Bill Description: House Bill 148 would allow the Constitutional Defense Council to consider requests for legal assistance and to provide it when doing so is consistent with its mission.
Rating: +1
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?
Idaho has a Constitutional Defense Council, which is tasked with "restoring, maintaining and advancing the sovereignty and authority over issues that affect this state and the well-being of its citizens."
House Bill 148 would create Section 67-6303, Idaho Code, to allow the Constitutional Defense Council to consider a request from a petitioner to "provide assistance with or to participate in a legal proceeding" that is aligned with the council's purpose.
The assistance could include "funding private counsel from the constitutional defense council fund"; "reimbursing attorney's fees if the petitioner requested a court to award fees but was denied"; "the office of the attorney general providing legal assistance or representation to the petitioner"; or some other form of "state intervention."
The bill says that the council's decision should take into consideration "the societal importance of the vindicated right; the necessity for private enforcement and accompanying burden on the petitioner; whether a significant amount of Idaho citizens stand to benefit from the court decision; whether the public interest would be served by state assistance or participation in the case; and whether state resources, including personnel time and funds, are available."
If resources are available, the council must determine if state assistance or participation would "serve the public interest" and that "the legal action has or will be more than likely to restore, maintain, and advance the state of Idaho's sovereignty and authority over issues that affect the state and the well-being of its citizens."
(+1)
