Court Opinion

ID: 9786302
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-30 23:52:46.461333+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:36:43.952425
License: Public Domain

Justice KIDWELL,
Specially Concurring.
It is with some hesitation that I concur with the majority opinion. Although the School Bond Guarantee Act appears to withstand constitutional scrutiny, the needle has been threaded in such a way that only experienced Bond Counsel can comprehend the nuances of the legal gymnastics.
At the outset, I would point out that I find no fault with the legislature’s intentions of providing school districts with lower interest bonds. Obviously this is a desirable goal and one worthy of the legislature’s time and efforts.
However, I would like to voice my concern over the potential consequences of possibly breaching the sanctity of the Permanent Endowment Fund. From the time of statehood, the monies and lands which comprise the principal of the Permanent Endowment Fund have been considered “trust funds of the highest and most sacred order, made so by Act of Congress and the Constitution, so considered by the members of the Constitutional Convention and so recognized and declared by this court____” State v. Peterson,, 61 Idaho 50, 53-54, 97 P.2d 603, 604 (1939) (internal citations omitted). The current version of Article IX, § 3, like its predecessors, prohibits the disposition of the principal of the fund, and mandates that the fund “shall forever remain inviolate and intact .... ”
While the current statutory scheme does not appear to directly violate this Constitu*676tional provision, it appears to me to obfuscate what was originally intended.