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| published Wednesday, April 05, 2006 |
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said a note handed to me on Monday afternoon by a colleague of mine. We
were sitting in the House Agricultural Affairs Committee’s hearing on a
bill sponsored by ICAN to improve warnings in the fields to prevent
agricultural workers from being exposed to pesticides. The bill is a
response to the chemical poisoning of 29 workers last summer in
Caldwell. My colleague’s note came just after the first speaker for an
agricultural interest rendered his opinion that no stronger laws were
needed--just education.
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| published Wednesday, March 22, 2006 |
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. Just when us property tax dweebs thought that the big event of the day would be what Spokesman Review reporter Betsy Russell called the "Amendathon" of all the House property tax bills, the announcement comes down that Governor Kempthorne has been nominated to head the Department of Interior.
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| published Tuesday, March 07, 2006 |
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But they’re not always so cute. After 15 years of wrangling in the courts, the school facilities bill passed hastily out of the House Ways and Means Committee Thursday seems a sorry outcome. HB743 creates a $25 million fund to provide construction dollars to districts which cannot pass bonds to correct just the safety problems in their local schools. But there’s no such thing as a free lunch. In order to access the fund, school districts that fail to pass bonds will be taken over by a special master and local patrons will have levies imposed on them to pay back their debt to the fund.
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| published Saturday, February 25, 2006 |
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The Senate passed a bill this week initiated by Senators Kate Kelly and David Langhorst to require that people who lobby the executive branch register as lobbyists and disclose their expenditures like legislative lobbyists are required to do. But in the wake of various scandals on the state and federal levels, House Speaker Bruce Newcomb introduced another bill that goes even further by requiring reporting of contacts with bureau chiefs, commission members and department heads. If Newcomb’s bill moves forward, the Senate bill will be pulled in favor of the stronger bill. Will wonders never cease? They’re actually fighting to strengthen ethics laws. But wait. Whatever happened to those bills that would require financial disclosure from legislators? Didn’t the Senate nearly expel a member last year because of his undisclosed conflicts of interest? Isn’t Idaho one of only three states that requires no financial disclosure? Oh I get it. What’s good for the goose ain’t always good for the gander.
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| published Monday, February 20, 2006 |
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said Edgar Malapeai, a Samoan and the only person of color in the Senate. He further reminded the chamber that at one time he could not have married his wife because of bans on inter-racial marriage. Still proponents of the amendment stuck steadfastly to their argument that a consti-tutionally enshrined definition of marriage discriminated against no one. As the resolution’s sponsor, President Pro Tem Robert Geddes asserted “[it’s] all about building a stable society.” It was hard not to be struck with how white and how old and how male that body is when Senator Don Burtenshaw spoke of his marriage 53 years ago. “We didn’t hear anything then of same sex marriage or even much about juvenile delinquents.” The first phases of the modern civil rights struggle were just gearing up about then. Maybe on the upper Snake River plain it was pretty quiet in 1953 but I’ll betcha any person of color, or any gay person or any woman for that matter, who was around 53 years ago could tell you that there were problems in America.
OR Listen to it on Boise Community Radio
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| published Friday, February 10, 2006 |
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as much as I’ve been talking about property taxes this last few weeks. As old Ronald Reagan used to say “Here he goes again.” Or something like that. There are so many major decisions being made here about who are the winners and losers in Idaho’s tax system and really about what the legislature is willing to invest in our schools, public safety and public health. Remember the biggest question on taxes is “Who pays?” and who pays is a question of justice.
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| published Tuesday, February 07, 2006 |
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Property tax, health insurance, and lobbyists--oh my!
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| published Friday, February 03, 2006 |
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than the persisting existence of a harmful condition for which a remedy is readily available. Family planning, to relate population to world resources, is possible, practical and necessary. Unlike plagues of the dark ages or contemporary diseases we do not yet understand, the modern plague of overpopulation is soluble by means we have discovered and with resources we possess. Martin Luther King, from acceptance speech for Margaret Sanger Award, 1966. (Quoted on Statehouse steps on Monday)
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| published Monday, January 30, 2006 |
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There’s kind of a rhythm to the Legislature that usually starts pretty slow and then builds up to a crescendo of battles large and small. One long time observer noted that things seemed to be heating up faster this year than usual. Still it’s hard to say what the outcome of anything is going to be--but there is some foreshadowing. This week we started to see a lot of bills introduced and printed. There were over 20 property tax bills printed. The constitutional amendment to prohibit gay marriage and civil unions was printed. It was “education week” in JFAC with presentations from the colleges and universities, community colleges and K-12. The first tax breaks for business were introduced. Oh frabjous day! And it’s starting to look like the annual ritual of the legislative branch butting into the business of the executive--otherwise known as administrative rules review-- is coming to an end.
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| published Tuesday, January 17, 2006 |
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--Idaho style. If it was your last year in office and you'd been embarrassed by public disclosures of frivolous spending of campaign funds that (at least ethically) you should not have, of bounced checks to your hairdresser, and by scandals involving your appointees and their cozy relations with Idaho's largest corporations, wouldja try to shoot the moon? Seems like that's what Governor Kempthorne decided to do in his annual state of the state address this past Monday night.
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