School funding reform bill signed

Gov. Dirk Kempthorne has signed into law, without comment, legislation to address unsafe schoolhouses in Idaho with a $25 million loan fund – but only if the state takes over the school district and imposes no-vote property tax increases to pay back the money.

House Bill 743 was crafted by Republican leaders in response to a lawsuit that the state lost in December, when the Idaho Supreme Court declared the state’s current system for funding school construction unconstitutional. The court ordered the Legislature to change the system.

In addition to the loan fund, the measure provides some funding for a partial state bond-payment subsidy program that lawmakers enacted three years ago, and orders school districts to spend a fixed percentage of their budgets on building maintenance.

Supporters of the measure said it takes steps toward solving Idaho’s problems, but critics said it didn’t change a system that continues to rely almost entirely on property taxes to build and repair schools.

– Betsy Z. Russell

Consent ruling doubles bill

A judge has just doubled the state’s legal bills for defending its parental consent abortion laws against recent court challenges.

U.S. District Court Judge Mikel Williams ruled Friday that the state must pay more than $380,500 of Planned Parenthood’s attorney fees for the organization’s victorious lawsuit over the state’s parental consent law.

That brings the total amount the state will have spent on the matter in the past six years to nearly three-quarters of a million dollars.

Since 2000, Idaho has spent more than $350,000 for its own attorneys and other costs in defending previous parental consent laws in the federal courts. Williams’ ruling accounts only for Planned Parenthood’s attorney fees stemming from a lawsuit that began in 2000.

A separate case over another 2005 attempt to enact parental consent laws is currently in the 9th Circuit Court of appeals.

“Williams made a really great ruling,” said Rebecca Poedy, the president of Planned Parenthood in Idaho.

“I hope it sends a powerful message to our legislators that they need to be really responsible in not passing legislation that’s not going to pass a constitutional challenge. Every time legislation is passed that is not constitutional in protecting women’s reproductive rights, we will challenge it every time.”

Planned Parenthood originally asked for more than $550,000 in attorney fees, but Williams reduced some of the attorney’s hours by 10 percent to account for any duplication of services, awarding more than $380,500 instead.

– Associated Press

Aquifer bill among 70 signed into law

Legislation allowing voters to set up a district to protect the Rathdrum Prairie aquifer was signed into law by Gov. Dirk Kempthorne in recent days, along with 70 other bills.

The aquifer protection district bill, Houose Bill 650a, was sponsored by Reps. Bob Nonini, R-Coeur d’Alene, and Frank Henderson, R-Post Falls, and Sen. Dick Compton, R-Coeur d’Alene.

Other bills signed into law included:

“ Senate Bill 1356a, a measure extending the length of domestic violence protection orders, sponsored by Sen. Mike Jorgenson, R-Hayden Lake.

“ Senate Bill 1423a, legislation to require that genetic test results remain private and not be used by employers or insurers to discriminate, sponsored by Sen. Joyce Broadsword, R-Sagle.

“ House Bill 750a, making bullying in schools an infraction, sponsored by Rep. Tom Trail, R-Moscow.

“ House Bill 780, simplifying the procedure for charging development impact fees, sponsored by Henderson and Nonini.

The governor also signed a large batch of appropriation bills, approving the budgets lawmakers set for next year for state agencies ranging from corrections to agriculture to the Department of Environmental Quality.

– Betsy Z. Russell

Superior, Mont.

Lost mother, son found dead

The bodies of a Minnesota woman and her son who have been missing for nearly a week were found near here late Monday afternoon, Sanders County Sheriff Gene Arnold said.

They apparently died of hypothermia.

Niki Thomas, 51, a high school librarian from Rochester, Minn., was in Montana visiting her son Nicholas Thomas, 15, who attended the Spring Creek Lodge Academy in Thompson Falls.

She rented a vehicle and drove him from Thompson Falls to an orthodontist appointment in Missoula on March 27. The two were last heard from the following afternoon when they called a family member from a cell phone.

They had just left Missoula and were traveling west on Interstate 90 toward Highway 200.

Police say a snowmobiler spotted their stranded vehicle in a snow-clogged mountain pass near Superior on Monday. Authorities believe the two died of hypothermia after trying to walk from the vehicle.

– Associated Press