Idaho Attorney General Opinions
Free plain-English summaries of attorney general opinions issued in Idaho, with full citations and the original source on every page.
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What did Idaho's AG say about a 2003 initiative to exempt food from Idaho sales tax by referring to the federal food stamp eligibility list?
The AG flagged that defining 'food products' by reference to 7 C.F.R. § 271.2 'as it presently reads, or as it may be amended to read in the future' would unconstitutionally delegate Idaho's legislati…
What did Idaho's AG say about the 2003 ballot initiative to restructure the Idaho Fish and Game Commission, the second such proposal in two years?
This was a substantively similar refiling of the February 2002 Fish and Game Commission restructuring initiative. The AG's review focused on the same drafting concerns: how the proposed Citizen Wildli…
What did Idaho's AG say about the original 'Idaho Judicial Accountability Act of 2004' ballot initiative filed in January 2003?
The AG concluded the proposal would violate the separation of powers doctrine. It sought to eliminate judicial immunity, create a Special Grand Jury to review any decision in any court, abolish the Ju…
Does the federal National Securities Markets Improvement Act of 1996 preempt Idaho's requirement that insurance holding companies obtain a solicitation permit before marketing exempt private offerings of federally covered securities to Idaho investors?
The AG concluded NSMIA preempts the Idaho solicitation-permit requirement for insurance holding companies offering federally covered securities under Rule 506 of Regulation D. Section 18(a) of NSMIA b…
Did Idaho's AG correct or supplement Opinion 01-4 on the Land Board's authority over the land bank fund?
This opinion supersedes Section D.2 of Opinion 01-4 to the extent of conflict with Idaho Code provisions identified in this opinion. The other conclusions of 01-4 (which endowments are eligible, that …
What is a Certificate of Review, and what did the Idaho AG do with the 2002 ballot initiative to reinstate state term limits?
This is a Certificate of Review, the advisory review the Idaho AG must issue under Idaho Code § 34-1809 before a ballot initiative circulates. It concerns the 'Idaho State Term Limits Act of 2002.' A …
What did Idaho's AG say about a 2002 ballot initiative to restructure the Idaho Fish and Game Commission?
The AG's review focused on technical drafting questions for a proposal to reduce the Fish and Game Commission from seven to five members, eliminate the party-affiliation restriction, eliminate at-plea…
What did Idaho's AG say about the original 2002 J.A.I.L. (Judicial Accountability Initiative Law) ballot initiative?
The AG concluded each of the proposal's four substantive elements (eliminating judicial immunity, creating a Special Grand Jury for judges, adding judge-removal procedures, and Grand Jury implementati…
Could the Idaho Land Board deposit proceeds from selling state endowment lands into the new land bank fund, and from which endowments?
The AG concluded the Land Board may use the land bank fund for proceeds from eight endowment categories (penitentiary, public school, university, scientific school, agricultural college, normal school…
Could Idaho voters tighten state term limits through a 2002 ballot initiative without rerunning into the same constitutional problems that had hit the 1994 term-limits law?
The proposed amendments to Idaho Code 34-907 raised no new constitutional concerns beyond the existing law, but a 2000 district court ruling (Rudeen v. Cenarrusa) had invalidated the county-level port…
Could Idaho's Department of Agriculture director rely on personal experience alone when deciding there were no agricultural alternatives to crop burning, or did the decision need a written record?
The director's determination that no other agricultural alternatives to crop burning existed would be reviewed under the deferential 'arbitrary and capricious' standard of the Idaho APA. To withstand …
Could a 2002 Idaho initiative legalize tribal video gaming machines without running afoul of the Idaho Constitution's casino-gambling ban?
The proposed initiative tried to authorize video gaming machines on tribal lands, but the AG concluded the machines, as defined, would almost certainly be treated as 'slot machines' or simulations of …
After Idaho's 1982 amendment to art. 9, sec. 8, did the Land Board's sale-and-exchange constraints reach every parcel the state owns, or just the federal-grant endowment lands?
Article 9, section 8 of the Idaho Constitution applied to lands granted to Idaho on statehood (endowment lands) and to lands the state acquired from the federal government after 1982. It did not apply…
Could Idaho require every candidate for public office to take the local high school exit exam and have the score published in the press?
The proposed initiative would have required candidates to take their school district's 'high school exiting standards test' and publish the score, but most Idaho districts had no such test, the First …
Can Idaho Correctional Industries sell its prison-made goods to a private retailer or wholesaler that just wants to use the goods itself, instead of reselling them to the public?
No. Idaho Correctional Industries can sell to retail or wholesale establishments only if those buyers intend to resell the goods to the general public. The 1978 amendments to Idaho Code 20-413 dropped…
After the trucking case forced the state to refund a use fee on Commerce Clause grounds, were Idaho's tiered premium-tax statutes for insurance companies constitutionally vulnerable too?
The Commerce Clause was not a worry because the McCarran-Ferguson Act lets states tax insurance freely. The base rate (Idaho Code 41-402) and the retaliatory tax (41-340) were each likely constitution…
Could Idaho voters require cities to hold an election within a proposed annexation area before annexing it, with the city paying for the vote?
The proposed initiative would have repealed Idaho Code 50-222 and replaced it with new sections requiring cities to hold a hearing and an election in the unincorporated area before annexation, with th…
Could Idaho voters legalize 'small stakes' video bingo, keno, blackjack, and poker machines in liquor-licensed establishments by initiative?
No. The proposed Idaho Code 23-929 would have allowed up to five video bingo, keno, blackjack, draw poker, or 'reel' machines in liquor establishments. The AG concluded this was casino gambling barred…
Could Idaho voters limit municipal annexation by requiring approval from a majority of property owners in the area before a city annexes it?
The proposed initiative would have required 'favorable concurrence of the majority of affected property owners' before annexation. The AG concluded this conflicted with Idaho Code 50-222(1)'s forced a…
Under the Idaho Constitution's Origination Clause, which bills must start in the House: only those that levy taxes, or also bills with incidental revenue effects like fee increases or property tax exemptions?
Prudence required introducing bills potentially affecting general revenues in the House. Dumas v. Bryan (1922) read 'bills for raising revenue' broadly enough that bills with incidental revenue featur…
Could Idaho voters change the Fish and Game Commission to elected office and limit the vote to people holding a hunting or fishing license?
The proposed initiative would have replaced the seven appointed Fish and Game commissioners with four elected ones, two from each congressional district, with voting limited to electors holding a hunt…
Did Idaho's 1994 voter-passed term limits law (Idaho Code 34-907) reach state judges, or only executive-branch officials?
No. The 1994 voter-passed term limits law restricting 'state elected officials' to eight of fifteen years was likely meant to cover only executive-branch officers, not the judiciary. The ballot title …
Could Idaho voters resurrect the state prevailing-wage law (using Davis-Bacon county-seat rates for public works) that the Legislature had repealed in 1985?
The proposed initiative would have re-enacted the language of Idaho Code 44-1006, repealed in 1985, requiring public works contracts to specify minimum wage rates and fringe benefits set by the Depart…
Could Idaho voters raise the state minimum wage to $10 per hour and lower the training-wage age cutoff from 20 to 18, without running into federal preemption?
The proposed initiative would have raised Idaho's minimum wage to $10 per hour and the training wage to $7.50 per hour starting December 1, 2000, with the training wage's age cap dropping from 20 to 1…
After Casey, did Idaho's abortion statutes and the 1998 draft legislation comply with U.S. Supreme Court constitutional standards?
Several Idaho abortion statutes had constitutional problems after Casey. The second-trimester hospital-only requirement (Idaho Code 18-608) was unconstitutional. The third-trimester ban lacked a healt…
Could Idaho give parents a $500 income tax credit for not enrolling their child in public school, including parents using private religious schools, without running into the Establishment Clause or Idaho's no-aid-to-sectarian-schools provision?
The Legislature could grant a $500 income tax credit to parents who comply with Idaho's compulsory education law without using public schools, regardless of whether the child attends a non-sectarian p…
Could Idaho voters ban the use of bait or dogs to hunt black bears, and codify a tougher penalty for violations?
The proposed initiative would have banned the use of bait year-round and the use of dogs from May 1 through August 31 to take black bears. The AG identified drafting concerns: an unintentional photogr…
Would changing 'shall' to 'may' in Idaho's teacher-negotiation statute actually let teachers pick their own bargaining representative?
The proposed initiative would have changed Idaho Code 33-1271 from 'shall' to 'may,' making it optional for school districts to enter negotiation agreements with teacher representatives. The AG saw no…
Could Idaho voters use the initiative process to undo the 1997 Legislature's tightening of initiative procedures?
The proposed initiative would have repealed most of HB 265 (signed March 20, 1997), which had added time limits, geographic proportionality, signature-gatherer requirements, and judicial review provis…
Could Idaho put a 'Signed TERM LIMITS pledge' or 'Broke TERM LIMITS pledge' legend next to a congressional candidate's name on the ballot, after the Supreme Court struck down state-imposed term limits on Congress?
The AG warned that ballot legends were on uncertain footing pending the Idaho Supreme Court's pending Simpson v. Cenarrusa decision, and that section 6's deemed-service rule risked colliding with U.S.…
Could a single Idaho ballot initiative both let counties opt out of term limits and impose a multi-year lobbying ban on former state legislators?
The AG warned the initiative likely violated Article 3, section 16's single-subject rule because county term limits and revolving-door lobbying restrictions are not 'necessary as ends and means to the…
Did Idaho need a 1997 ballot initiative requiring state, county, municipal, and school district candidates to pledge compliance with a 1994 term-limits act that already legally bound them?
The AG questioned the initiative's necessity because the 1994 Term Limits Act already bound state and local candidates regardless of whether they signed a pledge, and the proposed ballot legend faced …
Could a 1997 ballot initiative phase out Idaho's school maintenance-and-operation property tax levy without specifying how the lost revenue would be replaced?
The AG flagged that section 1 would phase the M&O levy down to zero by 2001 but only contained a non-binding 'should' that the legislature replace lost revenue from sales taxes, leaving school funding…
Could a 1997 Idaho ballot initiative ban the 'reburial' of plutonium and require written accident analyses for state air-quality permits, when the proposal lacked the basic structure of operative legislation?
The AG concluded the initiative was not implementable as written: it failed to designate any state agency to act, used pivotal terms like 'reburial' and 'this plutonium' without definition, and ran in…
Did a March 1997 redraft of the Idaho One Percent Initiative fix the implementability problems the AG had identified the year before?
No. The redraft acknowledged that 'enabling legislation' would be needed but left that to future legislatures, which the AG said could not be bound, so the proposal remained incapable of self-executio…
Does the Lava Hot Springs Foundation own a special hot-springs water right that escapes Idaho's prior appropriation and Department of Water Resources regulation?
No. The Foundation managed the hot springs only through ordinary appropriative water rights subject to Title 42 and Department of Water Resources oversight, and could grant easements for waste-water d…
Could the Idaho Park and Recreation Board spend recreation registration fees, fuel-tax revenues, and capital-improvement money on general agency overhead, and could it redirect a $25,000 RV-fund earmark away from gateway visitor centers?
The Board could spend administrative funds and a share of fuel-tax revenue on overhead but had to limit vendor handling fees to registration costs, and it could not unilaterally undo the legislature's…
Was the 1996 Idaho One Percent Initiative capable of being implemented as written, and how would it have affected school funding, voter-approved bonds, urban renewal districts, and charter school districts?
No. The AG concluded the initiative could not be implemented because it imposed a 1% cap without giving any official the authority to enforce it, and warned of cascading conflicts with the property ta…
Could an Idaho county levy property tax on land inside an Indian reservation when the land is owned in fee by an individual Indian, not held in trust by the United States?
Yes. Once the federal government issued a fee patent removing alienability restrictions, the land became subject to county ad valorem taxation regardless of the owner's tribal membership or its locati…
Could a 1996 Idaho ballot initiative require the Secretary of State to print 'DISREGARDED VOTERS' INSTRUCTIONS ON TERM LIMITS' next to the names of legislators and members of Congress who failed to support a federal term-limits amendment?
The AG warned the initiative would likely be unconstitutional under the First Amendment, Equal Protection Clause, and Idaho right-of-suffrage provisions because it puts the state in the role of endors…
Could a 1996 Idaho ballot initiative require legislative and voter approval of any agreement to receive additional radioactive waste in Idaho, and could it retroactively invalidate the October 1995 INEL settlement agreement among the Governor, Attorney General, the Department of Energy, and the Navy?
Probably not. The AG flagged that the proposed referendum-style approval mechanism conflicted with how the Idaho Constitution uses the referendum (as a 'veto' rather than a confirming vote), and the 1…
Could an Idaho political subdivision voluntarily withdraw its employees from PERSI without first triggering the statutory complete or partial withdrawal conditions, and did current employees have a constitutional right to keep accruing PERSI benefits if their employer left the system?
No. Idaho Code § 59-1326 only permits withdrawal upon complete or partial withdrawal as defined; absent that, voluntary withdrawal was not authorized. The AG also concluded Idaho law did not currently…
Could the State of Idaho lend public employees to the United Way for an eight-week fundraising drive while still paying their state salaries, and what general limits applied to sharing state employees and facilities with private charitable foundations?
No on the United Way loan: paying state employees to do charitable fundraising failed the public purpose doctrine. Sharing arrangements with charitable foundations were permissible only if they served…
When the Idaho Department of Health and Welfare subpoenas records from another state agency under § 56-227C, can that other agency refuse on the ground that the records are exempt from the public under the Idaho Public Records Act?
No. The Public Records Act governs only the public's access; it does not limit administrative subpoenas. Section 9-343(3) expressly preserves administrative discovery, and a 'legal excuse' under § 56-…
Could a tribal law enforcement officer arrest a tribal member off the reservation on a tribal court warrant, and could an Idaho state officer arrest someone off the reservation based on a tribal court warrant?
Both required state statutory authorization. A tribal officer needed both state statutory recognition of tribal warrants and deputization to arrest off-reservation; a state officer needed both state s…
Could a 1995 Idaho ballot initiative recognize private 'volunteer militia organizations' as part of the state militia and shield them from legislative regulation, gubernatorial oversight, and adjutant general control?
No. The Idaho Constitution gives the legislature authority to regulate the militia (Article 14, section 2), the governor command-in-chief authority (Article 4, section 4), and authority over commissio…
Could a 1995 Idaho ballot initiative cut the sales tax rate from 5% to 3% by amending Idaho Code § 63-3619 alone, while leaving the 5% use tax in place?
No, that approach would discriminate against out-of-state sellers in violation of the Commerce Clause. Local retailers would collect 3%, out-of-state retailers (and use-tax remitters) would still owe …
Could a 1995 Idaho ballot initiative successfully exempt food, water, and clothing from Idaho sales tax by amending Idaho Code § 63-3619?
The AG flagged that amending the sales-tax statute alone would leave the use tax in place, undercutting the petitioners' goal. The petitioners should add a new exemption section under § 63-3622 and de…
Could a 1995 Idaho ballot initiative criminalize all abortions performed once a fetal heartbeat or brain stem activity could be detected, with mandatory capital punishment for any violation?
No. The proposal would have outlawed many previability abortions in violation of the 'undue burden' standard from Planned Parenthood v. Casey, and the initiative process cannot amend either the U.S. o…
Did the legislature accidentally re-activate Idaho's old 1-percent property-tax cap when it passed the 1995 school-funding bill, and if so, can counties or courts actually enforce a 1-percent cap?
On its face, yes, the 1-percent cap (Idaho Code § 63-923) was no longer nullified by cross-reference to other statutes after 1995. But the cap is impossible to implement under Idaho's existing tax-app…
Could a 1995 Idaho ballot initiative raise the state minimum wage to $6.25 per hour by 2000, eliminate the tip credit, end overtime exemptions, and remove farmworkers, domestic workers, and minors from the minimum wage entirely?
Yes. The AG found no constitutional or statutory bar to any of the four changes. The federal Fair Labor Standards Act has a savings clause (29 U.S.C. § 218) that expressly lets states enact more gener…
Could Idaho voters pass a 1995 initiative giving parents a $500 income tax credit for each child not attending public school, and would that survive the U.S. and Idaho constitutions' bans on aiding religious schools?
Probably yes, with revisions. The proposed credit went directly to parents and depended on individual parental choice, which Mueller v. Allen treated favorably under the federal Establishment Clause. …
Could Idaho voters pass a 1995 initiative that banned anti-discrimination protections for gay people, blocked public funds from speech that 'endorsed' homosexual behavior, restricted what teachers and libraries could say or shelve, and would any of those restrictions survive the First Amendment?
The minority-status provision was awaiting U.S. Supreme Court resolution in Romer v. Evans. The public-funding ban was vulnerable under Rosenberger; the public-school provision was vulnerable as viewp…
Could Idaho voters pass a 1995 initiative that banned all abortions after 13 weeks of pregnancy, given the U.S. Supreme Court's 1992 Casey decision?
No, not as drafted. The proposed initiative would have banned previability abortions (abortions before the fetus could survive outside the womb), which Casey clearly forbade. Viability ranges from abo…
If a 1995 ballot initiative changed one word in Idaho's school-bargaining statute (from 'shall' to 'may'), would Idaho teachers actually get to choose their own bargaining representatives?
Probably not. The proposed initiative changed § 33-1271 to make district-level negotiation optional, but did not touch § 33-1273, which made the local education organization the 'exclusive' bargaining…
If Congress reinstates a federal tax deduction retroactively after Idaho's annual federal-conformity bill is already signed, can Idaho taxpayers use the new deduction on their Idaho state return, or do they have to wait for the legislature to update Idaho law?
They have to wait. Idaho's tax conformity statute pegs Idaho's definition of taxable income to the Internal Revenue Code 'as in effect on the first day of January, 1995,' so any federal change made af…
If an Idaho city wants to apply its zoning rules to land just outside the city limits in the 'area of city impact,' can the city council pass that ordinance on its own, or does the county also have to act?
The county also has to act. Only the board of county commissioners can exercise legislative authority in unincorporated land outside city limits. A city can draft an area-of-impact zoning plan, but th…
Can an Idaho city or county hand out a cable TV franchise, regulate the rates the cable company charges, and collect a franchise fee, without waiting for the legislature to pass a special cable statute?
Yes for cities, almost certainly. Probably yes for counties too. Idaho's general municipal-franchising and home-rule statutes already cover cable TV alongside taxis, buses, and garbage hauling. Federa…
If an Idaho school district raises a student fee by more than 5 percent in a year, does the public-notice statute apply, and does the district have to hold a public hearing?
Yes. Fees a school district charges for voluntary or extracurricular activities (sports, driver's education, towels, lockers, parking, lunch, etc.) are 'fees' under the 1994 budget-cap law. Any increa…
Under Idaho's Unified Sentencing Act, can the Commission for Pardons and Parole shorten a felon's fixed (mandatory) prison term by commuting it, even though the Act explicitly bars parole, discharge, or good-conduct credit during the fixed term?
Yes. Commutation is a constitutional clemency power separate from parole. Idaho Const. art. 4, § 7 (as amended in 1986) gives the Commission authority to commute sentences. The Unified Sentencing Act'…
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Attorney general opinions in Idaho are written by the Idaho Attorney General's office in response to questions from state agencies, legislators, and prosecutors. They are not binding like court decisions, but courts and agencies treat them as persuasive guidance on how state law applies. Every opinion above has a plain-English question and short answer, plus a link to the full original text.