Lawmakers in session on holiday Monday
The Idaho Legislature doesn't take holidays when it's in session, so lawmakers will be at work on Monday despite the Martin Luther King Jr./Idaho Human Rights Day holiday. Among the events scheduled: JFAC will hold a hearing the CAT fund and begin delving into budgets for the Department of Health & Welfare; numerous House and Senate committees will meet to consider administrative rules or introducing legislation; Gov. Butch Otter will issue a proclamation in honor of the holiday at noon in the 2nd floor rotunda, and Marilyn Shuler will give a keynote speech, at a public celebration that also will include music and is sponsored by the Idaho Department of Labor and the Idaho Human Rights Commission; Boise State University students will march to the Capitol for a human rights day rally on the steps, also at noon, followed by an afternoon of volunteer service; and a "Kitchen Table Economics" session, sponsored by the Idaho Jobs Coalition, will run from 6 to 8 p.m. in the Capitol Auditorium, featuring retired UI Professor Stephen Cooke addressing the wage gap between Idaho and other states.
Among news reports from the weekend: Idaho Statesman reporter Dan Popkey looks into the the scramble set off by Gov. Butch Otter's call for $45 million in unspecified tax cuts, in an article that also notes that the House and Senate tax committees are planning a joint hearing on the issue after the Legislature sets its official revenue estimate Jan. 24; Statesman business reporter Audrey Dutton's report here on Idaho's request to the feds for one-year extension on the January 2014 deadline to set up a state-run health insurance exchange; and Statesman reporter Kathleen Kreller's article here on how "mental holds" by law enforcement in Idaho have spiked since Idaho cut funding for adult mental health services. You can ready my Sunday column here, with tidbits from the legislative session's first week; and the Idaho State Journal reports that Sen. Curt McKenzie, R-Nampa, will no longer claim the higher $122 per diem that out-of-area legislators receive for maintaining a second home in Boise for sleeping on his Boise office couch; click below for that report.
ANOTHER SW IDAHO LAWMAKER OPTS FOR $49 PER DIEM
By Idaho State Journal Staff
Another Idaho legislator will take a smaller per diem payment, after scrutiny last year showed he was getting thousands more per session to sleep on his Boise law office couch.
Nampa Sen. Curt McKenzie said Friday he'll take the $49 per-day payment that most southwestern Idaho lawmakers claim, not the $122 per diem he'd been receiving.
Previously, Sen. John McGee of Caldwell also told The Associated Press he'll claim $49 this session.
That's after the AP reported McKenzie claimed the larger amount to sleep on his office couch in 2011, while McGee got it to sleep at his parents' Boise home.
Their primary homes are less than 30 miles away.
The larger payment is designed to defray out-of-town lawmakers' housing costs, to keep public service from becoming a financial hardship.
