Latest news with #IdahoConstitution
Yahoo
26-04-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Utah voucher law found unconstitutional. Idaho's law is also vulnerable.
A classroom at Woodrow Wilson Elementary School in South Salt Lake is pictured on March 12, 2024. (Photo by Spenser Heaps for Utah News Dispatch) A district judge in Utah issued a marvelous decision on April 18, finding Utah's school voucher law to be unconstitutional. The 60-page decision was based on a variety of constitutional flaws that the Utah law shares with Idaho's recently-enacted education tax credit law. The Utah law was enacted in 2023 with $42.5 million in state funds. State funding increased by $40 million in each of the next two years. The Utah judge said the Utah Constitution gives 'a direct command to the legislature to perform a single duty: establish and maintain the state's education systems.'' The judge continued, 'This clear expression of one duty — coupled with the absence of any general duty to provide for the education or intellectual improvement of Utahns — impliedly restricts the legislature from creating a publicly funded school or education program outside of the public school system.' In other words, Utah's Legislature is restricted from using public funds to support any form of private education. Of interest is the fact that every member of the Idaho Legislature was sent a 'Legislative Alert' on the first day of the 2025 legislative session, warning that any scheme to use taxpayer money for private education would be violative of the Idaho Constitution in a number of respects. The alert was provided by The Committee to Protect and Preserve the Idaho Constitution, a group that participated in the successful lawsuit to overturn the restrictive initiative law enacted in 2021. The alert identified the same constitutional flaw focused upon by the Utah judge — that Idaho's Constitution prohibits the funding of private and parochial education. That has been the law of Idaho ever since statehood in 1890. The alert spelled out several other constitutional infirmities that any voucher scheme would entail, including a deliberate transgression of Idaho's strong prohibition against state support for religious education, discrimination against rural kids and Idaho religions that don't operate parochial schools, lack of accountability for taxpayer money expended on private schooling, and diminution of state money necessary to support Idaho's public school system, which has been chronically underfunded for decades. The Utah judge's decision mentioned a number of other infirmities in the Utah law — private schools often exclude students with special needs, or condition admission upon adherence to certain religious beliefs, or fail to provide 'free' schooling as constitutionally required for taxpayer-supported education. These flaws are also inherent in House Bill 93, the subsidy bill approved by the Legislature this year. The Idaho Legislature was clearly warned of the serious constitutional problems with House Bill 93, which will subsidize private and parochial education to the tune of $50 million in just the first year. Yet, because of massive funding from out-of-state groups that are seeking to weaken public schools across the nation, a majority of our legislators cast aside the Constitution and passed the subsidy bill. The governor lacked the courage to veto the legislation, despite overwhelming public outcry against it. Now, as with the similar travesty in Utah, concerned Idahoans will have to resort to the courts in order to protect the wishes of Idaho's constitutional drafters. Please stay tuned. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX
Yahoo
11-04-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Idaho now has a powerful mini-legislature within its official Legislature
The Joint Finance-Appropriations Committee, the Idaho Legislature's powerful budget committee, meets daily during the legislative session. (Pat Sutphin for the Idaho Capital Sun) Idahoans can breathe a sigh of relief now that the Legislature has folded its tent and gone home. The bright side of this year's session is that it could have been worse. The session lasted two weeks longer than expected, costing taxpayers about $20,000-$30,000 per day. The main reason for the delay was the inability of the Joint Finance-Appropriations Committee (JFAC) to finalize budgets for state programs. JFAC set many budgets even before it knew how much revenue would be available, and it then squandered time figuring out how to operate without defined procedural rules. Without a guiding script, Idaho Legislature's budget committee strays from voting procedures Adding to the delay was JFAC's decision to ignore the constitutional order of setting budgets. Since statehood, general legislation, which establishes state laws, was the job of the entire Legislature. Committees hold hearings, take testimony and produce bills for debate in both houses before sending them to the governor. JFAC's job has been confined to providing the funding to finance the programs established through that policy-making process. However, in recent years JFAC has had the nerve to set itself up as a mini-legislature within the official Legislature. That is, to fund legislative policies with appropriation bills but also to set its own policies with 'intent language' in the bills. JFAC co-chair, Rep. Wendy Horman, justified the committee's use of policy-making intent language, claiming it is the committee's job to set 'conditions, limitations and restrictions' on spending. She said, 'it is the job of JFAC to set fiscal policy.' The Idaho Constitution would disagree. Appropriation bills are to fund the government, not to set state policy. Several JFAC members have raised legitimate concerns. Sen. Julie VanOrden said the use of intent language to set policy skirts the public vetting process and is 'a real abuse of power.' Sen. Janie Ward-Engelking correctly observed that JFAC is 'a budgeting committee, it's not a policy committee.' JFAC's constitutionally improper policy-making has created memorable problems in the past. In the 2022 session, JFAC put intent language in House Bill 764, saying that federal money designed to make up for pandemic-related learning loss was to serve 'school-aged participants ages 5 through 13 years.' When about 80 legitimate schools and child care centers received grants, the extreme-right outrage machine swung into action, claiming fraud and abuse because some kids under 5 might have benefited from the federal money, which federal guidelines allowed. That resulted in a flurry of pointless legal actions and investigations, which ended up costing the state way more than the miniscule amount that may have been incidentally spent on kids under 5. In 2024, JFAC put intent language in House Bill 770, the funding bill for the Department of Transportation, that killed a favorable sale of the bedraggled transportation department building on State Street in Boise. The restriction resulted in litigation and will end up costing the state millions trying to renovate an outdated building that will be an unusable money pit. This year, JFAC has picked up the pace of its unlawful policy-making. In House Bill 459, the Department of Labor appropriation bill, the mini-legislature required the preparation of several reports, including one requiring 'an analysis of the impact of illegal immigration on the state's labor market and the potential costs and benefits of using E-Verify.' This should be done through legislative action, not in the funding process. Senate Bill 1209 calls for several legislative items. Among other things, Section 4 requires Idaho State University to lead any negotiations toward acquisition of the Idaho College of Osteopathic Medicine. Section 6 requires the State Board of Education to develop a new outcomes-based funding model for Idaho's colleges and universities. Section 7 requires audits of state institutions of higher learning for compliance with Idaho's ill-defined diversity, equity and inclusion laws. In essence, the DEI laws prohibit many of the virtues that Jesus taught in the New Testament. Senate Bill 1196, requires the Idaho Commission for Libraries to report on compliance by state and school libraries with Idaho book ban laws. There are a number of other similar policy-making bills the JFAC mini-legislature churned out this session, but the list is too lengthy to lay out here. It is high time for JFAC leadership to establish procedural rules to expedite the funding of programs enacted through the established legislative process. More important, however, is that the committee get back into its proper lane of setting budgets, rather than establishing state policy. If not, it may be necessary for those affected by its improper policy-making to institute court proceedings to get JFAC to comply with its limited duty of funding programs enacted by the official Legislature. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX
Yahoo
28-03-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
‘We gotta get them done': 2025 Idaho legislative session to continue next week due to budgets
Speaker of the House Rep. Mike Moyle, R-Star, leads the discussion on the House floor at the State Capitol building on Jan. 23, 2024. (Otto Kitsinger for Idaho Capital Sun) With major fiscal year 2026 budgets still unfinalized, the Idaho Legislature was unable to wrap up its annual legislative session this week at the Idaho State Capitol in Boise. Republican legislative leaders originally hoped to adjourn the 2025 legislative session on March 21. But once again, the unfinished 2026 budget is preventing legislators from adjourning. One of the only requirements of legislators in the Idaho Constitution is to set a balanced budget where expenses do not exceed revenue. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX When a reporter with the Idaho Capital Sun asked House Speaker Mike Moyle, R-Star, early Friday afternoon for his best guess when the legislative session will end, Moyle said he has no guess and it just depends. 'I would have liked to stay and finish Saturday – I'm not going to lie – push it through and be done,' Moyle told the Sun. 'But now it makes it harder, because when you come (back in session) on Monday, they're going to want to stay the whole week and I don't want to stay the whole week.' Moyle said his hopes of working into the weekend were dashed when the Idaho Senate wrapped up its daily floor session before noon on Friday and Senate leaders announced their intention to adjourn until Monday while the Idaho House of Representatives was still in session. CONTACT US Before adjourning for the weekend on Friday, the Idaho Senate showed signs of disagreement and dysfunction, including members of the Senate limiting debate, some senators refusing to answer each other's questions and, finally, a freshman senator forcing a clerk to read a bill aloud on the floor. For nearly every single bill that comes before the Idaho Legislature, legislators almost always skip the formal full reading of a bill to save time. 'No, guess (when we will finish) because we could have been done today or tomorrow, so it just depends on what happens,' Moyle said. Moyle said he expects the Idaho House to continue taking up budgets on Monday when legislators reconvene. 'We'll wait for (the budgets to reach the floor) in here,' Moyle said. 'They'll have them ready for us by Monday, the staff will keep working (drafting the budget bills). They'll be ready to go… It's just, we gotta get them done, right? We gotta get them passed. If they don't pass, some of them have to come back (and be reconsidered). Some of them don't.' Major budgets that could reach the floors next week include the colleges and university budgets that seek to reduce funding for Boise State University and the University of Idaho by $2 million each and the budget for Gov. Brad Little's office. The Idaho Senate is scheduled to reconvene at 9:30 a.m. Monday, while the Idaho House of Representatives will reconvene at 10:30 a.m. Monday. Monday will be the 85th day of the 2025 legislative session. There is no requirement to adjourn legislative sessions by a certain date. However, most sessions run for about 80 to 95 days. The 2024 legislative session lasted 94 days, and adjourned for the year April 10. The 2021 legislative session, which was marked by an extended recess, was the longest in state history. It ran for 311 days and did not adjourn officially until Nov. 15 – just eight weeks before the start of the 2022 legislative session. SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE
Yahoo
26-03-2025
- Yahoo
Prosecutor pushes back against Kohberger's arguments
Mar. 26—The Latah County Prosecutor's Office is again pushing back against Bryan Kohberger's alibi and "alternative perpetrators" defense, and says the suspect's family members may be called to testify at his upcoming trial. More court filings were released Tuesday in the Kohberger case. Kohberger faces four counts of first-degree murder and one count of burglary in the Nov. 13, 2022, stabbing deaths of Kaylee Goncalves, Madison Mogen, Xana Kernodle and Ethan Chapin. He could face the death penalty if convicted. The prosecution argues that Kohberger does not have the same rights as the victims' families to choose which of his relatives can sit in the courthouse during the trial. "The defendant has a constitutional and statutory right to a 'public trial,' but that does not extend to Defendant's choosing whom sits in the courtroom," Senior Deputy Prosecuting Attorney Ashley Jennings wrote in her court filing. She said the Idaho Constitution and Idaho Code supports this argument. She added that Kohberger's relatives may be called to testify as witnesses. She asked Ada County District Judge Steven Hippler to exclude them from the courtroom until it is their time to testify so they cannot hear the other witnesses' testimony. Kohberger's attorneys argued that his immediate family consisting of his mother, father and two sisters should be present in the courtroom. The prosecution's witness list is due to be completed by April 21. The prosecution reasserts that Kohberger does not have any witnesses to back up his alibi. Kohberger has acknowledged that he was driving around the time of the murders, but not near the crime scene. Kohberger's attorneys planned to call Sy Ray to testify to his opinion about where Kohberger was during those early morning hours of Nov. 13, 2022. Ray is an expert in cell towers and cell phone data. The defense claims Ray can show Kohberger's device was south of Pullman and west of Moscow during the time of the murders. Prosecutor Bill Thompson wrote that this is not enough to support Kohberger's alibi.
Yahoo
26-03-2025
- Yahoo
Idaho Murders Suspect Bryan Kohberger's Case Takes New Turn As Prosecutors Mull Calling His Family To Testify
Bryan Kohberger could potentially face testimony from his own family members in his upcoming murder trial. The 30-year-old is currently accused of a quadruple homicide involving University of Idaho students Madison Mogen, Kaylee Goncalves, Xana Kernodle, and Ethan Chapin at their off-campus home in Moscow, Idaho. Bryan Kohberger's lawyers had asked for his family to be granted priority seating at the trial, but the prosecutors argued against it in a recent filing. Earlier this month, Kohberger's legal team requested that the judge in his murder case grant his family priority seating at his upcoming trial. However, prosecutors have now partially denied that request and have also asked the judge to bar any potential witnesses in Kohberger's family from attending the trial before providing their testimony. "The State may call member(s) of the Kohberger family to testify at trial," Deputy Latah County Prosecutor Ashley Jennings wrote in a court filing to Judge Steven Hippler, per the New York Post. She added, "Prior to start of the trial, the State anticipates it will motion the Court, or the Court will on its own accord, generally exclude testifying witnesses from the courtroom so that they cannot hear other witnesses' testimony." Elsewhere in the filing, Jennings argued that the accused family doesn't have the same legal rights as the victims. "Defendant requests that members of his family be granted the same rights as the victim's families," Jennings continued. "However, the 'immediate families of homicide victims' have constitutional and statutory rights to attend pursuant to [the] Idaho Constitution…There is no comparable constitutional or statutory provisions affording a defendant's family these same rights." Jennings also shut down Kohberger's lawyers' claims that not giving his family priority seating would violate his Sixth Amendment rights. "The Defendant has a constitutional and statutory right to a 'public trial,' but that does not extend to Defendant's choosing whom sits in the courtroom," the prosecutor included in her filing. A key piece of evidence in the upcoming trial is the knife sheath, with Kohberger's DNA found at the murder scene. His attorneys had tried to get the knife sheath thrown out by arguing for a Franks hearing, which Hippler shut down. More recently, they requested to bring in defense experts to testify against the prosecution's theories about Kohberger's Amazon shopping history, where it is presumed he bought the knife used to commit the murders. The testimony was aimed at persuading the judge to exclude Kohberger's Amazon shopping records and "click activity" from jurors. However, just like the Franks hearing, Hippler ruled against the request from Kohberger's lawyers. "The information Defense seeks to convey can be presented by declarations," Hippler wrote in an order, per Fox News. "Counsel may have the witnesses available by video streaming during the hearing and, should the Court determine it is necessary to hear from the witness, the Court may allow such testimony by video live-stream." Despite the ruling, it is likely that Kohberger's legal team would once again introduce the discovery of the unidentified genetic materials during his trial. Sources had earlier claimed it might help the team "muddy the waters" and create reasonable doubt in the jury's minds. "That evidence could be any variety of things: It could be something, or it could be a lot of things that are nothing," criminal defense attorney Edwina Elcox said of the newly discovered DNAs. "There's at least something to be made of it, and it's better than having nothing as a defense." However, Elcox admitted that it wasn't strong enough to win Kohberger's innocence as his DNA on the knife sheath is too "critical" to the case. "That's the thing that squarely puts [Kohberger] there," the female attorney said about the knife sheath. "The magnitude of that evidence to the state's case is critical and cannot be understated." Kohberger's trial is scheduled for August this year and will take place in Boise, Idaho. Initially, it was set to be held in Moscow, Idaho, where the murders occurred, but his defense successfully argued for a change of venue by citing concerns over the possibility of an unfair trial. The proceedings will first focus on determining whether the 30-year-old is guilty of the four charges of first-degree murder and one count of burglary. If convicted, a separate phase will be held to decide whether he should receive the death penalty, as murder charges carry the death penalty in the state. With the possibility of a two-phase trial, the case is expected to extend until November. Jury selection is set to begin in late July once all pretrial motions have been addressed. For now, Kohberger has pleaded not guilty and remains in custody without bail as he awaits trial.
