Re: Position on Hunting and Fishing Rights Amendment

[Greg Brown <gregb@alaskapacific.edu>]

Bob Hoffmann wrote:

>
> Does this amendment accomplish anything (except perhaps making some
> legislators look good to their constituents)?  Only 3 lines, but 3 lines
> too many if it has no purpose in reality.

    The legislature took a different tact several years
ago.  They introduced a constitutional amendment
would have banned initiatives dealing with wildlife.
I believe Rep. Trail supported that proposal as well.
Even the NRA bailed when they realized that initiatives
are a two-edged sword...they can cut both ways.

   Does this amendment accomplish the same thing?
What if someone introduced an initiative that
banned leghold traps?  Could that law be challenged
as unconstitutional?  Presumably, this is what the
hunting and trapping lobby fears.  But what if the Idaho
Dept. of Fish and Game terminated the elk hunting season
because elk numbers dropped too low? Could that be
construed as unconstitutional by someone who wanted
to hunt elk?  Specifically, what "right" to hunt and trap is
being constitutionally protected? Does it apply under all
conditions?   Clearly this amendment is designed to appease
the hunting and trapping community because they fear
changing wildlife values.  Is is symbolic or substantive?
[This list has a wildlife law expert in Professor Goble.
I'd like to hear from him.]

  BTW...this is not an original idea initiated by
Rep. Trail or any other member of the Idaho legislature
but rather is part of a larger political strategy by the hunting
lobby (NRA, Wildlife Legislative Fund of America)
to put this language into state constitutions.  I don't
know if there have been any legal challenges based on
the constitutional language as yet.

   One final thought.  Where the NRA has lost some
political momentum at the national level, it has more
than compensated for it at the state level.  The NRA has
succeeded in getting 44 states to pass legislation that
immunizes shooting ranges from potential litigation
and local zoning ordinances.  A clear form of
preemptive legislation given that the NRA could not
point to single case where an existing shooting range
was forced to close.  I guess government regulation
is only "bad" if it doesn't support your particular
agenda.

--
Greg Brown (gregb@alaskapacific.edu)
Associate Professor and Chair
Environmental Science Department
Alaska Pacific University
(907) 564-8267
http://polar.alaskapacific.edu/gregb