Rep. Barbara Ehardt, R-Idaho Falls, presented the "Protecting Critical Thinking in Higher Education Act" to the House Education Committee on Wednesday morning, writes Post Register reporter Sally Krutzig. The bill is intended to protect the right of college students to express their views on…
Idaho's State Board of Education held a special meeting this afternoon, and announced afterward that there will be no in-state resident tuition increase for undergraduates at Idaho's four-year colleges and universities next year. Instead, the board is asking the colleges and universities to …
Idaho state schools Superintendent Sherri Ybarra today issued this statement on the defeat yesterday of the budget bill for the teachers division for public schools on a tie vote in the House:
Despite questions about legal and technical flaws, the House has passed HB 339aa, Rep. Karey Hanks’ bill to prohibit any mask mandates from any governmental entity in Idaho, on a 47-22 vote, sending the bill to the Senate. “This is a matter of personal rights and of our liberty,” Hanks, R-St…
Among the bills that passed in the Senate today before it adjourned until Monday was the new version of the budget for the office of Lt. Gov. Janice McGeachin, who is also the person who presides over the Senate. During debate, Sen. Christy Zito, R-Hammett, rose to speak and began talking ab…
The House has passed HB 339aa, the mask-mandate prohibition, on a 47-22 vote, and the Senate, after passing five bills and a proclamation, has recessed until Monday. Senate Majority Leader Kelly Anthon said there are big issues regarding transportation, tax cuts and more, and the Senate need…
On this mid-April day that’s officially the 94th day of this year’s legislative session, Sen. Todd Lakey, R-Nampa, introduced a new gun bill this morning. Lakey’s bill, introduced in the Senate State Affairs Committee, amends a 2014 law that restricted spending funds or using other resources…
The Joint Finance-Appropriations Committee voted 14-5 this morning in favor of SB 1204, the new bill that would forbid Gov. Brad Little from authorizing spending of any American Rescue Plan Act, or ARPA, funds without a legislative appropriation. Bipartisan opposition came from two Republica…
Two bills that cleared the Idaho House with overwhelming Republican support to significantly defund Republican Attorney General Lawrence Wasden’s office for not being sufficiently partisan have died in the Senate, the AP reports. The powerful Republican chairwoman and chairman of Senate committees with control of the bills said Monday that they will not get hearings...
This may officially be the 93rd legislative day, but four new bills were introduced today. Two were new versions of budget bills that JFAC crafted to replace versions voted down earlier in the House; those were for the Idaho Attorney General and Idaho Department of Health & Welfare’s Div…
The Senate convened a half-hour late for its afternoon session today, and then, instead of going to its 14th Order -- where numerous bills await numerous amendments, including the big House-passed tax cut bill -- it unexpectedly adjourned until tomorrow. Both Senate Republicans and Senate De…
After debate that focused alternately on whether Idaho values and wants to pay its teachers, and whether “critical race theory” is somehow being promoted in Idaho’s public schools because the state funds teacher professional development, the House has defeated the public school budget for te…
JFAC this morning voted to continue a stepped-up Idaho State Police presence at the state Capitol and the Idaho Supreme Court through the rest of the current fiscal year and through the following year as well, which runs through June 30, 2022. “It actually saddens me to bring this before us,…
Anyone who's tried to follow the Idaho House in the past week has found it to be close to impossible, as the body zig-zags at high speeds around around its calendar, skipping various bills and taking up others. There's no way to know where it's is headed until Majority Leader Mike Moyle anno…
A major House-passed transportation funding bill cleared a Senate committee on Monday, and the House backed more restrictive voter ID laws, new restrictions on the powers of the state Health & Welfare director, and an “advanced opportunities” program for private school students. The legi…
The big House-passed transportation bonding bill, HB 362, has cleared the Senate Transportation Committee, but only after a motion to put it up for amendments instead failed on a 4-5 vote. Nearly all testimony at the hearing was in favor of the bill, with several backers specifically noting …
Two Idaho legislative committees met jointly in the Lincoln Auditorium this afternoon to hear a presentation from Oregon proponents of the “Greater Idaho” proposal, which calls for big chunks of eastern Oregon to join Idaho. “Idaho’s population would increase by 50% with not one person movin…
The Idaho Senate today voted 18-17 in favor of SB 1193, the new version of a bill to accept a $6 million grant approved by the Trump Administration to help local collaboratives improve early learning in their communities in kids up to age 5. An earlier version of the proposal narrowly died i…
Whew. The House has adjourned for the day, after jumping wildly around in its calendar, as is the preference of House Majority Leader Mike Moyle, R-Star, who is in charge of the calendar. Moyle never says in advance what the House will take up that day or even will take up next; when I queri…
At a time when House-Senate negotiations are getting hot and heavy, the odd incident on Friday morning in which House Majority Leader Mike Moyle was trapped in the Senate elevator for more than half an hour seems somehow emblematic. He’d grabbed the Senate elevator – one of two public elevat…
Backers of major legislation to fund full-day kindergarten as an option for every Idaho school district have reluctantly given up for this year, but say they’ll press for the change next year, I wrote in my Sunday column. “It’s lost its momentum, is the best way to describe it at this point,…
Republican leaders in the Idaho Legislature have accused the state of unlawfully using a vaccine record-keeping system. They are pushing for the Idaho Department of Health and Welfare to destroy its records on adult immunizations.
The Idaho Department of Water Resources’ Water Supply Committee on Friday said its streamflow forecast for the Boise River Basin is the lowest in the last five years, mirroring conditions from 2015’s historic fire season, writes Idaho Press reporter Erin Sheridan. That forecast is based on s…
The Idaho House voted unanimously last week to repeal a portion of state law that grants exceptions to the criminal definition of rape when someone is married to the alleged perpetrator. SB 1089 will now head to Gov. Brad Little’s desk to be signed into law. The long-standing inconsistency i…
Lawmakers amended a bill that would ban the state, public health departments and even school districts from requiring masks to add a penalty on Friday, the AP reports. The amendment in the Idaho House means the legislation now says that if a political subdivision enacts a mask mandate, any public health order or emergency declaration that the entity is operating under will be terminated...
The Senate advanced two major bills to limit the governor’s emergency powers on Friday, and budget writers held hearings on proposals for spending hundreds of millions in federal coronavirus aid.
After a lengthy and passionate debate, the Senate has voted 25-10 in favor of HB 135aa, the Senate-amended, House-passed emergency powers bill. Because the bill originated in the House but was amended in the Senate, it still needs to return to the House for concurrence in the Senate amendmen…
In a contentious General Orders session in the House that just concluded, two bills were altered from their original thrust: SB 1061, regarding election deadlines, which earlier passed the Senate unanimously, was amended into a new version of the bill to eliminate the August school levy elec…
Lt. Gov. Janice McGeachin said Thursday that she will assemble a task force to examine indoctrination in Idaho schools — including critical race theory, socialism, communism, and Marxism, writes Idaho Education News reporter Blake Jones. “We must find where these insidious theories and philo…
The Legislature’s Joint Finance-Appropriations Committee held nearly two hours of hearings this morning on specific spending requests from three state agencies for federal coronavirus aid arriving in the state from the American Rescue Plan Act, or ARPA, hearings that continued from the day b…
With bipartisan support, the Idaho Senate passed a resolution to create an interim committee to study driving authorization for undocumented Idahoans, writes Idaho Press reporter Rachel Spacek. The resolution was sent to the House of Representatives.
Former Idaho Supreme Court Justice Jim Jones on Thursday delivered a petition with more than 16,000 signatures to Gov. Brad Little's office, urging him to veto SB 1110, a bill approved by both the Idaho House and Senate that would make it more difficult to qualify voter initiatives for the I…
On what proved to be a long day for the Senate but a short one for the House, Idaho lawmakers on Thursday advanced major legislation on transportation funding and tax cuts, passed an array of bills on everything from dam-breaching to “strong beer,” and failed to override the governor’s first…
The Senate has adjourned, at 5:26 p.m., after reaching the end of its 3rd Reading Calendar. Senate Majority Leader Kelly Anthon, R-Burley, told senators, “Really, I just stand to say thank you to this good Senate. We have the people’s business on our shoulders, and we worked hard this week, …
The Senate Local Government & Taxation Committee has sent HB 332, the $389.4 million House-passed income tax cut and rebate bill, to the Senate’s 14th Order for amendments. Senators mentioned several possible amendments they have in mind. In addition, the bill’s House sponsor, Rep. Steve…
Ammon Bundy of Emmett has now been charged with two more offenses today: Trespassing, a misdemeanor; and resisting or obstructing officers, also a misdemeanor, according to Ada County Jail records. Each carries a fixed bond amount of $300, as did the misdemeanor trespassing charge on which B…
An "uncooperative" Ammon Bundy, shouting loudly, was just wheeled out of the state Capitol building and taken to the Ada County jail for the second time today, and his fifth arrest this year. According to the Idaho State Police, Bundy, who was issued a notice Aug. 26 barring him from the Cap…
The Senate State Affairs Committee voted Wednesday to send an anti-”ballot harvesting” bill to the 14th Order for amendments, writes Idaho Press reporter Ryan Suppe. Introduced by House Majority Leader Mike Moyle, R-Star, HB 223 would make it a misdemeanor to possess someone else’s ballot an…
A panel of Idaho lawmakers advanced two bills targeting abortion Wednesday, writes AP reporter Rebecca Boone. The first bill attempts to dissuade women from having abortions if the fetus is diagnosed with Down syndrome. The other bill would eliminate government funding from health care providers...
The Idaho House has now adjourned until 10:30 a.m. on Friday, and Majority Leader Mike Moyle, R-Star, announced that the House won’t hold a Saturday session this week after all. Before its early adjournment, the House passed more than a dozen bills, many with little or no debate. A major exc…
