The Senate has voted 30-5 in favor of HB 301, the concealed-carry gun law, sending the House-passed measure to Gov. Butch Otter. The bill reorganizes Idaho’s concealed-carry laws, says permits aren’t required for concealed weapons outside city limits, and leaves in an elected-official exemption that lets them carry concealed guns without permits. The Idaho Sheriffs Association has raised concerns that the bill as written would allow felons who’ve received withheld judgments and were sentenced to “rider” prison terms to get concealed weapon permits that they’re not eligible for now, but senators backing the bill said they don’t think there’s any change from the current law on that point.

“That’s been our code, I think, since 1991,” said Sen. Curt McKenzie, R-Nampa, the bill’s Senate sponsor. Sen. Bart Davis, R-Idaho Falls, said he went through the bill line by line. “I read it – I don’t see it,” he said.

Sen. Grant Burgoyne, D-Boise, spoke against keeping the elected-official exemption. “I’m distressed that the existing provisions that allow elected officials to carry concealed weapons at will, without any demonstration of competence, without having to go and get a permit as other citizens do, remains. I think this bill erred dramatically in not striking that provision from the law,” he said. “We are not better than the people who elected us.”

Senate Minority Leader Michelle Stennett, D-Ketchum, read from Idaho Sheriffs Association Executive Director Vaughn Killeen’s op-ed piece raising concerns about the bill. “We’re talking about felons here at this point who now suddenly have a broader ability to carry weapons where they didn’t in the old law,” she said. “In the new language … there is quite a bit of confusion.”

Several senators said they want the elected official exemption removed, and look forward to a future bill to do that, but supported the rewrite bill. Two Democrats, Sens. Roy Lacey of Pocatello and Dan Schmidt of Moscow, joined all Senate Republicans in voting in favor of the bill; the other five Democrats in the Senate voted against it.