Controversial faith-healing legislation narrowly cleared an Idaho Senate committee on Monday, after a hearing in which nearly everyone who spoke opposed it. Sen. Dan Johnson, R-Lewiston, said his bill, SB 1182, makes a series of changes to Idaho’s existing faith-healing exemption from civil liability for child neglect, but makes no changes in...
Jon Hanian, spokesman for Gov. Butch Otter, said of the Open Meeting Law expansion bill, HB 273, “This office is not, on principle, opposed to what this legislation is attempting to do. … In fact, many of these boards and commissions already adhere to the…
A new proposal would make it easier for research centers and universities in Idaho to continue using fetal tissue for some research projects. Last year, the Idaho Legislature made it illegal to buy, sell or donate fetal tissue, even though no such practice existed in the state at the time. However, the ban has since caused confusion...
The Senate has voted 28-7 in favor of HB 250, the bill to repeal Idaho’s invalidated law banning abortion-causing drugs from being prescribed via telemedicine. Sen. Fred Martin, R-Boise, recounted the history of the legal case. “I do not want my statements to reflect negatively…
The Idaho Senate has voted unanimously – 35-0 – in favor of bipartisan legislation reforming Idaho’s civil forfeiture laws. HB 202a earlier passed the House on a 58-10 vote, but was amended in the Senate, so it still needs to go back to the House…
After this morning's House tussle over his office's budget, Idaho Attorney General Lawrence Wasden issued this statement about his handling of the telemedicine abortion case: “I am aware that some legislators have a misconception about my office’s legal work in the telemedicine medication abortion case.…
In a brief and hastily convened meeting this afternoon, the Senate Transportation Committee revived the big transportation funding bill it had killed by one vote last week, SB 1188, and sent it to the Senate’s 14th Order for amendments. Chairman Bert Brackett, R-Rogerson, said he...
Though it passed the House on a unanimous, 70-0 vote last week, Senate State Affairs Chairman Jeff Siddoway, R-Terreton, says at this point, he’s not planning to schedule a hearing on HB 273, the bill to expand the Idaho Open Meeting Law to include state…
Rep. Priscilla Giddings, R-White Bird, made an unsuccessful motion in the House today to reconsider SB 1158, the Idaho Attorney General’s budget, which had passed the House earlier this morning on a 40-30 vote and headed to the governor’s desk. “I think there’ a couple...
SB 1142a, Sen. Marv Hagedorn’s $10 million health gap bill, has failed in the Senate on a 13-22 vote. Hagedorn said the bill is the result of an interim working group that examined options for the state’s gap population, the 78,000 Idahoans who earn too...
The House has passed all seven bills that make up the K-12 public schools budget, with no debate, according to Idaho EdNews. It took the House just 28 minutes to pass the school budget, which adds up to nearly $1.7 billion, a 6.3 percent increase...
In a surprise move this morning, Sen. Cliff Bayer, R-Boise, asked the Senate to move HB 67a – the grocery tax repeal bill that formerly, before it was amended, was a House-passed income tax cut bill – to the 14th Order for potential amendments. “There…
The Senate State Affairs Committee has voted 5-4 in favor of SB 1182, Sen. Dan Johnson’s controversial bill regarding faith-healing, after most of the nine people who testified this morning spoke against it. Here’s how the vote broke down: Voting in favor: Sens. Hagedorn, Davis,…
In more testimony on the faith-healing bill this morning: Nathan Kangas, a member of the Followers of Christ faith-healing sect, said, “We’re not exempt from the law, this is the law that they’re trying to change. … How come they’re not representing the thousands of…
In more testimony this morning on SB 1182, the faith-healing bill: Canyon County Sheriff Kieran Donohue said, “I stand opposed to this particular piece of legislation.” He said he’d rather see Idaho’s faith-healing exemption repealed. “The sheriff of a county is the highest ranking law…
In testimony so far this morning on SB 1182, the faith healing bill: Linda Martin told the senators, “I’m representing the hundreds of children that have perished because of faith healing. Prayer alone is not medical care. Free exercise of religion does not give people…
Sen. Dan Johnson, R-Lewiston, explaining SB 1182, his faith-healing bill, to the Senate State Affairs Committee this morning, said, “I’m not sure that it really changes a whole lot, other than it moves a bunch of words and sentences around. It does remove the defense…
Here’s a link to my full Sunday column, on the $15 million to $30 million boost Idaho’s state general fund coffers are likely to see next year as a result of the deal with Amazon to collect sales taxes; Gov. Butch Otter’s opposition to the…
News, happenings and more from the Idaho Legislature and the state capital.
