Idaho state Rep. Maxine Bell is offended that Boise School Superintendent Stan Olson refers to last year's law reducing transportation reimbursement to school districts as "garbage legislation." And Olson had better clean up his act.
Call it refuse. Call it bilge. Call it an enormous pile of doo-doo. But garbage? Never.
Sure, the Legislature that Bell, R-Jerome, helps lead as budget co-chairwoman passed this law in the final minutes of the session without subjecting it to the usual committee hearings and deliberation. And doing so did continue legislators' habit of sending out all manner of verbiage unsupported by thought. But Olson went too far in his description.
"I would never call anything that comes out of the Legislature garbage," Bell sniffs.
If "garbage" is out, though, you wonder how to refer to another masterpiece of the 2003 session, the law that turned the tables on school districts suing the state by making them defendants and the state the plaintiff. Two judges have found that through-the-looking-glass law unconstitutional -- but don't call it garbage.
Then there was the 2002 attempt to reverse rulings from the supreme courts of Idaho and the United States and impose state gasoline taxes on Indian reservation fuel sales. The attorney general's office warned legislators that wouldn't make it past the first courthouse. Legislators passed it anyway, and it didn't -- but don't call it garbage.
In 2000, legislators ignored a trucking industry lawsuit challenging the state's sweetheart tax rate for in-state truckers only. When the industry offered to negotiate a uniform rate, legislators refused. Their discriminatory tax system ended up costing taxpayers $27 million in a court judgment -- but don't call it garbage.
Legislators don't stop with refusing to recognize constitutional prohibitions, either. Over the years, they have sent to Congress junk-mail memorial resolutions endorsing one crackpot idea after another, from authorizing organized prayer in public schools to getting the United States out of the U.N. -- but don't call them garbage.
One of the most memorable memorials was the 1983 resolution calling for abolition of the Federal Reserve System. After it passed the House, Sen. Laird Noh rose to tell the Senate he had a degree from the most conservative school of economics in the nation, at the University of Chicago. Noh said he did not know of a single economist who would support the memorial. And when he sat down, the Senate overwhelmingly passed it.
Observing Maxine Bell's stricture, you might call that resolution claptrap. You might call it slop. You might even call it horse manure. But whatever you do, don't call it garbage. -- J.F.
