A modest proposal to shorten Idaho legislative session: Just skip committee hearings
The Idaho legislative session could get wrapped up in three, four weeks — tops — if legislators would follow my advice.
Hear me out.
The Idaho House of Representatives should just skip committee hearings altogether.
Or maybe not skip them. Maybe just take a vote on each bill at the beginning of each meeting and advance the bill before they have to sit through all that boring, boring testimony from those people from the public and those, you know, experts.
To wit: The House Business Committee would have saved two-and-a-half hours on Tuesday if it had simply taken a vote preemptively on a bill to ban cities from regulating rental fees and deposits.
Instead, Republican legislators had to suffer through exhausting testimony from people with whom they disagreed before imposing their will on local governments.
Three people testified in favor of the rental fee bill: a lobbyist for the Idaho Apartment Association, a property manager representing the National Association of Residential Property Managers and a landlord.
At least nine people spoke against the bill, including a social worker; a landlord who testified to the predatory practices of other landlords; a Boise State student; housing advocates; the city of Boise’s government affairs director; Lisa Sanchez, the Boise City Council member who brought Boise’s ordinance; and a representative from the Idaho Association of Cities who shared written testimony from the cities of Driggs, Ketchum and McCall.
Of course, the legislators went with the three people they agreed with.
Some legislators said words that sounded like questions but were really just condescending arguments with people opposed to their bill.
“You do understand if you own apartments and the property tax goes up, you’re not just paying that as the landlord,” Rep. Brent Crane, R-Nampa, masterfully asked a city of Boise official. “You’re not just paying that increase. You’re passing that along to your tenants. So that’s why your rates are going up. Do you guys understand that at the city or not?”
(Crane here is using a straw man argument, by the way; it has nothing to do with whether cities should be able to protect consumers by regulating application fees or not.)
“Yes, there are multiple factors, though, involved in the property tax space as well as the rental market right now,” Kathy Griesmyer, government affairs director for the city of Boise, answered him. “We feel that this ordinance is just a reasonable measure we could put in place to help at least get people’s foot in the door so that they can find housing, which is a significant problem we’re hearing at the city’s level.”
But all the Republicans on the committee heard was: “Blah blah blah blah, blah, blah blah blah blah, blah blah blah.”
Boise City Council member Lisa Sanchez, who championed the city rental application fee ordinance, also testified against the bill.
“Blah blah, blah blah blah blah blah blah, blah blah,” committee members heard her say. “Blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah, blah blah blah blah.”
Several others also offered well-reasoned arguments against the bill.
“Blah blah, blah blah blah blah blah blah, blah blah,” they all said. “Blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah, blah.”
Even testimony from those with whom Republican legislators agree could also be facilitated, like a 10-second fast-forward button on a YouTube video, just catching all of the keywords from the right.
“......markets.... freedom….. business .... regulations so onerous ... business rights,” said Paul Smith with the Idaho Apartment Association. “Regulations… spread… best practice .... preempt locals ... free-for-all ... nightmare.”
I have little doubt that had the committee members taken a vote at the beginning of the hearing, it would have been the same as the vote they cast at the end of the meeting, saving two-and-a-half hours.
By the time a bill like this gets to the House floor, all of that testimony is washed away and all that’s left are a few weary Democrats trying to encapsulate the reasons they should vote no.
If legislators would just skip all the phony procedure and pretend listening, they could pass all of their bills a lot more quickly.
I’m sure some of them would love that.
