Idaho Rep. Vito Barbieri, R-Dalton Gardens, is a first-time lawmaker who stepped into the spotlight in a big way today, proposing the controversial "nullification" bill on health care reform in the House State Affairs Committee, and then fielding media interviews for several hours afterward. "I've been pretty busy talking to reporters," Barbieri said. He said as far as other lawmakers, "I'm hearing general support."

Barbieri is the former owner of the Sunshine Trader restaurant in Coeur d'Alene; before that, he was an attorney in California, where he practiced with his wife in Orange County for 20 years, focusing mainly on bankruptcy law. He sold the practice when he moved to Idaho in 2004. "I've never been a member of the Idaho Bar," Barbieri said. He got his law degree in 1984 from Western State University in Fullerton, Calif.

Barbieri, 58, has never held public office before. "When Phil Hart called me and asked me to run, I figured it was just as good a time as any to be involved," he said last spring. He's also vice-chairman of a crisis pregnancy center in Coeur d'Alene. Barbieri won a four-way GOP primary for an open House seat, then was unopposed in the general election. He and Hart both represent District 3 in North Idaho, as does Sen. Steve Vick, R-Dalton Gardens, whom Hart also encouraged to run.

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