Here’s how the Idaho House just voted on a bill to speed up evictions of renters
A bill that would have expedited the process for evictions in Idaho failed to pass in the House by two votes on Monday.
The bill was sponsored by Rep. Bryan Zollinger, an Idaho Falls Republican, who said it would have simplified the eviction process for landlords and added some new protections for renters.
“This law has become so complex and so hard to deal with,” Zollinger said of the current laws that regulate evictions. “This simplifies their procedures.”
The bill, HB 138, was introduced by the Idaho Apartment Association and would have changed the way landlords act against tenants who violate the terms of their lease or fail to pay rent. Current law forces a landlord to file two lawsuits to evict a tenant — one forcing the tenant to return the property to the landlord, the other to seek monetary damages.
The bill would have combined those lawsuits into one and reduce the maximum time for the eviction process to a month or less. Courts would be forced to schedule trials within 12 days.
Several lawmakers recused themselves from debate on the bill because they were renters or landlords, though they still voted.
The vote came just after Rep. John Gannon of Boise presented a letter from the Attorney General’s Office that said parts of the current law regulating the relationship between tenants and landlords violate the Idaho Constitution.
Ahead of the vote, Gannon, a Democrat, told the Statesman that the new bill could make things even worse. The bill would create a “serious due process problem” by giving tenants too little time to organize a legal defense, he said.
“This really changes the balance between the landlords and the tenants,” he said.
A similar bill failed to pass in the Legislature last year.
This story was originally published March 4, 2019 at 2:28 PM.
