Longtime Idaho political observer Jim Weatherby says Gov. Butch Otter's decision to have his transportation funding task force present its recommendations in December 2010 - a year and a half from now - could lead to a rerun of this year's difficult legislative session in 2011. In November of 2010, every seat in the Legislature is up for election.

"I'm surprised," said Weatherby, political scientist emeritus at Boise State University. "What I heard during this legislative session was the importance to address the maintenance need as a public safety issue. It's interesting to me that this is deferred until just a month after the election. It would seem to me to make more sense, maybe not politically, when you're talking about raising taxes, but in terms of public safety and addressing our deteriorating roads, that those issues be laid on the table and discussed during the campaign, before candidates again, as they did in the last election, lock themselves into a position of opposing any tax increase. ... It seems to me it has the potential of a rerun of the session we just had."

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