Break seen in stalemate over highway plan

BOISE – After a day of false rumors, veto threats, clashes over road priorities and back-room meetings, legislative leaders ended Friday with hope that a deal on Gov. Dirk Kempthorne’s highway plan can be struck early next week.

“We’re going to start negotiating Monday morning, see if we can’t come up with a compromise,” said House Speaker Bruce Newcomb after he emerged from a two-hour closed-door meeting between key lawmakers and administration officials.

Kempthorne’s bonding proposal for $1.6 billion in highway projects – including major upgrades to U.S. Highway 95 – has sparked a standoff with the House that led the governor to veto eight House bills on Thursday, and threaten to veto all House bills until his highway plan moved forward. The bill passed the Senate overwhelmingly two weeks ago. The battle has pushed the legislative session – now in its 83rd day – long past its anticipated adjournment.

Despite constant rumors – and even a list of supposedly vetoed bills that circulated around the Statehouse – the governor didn’t veto any additional House bills on Friday.

His press secretary, Mike Journee, said, “Apparently they have identified a path forward for the … (highway) bill. Probably more significantly, they’re talking and trying to find a compromise that will maybe break this logjam.”

Meanwhile, in the House, feelings were running high. Rep. George Eskridge, R-Dover, was concerned about a sewer district bill of his that was one of the eight bills vetoed. “I don’t understand how the governor can veto bills that are worthwhile. It doesn’t make any sense,” he said.

Rep. Phil Hart, R-Athol, who had voted against the highway bill in the Transportation Committee, remained staunch in his opposition to the plan. “The projects were picked on a political basis,” he said. “Many of them are unnecessary.”

He particularly objected to a new route for Highway 95 at its southern end, through Indian Valley, that would slice a half-hour off the north-south trip from North Idaho to Boise, and said upgrades to the route near the Canadian border were unneeded.

Rep. Frank Henderson, R-Post Falls, responded, “I respect Phil Hart, but I don’t know if that guy’s ever driven the road. … I drive it four or five times a year, I can drive it in my sleep. And something needs to be done.”

Rep. Marge Chadderdon, R-Coeur d’Alene, said, “It’s time we committed to a new road to the Canadian border. It’s been neglected for a long, long time.”

The $31 million project to upgrade Highway 95 from State Highway 1 to the Canadian border is just one of 13 projects in the governor’s road plan. Also included are a freeway from Coeur d’Alene to Sandpoint and four lanes from Moscow to Lewiston, along with projects around the state.

Newcomb said the main differences between the House and the governor are a cap on expenditures for the road-building program and the list of projects to be built. “It’s a lot of gap between the positions,” he acknowledged, “but the only thing you can do that makes sense to me, is you need to cut a deal.”

Rep. JoAn Wood, R-Rigby, the House transportation chairwoman, said, “I said we’d consider anything, but we want them to consider our fears, too.”

Wood said the state could have an emergency and not be able to pay for emergency road repairs if it locked up too much of its highway money in the governor’s bonding plan.

Chadderdon said, “I just wish this would’ve come up earlier in the session. We are capable of negotiating – something could have been done.”