House finishes business; Senate staying

BOISE – In a frenzy of lawmaking, the Idaho House worked into the night Wednesday, passed 50 bills, and attempted to unilaterally adjourn Idaho’s second-longest legislative session on its 108th day – without passing Gov. Butch Otter’s transportation funding plan.

However, unless the Senate follows suit, the House will be forced back into session Monday.

Said Sen. Joyce Broadsword, R-Sagle, “I’m having trouble understanding their logic – at this point it doesn’t make sense.”

Senate Majority Leader Bart Davis, R-Idaho Falls, said, “We’ll continue to, as a Senate, stay here and work on the legislative agenda, and look forward to continuing to work with them on their return.”

Major legislation was sent to the governor on Wednesday, including the public school budget – the first to cut funding below the previous year’s level – and the Idaho Transportation Department budget.

The House passed dozens of bills, including sweeping election reform legislation that consolidates all of Idaho’s elections to four dates; day care licensing legislation that’s been sought unsuccessfully for the past five years; and several transportation funding measures, including the repeal of a fuel tax exemption for ethanol and a $13.1 million annual increase in Department of Motor Vehicle fees.

The House also passed a resolution calling for a special legislative committee to study transportation funding over the summer. “I believe that this is a tool to put us on the road toward adjourning,” House Majority Caucus Chairman Ken Roberts, R-Donnelly, told the House. “The House has spoken on transportation funding many times this session, especially on fuel tax.”

But Otter still wants a major increase in ongoing funding for road maintenance in Idaho, to the tune of $75 million a year or more. The ethanol and DMV fee bills combined raise less than $30 million a year; Otter has called for a gas tax increase.

“We have put off making meaningful investments in maintaining our roads and bridges for so long that a consistent, long-term financial commitment is necessary,” Otter wrote in a statement Wednesday. After the House GOP proposed the interim study committee on transportation, Senate Transportation Chairman John McGee, R-Caldwell, said, “I’m trying to think of an issue over the last two years that has been studied and talked about more than transportation funding.”

Last year, rather than grant Otter’s request to increase road funding, lawmakers ordered a $500,000 audit of the Idaho Transportation Department and the state’s road funding needs. It concluded that Otter’s claim of a $240 million annual shortfall for road maintenance was actually understated by about $60 million.

The House also voted Wednesday night to pass yet another version of legislation from Rep. Bob Nonini, R-Coeur d’Alene, to eliminate an early retirement incentive program for teachers. After criticism of his bill a day earlier to retroactively eliminate the program, Nonini proposed legislation Wednesday to phase it out – exactly the move the Senate already has specifically rejected.

Rep. George Sayler, D-Coeur d’Alene, said the day care licensing legislation he sponsored will keep kids safer, even though House amendments watered it down. The Senate still must concur in the House amendments.

As amended, the bill will require licensing only for day cares with seven or more unrelated children; the original bill, which easily passed the Senate, required licensing for those with four or more unrelated kids. The amended bill still requires criminal background checks for operators with four or more unrelated children; those currently aren’t required in Idaho except by city ordinance in fewer than a dozen cities.