Senate passes unemployment bill

The Senate has voted 24-7 in favor of HB 109, the bill that makes a technical change to prevent Idaho from becoming ineligible for extended unemployment benefits this summer and booting 17,000 unemployed Idahoans off of their current unemployment benefits. The bill earlier passed the House on a 41-28 vote after extensive debate, in which opponents argued that federal spending is out of control, unemployment payments shouldn’t be extended and out-of-work Idahoans should just get jobs. In the Senate, Sen. Monty Pearce, R-New Plymouth, argued, “At some point, it does become a handout, not a hand up.”

Sen. Dean Cameron, R-Rupert, the Senate sponsor of the bill, said, “To not extend does not save the state any money, it doesn’t tell Congress a darn thing. This is not the bill, this is not the message or the mechanism to tell Congress that they’re wrong or their spending is wrong, there are plenty of other bills to do that. … This bill will not deliver that message.”

Instead, rejecting the bill would tell Idaho employers they have to continue to pay for the benefits but their employees can’t get them, Cameron said, and tell unemployed Idaho workers they’re out of luck. “This isn’t a message to Congress. It’s a message to your district,” he told the Senate.

The seven senators who voted against the bill were Sens. Russ Fulcher, R-Meridian; Shirley McKague, R-Meridian; Dean Mortimer, R-Idaho Falls; Sheryl Nuxoll, R-Cottonwood; Pearce; Melinda Smyser, R-Parma; and Steve Vick, R-Dalton Gardens. The bill now goes to Gov. Butch Otter’s desk.