The Senate State Affairs Committee this morning took up HB 277, Rep. Cliff Bayer's bill to permit state constitutional elected officers to hire their own outside lawyers and shift the money to pay for it from the Idaho Attorney General's budget. Deputy Attorney General Brian Kane told the committee, "If that were to occur today, we don't have the money for it." He said, "Our office doesn't feel that we should be required to pay for essentially constitutional officer counsel, unless there's some other extenuating circumstance." Hiring outside counsel could cost many times more than the cost of using existing lawyers on the AG's staff, Kane said. "It comes down to do we actually have the money in our budget to divert." Kane said the bill would be acceptable with an amendment to clarify that if the constitutional officer chose to hire outside lawyers rather than use the existing ones in the attorney general's office, the officer's budget would pay. Bayer, R-Boise, responded, "I don't know that it's entirely necessary, but I don't see any harm in it."

Sen. John McGee, R-Caldwell, moved to send the bill to the Senate's 14th Order to make that amendment. "It seems to me that it's a logical change, and until we have an 'Office of Legal Counsel' in the Legislature, we're going to have to take the advice of our attorney general," he said. Sen. Bart Davis, R-Idaho Falls, said the amendment would be an improvement, but he said of the bill, "I don't know that it's the right public policy." He noted that some years ago, Idaho consolidated its legal services under the attorney general's office; this move starts to reverse that. McGee's motion passed on a divided voice vote, and the bill will head to the amending order.