Bill Description: House Bill 268 would reclassify all executive employees who hold a position equivalent to a bureau chief or higher or otherwise possess management responsibilities as non-classified employees.
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Does it in any way restrict public access to information related to government activity or otherwise compromise government transparency, accountability, or election integrity? Conversely, does it increase public access to information related to government activity or increase government transparency, accountability, or election integrity?
House Bill 268 would drastically improve accountability in the executive branch by reclassifying all “executive employees” as “non-classified” as opposed to “classified” officers. The key difference between a classified and non-classified employee is that according to Sec. 67-5309, Idaho Code, classified employees must be selected through a “fair and impartial” process and “on the basis of open competitive merit examinations or evaluations.” In other words, classified employees are hired for their “expertise,” entitling them to protection from political control. To this end, classified employees can only be removed “for cause.” By contrast, non-classified employees can be terminated at will by the governor or other elected members of the executive branch. To this end, House Bill 268 would infuse more accountability into Idaho’s entrenched bureaucracy.
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Does it violate the spirit or the letter of either the United States Constitution or the Idaho Constitution? Examples include restrictions on speech, public assembly, the press, privacy, private property, or firearms. Conversely, does it restore or uphold the protections guaranteed in the US Constitution or the Idaho Constitution?
Article I, Section 2 of the Idaho Constitution declares that “all political power is inherent in the people,” otherwise known as popular sovereignty. In accordance with this principle, our government was originally designed so that all its powers derived from the consent of the governed, ensuring “that the persons administering it (are) appointed, either directly or indirectly, by the people” (Federalist 39). With the advent of Progressivism, a new theory of government emerged that posited that legitimacy derived from technical expertise rather than consent, displacing politics with bureaucratic administration. To this end, the theory of Progressive government rests on the assumption that power is best entrusted to “value neutral” experts who must be insulated from political control to properly perform their function, that is to say, they must be free from all political accountability in direct violation of the principle of popular sovereignty. Idaho’s system of classified employees is a vestige of this theory.
As stated in Sec. 67-5302, executive employees include anyone “appointed to a position equivalent to a bureau chief or above” or “any employee whose primary duty is management of a department, division or bureau” and “who customarily and regularly exercises discretionary powers.” House Bill 268 helps bring Idaho’s executive branch back in line with the spirit of the Idaho Constitution and the fundamental principles of republican government by ensuring that these officers can be held accountable by the people’s duly elected representatives.
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