SANDPOINT — As the November general election approaches, House Speaker Scott Bedke, R-Oakley, traveled to North Idaho to address concerns over a ballot item that would amend the state constitution.

House Joint Resolution 5 proposes an amendment to Article 3 of the state constitution relating to administrative rules. The amendment would ensure the state's legislative branch retains the power to review rules written by the state's executive branch.

"This way, if you have a problem with a rule and its implementation, you come to your legislators who you elect, not somebody that is hired, and we would take up your cause in the committee process," Bedke said. "We point out the weaknesses or the failings or the ways it can be improved and it keeps up more responsible, more reactive, responsive to the citizens."

The Department of Environmental Quality is one agency Bedke referred to regularly during a Sept. 28 interview with the Daily Bee.

"We believe it's an important safeguard for Idaho citizens between them and the government agencies and government overreach," Bedke said.

Rep. Luke Malek, R-Coeur d'Alene, who joined Bedke for the interview with the Daily Bee, added that "the bottom line" of HJR 5 is it protects the voice of the people in Idaho.

Bedke said an Idaho Supreme Court decision in 1990 gave legislators the ability to review rules created by state agencies to make sure they are consistent with the underlying law.

A recent example in Coeur d'Alene, Bedke said, involved a rule about submersible pumps that came up right before people, and golf courses, were ready to begin irrigating their lawns. The citizens affected by the new law approached legislators in Boise and asked them to review it. The citizens told legislators they were willing to comply with the intent, but they needed more time. As a result, the rule was rejected and sent back to the negotiation table and the current rule is one "everybody likes," Bedke said.

"So we have been doing that since 1990, but we have been doing it on the strength of a supreme court decision," Bedke said. "And HJR 5 would put this practice into the constitution that it would always be proper in Idaho to have the Legislature review the rules that the state agencies write."

When the vote came before the Legislature whether to send HJR 5 to voters, it passed almost unanimously between both Republican and Democratic parties, Bedke said. Approval by two-thirds of the House and the Senate was required for the amendment proposal to make it to the ballots. A simple majority of 50 percent plus one vote is needed from voters in November for the amendment to pass.

HJR 5 missed the mark in the 2014 general election with 49.4 percent of voters in favor of the amendment. Malek said he doesn't see a downside to HJR 5, but said there is some opposition to it.

"The opposition, I think, rests its case on the fact that this weakens the executive branch," Malek said.

On the federal level, the executive branch is "arguably" stronger than it is at the state level, Malek said, because if the Environmental Protection Agency makes a rule, for example, Congress does not have the ability to change it. In Idaho, there is a check-and-balance system, he said.

The language of the amendment to the constitution, if approved by voters, would state: "The Legislature may review any administrative rule to  ensure it is consistent with the legislative intent of the statute that the rule was written to interpret, prescribe, implement or enforce. After that review, the legislature may approve or reject, in whole or in part, any rule as provided by law. Legislative approval or rejection of a rule is not subject to gubernatorial veto under section 10, article IV, of the constitution of the state of Idaho."

The question voters will see on the ballot reads as: "Shall Article III, of the Constitution of the state of Idaho be amended by the addition of a new Section 29, to provide that the Legislature may review any administrative rule to ensure it is consistent with the legislative intent of the statute that the rule was written to interpret, prescribe, implement or enforce; to provide that, after review, the Legislature may approve or reject, in whole or in part, any rule as provided by law; and to provide that legislative approval or rejection of a rule is not subject to gubernatorial veto under Section 10, Article IV, of the Constitution of the state of Idaho?"