The Senate passed HB 338, the budget bill for substance abuse and mental health services, and now is moving to adjourn for the night. The bill passed over strong objections from Sen. Nicole LeFavour, D-Boise, who said cutting such services will mean more suicides. Both…
House members vociferously tried to kill HB 347, the renewable energy tax credit extension, but it passed on a 40-29 vote after much debate. House Majority Caucus Chair Ken Roberts, R-Donnelly, urged representatives to kill the bill. "This industry will survive just fine without it,"…
The House has suspended its rules to take up HB 347, which contains half of HB 337, the renewable energy rebate bill that earlier passed the House; senators objected that the bill contained multiple subjects, so it was split in two in its newest version.…
The House has voted 47-21 to kill legislation designed to limit future specialty license plates. SB 1179, co-sponsored by the House and Senate transportation chairmen, would have restricted all future specialty license plates to those benefiting government agencies or their foundations. Some House members decried…
The Senate has voted 27-7 in favor of SB 1206, the public school budget bill, sending the measure to the House.
The public school budget that's now being debated in the Senate is $1.224 billion in state general funds and $1.56 billion total, a $47 million cut from this year's level, which saw a historic $128.5 million cut from the previous year. That's a 3 percent…
The Senate has taken up one of the biggest bills of the session: SB 1206, the public schools budget. It's the single largest slice of Idaho's state budget, and includes controversial cuts, including a cut in teacher pay. Sen. Dean Mortimer, R-Idaho Falls, told senators,…
When the Senate debated HB 193a yesterday, the bill to allow courts to require big cash bonds before a lawsuit could be filed against a megaload or other transportation project on Idaho roads, the Senate sponsor, John McGee, R-Caldwell, said in his closing debate that…
An off-track betting bill has passed the Senate on a 26-9 vote; HB 191 would let racetracks at county fairgrounds that already have licenses for betting on simulcasts of races elsewhere transfer their licenses to a more suitable location, rather than the track itself. "This…
HB 298, nicknamed the "grandson of nullification" as the latest version of legislation aimed at barring the national health care reform law from being implemented in Idaho, has passed the Senate on a 24-11 vote and headed to the governor's desk. This version targets the…
The third "trailer bill" to add an emergency clause to already-passed school reform bills, HB 345, has passed the House on a 50-18 vote. This bill adds the emergency clause to SB 1184, the measure that shifts funds from teacher salaries to technology boost and…
The House has voted 64-5 in favor of HB 343, a measure declaring a disaster emergency in the state due to wolves. Rep. Judy Boyle, R-Midvale, said the measure was necessary to protect the "safety of our citizens and livestock producers." Rep. Lenore Barrett, R-Challis,…
The Senate is now taking up HB 298, the "grandson of nullification" bill against the national health care reform law, while the House is debating a new, hastily introduced measure to declare a disaster emergency over wolves.
SB 1165, to ban abortion after 20 weeks on grounds of fetal pain, has passed the House on a 54-14 vote and now goes to the governor's desk. The bill's House sponsor, Rep. Brent Crane, R-Nampa, shared several stories of people who bore their children…
Both houses have now recessed until 2 p.m.
The Senate has voted 30-5 to pass HB 297, Gov. Butch Otter's "Hire One Act" to give a tax credit to employers who make new hires, with the amount varying based on their rating in the state unemployment system. "It provides an incentive to Idaho…
After much debate, the Senate has voted 24-11 to kill HB 277a, legislation that sought to permit state constitutional officers to hire their own attorneys, rather than using the Idaho Attorney General's office. Sen. Russ Fulcher, R-Meridian, said the measure would accommodate an officer who…
The House Ways & Means Committee met just now and voted along party lines to introduce new legislation from Rep. Marv Hagedorn, R-Meridian, calling for big cuts in personal and corporate income taxes to be phased in over the next eight years, for a total…
Two bills to tack emergency clauses onto the already-signed school reform bills, SB 1108 on teacher contracts and SB 1110 on teacher merit pay, have passed the House and now head to the Senate. The first, HB 335, passed on a 58-10 vote with no…
The House has voted unanimously to approve HB 205a, the library Internet filtering bill, as amended in the Senate; it now goes to the governor's desk. "Some amendments were put on it that made it more acceptable to the library association, who had been in…
Rep. Shirley Ringo, D-Moscow, made an unsuccessful move in the House this morning to call HB 37, her bill to crack down on secret tax deals and make more of the process public, out of the Rev & Tax Committee, where it's been sitting since…
Senate Majority Leader Bart Davis just announced to the Senate, "Our current target for adjournment sine die is Thursday, and we're going to work as hard in that direction as we possibly can." He said, "What we can do on our side is make sure…
Here's a link to my full story at spokesman.com on today's surprise holdup for SB 1198, the closed-primary election bill, after the House State Affairs Committee balked this morning and asked to hold the bill for a day so various questions about it can be…
In a surprise move, the House State Affairs Committee has voted unanimously to hold SB 1198, the primary election bill, for one day - rather than vote on it today. "I think it is a fundamental shift in election policy, and I have some questions…
Gary Allen, attorney for a group of independent voters, said under SB 1198, "There are going to be a lot of people who sign up as unaffiliated and are going to be surprised when they show up at the voting and discover that they're only…
News, happenings and more from the Idaho Legislature and the state capital.
