Idaho has had just six special sessions of the Legislature in the past 35 years, the last one then-Gov. Jim Risch’s one-day session in August of 2006 to shift school funding from the property tax to the state sales tax. The longest of those six…
State schools Superintendent Sherri Ybarra’s chief deputy, former Nampa Superintendent Pete Koehler, has decided to stay on through the end of the calendar year, rather than leaving next month, Idaho Education News reports. Koehler told EdNews reporter Clark Corbin, “It was kind like being in...
State Racing Commissioner Jim Hammond, a former state senator from Post Falls, said today that the Racing Commission had “very little discussion” yesterday when it unanimously approved a moratorium on all new “instant racing” machines and locations in Idaho. “The appointing authority for the board...
Here’s a news item from the Associated Press: BOISE, Idaho (AP) — A large shorebird that nests in grasslands and uses its extra-long beak to pluck crustaceans from mudflats and wolf spiders from animal burrows will be the subject of an intense study this summer…
It was early this morning when Idaho Fish & Game received a call about a moose meandering along Hill Road in Boise’s North End, near 23rd Street. “It started to turn south and that was a concern, because it was headed in the direction of...
Gov. Butch Otter has allowed SB 1175 to become law without his signature, the budget bill for the state Department of Administration for next year. The measure passed the Senate unanimously and the House on a 61-8 vote; it cuts the state general funds going to the department by...
Curt Fransen, director of the Idaho Department of Environmental Quality since February 2012, will retire on May 22, Gov. Butch Otter announced today; Otter said he’s in the process of finding a successor. “While perhaps there is no good time for a director to retire,...
Here’s a news item from the Associated Press: BOISE, Idaho (AP) — The Idaho Racing Commission has suspended all future approval of lucrative slot-like machines known as instant horse racing terminals. The commission unanimously issued its moratorium Wednesday. Their decision comes after Gov. C.L. "Butch"…
House Minority Leader John Rusche is calling on Gov. Butch Otter to call lawmakers back to Boise to fix “the self-inflicted problem of child support enforcement caused by the House killing S1067.” He said, “That is what is needed to cure the child support enforcement…
Fear and discrimination against different religious groups has a long history in Idaho, reports Ryan Struyk of the Associated Press, from hostility toward Mormon settlers dating back to the first days of Idaho Territory in the late 1800s, to resistance to Catholic immigrants, including Basques,...
Idaho Gov. Butch Otter has vetoed HB 152a, the sign language interpreter licensing bill that drew much interest from the deaf- and hard-of-hearing community during this year's legislative session, and that passed the Senate thanks to Lt. Gov. Brad Little's tie-breaking vote. “The scope and…
A plan for conservation of the greater sage grouse on state endowment lands, endorsed unanimously by the state Land Board on Tuesday, is drawing generally positive reviews, the AP reports. "I think Gov. Otter is serious," John Freemuth, a Boise State University professor and public…
Two more House members have weighed in today with op-ed pieces on the House’s rejection of the child support enforcement legislation, which has placed the state’s child support enforcement system in jeopardy and is likely to force a special session of the Legislature: Rep. Kathy…
With the dust still settling from this year’s legislative session, here are some bills that made news, but didn’t become law, which may be a surprise to some: SB 1102, requiring a physician who performs a surgical abortion to have admitting privileges at a hospital…
More than 100 people gathered at the Sandpoint Community Hall this morning to hear anti-Islam speaker Shahram Hadian speak, reports Melissa Davlin of Idaho Public Television; Hadian, a Christian pastor from Chattaroy, Wash. and former Muslim, downplayed his role in helping kill child support enforcement...
Idaho Public TV reporter Melissa Davlin writes today that when IPTV’s “Idaho Reports” requested a comment from 1st District Rep. Raul Labrador last week on his involvement with Idaho’s failed child support enforcement legislation, his staff denied Labrador had any involvement outside of calling Rep.…
Idaho has gone from 34 craft beer breweries in 2013 to 51 now, with six more scheduled to open this year, according to the Idaho Department of Agriculture. So the Ag Department and Idaho Brewers United have teamed up to publish a new brochure highlighting…
Gov. Butch Otter has signed HB 324 into law, sharply increasing fines for violations of the Idaho Open Meeting Law. Fines for regular violations would rise from $50 to $250; fines for knowing violations would rise from $500 to $1,500; and fines for knowing, repeated…
Gov. Butch Otter has signed HB 312a, the $95 million last-minute compromise transportation funding bill, into law. In a transmittal letter to House Speaker Scott Bedke, Otter wrote, “Something indeed is better than nothing.” He added, “In fact, H 312 is a respectable start on…
Here’s a news item from the Associated Press: BOISE, Idaho (AP) — U.S. Republican Congressman Raul Labrador involved himself in the fallout of failed Idaho legislation that would have brought the state into compliance with federal child support rules and an international treaty. Labrador says...
Shahram Hadian, the Christian pastor and anti-Islam speaker who’s speaking in Sandpoint this morning, has released a three-page document headed “Concerns Regarding Idaho State Legislature Senate Bill 1067,” the child support enforcement bill that was killed by one vote in a House committee on the…
Idaho’s in the national news again, with this lead on a story in the New York Times today: “It took five years for negotiators to work out the details of a multinational treaty on child support that would make it easier to track delinquent parents…
The Idaho Department of Health & Welfare is preparing to send out 155,000 letters to 155,000 Idaho families warning that they may lose their child support payments, due to lawmakers’ defeat of a bill on the final day of this year’s legislative session – but…
It turns out that despite her resignation at the end of the legislative session, former Department of Administration Director Teresa Luna never left. State records now show her as a “program specialist” at the Department of Administration, full-time, at a salary of $95,202 a year,...
Doerr Idaho author Anthony Doerr's novel "All the Light We Cannot See" has won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction. The Pulitzer judges cited Doerr’s “imaginative and intricate novel” set during World War II. The 41-year-old Boise author told the Associated Press, "Obviously, it's wonderful," adding…
News, happenings and more from the Idaho Legislature and the state capital.
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