Every so often, I am reminded that a right is easy to ignore until someone tries to take it from you. This November, Idahoans are being asked to hand one of their rights over to the legislature. House Joint Resolution 4 (HJR 4), and while it is dressed up as a question about marijuana, is really about how much power the legislature has over our initiative process.
If HJR 4 passes, it would amend our state constitution to give the Legislature exclusive authority to legalize certain substances. It permanently removes your ability, as a voter, to decide that question through a ballot initiative. Not delay it. Not regulate it. Remove it. Idaho would become the first state in the country to explicitly deny its citizens this power.
The initiative process is not a loophole; it is written into our constitution. It is the tool the people kept for themselves, precisely for the moments when the Legislature stops listening. That is how Idahoans expanded Medicaid after our representatives refused to for years. The people spoke. The system worked as designed.
So, ask yourself why the Legislature is moving now. Over half of Idahoans say medical marijuana should be legal. Our representatives disagree, and rather than win that argument honestly or collaborate with the people they serve, they want to change the rules so the argument can never be had again.
In my line of work, we call that a bad-faith negotiation. You do not sit down at the table, lose, and then set the table on fire. When a governing body cannot persuade its own constituents, the honest response is to listen harder. The dishonest response is to take away the constituents’ ability to disagree.
I have written before that our legislature too often serves a master other than its constituents. HJR 4 is that problem in its purest form. This is not about whether you support legalization; I know people who don’t. It is about whether we, the people of Idaho, keep the right to decide for ourselves. Once we limit our own rights, the legislature will see it as a blank check to take more rights.
As a young person, I’m told that “the system is not rigged if you show up; you can change something.” HJR 4 makes that story impossible. It says, in plain constitutional language, that when the people and their government disagree, the people should be silenced.
That is why I am asking you to look past the word “marijuana” on your ballot and see the word “your.” Your voice, your vote, and your right to govern yourselves when your government will not.
A right you give away is not one you get back by asking nicely. Vote no on HJR 4, and keep the last real tool the people of Idaho still hold.
Chance Marshall is a project management expert and the District 33 Legislative Chair for the Bonneville County Democratic Central Committee.