HB 570, which would have added a public records exemption to Idaho state law to cover the identities of applicants for public employment – including all public jobs, paid or volunteer, other than elective offices – has been withdrawn. House State Affairs Committee Chairman Bill Deal, R-Nampa, asked unanimous consent in the House this morning to pull the bill back to committee, and no one objected. “I think the House bill needs to have a second look,” Deal told the House.

Questions have arisen over the bill’s broad nature, and whether it would impose secrecy on candidates for such high-profile public positions as city police chiefs, state Fish and Game Commission members, school superintendents and more.

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