A $275,000 bill to settle a lawsuit involving Idaho’s enforcement of its former anti-sodomy law is heading to the state legislature.
On Tuesday, Gov. Brad Little and the board of examiners chose to buck tradition and put state lawmakers on the hook for legal fees in the case. This is the second time this year the board has directed the legislature to make such payments — the first coming in August over a law passed in 2020 that banned transgender people from changing the sex on their birth certificates.
Deputy Attorney General Scott Zanzig referenced that tweak shortly before the vote.
“We’re aware that there’s been a change in how those things are being paid and so we went into [the settlement] with our eyes wide open,” Zanzig said.
Fees paid in cases Idaho has settled or lost in court have come out of the Constitutional Defense Fund for the last couple of decades.
“Governor Little is committed to utilizing the Constitutional Defense Fund as the Idaho Legislature intended when it was enacted in 1995," said his press secretary, Madison Hardy.
"The fund is used best in furtherance of an affirmative step taken by the members of the Constitutional Defense Council to preserve Idaho’s sovereignty by directly challenging specific instances of federal overreach.”
The Constitutional Defense Fund was first created in 1995 to fight the feds over a number of issues, but its first use came in hiring an outside law firm to negotiate a settlement to stop new nuclear waste from entering the state.
Senate Pro Tem Chuck Winder (R-Boise) told Boise State Public Radio he wasn't aware of the situation and would look into it further. A text message sent to House Speaker Mike Moyle (R-Star) also wasn't immediately returned.
The state settled this case last month, which involved enforcing Idaho’s former anti-sodomy law by requiring those with prior convictions to register as sex offenders.
“This settlement provides a remedy not just for our two clients, but also for a third man who has also been a victim of this decades-long, state-sanctioned homophobia,” Matthew Strugar, one of the plaintiffs’ attorneys, said at the time.
As Boise State Public Radio previously reported, Idaho State Police, which oversees the registry, must remove those who qualify within 21 days of the settlement. ISP didn’t respond at the time when asked how many people would be removed.
Last year, a federal judge barred enforcement of the law against the suit’s plaintiffs, saying the state had “no legitimate interest” in forcing the men to register as sex offenders.
The Idaho Attorney General’s office appealed the injunction to the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals prior to settling the case entirely.
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