crane is the one who made the deal that the legislature made him happy,” Moyle said. “That was not done originally, because he asked us to wait for him to retire.”
David Leroy, attorney for Ellsworth in the suit, told a different story. He said Crane reached an agreement with the legislature and then Gov. C.L. “Butch” Otter in March 2007 saying the Treasurer’s Office can remain in its location on the first floor of the Capitol unless the treasurer him or herself chooses to move.
“A part of our lawsuit involves now potentially presenting that history to the judge,” Leroy said, “which we believe sustains the opposition, because not only does the treasurer have constitutional authority to dictate the location of her own office, but the legislature agreed to not evict a treasurer without Mr. Crane desiring to leave.”
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