Idaho Legislature prepares highest number of bills in last five years

Yahoo

19-03-2025

The Idaho State Capitol building in Boise as seen on Jan. 11, 2023. (Otto Kitsinger for Idaho Capital Sun)
The Idaho Legislature has introduced so many new bills this year that some Republicans are trying to expand a state government office in order to handle the onslaught of new legislation.
According to data compiled by the Idaho Legislative Services Office, the Idaho Legislature has prepared and introduced more bills this legislative session than any session over the previous five years.
Through Friday, the end of the 10th week in the 2025 legislative session, staff had prepared 890 pieces of legislation this year. That compares to just 793 pieces of legislation prepared over the same 10-week time period in 2023 and 784 pieces of legislation from the same time period in 2022.
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House Minority Leader Ilana Rubel, D-Boise, said she has noticed a huge shift in the volume of bills since she was first appointed to the Idaho Legislature 2014.
Rubel blamed an influx of out-of-state form legislation on the increased volume of bills. Form legislation, or model legislation, is where a group or an organization creates bill templates that could be shopped around different state legislatures all across the country once a lobbyist or legislator makes a few minor wording changes to localize a bill, the Sun has previously reported.
Examples include bills that block transgender athletes participating in women's sports and the Texas-style immigration bill that surfaced as House Bill 83 in Idaho this year.
Groups including the Alliance Defending Freedom and the Foundation for Government Accountability have been involved in form legislation in Idaho or worked with Idaho legislators.
'A lot of this is being driven, frankly, by these out-of-state bill mills,' Rubel said in an interview Tuesday.
Rubel said she thinks the increase in out-of-state form legislation dovetails with the introduction of a new bill, House Bill 378, that seeks to increase transparency by asking legislators to self-disclose any out-of-state government travel for government purposes that legislators did not pay for themselves.
2025: 890
2024: 873
2023: 793
2022: 784
2021: 794
2020: 775
Source: Idaho Legislative Services Office
'The reality is a lot of people are going to these right wing think tank conferences where they have these cookie cutter boiler plate bills that they're trying to shop in every red state of America,' Rubel said. 'And you see the same bill, basically, that's introduced in Texas on Monday, in Arkansas on Tuesday, and Idaho on Wednesday, and Tennessee on Thursday. And they are not tailored to what we need in Idaho. They are not driven by any desires of the people of Idaho, or any needs of the people of Idaho. They are being driven by an ideologue, often 2,000 or 3,000 miles away, who are just cranking these bills out and just shopping them everywhere.'
On Tuesday, Rep. Josh Tanner, an Eagle Republican who often tries to reduce budgets and spending, made an unsuccessful attempt to expand the Legislative Services Office to hire a bill drafting attorney.
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During Tuesday's Joint Finance-Appropriations Committee, Tanner tried to add one full-time position and $128,500 in additional state spending to the Legislative Services Office. Tanner's request was above what the Legislative Services Office and Gov. Brad Little requested.
Just six days earlier, Tanner had led the effort to zero out funding to expand a popular physicians recruitment program to help doctors working in underserved Idaho cities and towns. Last Wednesday, Tanner asked, 'Where is enough enough within some of these programs?'
But on Tuesday, Tanner said he had taken a close look at the increased workload bill drafters face and decided that the one new employee he requested probably still was not enough.
'I thought at least going with one was a necessary thing to make sure that our staff is being taken care of,' Tanner said Tuesday. 'Whether it is the workload that we are pushing on them, there is no law out there that says we cannot bring a bill forward or go ask questions to them.'
Tanner's motion failed on a deadlocked 10-10 vote.
Rep. James Petzke, R-Meridian, voted against the increased funding and the new bill drafting attorney position after saying JFAC should follow its own guidance to produce efficient, lean budgets.
'This is making me really uneasy,' Petzke said.
'I believe that we need to eat our own cooking,' Petzke added. 'We've done a really good job as a committee this year of limiting every budget. We've cut tens of millions of dollars, including we just cut a whole bunch out of (the Idaho Transportation Department). We've cut dozens of (full-time positions) out of all agencies across the state. We made (the Division of Financial Management) eat their own cooking on the 3% cap. I think that we need to hold ourselves to a similar standard.'
Even as legislators hope to wind down the legislative session, new bills have been introduced this week.
Republican leaders set a nonbinding target to adjourn the 2025 legislative session March 21. However, the Idaho Legislatures Joint Finance-Appropriations Committee has fallen behind and has not set many of the major fiscal year 2026 budgets for state agencies, delaying legislators from adjourning.
There is no requirement to adjourn an Idaho legislative session by any certain date, but most last for 75 to 90 days. However, the 2021 legislative session – which was marked by extended recesses and a COVID-19 work stoppage – ran for 311 days, became the longest legislative session in state history and did not officially adjourn until Nov. 17.
Tuesday marked the 72nd day of the 2025 legislative session.
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