Idaho Legislature in photos - final week 5/4-5/8/09

Here is the final week of Idaho's 2009 legislative session in photos

Section:Gallery

Mon., May 11, 2009

Senators gather in their chamber on Monday morning, awaiting the start of their morning session, while the House has been gone since the previous Wednesday night.

Betsy Russell The Spokesman-Review
House members filter in slowly Monday morning after a four-day weekend, after they attempted unsuccessfully to adjourn for the session last Wednesday night.

Betsy Russell The Spokesman-Review
A crowd of about 70 protesters gathered outside the Capitol Annex on Monday for "Tea Party 2," protesting taxes and urging House members to stand firm against a gas tax.

Betsy Russell The Spokesman-Review
Members of the Senate Education Committee on Monday hold a hearing on HB 373, an education funding bill from House Education Chairman Bob Nonini, R-Coeur d'Alene, that sought to reverse decisions already passed by both houses. Nonini didn't show up for the hearing the committee killed the bill, which one member called "deplorable."

Betsy Russell The Spokesman-Review
House Assistant Majority Leader Scott Bedke, R-Oakley, and Majority Leader Mike Moyle, R-Star, center, confer as the House passes eight budget bills Monday for the third time. All were bills that had passed and been vetoed, then passed as House-only versions that hadn't come through JFAC, and then finally passed as JFAC bills sent over after Senate passage.

Betsy Russell The Spokesman-Review
The Senate Finance Committee meets Monday to kill 14 bills introduced by its House counterpart, the House Appropriations Committee, without going through the usual joint budget committee process.

Betsy Russell The Spokesman-Review
Rep. Bob Nonini, R-Coeur d'Alene, said Monday that he had no intention of showing up for a Senate committee hearing at which his latest education funding bill, HB 373, was killed, and that senators' questions for him were "just to be critical and be smart-alecks - I'm not going to go over there and put up with that."

Betsy Russell The Spokesman-Review
Senate Minority Leader Kate Kelly, D-Boise, right, talks with her caucus about election consolidation legislation, during an open Democratic caucus on Tuesday morning.

Betsy Russell The Spokesman-Review
The Senate on Tuesday morning prepares to debate sweeping election consolidation legislation.

Betsy Russell The Spokesman-Review
Rep. Dennis Lake, R-Blackfoot, urges the House to give final approval to HB 372a, the election consolidation bill as amended in the Senate. The House complied on a 48-16 vote on Tuesday afternoon, sending the bill to the governor's desk.

Betsy Russell The Spokesman-Review
Senate Majority Leader Bart Davis, left, House Assistant Majority Leader Scott Bedke, House Speaker Lawerence Denney and House Majority Leader Mike Moyle head down the Capitol Annex stairs to a joint majority leadership meeting with Gov. Butch Otter on Tuesday afternoon.

Betsy Russell The Spokesman-Review
House Speaker Lawerence Denney, shown here in his office at the Capitol Annex, has unilaterally decided to kill legislation to expand Idaho's Sunshine Law.

Betsy Russell The Spokesman-Review
Senate and House GOP leaders return to the Capitol Annex from a Tuesday afternoon meeting with Gov. Butch Otter, at which no agreement was reached, but the lawmakers said they're all "communicating."

Betsy Russell The Spokesman-Review
Senate Minority Leader Kate Kelly, D-Boise, right, talks as Sen. Dick Sagness, D-Pocatello, listens during an open Senate minority caucus on Wednesday morning. Meanwhile, Senate Republicans met behind closed doors, and House Republican leaders met with Gov. Butch Otter.

Betsy Russell The Spokesman-Review
Senators including Majority Leader Bart Davis, R-Idaho Falls, center, and Sen. Shirley McKague, R-Meridian, emerge from a closed-door caucus on Wednesday.

Betsy Russell The Spokesman-Review
Senate Majority Leader Bart Davis, R-Idaho Falls, tells the Senate that Republicans are headed back into another closed-door caucus on Wednesday afternoon.

Betsy Russell The Spokesman-Review
House Speaker Lawerence Denney, R-Midvale, said Wednesday that opposition from House Transportation Chairwoman JoAn Wood to any further transportation funding this year doesn't reflect the feeling of the House GOP caucus.

Betsy Russell The Spokesman-Review
House Majority Caucus Chairman Ken Roberts, R-Donnelly, presents an ethanol bill to the Senate Transportation Committee on Wednesday afternoon, as part of a deal on transportation funding.

Betsy Russell The Spokesman-Review
Rep. Marv Hagedorn, R-Meridian, presents HB 226 to the Senate Transportation Committee on Wednesday afternoon. The bill seeks to make Idaho a Mecca for special truck logo license plates as a possible money-raiser for road work.

Betsy Russell The Spokesman-Review
Senate Transportation Chairman John McGee, R-Caldwell, presides over a committee meeting Wednesday afternoon as part of a tentative, session-ending deal on transportation funding. At right is Sen. Jim Hammond, R-Post Falls.

Betsy Russell The Spokesman-Review
House Assistant Majority Leader Scott Bedke, R-Oakley, says after a House GOP caucus on Wednesday afternoon that House members "seem to be OK" with the new transportation deal, at least conceptually.

Betsy Russell The Spokesman-Review
Rep. Bob Nonini, R-Coeur d'Alene, presents a new education funding bill to the House Ways & Means Committee on Thursday.

Betsy Russell The Spokesman-Review
The House Ways & Means Committee considers three new transportation bills on Thursday morning, as part of a session-ending transportation funding deal.

Betsy Russell The Spokesman-Review
House Ways & Means Committee members, including, from right, Reps. Ken Roberts, R-Donnelly, Scott Bedke, R-Oakley, and Mike Moyle, R-Star, consider legislation Thursday morning creating two task forces to work on transportation funding issues after lawmakers leave town this year.

Betsy Russell The Spokesman-Review
Senate Transportation Chairman John McGee, R-Caldwell, urges the Senate on Thursday to pass HB 334, to raise DMV fees by $13.1 million a year. The bill passed and now goes to the governor.

Betsy Russell The Spokesman-Review
Sen. Tim Corder, R-Mountain Home, presents SB 1130 to the House Transportation Committee on Thursday. The committee passed the bill, which caps the number of temporary truck trip permits; it's one small piece of a session-ending transportation funding deal.

Betsy Russell The Spokesman-Review
Lawmakers stand around, talking, on the House floor on Thursday afternoon, waiting for various developments amid delays.

Betsy Russell The Spokesman-Review
The House Ways & Means Committee, chaired by Rep. Rich Wills, standing, meets on Thursday afternoon to re-do a bill it already had introduced Thursday morning, due to an error.

Betsy Russell The Spokesman-Review
The Idaho House resumes its floor session Thursday afternoon, amid an on-and-off, constantly changing schedule.

Betsy Russell The Spokesman-Review
Rep. Maxine Bell, R-Jerome, right, presides over a meeting of the Joint Finance-Appropriations Committee on Thursday afternoon. At left is her co-chair, Sen. Dean Cameron, R-Rupert.

Betsy Russell The Spokesman-Review
Rep. Bob Nonini, R-Coeur d'Alene, presents HB 374 to the Senate Education Committee late on Thursday afternoon.

Betsy Russell The Spokesman-Review
Sen. John McGee, R-Caldwell, presides over a late meeting of the Senate Transportation Committee that ran until 7 p.m. on Thursday. At right is committee vice chairman Sen. Jim Hammond, R-Post Falls.

Betsy Russell The Spokesman-Review
Sen. John Goedde, R-Coeur d'Alene, works at his computer in the Senate chamber while other senators talk, during one of the many breaks in the action at the Legislature on Thursday.

Betsy Russell The Spokesman-Review
Reps. Brent Crane, Mike Moyle and Scott Bedke listen as Sen. Chuck Winder presents a bill in the House Transportation Committee on Friday morning regarding design-build contracts at ITD.

Betsy Russell The Spokesman-Review
Sen. Dick Sagness, D-Pocatello, a fervent opponent of HB 374, the virtual education bill, begins debating against the bill in the Senate on Friday. Moments into his debate he was gaveled down for "lecturing" the bill's sponsor.

Betsy Russell The Spokesman-Review
The Idaho Senate debates HB 376 on Friday, to shift funding for the Idaho State Police and state parks off the highway fund a year from now to free up $21 million for road maintenance. If no new funding sources are identified for then for those departments, their funding would have to come from the state's general fund.

Betsy Russell The Spokesman-Review
Rep. Frank Henderson, R-Post Falls, speaking from his seat in the House balcony, asks the full House on Friday to refuse to concur in Senate amendments to his bill, HB 286, about the Garwood-to-Sagle road project.

Betsy Russell The Spokesman-Review
Lt. Gov. Brad Little presides over the Senate as it passes its final bill of the session Friday, on the session's 117th day.

Betsy Russell The Spokesman-Review
Lt. Gov. Brad Little adjourns the Senate for the session. Already stacked up by the desk are packed cardboard boxes; the next legislative session will be out of its temporary quarters in the Capitol Annex and back in Idaho's renovated state Capitol.

Betsy Russell The Spokesman-Review
Gov. Butch Otter joins with lawmakers at a press conference at the close of the legislative session on Friday afternoon.

Betsy Russell The Spokesman-Review
Gov. Butch Otter says on Friday, "I'm a user-pay guy."

Betsy Russell The Spokesman-Review
Rep. Sharon Block, R-Twin Falls, embraces Rep. Judy Boyle, R-Midvale, as the legislative session ends on Friday. At left are Reps. Jeff Thompson, R-Idaho Falls, and JoAn Wood, R-Rigby.

Betsy Russell The Spokesman-Review