BOISE – Gov. Jim Risch has placed a friendly wager with Oklahoma Gov. Brad Henry on the outcome of the Fiesta Bowl, in which Boise State will take on the Oklahoma Sooners on New Year’s Day. "All Idahoans are excited about this game against Oklahoma…
Gov. Jim Risch’s proposal on how to manage 9.3 million acres of roadless federal lands in Idaho has been approved by the U.S. secretary of agriculture, and will proceed with environmental analysis and public comment as part of formal rulemaking. “It is not often that…
A state agency deputy director who was replaced last June is still on the state payroll, drawing his full $87,000-a-year salary through Dec. 31 even though he hasn’t come to work since June 8.That’s the highest-cost example this year of the use of paid administrative…
An array of activist groups led by United Vision for Idaho held a press conference today to call on Congressman Mike Simpson and Congressman-elect Bill Sali, both Republicans, to back key elements of new Democratic U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s economic agenda for the first…
A bank robber who’s knocked over 16 banks in three states and had become known as the “Euro Bandit” because bank tellers described him as having a “European accent” has been caught, convicted and sentenced to prison – and he turns out to be from…
The head of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service says his agency will start removing federal protections from gray wolves in Montana and Idaho by January – even if Wyoming hasn’t come up with an acceptable wolf management plan. Wyoming’s lack of such a plan…
Gov. Jim Risch held what’s likely to be his last official press conference in his term as governor today, to announce that the Nature Conservancy is giving the state a big gift – the Thousand Springs Reserve and Ritter Island on the Snake River for…
Gov.-elect Butch Otter has notified three more current state agency heads that they won’t be staying on for his administration, meaning they’ll be leaving their jobs at the end of this month: Pam Ahrens, Department of Administration; Carolyn Terteling-Payne, Human Resources; and Rayola Jacobson, Occupational…
Sen. Gerry Sweet, R-Meridian, is resigning from the state Senate to join the staff of new 1st District GOP Congressman Bill Sali. Sweet will head up Sali’s district offices in Idaho. That means the Republican party’s legislative district committee must submit three nominations to the…
Lost amid the criticism in the past two weeks of outgoing Democratic state schools Superintendent Marilyn Howard for giving most of her employees year-end bonuses was the fact that most state agency heads are doing the same – and lawmakers directed them to do just…
Gov. Jim Risch’s office says the $2,000 year-end bonus he gave to one of his employees was actually just an attempt to make up for an earlier record-keeping mixup that meant the employee didn’t get state-paid health insurance for several months. “They goofed up,” said…
Let’s say you go to the Boise Towne Square mall to get medical treatments designed to partially paralyze your face to make it look more youthful, through injections of Botox. (The Canadian Society for Aesthetic Plastic Surgery reports, “Botox injections relax the muscles that create…
A sampling of the numbers from five legislative sessions over the past 15 years shows that never before, in any of those sessions, has either house held the minority party to fewer seats on the joint budget committee than its entitlement based on its percentage…
With the open warfare today between the new House GOP leadership team and the House minority caucus – Democrats walked out of the House today en masse after new Speaker Lawerence Denney decided they shouldn’t gain a single seat on the joint budget committee even…
The House has just announced its new committee assignments and chairmanships, and the new GOP leadership team decided to keep Democrats at just two seats on the House portion of the Joint Finance-Appropriations Committee – the same number that Democrats held last year before they…
Idaho’s state Senate has finished assigning chairmanships and committee memberships and adjourned its organizational session. The House, on the other hand, still has to come back tomorrow to finish the job. In the final list in the Senate, new Sen. Jim Hammond, R-Post Falls, ended…
It’s hurry up and wait at the Statehouse today, as legislative leaders puzzle over how to fit together the jigsaw of committee assignments and chairmanships. The House has adjourned until 8 a.m. tomorrow, admitting it won’t get it done today, but the Senate is still…
Newly elected (or re-elected) state lawmakers took their oaths of office this morning, and then launched right into the nitty-gritty of legislative politics – jockeying for committee assignments and chairmanships. That will last for hours, and possibly into tomorrow. But first, in the House, came…
House Republicans generally praised all their leadership candidates last night after the votes were taken for remaining civil. Rep. Marge Chadderdon, R-Coeur d’Alene, complimented the GOP leadership hopefuls for remaining "gentlemen," then added wistfully, "I can say 'gentlemen.' We don't have a lady this year."…
Conservative Rep. Lawerence Denney of Midvale was elected speaker of the Idaho House tonight after a close-fought race with moderate Rep. Bill Deal of Nampa. Meanwhile, Rep. Jim Clark, R-Hayden Lake, lost his own leadership bid for assistant majority leader in the House to Rep.…
Gov. Jim Risch, in addressing a large ballroom full of legislators, lobbyists, business leaders and more as the Associated Taxpayers of Idaho annual conference’s keynote speaker, made an unusually early announcement of what his economists expect for state general tax revenue in the coming year…
As political leadership races shape up today – with votes coming up tonight for House speaker and several other contested leadership positions in both parties – it’s interesting to take a look at campaign contributions by the two candidates facing off for speaker. Nampa Rep.…
Idaho’s Indian Affairs Council, which includes state legislators and representatives of the state’s five recognized Indian tribes, met today at the state capitol, with council Chairman Sen. Mike Jorgenson, R-Hayden Lake, and council Vice Chairman Chief J. Allan, head of the Coeur d’Alene Tribe, presiding.…
Want your kid to get a job in Idaho in the next decade? The latest report out from the Idaho Department of Commerce & Labor says the hottest occupations in Idaho through 2014 will be nursing, teaching, engineering, skilled trades, and management. Two-thirds of those…
Fourth District Judge Deborah Bail issued a ruling today in the long-running school lawsuit saying that the case is not over and the state is not off the hook for allowing schoolchildren across the state to go to deteriorating and even unsafe schools. School districts…
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