By Ruth Brown, Idaho Reports  

The House Ways and Means Committee introduced a bill on Monday that would restrict the ballot initiative signature gathering process.  

Rep. James Petzke, R-Meridian, sponsored the bill saying it would change the process around signature gathering submissions for the groups trying to get an initiative on the ballot.  

Rather than all of the signatures being submitted at once, organizers would be required to submitted them monthly. It also creates a review period for the public to view the signatures.  

“We want increase transparency with this process,” Petzke said.  

Currently, to get an initiative on the ballot, there must be signatures from 6 percent of registered voters from 18 legislative districts.  

“I would prefer this was a bill to get rid of this awful process altogether, but thank you for trying to make it more transparent,” said Rep. Sage Dixon, R-Ponderay. 

Rep. Lauren Necochea, D-Boise, noted the bill would take away one month of signature gathering for groups. So, rather than 18 months, gatherers have 17 months to collect signatures.  

“A big part of this bill is trying to balance out the workload of the secretary of state and the clerks, because it is becoming a bigger and bigger workload for them,” Petzke said.  

Rep. Ned Burns, D-Bellevue, asked if a signature gatherer inadvertently doesn’t turn in their collected signatures each month, would they be considered void. 

Petzke said, yes, that was his understanding.  

A resolution to make it harder to get an initiative on the ballot failed to pass the House last year. 

The committee introduced the bill on a party-line vote. A public hearing is not yet scheduled. 

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