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"Thank you" Isn't Enough...
The Impacts of Their Service Will Remain Forever
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(Photo by Jake King, Idaho Press)
As the legislative session comes to an end, I would like to thank the Senators of the Democratic Caucus who are serving in their last terms in the Idaho Senate. It has been an honor to serve with these giants! They have taught me so much. I serve on Health and Welfare with Sen Stennett; her compassion is only matched by her strong sense of commitment to create the best possible conditions for Idahoans. Sen Nye and Sen Burgoyne, the attorneys, will be missed for their quick wit and ability to cut through the crap! I wonder how many times Mark has had to rise to declare a conflict because he has sued the state and WON so many cases where citizens were wronged. They are all Giants whose shoes will never be filled and should be bronzed!
Senator Michelle Stennett, serving D26 for six terms, has brought grace, dignity, and a deep sense of commitment to the Idaho State Senate. Her husband served before her; a Stennett has been in this seat for 33 years. She holds a B.A. in International Relations – Environmental Studies, a B.A. in Latin languages, and a minor in Business from the University of Oregon. She holds a Certificat d’Etudes from the Universite de Poitiers, France and a Legislative Energy Horizon Institute certificate from the University of Idaho. She has worked in developing countries on disaster and famine relief, and on water and sanitation projects, and she spent several years managing community-based programs with philanthropic organizations, both in Idaho and abroad.
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Senator Mark Nye, serving D29 for four terms, is a devoted and honorable man. As a life-long Idahoan, Senator Nye carries a deep sense of commitment to the state of Idaho and the district he grew up in. He has used his education, a B.A. from Harvard and a J.D. University of Idaho College of Law, to help his community and state. He has served on numerous boards and councils where he always worked to create better conditions for the people of Idaho.
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Senator Grant Burgoyne, representing D16 for seven terms. He is a man dedicated to representing his constituency and protecting the every-day Idahoan. He has a B.A. in History from the University of Idaho and J.D. from the University of Kansas school of law. He worked as an attorney for 37 years, along with working tirelessly for the Democratic party before becoming an elected official. His legal expertise and knowledge has made him an incredibly effective legislator.
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WEEK 10 - LEGISLATIVE UPDATE
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TRACKING MY LEGISLATION
Headed to the Governor's Desk 
S1240 - Racially Restrictive Covenants - Strong Bi-partisan support!
This bill addresses racially restrictive property deeds and covenants that denied people of color from owning or living in certain properties. The 1968 Fair Housing Act made this practice illegal, but the language remains, alienating buyers to this day. This bill doesn't erase decades of racism in housing, but it does allow homeowners to file a modification document in the chain of title to declare any restrictions based on race, nationality, color, or ethnicity to be null and void. There are thousands of these racially restrictive covenants on property documents all over the state; now homeowners can visit their county clerk, and free of charge, and remove this language.
S1332 - Confidential Communication Protections for Victims
This bill will align state and federal law to legally protect what a victim shares with a domestic or sexual violence program when seeking services and support. That communication is already federally protected, but sometimes abusers or other parties try to subpoena information for custody battles or just to harass victims; this law would protect that communication at the state level, so programs don't have to waste resources fighting lawsuits and subpoenas when they could be spending those resources on helping their clients.
S1355 - Transparency, Commercial Transactions
This bill requires lenders to notify consumers that they still owe money on a loan that is secured by a mortgage in a foreclosure. It also requires that if the lender sells the debt to a third party, that the consumer must also be notified to try to prevent debt buyers from holding these notes for a long period of time and then surprising consumers later by trying to collect on the debt plus YEARS of interest. This bill fails to align the note with the statute of limitations on taking action on contracts, but it's a step in the right direction.
 KILLED IN THE HOUSE
S1260 - Expanding Access to Prescriptive Contraception
S1260 simply requires health benefit plans that cover prescription contraception to reimburse for a six-month supply, instead of only 3 months. The House killed the bill 24-44-2. Read more about this bill by clicking here. This bill was killed within 20 minutes of the House Passing S1309 which is the Texas style bounty hunter bill that bans almost all abortions after 6 weeks of pregnancy (most folks don't know they are pregnant that early). Expanding access to contraception is the number one way to prevent abortion, but House GOP couldn't see fit to get religion out of the decisions they were making about the a LEGAL practice of gaining contraception.
HELD IN HOUSE REV AND TAX
Holding Out Hope - A Slim Chance It Could Be Released... 
S1259 - Property Tax Relief for In-Home Caregivers
This legislation allows someone who is the homeowner of a Certified Family Home to apply for property tax relief through the Circuit Breaker program by exempting the payment they receive from the state to care for someone in their home as income counted toward the application for the Property Tax Circuit Breaker.
- This bill is being held in House Rev & Tax by the chair; he said he "doesn't like it." Who doesn't want to help folks caring for people with disabilities in their homes which saves the state millions of dollars? Someone who doesn't know their math or have empathy for hardworking Idahoans.
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FINALLY, SOME GOOD NEWS ABOUT EDUCATION
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S1290 - Rural Teacher Loan Forgiveness
On Friday, the Senate passed a bill to help educators in high-need and rural areas with various educational costs.
Senate Bill 1290, sponsored by Sen. Janie Ward-Engelking (D-Boise) and Rep. Sally Toone (D-Gooding), establishes a rural educator incentive program for educators who work in high-need or rural school districts and charter schools. It would provide the maximum amount of eligible funding, which gradually increases for each year the educator stays in the school.
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S1319 - Electric School Buses
Cuts through red tape limitations on school bus contracts and frees up Idaho school districts to bring electric school buses into their fleets, using funding from the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act. The House vote was the final hurdle for this legislation before Governor Little’s desk, where it is expected to be signed into law in the next week. This legislation gives our communities a significant advantage in transitioning to clean transportation, and will lead to significant improvements in the health of the children using these buses.
SB1315 - Optional All-Day Kindergarten
I voted for this bill. I believe that funding full day Kindergarten in Idaho would be an excellent and necessary use of funds and IT'S LONG OVERDUE. This would help narrow the gap in education formed not only by socioeconomic status, but also by the pandemic.
This topic has been pushed aside by this legislature far too long, as politicians argue about whose responsibility it is to educate young children. We have known for along time that full day kindergarten prepares kids better for first grade and exponentially increases literacy success. I still have a few questions about the bill because it still won't formally put kindergarten in code as a policy. But this is a great step forward! I hope it passes both Houses.
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LEGISLATIVE ROUNDUP
What's the Latest on Those Bills You've Been Watching?
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HELD IN COMMITTEE -- WHEW!
With two GOP candidates battling for Secretary of State (one in the House and one in the Senate), it's no wonder we have seen a lot of bad bills to limit voter access and to pursue the specters of voter fraud. I fear that these candidates for SOS are using the legislature more as a campaign stump than a think tank for better policy.
Thankfully, reason prevailed and the Chair of the Senate State Affairs held many of these bills along with the Committee voting to hold several of them there as well. Whew! That's a close call, but I'm grateful to everyone who saw that these bills would have HINDERED not helped voters. The Senate backstop worked!
My sincere thanks to my GOP colleagues who saw through the harm and helped stop these bills from advancing for the benefit of all Idahoans.
Attacks on the Ballot - ALL HELD
- S1375 - Removal of ID's
Made it harder for folks to vote. College students won't be able to use their student IDs anymore, and our long-standing signed voter affidavits to verify a voter’s identity would have been trashed.
- S1376 - Absentee Voters
Specified the people who could help an absentee voter by delivering their completed ballot to the county elections department. It also limits to six, the total number of ballots any one voter can deliver, including their own.
- HB693: Prohibit absentee ballot drop boxes
Prohibited absentee ballot drop boxes or similar forms of drop-off for elections. With no evidence of voter fraud being an issue in Idaho, this simply doesn't make sense.
- HB439: Unaffiliated voters requirement
Required unaffiliated voters to sign up as a party member by March 11 in order to participate in the closed Republican primary. That would have shut out more than 310,000 unaffiliated voters, who make up nearly one-third of Idaho registered voters, not to mention those who turn 18 in that time and have yet to affiliate with a party.
- HB547: Voter Suppression of Elderly and Disabled Voters
Criminalized someone helping someone mail their ballot or take it to the drop boxes, something that many elderly or disabled folks need. We already have very good laws that make it a felony to interfere with voting or access to the ballot.
- HB761: Barriers to Register and Vote using a College ID (Keep an eye on this one)
The latest version of Moon’s H549 and H692 is designed to suppress the vote, especially for college students, by making registration and voting more difficult.
Attacks on the Human Rights and 1st Amendment - ALL HELD
- H666: Criminalizing Librarians for Content
This bill would allow the state to criminalize librarians for "disseminating material harmful to minors". This extremely vague and harmful legislation is simply an effort to further shelter our children from real-world topics and education. Many people supporting this bill cited content that was relating to LGBTQ content and wanted to censor this material from public libraries. I thought I was in a bad episode of the movie Footloose and was bracing for a book burning next to the mask burning barrels.
- H675: More Attacks on Our Transgender Youth: Still in Senate State Affairs
This legislation would make it a felony to provide trans children with gender-affirming medical care. Providers would be barred from giving minors hormones, puberty blockers, or gender-affirming surgeries. To make matters worse, it also would allow the state to impose criminal charges on parents trying to move out of the state to be able to provide this care.
SHIFTS IN POWER STILL IN PLAY.... ________________________
- HB 635: Annexations
This legislation would allow private landowners to decide which neighboring city to annex their land into, regardless of any city’s area of impact who are consenting. This would allow property owners and city councils to disregard a growth planning mechanism called an area of impact. Areas of impact are defined by Idaho law as areas that cities anticipate annexing. These 'areas of impact' are created to foster the efficient planning and economical delivery of urban services to growing areas.
- It’s been passed by the House and referred to the Senate; I will research this bill more but I have received lots of opposition email due to the disregard for land use and planning.
- S1372 - Attorney General and Land Board
This legislation changes the relationship of the Office of the Attorney General with the State Board of Land Commissioners (Land Board) and the Idaho Department of Lands. Instead of using the Attorney General who was elected BY THE PEOPLE TO REPRESENT the best interests of the people, and to act as the attorney for the state, the Senate GOP just voted to allow the Land Board and the Department of Lands to hire independent counsel to represent their interests. Why? Because they want to shop around for an opinion they like instead of the opinion that is needed or the one that is in the best interests of the people.
- Passed the Senate with a 29-6 vote and referred to State Affairs. I voted against this bill.
- HB 782 and S1382: Judicial Councils.
This legislation would make sweeping changes to the process of appointing members to the judicial council which makes recommendations to the Governor for vacancies on the bench as well as disciplinary actions for judges. Competing bills were just introduced this week. Retired chief justices of the Idaho Supreme Court have expressed concerns in regard to these changes due to the potential for increasing partisan politics into the decision making process. I think that Idaho's Judicial Council already works well and has been in force since 1967.
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- Read former Justice Jim Jones' blog on this topic.
I don’t see the need or rush to address this issue unless someone was appointed recently that is presenting an ethical concern, which the council structure is intended to address. I will vote against these bills. Why a change now? If we are going to change the make up of the council, then I support a collaborative process where a diverse group of stakeholders representing citizens, judged, attorneys, legislators, etc.. can determine changes that make sense and do not result in a partisan bench. This is one of the most important bills of the session, because the courts are where we fetter out unconstitutional laws from the legislature and keeps the balance of power in check.
Read more about this bill here
- Referred to the 14th Order for possible amendments
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Attacks on Citizen Rights and Transparency
- HB 658: Lethal Injections
I voted against this bill because it lacks transparency and does not allow the public nor defense attorneys of the condemned access to information about execution drugs being used to kill someone on death row. Regardless how one feels about the death penalty, if the state's will is to execute someone, it should be done in an aboveboard way so the public can scrutinize it. There are examples of many botched executions all over the country due to secrecy and lack of accountability. Transparency in the death penalty process is vital to assure no wrong-doings by the state.
- Unfortunately, this is on its way to the Governor. Please contact the Governor's Office to request that he VETO this bill.
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S1309: Bounties on an on Abortion after 6 Weeks
I voted against this bill! We are at a crisis point for reproductive healthcare and rights in Idaho. SB 1309 is part of the aggressive anti-abortion agenda pushed by politicians across the country to ban abortion outright, to interfere in a person’s individual freedom to control their own body. This bill treats women as if they are children and a husband or family member or even the parents of a rapist now controls their choices with threats and bounty systems mandating someone carry a pregnancy to term against their will.
- Unfortunately, this is on its way to the Governor. Please contact the Governor's Office to request that he VETO this bill.
- Click here to learn more ....
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“It’s more than ink on paper. It’s more than lines through words,” she said. “These are my very rights. This is my very humanity and my dignity that you are trying to erase.” Photo by Sarah Miller, Idaho Statesman
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Attacks on Businesses
S1381:"Coronavirus Pause Act"
Prohibits businesses from requiring the COVID-19 vaccine for employment, services, or entry into events unless it’s required by the federal government or needed to travel to foreign countries for the job. I voted against this, After talking to a lot of small businesses, they are very upset with the government telling them they can’t keep themselves, other employees, or customers safe. Business owners tend to do what is in the best interests of their bottom line; and if they perceive this will be a hindrance to employing folks or conducting business, they won’t require it. If folks are concerned about keeping businesses open, then a nice compromise would have been to also include requirements for other safety precautions if a vaccine could not be obtained. To exclude tools to stop the prevention of disease does not make sense. I believe businesses should have their own jurisdiction on vaccine requirements for their employees or using masks to reduce the spread of COVID-19. I also think it’s important to note that this same legislature has vehemently resisted including “sexual orientation or gender identity” as a protected class in order to find work, housing or obtain services. They are easy to make vaccine status a protected class but not protections for people who are LGBTQ. I think that's wrong and said so on the Senate floor.
“To criminalize business is a really horrific thing to do. And my heart is kind of heavy on this bill, as I have said before because we talk about the word 'discrimination' when it comes to a state as one with a vaccine to stop the spread of a disease. And we are still resisting adding words 'sexual orientation,' 'gender identity' to our Human Rights Act, which is true discrimination,” Wintrow said.
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Attacks on Businesses cont.
Bills H614 and H660 are the latest attempts to undermine Idaho Building Codes, which set minimum construction standards to ensure our rapidly growing population enjoys safe, efficient homes based on the best available information. They have a significant impact on your safety, utility bills, and air quality
Currently, we have an effective process to develop building codes that balances thorough public and industry input, technical expertise from the boards, and oversight from the legislature. The process allows local governments to develop standards that meet the needs of their own communities. House Bills 614 and 660 would put decision making squarely in the hands of the legislature. Legislators would set the minimum standards alone, removing expert and local control and prohibiting communities from setting their own standards, which might include more energy efficient codes. The two bills are in conflict – meaning if they both pass they won’t be implementable. H660 passed out of Senate Commerce and Resources yesterday and H614 will be heard in committee tomorrow, March 17th. You can take action here.
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Some Bad News for the Environment
SB 1254a - End Vehicle Emission Testing in 2023
The bill removes requirements for emissions testing, which have been in place since 1984 in Ada County and were implemented in Canyon County by the legislature in 2008. The intent of the testing was to respond to violations of federal carbon monoxide standards in Ada County, and the threat of violating ozone pollution standards across the Treasure Valley. While some monitoring reports have shown that the levels are improving, they still exceed 85% of the standard, which triggered the need for emissions testing. It's notable that the reports don't count "exceptional events" like wildfire smoke and inversions.
The bill also removes language establishing a Treasure Valley Air Quality Council, and instead the Idaho Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) would have to request that the legislature form Regional Air Quality Councils.
The Treasure Valley is nearing the limit for ozone nonattainment, and vehicle emissions are one of the main contributors. Emissions testing has played an important role in keeping ozone levels down and our air clean. If those aren't successful, and the Treasure Valley or other regions of the state violate federally designated "nonattainment" thresholds, then federal rules and mandates would be required. I’m not convinced that it is a good idea to do away with this program.
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S1405 - Investments in Clean Energy have IDLEG Afraid (ESG)
This legislation further clarifies public entity investment activities of the state. It defines disfavored investments and requires notification to the public entity if an investment agent adopts a policy related to disfavored investments. What are those disfavored investments? Things that take into account climate change and investments that improve social justice and decrease the impacts of global warming. This legislature is afraid of its own shadow and continues to be short-sighted. Investments in clean energy can have many positive financial outcomes along with social justice outcomes. For a legislature that touts it doesn't want to interfere with business, they sure have a bad way of showing that!
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Community Highlights
Adams Elementary Tours the Capitol!
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I had the great joy of giving this 5th-grade class a tour around the Capitol. Some of the places they got to visit included my office and the Senate Chambers!
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Here is a photo I snapped with Jen Beazer
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Amaia came to shadow me and got a birds' eye view of the legislative process. It is important to let students engage within their community!
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The Light at the End of a Tunnel
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As I walked to towards the Capitol on Tuesday I snapped this beautiful picture. It served as a reminder of how beautiful this state is and how even during stormy days, there is a rainbow waiting on the other side. We just have to push through.
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Local news resources to stay updated on the legislature:
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