Idaho lawmakers adjourned the session. Here’s what they accomplished this year
On the 81st day of the 2022 session, the Legislature adjourned, after failing to override a veto from the governor and declining to attempt overrides on two others.
The Legislature did not introduce new bills this week, but lawmakers on Friday chose to recess for five days and await vetoes from Gov. Brad Little, who vetoed four bills this week.
One would have blocked most private businesses from requiring COVID-19 vaccines for a year. The Senate voted 21-14 Thursday to override the veto. It failed to garner the required two-thirds majority.
The House declined to override two other vetoes: one that would have permanently altered schools’ funding formula and another that would have changed the Idaho Judicial Council and given the executive branch more authority over judge appointments.
“The votes were not there,” House Speaker Scott Bedke, R-Oakley, told reporters Thursday.
The Legislature passed 288 bills this year, doubling last year’s total, with a far shorter session. Last year’s session was the longest on record at 311 days. Lawmakers previously told the Idaho Statesman they expected a short session this year as legislators hope to head home and continue campaigning ahead of the May primary election.
This year, lawmakers passed record-setting income tax cuts. They funded full-day kindergarten. And they effectively banned abortion.
“I think we’re pleased with the outcomes,” said Bedke on possibly his last day in the speaker’s dais after nine terms in the Legislature. Bedke is running for lieutenant governor. “I think we’ll look back on this year as the year that we, for the second year in a row, cut taxes at a historic level.”
The Legislature also greenlit proposals from Little to boost spending on education and transportation, including hundreds of millions to improve roads and bridges.
“We achieved what I never thought we could — ‘the trifecta’ — which is record tax relief, record education investments, and record transportation investments in one year,” Little said in a Thursday news release.
The Legislature also proposed ideologically driven legislation — many of them bills born in the House that died in the Senate. The 2020 presidential election continued to drive election bills, such as an attempt to ban ballot boxes and another to require proof of citizenship to vote.
Fears of pornography in libraries was followed by a budget reduction for the Idaho Commission for Libraries, just as fears of critical race theory led to higher education cuts last year.
“You just can never predict in any given year what word salad is going to emerge as the social hysteria point du jour,” House Minority Leader Ilana Rubel, D-Boise, told reporters Monday. “Somewhere out there, there’s a boiler room that gins up these issues, and I wish I knew where it was.”
Idaho GOP pass historic income tax cuts
The Legislature began the 2022 session staring down an estimated $1.9 billion surplus at the end of the fiscal year, and, for the second year in a row, passed income tax cuts, the largest in Idaho history.
A $600 million relief package reduced the top individual income tax bracket and corporate tax rate from 6.5% to 6%. It also provided $350 billion in rebates, which cover either 12% of someone’s 2020 income taxes or $75 per taxpayer and dependent, whichever is greater.
Little, who proposed the income tax cut before the session, framed it as necessary relief as inflation drives up the costs of fuel, food and other goods.
“Thankfully, at the state level we are sending immediate tax relief to help counter soaring Bidenflation,” Little said in a March 10 news release.
Some lawmakers countered that the bill disproportionately benefits wealthy Idahoans, and the $600 million expense left little room for other forms of tax relief. One bill, signed by the governor, increased the value cap on homes to qualify for the “circuit breaker” property tax reduction program, which is meant to keep seniors in their homes when values spike.
Another bill would have eliminated most property taxes and increased the sales tax, but Senate Republicans rejected it in favor of giving the proposal more time to garner feedback.
House Majority Leader Mike Moyle, R-Star, on Thursday pointed to a few other bills that will “parlay” into property tax relief.
One bill removed public defenders from the property tax rolls, another gave more resources to county clerks to ensure residents aren’t claiming more than one homeowners exemption and a third bill gave local governments the option to provide property tax rebates, which they couldn’t do previously.
“We did do several things around the edges on property tax relief, but there’s more to do,” Moyle said.
A bill from Rep. Ron Nate, R-Rexburg, that would’ve repealed Idaho’s tax on food was held in committee. Every morning for most of the session, Nate would ask the House to pull his grocery tax repeal out of committee.
But, in an increasingly harmonious fashion, a chorus of procedural motions killed debate on Nate’s request and kept his bill in committee. House Assistant Minority Leader Lauren Necochea, D-Boise, also proposed a bill to eliminate the sales tax on groceries, that was also held in committee.
Nate and other ultra-conservative lawmakers found allies in Democrats on grocery tax. Early in Nate’s daily routine calling his bill to the floor, minority members sided with the Rexburg lawmaker.
The Legislature ultimately provided some relief on grocery taxes. A new law increased the grocery tax credit by $20, starting in 2024. The tax credit will climb to $120 for individuals and $140 for seniors.
“With today’s groceries and waiting until the end of the year, it just really doesn’t give people much of the relief that we had hoped for,” said Senate Minority Leader Michelle Stennett, D-Ketchum, during a news conference Monday.
Texas-inspired abortion law challenged
For the second consecutive session, an Idaho bill has been challenged as unconstitutional in the Idaho Supreme Court.
A new law will deter abortions after about six weeks of pregnancy by encouraging private citizens to sue providers — if it survives a lawsuit filed this week. On Wednesday, a regional Planned Parenthood affiliate filed a petition asking Idaho’s highest court to declare the law unconstitutional and forbid Idaho courts from validating it.
Modeled after a recent Texas law, the private enforcement mechanism was designed to evade judicial review. The Texas law has so far withstood court challenges from abortion providers and their advocates.
The Idaho bill — proposed by the Idaho Family Policy Center and sponsored by Sen. Patti Anne Lodge, R-Huston — overwhelmingly passed the House and Senate, and Little signed it.
Little had reservations, however. He said the law is likely “unconstitutional” and “unwise.”
Last year, the Idaho Supreme Court struck down a bill that would have made it more difficult to pass a citizen ballot initiative.
Library content targeted
House Bill 666 targeted smut in libraries, following a trend in Republican-led states, such as Florida and Texas. Idaho’s bill — which the Senate declined to consider — would have removed legal protections for librarians distributing material that’s considered harmful to minors.
Near the end of the session, lawmakers derailed the Idaho Commission for Libraries budget after librarians pushed back on claims they were giving pornography to children. The Legislature ultimately passed a budget that cut $3.5 million in federal telehealth funding for the commission.
“It reflects a problem that goes far beyond library funding, and if normalized, would undermine our various form of government,” Rubel said. “We cannot allow citizens to be punished for speaking out on legislation that impacts them. It is an utterly unacceptable tactic that unfortunately prevailed and carried the day here.”
When it looked like the library budget wasn’t going to pass for a third time last week, the House quickly introduced a resolution creating a task force to study harmful materials in libraries. The House caucused Friday and later held a successful vote on the budget.
A day later, the Senate GOP created a separate working group to study library content. In a previous interview with the Statesman, Majority Caucus Chair Mark Harris said the two working groups are currently separate, but that Senate President Pro Tem Chuck Winder and House Speaker Scott Bedke could eventually decide to combine them.
Bedke said Republican lawmakers don’t want to defund the library commission.
House and Senate lawmakers and library leaders will sit on the House Working Group for Protecting Idaho Children from Material Harmful to Minors in Libraries.
Republican leaders launched a similar task force last year to investigate claims that teachers were indoctrinating children.
The Legislature also picked up where it left off last year denouncing critical race theory, an academic theory that probes systemic racism.
Both chambers passed a resolution declaring they want schools to teach history “clearly and wholly” and condemning critical race theory and “The 1619 Project” as “divisive content.” “The 1619 Project” is a feature by The New York Times examining slavery’s impact on American history.
Legislature boosts education funding
Legislators made historic investments in education this session.
Lawmakers allotted about $104 million toward the career ladder for teacher salaries and gave teachers and staff members $1,000 bonuses, a move educators and education groups said would help retain and attract teachers.
A bill lawmakers passed to help ease some of the burden health insurance costs have on school employees was also praised by educators, some of whom have to spend significant portions of their income to afford health insurance.
“One of the best things that we did this year was to bring our teachers up to parity with the other state employees with regard to health insurance,” Bedke said.
Other education-related bills included allotting an additional $46.6 million in literacy funds that districts can use to help provide full-day kindergarten in their communities, and providing school districts with tools to serve students showing characteristics of dyslexia.
Educators said this session was largely successful, but that the state needs to keep up the momentum to keep teachers in Idaho and compete with surrounding states.
This story was originally published March 31, 2022 at 4:23 PM.
