Most Candidates Reject Vow To Keep Term Limits

Only 27 candidates for the Idaho Legislature, including six incumbents, signed promises to oppose any effort to change or repeal the term limits initiative approved by voters in 1994.

Beau Parent, director of Idahoans for Term Limit Defense, told a news conference Friday that all 234 legislative candidates were asked to pledge to protect the term limit law. He said he was disappointed with the result.

“Signers of the pledge promise to respect the will of the people,” he said.

He maintained that ever since term limits were approved by voters by 73,955 votes in 1994, “politicians have been trying to get out from under them.”

Parent said incumbents promising to uphold the term limit law were Jeffrey Alltus, Maynard Miller, Tom Dorr, Ralph Gines, Diana Richman and Jack Barraclough, all House Republicans.

Other legislative candidates were Jim Clark, Daniel Whiting, Homer Ferguson, Max Hale, Patrick Petrie, Penny Fletcher, Kathleen Roos, Shirley McKague, Mark Stahl, Christopher Carlton, Donald Grabow, Layle Wood, Myrtle Mae Christensen, Pete Nielsen, Jim Jones, Harold Mohlman, Kelly and Kenneth Walton, Max Mortensen, Roseann Steen and Dave Hall.