A bill to end more bills? What one lawmaker seeks — and another calls ‘insanity’
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- Lawmaker wants to cap bill filings to curb rising legislative volume and staff strain.
- Opponents argue limits would silence constituents and impede lawmaker duties.
- Debate centers on balancing quality oversight with committee vetting.
When Rep. Ben Fuhriman, a Republican from Shelley, introduced a bill to limit the number of bills his fellow lawmakers could introduce each legislative session, committee members looked over at Rep. Jordan Redman and laughed.
Redman, R-Coeur d’Alene, sponsored nearly 30 bills during last year’s session.
“Don’t feel like this is targeting you,” Rep. John Vander Woude, R-Nampa, the committee’s chairman, told Redman with a smile during the hearing in March 2025.
Reflecting on that hearing, Redman told the Idaho Statesman on Monday that committee members’ comments were “in jest” and “just teasing.”
But the lighthearted moment revealed a real division within the Idaho Legislature — over what number of bills is simply too many. Should lawmakers, in session for roughly three months each year, work to bring as many ideas as possible at the Statehouse? Or does that approach overwhelm fellow legislators, leaving them without enough time to fully understand the impacts of proposed laws?
Fuhriman introduced his proposal too late in the session last year for it to move forward. But already in the 2026 session, a new proposal has sparked the same discussion.
Sen. Jim Guthrie, R-McCammon, on Friday introduced a resolution to bar lawmakers from drafting no more than 25 bills each session.
“In recent years, the volume of legislation brought by lawmakers has ascended to problematic levels,” he wrote in the resolution’s statement of purpose. His resolution would “help temper that volume” and “provide for quality over quantity.”
Lawmakers proposed 1,400 “routing slips” — the first stage of introducing a bill to the Legislature — in 2025, nearly 30% more than in 2019, according to the Legislature’s annual end-of-session report. That meant more bills moved through the legislative process, but the number of those actually signed into law remained flat.
The steep uptick in routing slips and bills moving through the legislative process comes with a cost, Guthrie told the Statesman in an interview. It strains the resources of the legislative staff involved in drafting bills, and it can distract from lawmakers’ core responsibilities of setting the state’s budget, he said.
“I think there’s a different thought process in terms of what people think (is) important,” Guthrie said. “You’re getting more fringe ideas that are getting into the equation, and it takes us away from, I think, the things that matter.”
Guthrie, a seven-term senator who chairs the Senate State Affairs Committee, said he’s seen an uptick in the number of bills that relate more to national debates — over, say, elections, gun rights and transgender rights — than to Idaho-specific concerns. Some of those come from so-called “model bills” from national groups that push the same legislation in legislatures around the country, he said.
Particularly on topics related to education and state funding for private schools, “you have outside groups that have lobby groups that have a lot of money, and they will push money into Idaho to try to advance whatever agenda,” Guthrie said.
His proposed joint rule includes exceptions for lawmakers who get permission from the leader of their chamber to exceed the limit, or those drafting legislation related to appropriations.
Bills limits ‘absolute insanity,’ lawmaker says
Rep. Josh Tanner, R-Eagle, pushed back hard against Guthrie’s proposal in an interview with the Statesman. Tanner is the co-chair of the Legislature’s influential Joint Finance and Appropriations Committee.
“I think anytime you’re limiting (bills), you’re silencing constituents,” he said. “I think it’s absolute insanity.”
Tanner, who sponsored 19 bills in 2025, acknowledged that more legislation means more work for bill drafters — and for lawmakers who must digest all the proposals before they vote.
“Does it make it more difficult for people to really read and understand every piece of legislation that comes out, because there’s so many of them?” he asked. “I’d say absolutely, but that is their job that they took up when they were elected.”
The legislative process is designed to ensure bills are ready for prime time, said Redman, who also opposes Guthrie’s proposal.
Committees are supposed “to vet out if (bills) are not thought through correctly, and then they can go to send it back or hold it in committee,” he said. “That’s part of the process that we go through.”
This story was originally published January 28, 2026 at 2:05 PM.
CORRECTION: This story was updated on Jan. 28, 2026 to correct Rep. Josh Tanner’s title. He is the co-chair of the Joint Finance and Appropriations Committee.
