Senate Majority Leader Bart Davis, R-Idaho Falls, just moved to adjourn the Senate sine die in honor of outgoing Sens. Curt McKenzie and Roy Lacey; Senate Minority Leader Michelle Stennett, D-Ketchum seconded the motion, and it carried. With a whack of Lt. Gov. Brad Little’s…
The Senate has quickly passed its final two bills: HB 650, which passed on a 26-8 vote, providing the funding for a $5 million grant program to community health centers should HB 644a pass the House tomorrow; and SB 1297a, the online voter registration bill…
The Senate is preparing to adjourn sine die – ending its session for this year – tonight. One sign that they’re not leaving like the House did to come back in the morning: They’ve ordered pizza. “They either concur they don’t concur,” Senate President Pro-Tem…
House Speaker Scott Bedke says there are just a couple of options for the House on the health care bill, HB 644a: A conference committee with the Senate, a House vote up or down on whether or not to concur in the Senate amendments, or…
The House has voted 40-29 in favor of HB 650, the trailer funding bill for the health care grant program. Rep. Brent Crane, R-Nampa, asked what would happen if it failed. The response from Rep. Luke Malek, R-Coeur d’Alene: It would remove funding from the...
The House has come back into session. It’s after 7:30 p.m. “There’s one bill that we would like to take up tonight and then we’ll go home,” said House Majority Leader Mike Moyle, R-Star, “and that bill is HB 650.” That’s the trailer funding bill…
As they debate into the night/Will some of them run out of fight?/There’s still the gap bill/And legal fund for $8 mil/Before they can turn out the light.
The Senate has voted 22-11 in favor of HB 646, the bill to tap federal grant funds through the Idaho Department of Lands and the Idaho Department of Fish & Game for the Clagstone Meadows conservation easement in North Idaho. After several senators spoke against…
The Senate has passed the budget for the Idaho Attorney General’s office on a 29-6 vote, after Senate Majority Leader Bart Davis held it up over his difference of opinion with Attorney General Lawrence Wasden over nuclear waste and the Idaho National Laboratory. Davis said…
The House has voted 33-32 in favor of HB 624, House Transportation Chairman Joe Palmer’s bill to tie together a phaseout of state gas tax funding for the Idaho State Police and repeal of the unpopular $75 fee on hybrid vehicles. “I feel really torn...
Among bills going through both houses today: HB 637, the higher ed budget. It passed the House 56-14, and just now passed the Senate 34-1, with just Sen. Sheryl Nuxoll. R-Cottonwood, dissenting. The budget reflects an 8 percent increase in state general funds for the…
So, will House members concur?/Hatreds of feds they’ll aver/With senators wanting/ What some reps find daunting/That chamber is now quite astir.
Responding to a question from Times-News reporter Nathan Brown after a bill-signing ceremony this afternoon, Gov. Butch Otter said he supports beginning the Medicaid expansion waiver application process as soon as possible. "The sooner that we can start that, the better prepared we're going to…
After the House earlier rejected the budget for the Idaho Commission on the Arts in an unrelated dispute, it’s now voted 51-17 in favor of a new version with just one difference: There’s an extra $200 in the budget for private donations for arts education…
After impassioned debate, the Senate has voted 27-8 in favor of HB 644, the amended bill that now requests the Idaho Department of Health & Welfare to start work on a waiver request to allow Idaho to tap federal Medicaid expansion funds for an Idaho-designed...
The House has voted 48-21 in favor of funding for a major conservation easement in North Idaho. The Clagstone Meadows conservation easement, requested by the landowner, Stimson Lumber, sells the development rights to a 13,000-acre property that’s the largest remaining contiguous tract of private forest...
From the Senate’s debate on HB 644a, the amended bill that now calls for applying for a waiver to cover the gap population in Idaho: Sen. Jim Guthrie, R-McCammon, said, “Senators, we’ve been kicking this issue around for three sessions now and it’s time for…
The Senate is now debating HB 644 as amended, the gap coverage waiver bill; the House is now debating HB 646, the Clagstone Meadows conservation easement funding bill...
The budget bill for the Idaho Department of Fish & Game has passed the House on a narrow 36-34 vote, after Rep. Tom Loertscher, R-Iona, detailed his frustrations from a dispute he’s had with the department over a water issue in eastern Idaho. “I know…
The Idaho Senate has backed a measure to establish an interim committee to explore ways to reduce Idaho's corporate and income taxes, the AP reports. The Senate State Affairs Committee introduced the proposal Wednesday morning and passed it on Senate floor by the afternoon, bypassing…
Little green piles of goose poop/Dot downtown routes to the Capitol stoop/Citizens come/To see lawmaking done/And also encounter some goop.
After much debate, the House has voted 53-17 in favor of transferring another $2 million from the state general fund to the Constitutional Defense Fund, plus spending $971,700 in state general funds for attorney fees for the winning side in the Syringa Networks lawsuit, which…
The House has voted 57-13 to send another $400,000 in state general funds to the Wolf Depredation Control Board to kill problem wolves next year, sending the bill to Gov. Butch Otter’s desk. SB 1414 passed the Senate, 29-5, yesterday. During that debate, Sen. Dan…
The Senate has gone into its 14th Order for amendments and taken up amendments to HB 644, the “gap” coverage grant program. Sen. Marv Hagedorn, R-Meridian, proposing amendments that would add language similar to that earlier considered on the House side to seek a waiver...
The House has voted 69-1, with just Majority Leader Mike Moyle dissenting, to approve HB 636, setting aside $34.5 million toward the costs of next year’s wildfire season. “There’s a reason for this one, it’s fire insurance,” JFAC Co-Chair Maxine Bell told the House. “We…
News, happenings and more from the Idaho Legislature and the state capital.
