House votes 67-0 for bill expanding Idaho Open Meeting Law to entities created by executive order

The House has voted unanimously – 67-0 – in favor of expanding the Idaho Open Meeting Law to cover boards, commissions or agencies that are created by executive order of the governor. Similar legislation passed the House unanimously last year, but didn’t get a hearing in the Senate. Rep. Tom Loertscher, R-Iona, said this year’s version, HB 606 , includes a couple of changes negotiated with the governor’s office: Exceptions for two commissions, the Cybersecurity Task Force and the Medal of Achievement Commission, and a five-year “sunset” or expiration date.

“The people of the state of Idaho are entitled to see what happens in their government,” Loertscher told the House. “Therefore we do have the open meetings law. The reason why we’ve done that is to make sure the public understands what we’re doing. … We make a real attempt to keep that process open to the public.”

Loertscher said the five-year expiration on the bill is “so that we could see how this works and see if there isn’t something that we overlooked and had an unintended consequence.”

He said, “This is a good piece of legislation. It keeps the business of the people in the public so they can observe what we’re doing, which is a good process.”

The bill now moves to the Senate side.