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| published Monday, April 17, 2006 |
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My twin daughters, Hallie and Deana, who are 2, regularly shout out “I did it!” whenever they accomplish just about anything. I kind of felt a collective “I did it!” from the Legislature as they finally got themselves extricated from the various snares they had set for themselves on property taxes, water and transportation funding. They ended the third longest legislative session in Idaho history Tuesday evening having successfully passed meaningful property tax benefits for homeowners, coming to some agreement on water and finally letting Governor Kempthorne’s highway bill pass the House. As I’ll discuss further, even on Tuesday morning I wouldn’t have bet that they were going home that day. They did it!
. Yep. That about says it all. And ultimately it was finding some resolution to a water dispute that kept the Legislature in session for a couple of extra days this week. While other issues, particularly property taxes, kept legislators occupied, Bruce Newcomb and a handful of other legislators kept meeting with Idaho Power, the Water Users Association and others until, as the Speaker said, they found a “couple of Easter eggs” that provided sufficient water for recharge—what the pumpers wanted—without really dealing with the fundamental issues underlying this fight. Those will most likely be left to the courts. The agreement was mostly a closed door affair. “This issue needs to be solved in a public process, in which the public has an opportunity to air its concerns,” said Buhl activist Bill Chisholm in his monthly letter. “It should not be solved in a back room where the good ol’ boys once again are the beneficiaries at the public expense.” The solution they found got the Legislature out of Dodge, but is it good for us?
, so I’m in no big hurry to get home, said that area’s representative, Ken Roberts who has been the Energizer Bunny pushing to get the school maintenance and operations levy off of the property tax. That was Monday and there were still a few plays before the end game. Roberts had been everywhere--back and forth across the rotunda, coming up with new plans and strategies, just hoping to find a few more votes. The House amended a bill to remove half of the M&O without providing a mechanism for funding it. The Senate killed it. Next the House sent the Senate a bill to hold an advisory vote on replacing the M&O with sales tax and to place a 3% cap on M&O growth. The Senate slammed it 30 to 5. In the most audacious move of the day--and to prove they really didn’t want to go home--Dell Raybould of Rexburg introduced a bill in the House Revenue and Taxation Committee at 1:30 Tuesday. Raybould called for the removal of the index to the Homeowners Exemption and then had the gall to say it was the last chance for real property tax relief! The committee saw it for what it was--in CDA Rep Jim Clark’s words, a “veiled attempt by the agriculture community” to shift future property taxes back to homeowners--and gave Raybould the “right back attcha” with a 12-5 vote against.
. After all the machinations were over, the House got around to passing HB421 as it had been amended in the Senate as one of its final bills. The Governor has agreed to sign it. In the end the Legislature passed a good package of property tax reforms: an expanded Circuitbreaker, the Homeowner’s Exemption, and repeal of the Developers Discount. This will result in substantial relief for most homeowners without hurting schools. A worthy outcome!
Hearings on open meetings held behind closed doors or pretty close. A meeting to discuss the House’s new rule on when open meetings can be held had been scheduled originally for 8:30 on Tuesday before the Ways and Means Committee. When the committee’s chair was AWOL the meeting was rescheduled for noon. Next when people from the press and public showed up at noon they found that the meeting had already been held and that the new rules had been sent to the floor on a party line 4-3 vote. You cannot make up that kind of irony. The rules closely mirror ones adopted earlier by the Senate except that they allow for closed meetings for initial investigations on certain ethics violations. Further—and this is primarily why Democrats opposed them—the new rules allow the majority party to have 4 members and the minority to have 3, on the panel that determines if the investigation goes forward. (That had been decided apparently in a closed Republican caucus meeting.) The rules passed the House later in the day.
who landed in the hospital Monday and had heart surgery on Tuesday in Boise. According to his seat mate, Representative and Doctor John Rusche, he was doing well. Mitchell’s been at it for a long time. Before coming back to the Statehouse in 2003, he had served in the House and Senate from 1969 through 1982. He later served as Governor Cecil Andrus’ Chief of Staff.
. I am not kidding. If all the initiatives that are still pending make it we will have several ballot measures to vote on come November. We know so far that “we the people” must vote on a discriminatory constitutional amendment to define marriage as between a man and a woman. The Idaho Education Association has gathered enough signatures to qualify their initiative for the ballot. If that initiative passes, a penny sales tax will be raised for education funding. There’s one coming out of North Idaho to do a Prop 13 style property tax cap-- though it sounds like they are pretty far from having the signatures they need. A couple of new ones have popped up recently. There’s one being pushed by conservative activist, Laird Maxwell, that addresses the eminent domain issues raised by the US Supreme Court last year. And there’s one more to drive wolves out of Idaho. Each of those has a few thousand signatures so far and signatures must be collected by the end of the month.
it was not the end of efforts to place further restrictions on abortion. On Monday, the House reconvened and passed the bill that requires that various information be provided to women prior to receiving an abortion. Bill Sali was apparently asked to remain silent while his co-sponsor Janice McGeachin of Idaho Falls made closing remarks. After the bill had passed, Sali stood up on the floor to—kinda sorta—make an apology for causing a ruckus last week. “If there’s an apology needed out there…” and it just got goofier from there. You gotta love that guy.
For the last month or so the highway bonding bill, that is generally considered the Governor’s legacy, has been held hostage in the House Transportation Committee awaiting settlement of the property tax and water issues. Following an initial fight over projects and spending, the Garvee bonding bill, as it is called, has been considered safe but so important to the Governor that it was held to ensure his approval of other legislation. The Senate held the $200 million appropriation for Garvee pending House action. Both bills were sent to the Governor on Tuesday.
The really good: 1) Passage of a 2-year moratorium on the building of the coal plants; 2) Passage of the Workers with Disabilities Act and 3)Passage of the package of property tax reforms. The bad: 1)Passage of the Medicaid Complification Act and 2) No action on community colleges. The ugly: Placing the discriminatory anti-gay marriage amendment on the ballot. There’s probably more, but as Porky Pig says: “That’s all Folks.”
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