Parker Howell

BOISE – A House committee unanimously passed a North Idaho legislator's resolution Wednesday prohibiting Idaho from implementing new federal driver's license standards. The joint resolution by Rep. Phil Hart, R-Athol, would also ask the state's congressional delegation to advocate repealing the Real ID Act of 2005 – legislation requiring states to issue new IDs that opponents say severely threaten Americans' personal privacy.

BOISE – Advocates of voting by mail won an unexpected victory Wednesday when a House committee passed legislation allowing counties to hold elections entirely by mail. The House State Affairs Committee voted 11-7 in favor of House Bill 94, pushed by Kootenai County Clerk Dan English and supported by the secretary of state. Some legislators expressed concern about enabling fraud and uninformed voters, but proponents said vote-by-mail will increase turnout in low-profile elections, save money and make voting more convenient.

BOISE – Civil liberties advocates and security experts said Tuesday that implementing a federal act ordering states to standardize driver's licenses would be unfeasible, violate the privacy of law-abiding Americans and cost billions of dollars. Members of a four-person panel criticized the federal Real ID Act of 2005 – a requirement Rep. Phil Hart, R-Athol, called constitutionally questionable, an unfunded mandate and an attack on states' rights. Hart introduced a joint resolution last week that would bar the Idaho Legislature from enforcing the act and ask the state's congressional delegation to oppose it.

BOISE – Passionate public testimony Tuesday about the future of Idaho's elk ranches revealed deep divisions between ranchers and sportsmen on ethics and economics, on personal property and the public good. More than 30 people, including many elk ranchers, told lawmakers their opinions on regulating domestic elk operations and "canned hunts." The practices are banned in some neighboring states and the subject of four pieces of legislation under consideration by a Senate committee.

BOISE – A North Idaho legislator on Monday proposed using more money from state liquor sales to expand drug and mental health courts in Idaho. The legislation by Rep. Jim Clark, R-Hayden Lake, would divert $2 million from the state's general fund to a new substance abuse-treatment account. It would also mandate hundreds of thousands of dollars of liquor money be spent on coordinating courts, drug testing and offender supervision.

BOISE – Lawmakers moved forward Monday with legislation requiring doctors to get permission from a girl's parent before performing an abortion, despite concerns from opponents who say the mandate would harm girls from dysfunctional or abusive homes. Members of the Senate State Affairs Committee approved a bill making it a felony for a doctor to knowingly provide an abortion to a minor without a parent's written consent or intervention by a judge. While opponents of SB 1082 said the legislation might discourage girls from seeking safe abortions, anti-abortion advocates told legislators that it would save lives and protects parents' rights.

BOISE – Kootenai County's elections chief hopes that when it comes to filling out ballots, if the counties mail them, Idahoans will vote. A House committee early this month introduced legislation pushed by County Clerk Dan English to allow all counties to use postal voting – a system experts believe increases turnout in low-profile elections.

BOISE – From driving go-karts with North Idaho representatives to sitting through lengthy committee meetings, several high school seniors from North Idaho spent the past month trading textbooks for a crash course in Idaho politics. The five Panhandle students who worked as legislative pages this year reflected on their time at the Statehouse on Friday, the last day for several of them. They recalled getting to know legislators and meeting other students from around the state with a shared interest in politics.

BOISE – A North Idaho lawmaker wants to make it a crime to attempt to coerce a woman or girl into having an abortion. Rep. Bob Nonini, R-Coeur d'Alene, introduced legislation Thursday to outlaw the use of threats or physical force to dissuade a pregnant woman from giving birth.

BOISE – Faced with rival plans for boosting the state's minimum wage, legislators picked a Republican-backed bill Tuesday to tie the state's wage to the national minimum wage but rejected a Democratic proposal to require annual increases based on the rate of inflation. The House State Affairs Committee voted unanimously to introduce a bill presented by Rep. Ken Roberts, R-Donnelly, to conform the state's current $5.15 minimum wage to future changes in the federal rate. Congress is considering an increase to $7.25 an hour.

BOISE – A citizens group influential in last year's property tax debate will lobby for election reform this year as its top priority, its leader announced Tuesday. The Common Interest, headed by a Harvard professor, will study proposals for voting by mail and changing the state's primary system.

BOISE – Lawmakers narrowly rejected an attempt Monday to require Idaho voters to officially choose a political party in order to cast ballots in the state's primary elections. Rep. Marv Hagedorn, R-Meridian, proposed a bill to close the state's primaries – a position favored by the state Republican Party platform to keep Democrats from voting in GOP party elections.

BOISE – A tag to hunt wolf in Idaho will cost about $10 – less than state wildlife officials initially planned. If wolves are removed from the federal list of endangered species as proposed, gray-wolf tags will cost in-state hunters $9.75, the same price the Department of Fish and Game charges for bear and cougar tags, according to a bill introduced Monday. Moose tags cost $165, 17 times more.

BOISE – A North Idaho lawmaker has introduced legislation to transform Idaho's drug czar position into the head of an official Office of Drug Policy overseeing the state's anti-drug efforts. Rep. Jim Clark, R-Hayden Lake, called the bill to write the position into law a "great step forward."

BOISE – Idaho counties logged a record number of child sexual abuse cases last year, including a disproportionate amount in the Panhandle, a new state study shows. Kootenai County prosecutors alone filed 63 of 469 cases, second only to Ada County, the state's most populous area, according to the report to the Idaho Legislature on sex crimes against children, released last week.

BOISE – Idahoans see renewable resources as the state's top energy priority and support using both incentives and rules to cause change, positions more aggressive than those embodied in the state's updated energy policy, a new survey says. The survey of 513 Idahoans by the Energy Policy Institute at Boise State University also found that residents are more comfortable with state intervention in siting of potential power plants than lawmakers.

BOISE – The House voted unanimously Monday to raise the cap on Idaho's rainy-day fund, but that change could have a tough time competing against school funding and grocery tax relief, a key senator said. The bill, sponsored by Rep. Jim Clark, R-Hayden Lake, would lift the limit on the state's budget-stabilization fund to 8 percent of Idaho's yearly income, from the current 5 percent, starting with the 2007 budget. The Senate Finance Committee, however, will hold the bill until Republican leaders set priorities for the session, said Sen. Dean Cameron, R-Rupert, committee chairman.

BOISE – Idaho must stop relying primarily on power from coal and hydroelectric turbines and turn to conservation and local sources of renewable energy, according to a state energy policy unveiled last week. But unlike plans in some nearby states, Idaho's policy does not dictate how much of its supply must be renewable. Instead, it suggests incentives to go green while leaving specific action to potential future legislation.

BOISE – Two North Idaho legislators have launched an effort to restrict city urban renewal districts, introducing legislation to limit their growth and to hand control from mayor-appointed volunteers to elected county officials. Concerned that renewal districts benefit cities at the expense of county taxpayers, Sen. Michael Jorgenson and Rep. Jim Clark, both Hayden Lake Republicans, are proposing two bills aimed to increase accountability and hold districts to their original plans.

BOISE – Outgoing North Idaho College President Michael Burke made a strong pitch Tuesday for community college education when he appeared before lawmakers looking to expand community college options in Idaho. Burke, who will leave his nine-year post for a California college in March, proudly described an expanding system, but one that hinges on the economy and availability of financial aid for students.

BOISE – Oversight of Idaho's 1,300 federally regulated and sometimes-leaky fuel storage tanks would fall partially into state hands under legislation introduced Thursday. Federal and state environmental officials say creating state rules for the tanks and giving the Idaho Department of Environmental Quality inspection power will help prevent leaks, saving taxpayer money on cleanup down the road.

BOISE – Idaho cities that provide electric service may gain access to new, longer-term contracts that allow them to avoid volatile market fluctuations if lawmakers pass a bill introduced Thursday by a North Idaho representative. The legislation would allow city-owned electric utilities, such as those run by Bonners Ferry and Plummer, to sign potential capacity-use contracts with the Bonneville Power Administration and part-ownership contracts with private utilities to secure lower power rates. Under existing law, cities may lack authority to enter such agreements, the Idaho Supreme Court has ruled.

BOISE – After viewing controversial murals in the Ada County Courthouse, slated to temporarily house the Idaho Legislature next year, members of the state's tribes seemed to agree the paintings should be preserved – just not necessarily where they are now. North Idaho tribal representatives and lawmakers toured the courthouse Wednesday, part of an unprecedented move by legislators to ask the tribes what to do with the murals, the most contentious of which depicts a Native American man about to be hanged by whites.