Want to know what you should, or shouldn’t, do if you’re stopped by the police? Or questioned by the FBI? Or detained at an airport? What rights you have, and what the consequences are if you don’t want to talk? The Idaho American Civil Liberties…
With 16 new state Department of Lands employees being introduced to the state Land Board on Tuesday, Gov. Dirk Kempthorne recalled his first job out of college – working for the state Lands Department – and remembered being brought to a Land Board meeting and…
There’s not much mourning going on in Boise for Richard Butler, the longtime Aryan Nations white supremacist leader who died in his sleep and was found Wednesday morning in Hayden. Butler’s racist group gave Idaho a public-relations black eye that lasted for decades, but it…
Both little-known third-party candidates have made the ballot in a majority of states, including Idaho and Washington. But a map on Peroutka’s site that shows which states includes a key noting that in the blue-shaded states, he’s “ON THE BALLET.”
A large crowd of appreciative state legislators and University of Idaho alumni marked the official opening of the Idaho Water Center, the last remaining piece of the UI’s failed University Place project in Boise. While the other planned buildings were canceled amid a whirlwind of…
You can read the Idaho Supreme Court’s unanimous opinion on the school facilities case on the Internet. The 17-page opinion is actually pretty clear and straightforward – it says when the Legislature tried get out of the long-running school lawsuit by passing a law essentially…
Here's something interesting: Just two of the North Idaho Panhandle's state legislators had perfect scores on the ratings of voting records this year by the Idaho Association of Commerce and Industry, the state's most influential business lobby. IACI is used to lawmakers agreeing with it.…
In Boise, you can hardly tell there's a presidential race on -- there are no ads and little fuss, since Idaho's handful of electoral votes are virtually guaranteed to go to the Republican candidate.But just six hours to the west, where I headed for a…
Really, it was just a typo, and not a commentary that seven southwestern Idaho counties that got a health care grant didn’t deserve it. But with a single “r” mysteriously missing, a press release today from the state Department of Health & Welfare does, in…
Though recent state test results show 10th graders lagging in math across the state – on the same test they have to pass to graduate – boosters of the Coeur d’Alene Charter Academy are pointing proudly to their 10th grade scores.On this spring’s Idaho Standards…
Gino White was one of the Legislature’s youngest members when he represented the Silver Valley from 1987 to 1994. Now, White’s making another bid for a comeback from Boise.The Democrat ran two years ago against moderate Republican Sen. Cecil Ingram of Boise, getting 46.4 percent…
When Sami Al-Hussayen arrived in Saudi Arabia, “There was a big crowd at the airport - friends, family, kids running everywhere, flowers, TV cameras, people yelling in joy - apparently total bedlam,” said David Nevin, Al-Hussayen’s Boise attorney, who received a happy call from his…
The Canyon County Jail confirms that Sami Al-Hussayen was released this morning - at 3:36 a.m. It’s apparently not uncommon for immigration authorities to pick up their detainees in the middle of the night. The jail generally has no advance notice of such movements.
It was with great ceremony that the body of three-term Idaho Gov. Robert E. Smylie was brought to lie in state in the Capitol this evening. First, a huge cannon in the park across from the Statehouse fired a deafening 19-gun salute, the prescribed number…
There’s some déjà vu in the Idaho state capitol, as Gov. Dirk Kempthorne’s recent back surgery has cleared up intense pain the governor had been suffering and left him far more comfortable. It’s a reminder of the previous administration, when then-Gov. Phil Batt had surgery…
North Idaho Rep. Wayne Meyer says a series of court decisions, including Friday’s appeals court decision invalidating Idaho’s parental-consent abortion law, prove he was right all along. Meyer opposed the consent law when it passed in 2000, but he said the vote that brought him…
Let’s say the state endowment is earning $10 a year from a lease for sheep grazing on a parcel of state-owned land. The endowment, of course, benefits public schools and other state institutions. Now, let’s say that land happens to lie near Sun Valley, in…
So why did U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Ann Veneman travel all the way to the Idaho state capitol in Boise today to announce the Bush Administration’s new version of the roadless rule?“This is a state that is the most affected state by the roadless rule…
U.S. Attorney Tom Moss said his decision not to retry Sami Al-Hussayen on immigration charges came in part because the possible penalty likely wouldn’t have exceeded the 16 months the student already has spent in jail. Even with a conviction and new jail sentence, with…
Federal prosecutors have struck a deal with attorneys for Sami Al-Hussayen: They’ll drop the remaining immigration charges against the University of Idaho graduate student, and he’ll drop his appeal of a deportation order and agree to be deported back home to Saudi Arabia.“I think he…
Congressman Butch Otter said today that he voted against this year’s transportation bill because it didn’t streamline the environmental permitting process for road projects. “It’s still taking us 15 years in order to build a bridge in New Jersey,” he told the Boise Metro Chamber…
Democrat Naomi Preston, who earlier had dropped out of her election challenge to GOP Rep. Butch Otter, says she’s back in the race.Democrats had planned to choose a new challenger for the two-term congressman at their state convention over the weekend, but a few days…
The U.S. Attorney’s office in Boise hasn’t reached a decision yet on whether to retry Sami Al-Hussayen on eight remaining immigration charges, and announced this morning that a decision likely will take “a little more time, a few more days.”Al-Hussayen, a University of Idaho graduate…
Federal prosecutors plan to meet on Friday, and decide whether to retry Sami Al-Hussayen on the eight remaining immigration charges. Al-Hussayen was acquitted of three similar immigration charges and three terrorism charges by a unanimous jury after an eight-week trial, but the jury deadlocked on…
An article over the weekend by reporter Rick Schmitt in the Los Angeles Times includes this insight about Sami Al-Hussayen’s acquittal on terrorism charges:“The verdicts point up a little-known reality of the Justice Department’s war on terror since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001: While…
News, happenings and more from the Idaho Legislature and the state capital.
| Dec. 2004 | Nov. 2004 | Oct. 2004 | Sept. 2004 |
| Aug. 2004 | July 2004 | June 2004 | May 2004 |
| April 2004 | March 2004 | Feb. 2004 | Jan. 2004 |
