Idaho House Speaker Scott Bedke, R-Oakley, said this morning that he’s hopeful a “do-over” can happen on the voided contract to operate the Idaho Education Network statewide broadband network, to find a way to keep the service linking Idaho schools running. “I think that’s probably in everyone’s best interest,” Bedke said from a bus on the North Idaho Legislative Tour. “No one questions the need for getting broadband accessibility out in all the schools, and so that needs to be our goal.”

“To the extent we’re culpable, we’ll shoulder our responsibilities, I believe, collectively as a state, but that doesn’t diminish the fact that this is a worthy effort,” he said. “I don’t think the Legislature is going to be willing to walk away from the network. In this day and age, I think it’s a necessary component of our education system.”

Bedke said he hadn’t yet had a chance to review the judge’s ruling. “I suspect that this will be the topic of most of the conversations tomorrow,” he said. “The high ground is that the system and the need is valid, and we need to get everything squared away so that we can accomplish that.”