The Idaho Legislature entered its sixth week on the job — that theoretical midpoint in a session when lawmakers should start setting budgets and focusing on must-pass matters.
Instead, it appears lawmakers are getting ready for some unsettling election-year pandering.
Two local lawmakers are in the midst of the drama. Rep. Carlos Bilbao, R-Emmett, is working on a bill to allow employers to refuse to include contraception in their company insurance plans. Sen. Chuck Winder, R-Boise, is drafting a bill to require pregnant women to get an ultrasound before they can undergo an abortion.
Bilbao, a retired Boeing executive, does not normally wade into social issues. His foray into the contraception issue is a surprise and a disappointment. A devout Catholic, Bilbao is responding to a controversial Obama administration policy on contraceptive services by seeking to allow companies to pick and choose which sections of federal health care law they will follow.
It sounds like a variation on the tired theme of health care “nullification.” It sounds like a green light for businesses to impose their religious or moral beliefs on their employees — or simply decide not to cover contraception in order to save a few bucks on their benefit plan. On top of these flaws, Bilbao’s idea is premature; Idaho and other states have an appeal pending in U.S. Supreme Court, in an attempt to overturn the federal health care law.
The House Health and Welfare Committee had ample reasons to table this flawed bill entirely, yet the committee decided to give Bilbao some time to fine-tune the wording. No going-home fever here, apparently.
Winder, meanwhile, tells The Times-News in Twin Falls that his ultrasound bill may be ready in the next couple weeks. That’s March.
Winder, the Senate’s assistant majority leader, probably has the pull to get this bill moving quickly. The question is, why is this a priority?
Why, in what should be the final month of a legislative session, would lawmakers debate a bill that would mandate a medical procedure, and is little more than a thinly veiled attempt to coerce women to reconsider an abortion? Modeled after laws in seven other states, this bill may represent a lot of things. It does not, however, represent small government at work.
Political decisions are often dictated by the calendar. This year, all eyes are on May 15 — the date of the Republicans’ historic closed primary. This session, lawmakers are making the time to cater to the small voter base likely to show up for a closed primary, and that renders good government a secondary consideration.
“Our View” is the editorial position of the Idaho Statesman. It is an unsigned opinion expressing the consensus of the Statesman’s editorial board.
