In brief: Panel OKs tax bill, rejects two others

The House Revenue and Taxation Committee rejected two local-option tax bills Tuesday, opting not to introduce them or allow hearings, but narrowly agreed to introduce a third one.

The panel rejected a proposal from the Idaho Association of Counties and the Idaho Sheriffs’ Association to expand the local-option sales tax law that’s so far allowed Kootenai and Nez Perce counties to fund jail expansions with sales rather than property taxes. The associations wanted to let counties across the state do the same, and wanted to extend the current local-option law that’s set to expire in 2009.

The committee also rejected a proposal from the city of Lewiston to allow it to charge a 2 percent hotel/motel tax, if two-thirds of local voters approve. Rep. Ken Roberts, R-Donnelly, an opponent of local-option taxes, led the drive to kill both bills.

But his motion to kill a third bill, allowing a local-option sales tax to fund public transit, failed on an 8-10 vote, and the committee then voted 12-6 to introduce that bill and allow a hearing.

Real estate bill to get revision

Sponsors of legislation to require disclosure of real estate sales prices in Idaho have withdrawn their bill in favor of a new version, which they’ll introduce this year but not seek to pass until next year.

“We’ve done a lot of work on it, but we’re not quite there yet,” said Sen. Shawn Keough, R-Sandpoint, one of three co-sponsors of the bill.

County assessors are required by law to set property tax values at market value, but without disclosure, they don’t know at what prices properties actually are selling. Most states require disclosure.

Keough said she and Sen. Lee Heinrich, R-Cascade, and Rep. Wendy Jaquet, D-Ketchum, have been working with bankers, real estate agents, counties, title companies, the Tax Commission, contractors and more. The new version focuses on confidential reporting to counties of sale prices of residential property.

Carbon monoxide resolution fails

The House State Affairs Committee denied a proposed resolution Tuesday urging Idahoans to take precautions against carbon monoxide poisoning.

Even Rep. Eric Anderson, R-Priest River, who said he lost a close friend in Seattle to the colorless, odorless gas, did not support the nonbinding resolution, which would have encouraged citizens to install carbon monoxide alarms in their homes and businesses.

Lawmakers shovel nonbinding resolutions out of committee “like they’re candy,” Anderson said, adding that he’s yet to see one do anything. Anderson is pursuing a way to instruct fire marshals to distribute cautionary information about carbon monoxide, he said Tuesday evening.

Carbon monoxide is generated when people burn wood, natural gas and other common fuels, and it can become dangerous without proper ventilation. Hundreds of Americas die every year from the gas, especially during the winter months, according to the failed resolution.

Bill would change abortion laws

Doctors who perform abortions in Idaho would be required to offer to show women an ultrasound image of their unborn child under a bill introduced Tuesday in the House Ways and Means Committee.

Rep. Janice McGeachin, R-Idaho Falls, wants to amend Idaho’s informed consent laws just a year after they were revamped. Giving a woman the right to see an image of her child still in the uterus could deter her from following through with the procedure, she said.

“If a woman could actually see a picture of her unborn child … she would make the decision to choose life,” McGeachin told the committee.

Four Republicans voted to introduce the bill next week in the House Health and Welfare Committee.

Three Democrats opposed it, including Rep. John Rusche, D-Lewiston, a medical doctor. Although McGeachin said the bill was modeled after a law in Arkansas, Rusche said the measure is confusing.

In the bill, “all physicians or their agents who use ultrasound equipment in the performance of an abortion shall inform the patient that she has a right to view the ultrasound image of her unborn child before an abortion is performed.”

Rusche said ultrasound images are generally not part of terminating a pregnancy.

“I don’t see how you could do an ultrasound procedure and say … that is within the abortion procedure,” he said.

Doctors would face a civil penalty of $100 per month, for as long as they refuse to offer to show women the pictures.

Compiled from staff

and wire reports