Latest news with #SenateBill1210
Yahoo
08-04-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
Idaho governor works on final bill actions — including signing ‘medical freedom' bill
Idaho Gov. Brad Little gives his annual State of the State address on Jan. 6, 2025, on the House floor at the Statehouse in Boise. (Pat Sutphin for the Idaho Capital Sun) Less than an hour after the Idaho Legislature passed its final bill of the year on Friday — the so-called medical freedom act — Gov. Brad Little already signed it into law. The new broad medical mandate ban bill, Senate Bill 1210, will bar Idaho businesses, government entities, schools and colleges from restricting entry, employment or services based on requirements for medical interventions — like vaccines, medical diagnosis or treatment. Little vetoed an earlier version of the bill, saying he worried the original bill 'jeopardizes' schools' ability to send home sick kids. The tweaked bill he later signed carves out an exception for that. Idaho's new medical requirement ban law takes effect July 1. The Legislature adjourned for the year Friday afternoon. But as Idaho's governor, Little still has to decide what to do with more than a dozen bills on his desk — at least as of Monday night. During the legislative session, Little only has five days to decide on bills. But once the Legislature adjourns for the year, Little has a 10-day deadline on bill actions. Little has not yet taken action on at least two health bills, including House Bill 109, that will require Idaho to seek federal approval to stop covering candy and soda in the federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP. A bill that would make ivermectin available in Idaho over-the-counter, without a prescription or health care provider consultation, Senate Bill 1211, still awaits the governor's action. The drug, normally used to treat parasites, gained fame during the pandemic after false claims that it was effective in treating COVID-19. The governor has three options on bills: sign them into law, allow them to become law without his signature, or veto them. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX
Yahoo
04-04-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
Responding to governor's veto, Idaho Legislature passes new ‘medical freedom' bill
Idaho Gov. Brad Little gives his annual State of the State address on Jan. 6, 2025, on the House floor at the Statehouse in Boise. (Pat Sutphin for the Idaho Capital Sun) As the Idaho Legislature ended the 2025 legislative session on Friday, lawmakers quickly passed a reworked version of a so-called medical freedom bill. Senate Bill 1210 is the Legislature's response to a similar bill Gov. Brad Little vetoed Saturday. The new bill still pursues a similarly broad medical mandate ban, which would bar Idaho businesses, government entities, schools and colleges from restricting entry, employment or services based on requirements for medical interventions — like vaccines, medical diagnosis or treatment. Lawmakers spent much of Friday without taking action, as they waited for the House to attempt to amend the bill. The House amended the bill just before 2 p.m. In the House's debate over its new version of the bill earlier this week, critics' main concern was that the bill would prevent workplaces from refusing service or entry to sick people. That appears to be true under the bill. On Friday, the House rejected an amendment attempt described as a way to shield employers from liability if sick employees who refuse to leave get injured at work. Despite this being the third iteration of the bill the House has considered, and despite the House's amendments earlier Friday, Rep. Todd Achilles, D-Boise, said the bill remained 'deeply flawed' and it keeps the same 'overly broad definition' of medical intervention. The Idaho House passed the bill on a 44-23 vote at about 3 p.m. Friday. An hour later, the Senate passed it on a 27-6 vote. After passing both chambers of the Idaho Legislature on Friday, the new bill — which carves out exceptions for schools to send home sick kids — now heads to the Idaho governor for final consideration. When the bill is transmitted to the governor, he has five days, excluding Sundays, to decide on it. He has three options: sign it into law, allow it to become law without his signature, or veto it. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX Under the bill, medical interventions include 'a procedure, treatment, device, drug injection, medication, or action taken to diagnose, prevent, or cure a disease or alter the health or biological function of a person.' For businesses and any Idaho governments — local, county or state — the bill bans requiring medical interventions for employment, admission to venues, transportation, or providing products or services. Idaho schools — private or public — including colleges, universities and trade schools would also be blocked from requiring medical interventions for school attendance, employment, or entrance into campus or school buildings. The bill is cosponsored by Rep. Robert Beiswenger, R-Horseshoe Bend, and Sen. Dan Foreman, R-Moscow. Earlier this week, Beiswenger told House lawmakers the bill 'prevents medical force, medical mandates. People can choose them if they want to, but they don't have to if they don't want to. You can ask people to leave your place of business. But you can't force them into medical treatments like vaccines or other kinds of treatments.' The new broader medical intervention requirement ban would expand on a previous Idaho law banning COVID vaccine requirements. In 2023, Little signed the COVID vaccine requirement ban law, despite its similarities to one he vetoed a year earlier, the Idaho Statesman reported. The bill came after a week-long, fast-moving effort by Idaho lawmakers to respond to Little's veto on the original bill the Legislature passed, Senate Bill 1023. Explaining his veto, Little wrote he valued medical freedom but worried that the bill 'removes parents' freedom to ensure their children stay healthy at school because it jeopardizes the ability of schools to send home sick students with highly contagious conditions,' including measles. On Thursday, the Senate failed to override the governor's veto on a 20-14 vote, falling short of the two-third support needed, Idaho Education News reported. Senate Bill 1210, the Senate's revised version of the original bill, succeeded over the House's revised version, House Bill 472, which passed the House but never received a Senate committee hearing. The Senate's version adds language specifying the school medical mandate ban provision is subject to various other Idaho laws that let school boards block sick students from attending, spell out parental rights, and more. The House amended the bill earlier this week to remove an exemption for day cares. On Friday, the House amended the Senate's version to: Include private and parochial schools as being allowed to block sick students from attending; Bar state agencies from adopting regulations, including policy or administrative rule, that conflicts with the bill; and Add a new section stating that 'Not withstanding any other provision of law to the contrary, under no circumstances may a healthy person be excluded in a disease outbreak due to such person's vaccination status.' The original bill, Senate Bill 1023, was amended twice before passing the Legislature. The Senate's revised version that passed was also amended twice. Health Freedom Defense Fund President and Founder Leslie Manookian wrote the original bill. Asked by another lawmaker in a House committee Friday morning about the bill's chance of securing the governor's approval, Foreman was hopeful. CONTACT US 'I won't speak on behalf of the gentleman on the second floor,' Foreman replied, using a common phrase legislators use to discuss the governor's office on the second floor of the Statehouse. 'But I guess I would term it this way. If I was — no disrespect intended here — but if I was going to Vegas, I would have really good odds.' Asked about confidence lawmakers expressed in the governor supporting the bill Friday afternoon, House Assistant Majority Leader Josh Tanner, R-Eagle, said he thought 'everybody's in agreement and the issues are resolved.' Later Friday, the governor's spokesperson, Joan Varsek, told the Sun the governor's office doesn't comment on bills until Little acts on them. SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE
Yahoo
02-04-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
After Gov. Little vetoes Idaho ‘medical freedom' bill, Legislature pursues tweaks
Idaho Gov. Brad Little gives his annual State of the State address on Jan. 6, 2025, on the House floor at the Statehouse in Boise. (Pat Sutphin for the Idaho Capital Sun) Four days after Idaho Gov. Brad Little vetoed a bill that would've banned medical intervention mandates — including vaccines, medical treatment or medicine — by businesses, governments, schools and colleges, the Idaho Legislature's immediate path forward to respond remains unclear. The governor vetoed the bill Saturday. On Monday, the Idaho Senate introduced a new tweaked version of the bill. On Tuesday, the Idaho House made a similar move. But the Senate has not officially attempted to override the governor's veto; the original bill narrowly passed the Senate and would need broader support to pass a veto override, which requires two-thirds support in each legislative chamber. Senate President Pro Tempore Kelly Anthon, R-Rupert, hasn't ruled out a vote to override the governor's veto on the bill, he told the Idaho Capital Sun in an interview on the Senate floor Tuesday afternoon. But first, he said, lawmakers are focused on working with the governor 'to come up with language that is doable.' Asked if the Senate would override the governor's veto, Anthon told the Sun 'It very well could happen. But until we know that the road … is completely at a dead end, you won't see that happen. I think you're going to first see, 'Can we work with the governor to come up with language that is doable?' But you may not want to play that card or give up that leverage until you know you can't work out a deal.' SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX The Senate's revised bill, Senate Bill 1210, exempts day cares and adds language specifying the school medical mandate ban provision is subject to various other Idaho laws that let school boards block sick students from attending, spell out parental rights, and more. The House's revised bill, House Bill 472, adds language specifying that the bill wouldn't overrule existing powers of school districts, or school board trustees — as already granted in Idaho law. To become law, Idaho bills must pass the House and Senate, and avoid the governor's veto. Right now, the Legislature is in the middle of a negotiation, Anthon told the Sun, and he doubts the new bills will become law as drafted. 'I personally think that none of those bills, as printed, will end up becoming law,' he said. The new bills appear to be competing versions of revised bills that attempt to address the governor's concerns over the original vetoed bill. Explaining his veto of the original bill, Senate Bill 1023, Little said he valued medical freedom but worried that the bill 'removes parents' freedom to ensure their children stay healthy at school because it jeopardizes the ability of schools to send home sick students with highly contagious conditions,' including measles. The Idaho governor's office couldn't be immediately reached for comment about how much either bill addresses Little's concerns over the original bill, called the Idaho Medical Freedom Act. 'Once the bill got vetoed … we start down a road where we try to figure out 'What's a bill that can actually pass both Houses?' Anthon told the Sun. 'And so you start to see the clamor of legislation.' The Idaho Legislature is more than a week past Republican leadership's nonbinding goal to adjourn, or end, this year's legislative session on March 21 — largely due to budgeting delays by the Legislature's powerful budget committee, the Sun previously reported. On Tuesday afternoon, the revised Senate bill was scheduled to be considered in the Senate State Affairs Committee, where it could've been advanced to the full Senate for a vote. But the meeting was canceled. Sen. Dan Foreman, R-Moscow, cosponsored the original bill that the governor vetoed and the revised Senate bill. He declined to comment on the bill's future to the Sun on Tuesday. Senate State Affairs Committee Chairman Jim Guthrie, R-McCammon, told the Sun in a Tuesday interview that Foreman had asked him to remove the bill from the committee's agenda. But Guthrie said he didn't know Foreman's reasons. Anthon, the top Senate Republican, told the Sun that Foreman 'is working really, really hard to get a policy across the finish line that effectuates, at the end of the day, the goal — and the goal is to get that medical freedom piece in place.' 'How to fine tune that language to get all of the different players happy is very difficult. So there's a negotiation taking place,' Anthon said. 'Sometimes you have to throw out a piece of legislation to get people to the table. So Senator Forman has done that. It looks like the House has done that a couple of times now. And once that piece of legislation is printed, the dialog starts. So I think we're just in the middle of a process.' Idaho Attorney General Raúl Labrador on Monday urged the Idaho Legislature to override the governor's veto, calling the bill 'the defining bill of this session.' 'Five years ago, COVID-19 brought chaos: lockdowns, mandates, business closures, school shutdowns, and restrictions that crushed our freedom,' Labrador said in a prepared statement. 'In hindsight, the damage to our society, children, and economy was far worse than the virus itself. I ran for Attorney General because our State failed to protect our citizens from government overreach. The legislature now has the opportunity to do the right thing.' Labrador is a former U.S. House of Representatives member. In 2018, he lost a Republican primary governor's election challenge to Little. In 2022, Labrador was elected as Idaho attorney general. Idaho Freedom Action, the lobbying arm of the Idaho Freedom Foundation, also supported a legislative veto override. Before Little vetoed the bill, Idaho Republican Party Chairwoman Dorothy Moon urged people to ask Little to sign the bill. Both bills introduced this week modify a bill that previously passed the Legislature, and was vetoed by Little. The original bill would have banned businesses and any Idaho governments — local, county or state — from requiring medical interventions for employment, admission to venues, transportation, or providing products or services. The bill would've also extended to schools in Idaho — private or public — and colleges, universities and trade schools, blocking them from requiring medical interventions for school attendance, employment, or entrance into campus or school buildings. CONTACT US The new broader medical intervention requirement ban the governor vetoed would have expanded on a previous Idaho law banning COVID vaccine requirements, which Little signed in 2023, despite its similarities to one he vetoed a year earlier, the Idaho Statesman reported. This year's broader bill — amended twice — was cosponsored by Sen. Foreman and Rep. Robert Beiswenger, R-Horseshoe Bend. Health Freedom Defense Fund President and Founder Leslie Manookian wrote the bill. Under the bill, medical interventions include 'a procedure, treatment, device, drug injection, medication, or action taken to diagnose, prevent, or cure a disease or alter the health or biological function of a person.' Business medical intervention mandates for employment would still be allowed in a few excepted circumstances, including in certain federal travel scenarios if jobs require entry into facilities that require medical interventions, or if required by federal law. The bill would also exempt medical intervention bans in situations where employers require 'personal protection equipment, items, or clothing … based on existing traditional and accepted industry standards or federal law.' But the bill says COVID-era requirements, such as for masks or vaccines, are not exempt from the ban. The bill would allow the Idaho attorney general or county prosecuting attorneys to enforce the law through injunctive relief, which are essentially civil court actions issued in lawsuits. SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE
