$250 million going toward roads plan

The Legislature ended business Friday evening by passing a $250 million installment for the “Connecting Idaho” roads plan. The controversial project had delayed the end of the session for a week.

The House voted 48-17 in favor of the bond sale to pay for six projects in the fiscal year that begins July 1. The Senate followed with a 27-7 vote, and both chambers adjourned the 2007 session.

The plan calls for selling bonds worth $250 million to build, repair and expand roads and bridges in the coming year. The money will be spent on projects stretching from southeastern Idaho to the state’s northern reaches. Advocates said the compromise hammered out Friday afternoon allayed their concerns that politics was determining which projects received money and how much.

Lawmakers said selling bonds to finance road construction was just a temporary fix and that, eventually, tax and fee increases will have to be considered to keep up with demands. “For too long, we have not aggressively addressed our revenue stream,” said Rep. Frank Henderson, R-Post Falls.

Same tax on groceries

It was touted as a high priority at the start of the legislative session, much like property tax relief was in 2006. But the Legislature failed to do anything about Idaho’s increasingly unpopular sales tax on groceries.

Gov. Butch Otter vetoed House Bill 81a, which would have increased the grocery tax credit across the board. The House voted to override his veto. But the Senate, which earlier approved the bill unanimously, did not follow suit.

So the legislation is dead for the session, said Senate Majority Leader Bart Davis, R-Idaho Falls.

“I don’t believe that you’ll see that issue again this year,” he said.

The House override vote was 48-22.

Otter wanted a targeted, means-tested plan instead, but lawmakers didn’t support that. Rep. Phil Hart, R-Athol, favored removing the sales tax from groceries entirely.

In his three years in the House, he said, he has learned that “you don’t always get what you want.”

Smoking in the alley

Lawmakers overrode Otter’s veto of the bill banning smoking in Idaho bowling alleys.

“For us to walk away and assume his veto is somehow better than our collective wisdom would be a great disservice to the people we represent,” Rep. Bob Ring, R-Caldwell, a retired physician, told the House. “If this veto stands, many people, especially children and young people, will suffer illness and injury, and some will die prematurely and unnecessarily as a result of second-hand smoke.”

He noted that no one testified against the bill in public committee hearings in both houses, and it passed both houses by large margins.

In his veto message, Otter referred to “social engineering.”