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Yahoo
05-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
GOP lawmakers seek to ban Pride flags, stirring tensions with liberal cities
A Pride flag flies in front of Boise City Hall, just blocks from the Idaho Capitol. The flag flies below the city's own banner and in April shared the flagpole with a flag honoring organ donation. The city also displays the U.S. flag, a POW/MIA flag and a state of Idaho flag. (Erika Bolstad/Stateline) BOISE, Idaho — The day the flag bill came up for a vote in the Idaho Senate this spring, state Sen. Melissa Wintrow had no plans to speak against it. As the top Democratic leader in her chamber, she had already spent the legislative session in constant, vocal opposition to the Republican-dominated legislative agenda. 'I thought: 'Oh, this stupid flag bill once again,'' Wintrow said. 'I'll just vote 'no' quietly because I've just really been in people's grille about things.' But then the bill's sponsor, Republican state Sen. Ben Toews, began passing out flyers about the legislation, one of two proposed bills to limit which flags can be flown at schools and on state and local government property. The only photos on the handout were of rainbow-striped Pride flags flying in Boise: one on a flagpole in front of City Hall, and then others on light poles along Harrison Boulevard, two blocks from Wintrow's home. 'When he sat that picture in front of me on that desk, I thought: 'That's enough. Just always picking and bullying,'' Wintrow said. 'The state's going to tell us what to do, when they can't even address the larger problems like affordable housing? That's what's on people's minds. A good working wage, health care. It's as if they don't know how to govern. So they just pick these culture war things.' In recent weeks, both Idaho and Utah have enacted bans that prohibit Pride flags from being displayed on government property, pitting lawmakers in the Republican-dominated legislatures against the more progressive capitals of Boise and Salt Lake City, where the flags are often flown at city hall. It's as if they don't know how to govern. So they just pick these culture war things. – Idaho Democratic state Sen. Melissa Wintrow In Utah, the law allows the state flag, the U.S. flag, U.S. military flags, the POW/MIA flag, local government flags, tribal nation flags, university and school flags and Olympic flags. Idaho's list is similar, but includes a provision in the school flag law that prohibits flags with political viewpoints, 'including but not limited to flags or banners regarding a political party, race, sexual orientation, gender, or a political ideology.' Lawmakers in Florida, Texas and at least 13 other states are considering similar flag prohibitions, said Logan Casey, director of policy research with the Movement Advancement Project, which studies LGBTQ+ rights. The flag bills go beyond symbolism, Casey said. Rather, they are part of a broad and coordinated legislative attack on LGBTQ+ people that seeks to strip them of rights and erase or make difficult their participation in public life. 'Sometimes those attacks are very material, like denying access to health care or the ability to participate safely in public life and activities,' Casey said. 'Sometimes they're a little more symbolic, like these flag bills.' The rainbow-colored Pride flag was conjured up by artist and drag queen Gilbert Baker in 1978, at the suggestion of San Francisco politician Harvey Milk, as a symbol of progress and pride for that year's San Francisco Gay Freedom Day Parade. Since then, the rainbow-colored flag and its many design iterations have grown into worldwide emblems of solidarity with LGBTQ+ rights. Although the laws in Idaho and Utah don't ban Pride flags specifically, bill sponsors and their supporters made it clear they want to see such flags removed from city halls, schools and state buildings. Idaho state Rep. Ted Hill, a Republican who sponsored the bill limiting which flags can fly at schools, said in an interview that Pride flags are disruptive to classroom learning because discussion about them takes up 'an amazing amount of political bandwidth.' 'The best way to do it is to get rid of everything,' said Hill, who represents Eagle, a suburb northwest of Boise. 'So the only thing you have in the classroom is the American flag, the state flag. And people will say inclusivity and all this. Well, the American flag is as inclusive as it can get.' Despite the new law, Boise Mayor Lauren McLean, a Democrat, continues to fly a Pride flag in front of City Hall, just below the city's own and adjacent to poles flying the U.S. and state of Idaho flags. The Pride flag's presence, within view of the state Capitol, elicited a sternly worded letter from Idaho Attorney General Raúl Labrador, a Republican. Here's how state lawmakers are taking aim at transgender adults' health care Idaho's law, which went into effect April 3, has no penalty for local governments or officials who fly flags in defiance of the ban, an oversight lawmakers told Labrador they'll rectify in subsequent legislative sessions. Instead, the law relies on 'the good will of elected officials for its enforcement,' Labrador wrote, warning McLean that she should 'comply with the law out of a sense of duty to your oath of office.' He threatened, too, that lawmakers could 'deny state tax revenues and other appropriations to the City of Boise or any other governmental entity that does not follow state law.' McLean countered that the new law is unconstitutional, and that the city will challenge threats to withhold funding. Pride flags have flown in Boise for a decade, she told Labrador, and represent a commitment to 'a safe and welcoming city where everyone means just that — everyone.' 'The Constitutional rights of our residents are not subject to — cannot be subject to — the political whims of legislative disapproval,' McLean wrote, 'and we will not step back from them simply because the principles our community cherishes make some in state government uncomfortable.' Boise's city council is considering a resolution confirming that any flags it flies, including Pride flags, are official city flags — a move the council says will ensure it is complying with state law. In the meantime, the city will 'continue to fly the flags on City Hall Plaza that represent our community and speak to our values of caring for people and welcoming all,' McLean said in a statement. Early on Easter morning, several people climbed a ladder propped up next to the city's flagpole to cover the Pride flag and a separate flag (honoring organ and tissue donation) with trash bags. They also raised the Appeal to Heaven flag, a Revolutionary War-era flag that has come to represent sympathy to the Christian nationalist movement and to President Donald Trump's false claims that the 2020 presidential election was stolen. A few hours later, the mayor lowered the flags, which are on a locked halyard, to remove the trash bags and the Appeal to Heaven flag. It capped a challenging sequence of events in Boise and nearby Meridian, which drew national attention this spring when school officials ordered a middle school teacher to take down a sign with the phrase 'Everyone is welcome here' from her classroom. Amid the backlash, people in Boise printed T-shirts and yard signs in support of the teacher and the sign's message. The mayor's response to the flag law and the support for the classroom message aren't directly connected, but both reflect how many in the community insist on sending a welcoming message at this moment in American history, said Christina Bruce-Bennion, executive director of Boise's Wassmuth Center for Human Rights, which helped coordinate support for the teacher. In Salt Lake City, the flag ban threatens to end a long-standing annual tradition. Typically, the mayor's office kicks off Pride Month festivities in June with a flag-raising ceremony at City Hall, said Chad Call, executive director of the Utah Pride Center, which puts on the state's annual Pride festivities. Events include a parade through the streets of Salt Lake City with a 200-foot Pride flag — which remains a legal form of First Amendment expression and has taken place most years since 1997. 'We have a city council that wants to celebrate Pride month,' Call said. 'They want to celebrate the queer community in the month of June. And then we have a state government that does not want that happening in our capital city. And so it is very targeted.' 'It was the life raft': Transgender people find a safe haven in Florida's capital city One of the flag bill's sponsors, state Rep. Trevor Lee, said in an interview that his legislation was prompted by constituents who told him they're 'sick and tired of seeing a political agenda being pushed in their face' on government property, particularly with flags featuring transgender representation. 'It makes people feel uncomfortable if it's something they don't agree with,' said Lee, who represents a district north of Salt Lake City. 'And so we're trying to keep it very specific and let schools focus on teaching the things that they need to, and let government buildings just fly their city flag for heaven's sakes, or the state flag or the American flag.' One Utah parent, Republican activist Aaron Bullen, said he began objecting to Pride flags several years ago after one of his children, then a fifth grader, was 'visibly upset' after school one day. Bullen said his son told him he'd seen what's known as a Progress Pride flag, a newer iteration of the original rainbow-striped flag. It includes an arrow on the left side composed of pink, blue and white stripes to represent transgender people, as well as brown and black stripes to represent queer people of color. The flag was in the school's computer lab. Bullen said he complained to school leaders at the district, south of Salt Lake City, and the flag came down. But Bullen felt as though the flag's presence undermined what he and his wife teach at home and model to their children as members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, particularly how they interpret the church's stance on transgender people and marriage for same-sex couples. 'It says, basically, 'we approve of gay marriage' when that flag is up,' Bullen said. 'And that's something that my religion is explicitly against. And so you have a teacher of my son, a person in authority that they'd like to be able to trust and to follow the instructions of, but they're saying, 'your parents who taught you this other thing, they're wrong. Your religion is wrong.' That's what that flag means.' It's not the job of a school to try to teach morals differently than parents would. – Aaron Bullen, a Utah parent and Republican activist He added: 'It's not the job of a school to try to teach morals differently than parents would. Parents have the fundamental right and responsibility to rear their children. And it's not a school's place to oppose the religion of the parents or the teachings of the parents.' Unlike in Idaho, Utah's flag ban carries a $500 fine per day for failure to comply with the law. But in Utah, the law took effect without Republican Gov. Spencer Cox's signature. The governor declined to sign the bill into law, saying the state's residents are 'tired of culture war bills that don't solve the problems they intend to fix.' Call, of the Utah Pride Center, said that while it's discouraging for LGBTQ+ people to witness their representation further erased in public spaces, they refuse in Utah to allow the flag law to diminish the spirit of their Pride events, among the largest in the nation. 'Our counterculture here is really, really strong,' Call said. 'And I think the thing that probably defines our Utah Pride as being kind of unique is the incredibly strong community that it brings together. There's tens, hundreds of thousands of people that come out to support it.' SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE
Yahoo
18-03-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
‘Help with housing': Idaho Senate passes property tax reduction bill
Members of the Idaho Senate work from the Senate floor on the morning of March 10, 2025, at the Idaho Capitol Building in Boise. (Pat Sutphin for the Idaho Capital Sun) The Idaho Senate voted unanimously Monday to pass a bill that seeks to reduce property taxes and pay down school districts' bond issues and levies. The Idaho Senate voted 35-0 to pass House Bill 304. If passed into law, House Bill 304 would do a couple of things. The bill would transfer $50 million to a state fund to reduce property taxes for Idaho homeowners. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX It also would send another $50 million to a state fund that helps pay off school districts' bond issues and levies. To make those two transfers, the bill reduces state revenue by $100 million every year. Sens. Scott Grow, R-Eagle, and Doug Ricks, R-Rexburg, co-sponsored the bill in the Idaho Senate. 'These amounts help with housing,' Grow said. 'The monthly mortgage payment gets reduced by a reduction in property taxes,' Grow added. 'It helps young people trying to get into homes. It helps the older people who are retired that are trying to stay in their homes.' House Bill 304 is the third major tax cut the Idaho Legislature has passed this year. House Bill 40 reduces the corporate and individual income tax rates from 5.695% to 5.3% and reduces state revenue by $253 million per year. House Bill 231 increases the grocery tax credit used to offset the sales tax Idahoans pay on food to $155 per year. To increase the grocery tax credit, House Bill 231 reduces state revenue by $50 million every year. Combined, the three bills reduce state revenue by $403 million. CONTACT US Another new law this year, House Bill 93, provides a refundable tax credit for education expenses for families, including tuition at private, religious schools. That bill reduces revenue by $50 million – bringing total revenue reductions from those four bills to $453 million. Senate Minority Leader Melissa Wintrow, D-Boise, voted in favor of the bill because she said property taxes and housing affordability are two of the issues her constituents are most concerned about. But Wintrow said she is worried about the amount of state revenue that will be reduced to pass all of the tax cuts. 'We're over $400 million in revenue reductions as we go forward,' Wintrow said.'And this bill is continuously appropriated, so every year, $100 million is going to go this way. And so what I would hope is that next year we don't forget that, and that we don't do another income tax rebate that really only benefits the wealthiest at the top.' Wintrow said she wished legislative leaders acted on the property tax bill before passing the income tax cut and grocery tax credit increase this year. 'I'm happy to do the property tax relief, but I think this should have been the first and foremost (tax cut) right out of the gate, not the last one,' Wintrow said. 'Because now we're adding on more permanent revenue reductions that will potentially be harmful to the very people that demand the services that we need in our state.' The Idaho House of Representatives has already voted 68-0 to pass House Bill 304. House Bill 304 heads next to Gov. Brad Little for final consideration. Once the bill reaches his desk, Little will have five days to sign it into law or veto it. If Little does not take action within five days, the bill will become law without his signature. During a breakfast with reporters in February, Little said he was concerned by the amount of revenue that will be reduced by the three major tax cuts and the education tax credit. 'If I would have thought we could do $450 (million), I would have proposed $450 (million),' Little said Feb. 25. SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE
Yahoo
13-03-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Idaho Legislature's budget committee operating under two different sets of voting rules
The door to the JFAC committee room at the Idaho State Capitol building is pictured on Jan. 6, 2023. (Otto Kitsinger for Idaho Capital Sun) Without formal published rules in place guiding the proceedings, members of the Idaho Legislature's powerful budget committee clashed again on Wednesday over changes to the committee's voting procedures. Two Democrats walked out of the committee meeting in protest Wednesday, saying there is no clear set of rules governing the Idaho Legislature's Joint Finance-Appropriations Committee. Idaho House debate over legislative travel transparency bill quickly breaks down On Wednesday, it also became clear for the first time that there are now two different standards for how votes are handled in the committee. The Joint Finance-Appropriations Committee, or JFAC for short, is a powerful committee made up of 10 members each from the Idaho Senate and Idaho House of Representatives. The committee meets almost every day during the legislative session and is responsible for setting the budget for every state agency and department. In order for funding to be approved for fighting wildfires, paying for public schools, improving state parks, paying state employees and judges or administering all of the state's other programs and services, JFAC has to sign off. For decades, JFAC met and voted jointly – 11 votes out of 20 constituted a majority when everyone was in attendance. But JFAC has undergone a series of major changes to the committee's meeting, voting and budgeting procedures over the past two years or so. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX JFACs co-chairs said the changes increase transparency and accountability and ensure there is more widespread support before budgets reach the floor of the Idaho House and Idaho Senate. Now deep into the 2025 legislative session, it has become clear that no other committee in the Idaho Legislature has this much confusion or uncertainty over voting and what it takes to advance a motion or bill from the committee to the floor. Senate Minority Leader Melissa Wintrow and Sen. Janie Ward-Engelking, both D-Boise, walked out of Wednesday's JFAC meeting in protest, briefly denying the committee a quorum and grinding action to a halt. 'When you don't have predictable rules and we are in a culture of defunding programs and services that we rely on as citizens, now our hand is forced to leave the floor to ensure that some money goes out (to fund budgets),' Wintrow said in an interview Wednesday morning. Ward-Engelking agreed. 'We waited until somebody else came up that we knew would be supportive of the budget, and then came back,' Ward-Engelking said in an interview. Wintrow was even more outspoken in a written statement she sent out a short time later on Wednesday. 'We left the floor because we felt the most prudent thing for Idaho voters would be to deny a quorum,' Wintrow wrote. 'JFAC is operating outside of all precedent and common sense voting rules, counting the hypothetical votes of absent members as 'no' votes. Rules provide predictability, transparency and fairness. To echo the words of Sen. (Kevin) Cook: the body owns the rules, and we have not voted on a set of rules as a body. Instead, a few people in leadership are making up rules as we go at the expense of Idaho voters.' This isn't the first time JFAC members clashed over rules in recent days. On Friday, House Speaker Mike Moyle, who is not a member of JFAC, entered the JFAC room and began publicly arguing with some JFAC members during a break in the committee after Cook, R-Idaho Falls, and Sen. Jim Woodward, R-Sagle, raised objections to JFAC's voting procedures. JFAC co-chair Wendy Horman, R-Idaho Falls, told the Sun she welcomes robust discussion, but she said it is out of order for committee members to speak without being recognized by the committee chair. Some JFAC members also publicly complained about JFAC failing to set a revenue projection to base the 2026 budget around until after several budgets and major tax cuts passed. Heading into the 2025 legislative session, the Idaho House did not adopt joint rules of the Idaho House and Senate, which govern how joint committees like JFAC run. On the other hand, the Idaho Senate did adopt the joint rules during the 2025 organizational session held in December. CONTACT US The rules lay out how bills are introduced, passed and amended, the role of committees and much more. One of the reasons the House did not adopt joint rules before the session is because Moyle, the speaker of the Idaho House, disagrees with Joint Rule 11. That rule states that when joint committees of both chambers meet, the chairman of the Senate committee will serve as the chairperson. Moyle said the House doesn't want to give up the authority to set agendas and share the chairmanship. In addition to the rules, committee chairs in the Idaho Legislature use the Idaho Constitution, state laws and Mason's Manual of Legislative Procedure to guide proceedings. In the absence of formal rules, Horman and fellow co-chair Sen. Scott Grow, R-Eagle, said JFAC is operating under precedent set by the new procedures they put in place over the past two years and a letter they both signed in February 2023. The letter states: 'House and Senate Majority leadership have determined to utilize the joint voting procedure used in the past while also announcing the votes of House and Senate committees separately. If a bill receives majority support from the joint committee and does not receive majority support from the House or Senate committee, the bill will be sent to the house from which the majority of members did not vote in the affirmative.' After weeks of uncertainty, it became clear on Wednesday there are now two different interpretations of that letter. That means there are now two different standards for how votes are handled in JFAC. If at least six of the 10 House members serving on JFAC don't vote in favor of a motion or budget, that motion fails and is dead. Horman, the Idaho Falls Republican who serves as co-chair of JFAC, said the House clerk has informed her there is no mechanism to bring a failed motion forward to the House floor or assign it a bill number, If at least six of the 10 Senate members serving on JFAC don't vote in favor of a motion or budget, the motion is announced as failing in JFAC and then sent to the Idaho Senate. Grow, the Eagle Republican who serves as the other JFAC co-chair, said it will be up to Senate Republican leadership to decide how to handle the failed motions from JFAC. 'We've agreed to disagree,' Horman told the Idaho Capital Sun when asked about the different standards after Wednesday's JFAC meeting adjourned. On Wednesday, budget requests to provide $2.25 million in state funding in the current fiscal year 2025 for a rural nursing loan repayment program and multiple motions regarding the oversight of the Emergency Management Services program all failed to receive a majority of support among Senate finance members. The funding for the rural nursing loan repayment program was separate, and in addition to, action JFAC took Wednesday to reject a $500,000 request to expand the Rural Physician Incentive Program. Horman and Grow announced the two sets of voting standards during Wednesday's meeting. These exact voting scenarios have come up several times over the past two weeks. On Feb. 28, JFAC failed to reach a majority of support among Senate JFAC members for multiple budget requests, including a grant funding request for body-worn cameras for Idaho Department of Correction officers. JFAC first attempted to send the failed motions to the Senate. However, JFAC ultimately started over on two of the failed motions from Feb. 28 (including the body worn cameras) and passed them on March 5. When motions failed to achieve a majority of support among House JFAC members on March 7, the motions just died; they weren't sent anywhere. During Wednesday's meeting, Horman said JFAC co-chairs and legislative leaders hope to clarify rules and procedures after the legislative session ends. For the rest of this year, the two different voting procedures will remain in place. 'The Senate is taking a different approach on that (than the House), and we've agreed that is how we will move forward for the rest of the session until we can get into the interim and make some clarifications to this letter, or other rules that may need to be adjusted in the joint rules,' Horman said. One area where Horman and Grow agree is that it takes six votes among House JFAC members and six votes among Senate JFAC members to constitute a majority, no matter how many members are physically there. That means if seven Senate members of JFAC are present, a 5-2 vote in favor of a budget or motion would be considered failing to receive a majority because it did not receive six votes. On Wednesday, Ward-Engelking and Wintrow said it was nearly impossible to reach the six Senate JFAC votes necessary to pass budgets while other senators were away in other committees presenting bills. Cook, R-Idaho Falls, missed most of JFAC's meeting on Wednesday presenting bills in other committees. Other senators also came and went Wednesday. Over the course of the past few weeks, three Republican senators – Sens. Phil Hart, R-Kellogg; Glenneda Zuiderveld, R-Twin Falls; and Cindy Carlson, R-Riggins, (as well as the substitute legislator covering for Carlson) have repeatedly voted against multiple budgets and supplemental funding requests. That means if any two of the remaining seven senators on JFAC join them, they have the power to kill any budget or motion. If a couple of Senate members of JFAC are absent, it may only take one other senator to join them and kill any budget. Meanwhile, legislative leaders have set a nonbinding target to adjourn the legislative session by March 21, the end of next week. After major tax cuts, a Medicaid expansion work requirement bill and a bill allowing families to receive a refundable tax credit to reimburse them for education expenses including tuition at private, religious schools all passed, the 2026 budget is one of the final unresolved issues in the 2025 legislative session. As of Wednesday afternoon, JFAC has not even considered all the budget enhancements that state agencies requested for next year's budget, and some other budget enhancements failed to pass out of JFAC with a majority of support from both chambers. Along with changing voting procedures, one of the other major JFAC changes Horman and Grow instituted involved separating budgets into two parts. The first part is a bare-bones maintenance of operations budget that is solely intended to keep the lights on for state agencies. It takes a version of last year's budget and removes all of the one-time funding and all of the new funding requests. The new funding requests are called budget enhancements and voted on separately. As of Wednesday, six of the 10 maintenance budgets had passed both the Idaho House and Idaho Senate and were awaiting action from Gov. Brad Little. The Idaho House controlled two of the maintenance budgets on its reading calendar, and the Idaho Senate controlled the other two maintenance budgets on its reading calendar. Meanwhile, dozens of other budget enhancements remain unresolved or have yet to reach the House or Senate floor. Horman and Moyle told the Sun on Friday that some legislators are applying pressure to only pass the maintenance budgets and walk away from the budget enhancements. 'I think there's some important enhancements that we need and want, and I think that we need to look at those,' Moyle said Friday. 'But you know, there's some conflicts or differences in what those ought to be.' Horman said she is working to build consensus and bring the budget enhancements forward to the floor. 'Some members would like to see no additional spending beyond the maintenance budgets, but that was never the goal of this transition,' Horman said Friday. 'Our commitment is to bring those forward to the extent we can get agreement on them.' But in an interview Wednesday, Wintrow said it is now easier to kill or block budget enhancements. 'What you're seeing right now is a culture of people who are part of government, who don't want to fund or run a government,' Wintrow said. 'The agencies are suffering, and you've heard me say it twice on the floor now that we are taking cuts from all the budgets and especially the governor's initiatives in order to fund the tax cut.' JFAC Feb 23 letter SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE
Yahoo
05-03-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Idaho Senate passes bill to cut income taxes, reduce state revenue by $253 million
State senators listen to legislative proceedings from the Idaho Senate floor on Jan. 7, 2025. (Pat Sutphin for the Idaho Capital Sun) The Idaho Senate, in a 27-8 vote, passed a bill on Tuesday to cut Idaho's income tax rate, reducing state revenue by $253 million. House Bill 40, sponsored by Sen. Doug Ricks, R-Rexburg, would do three things to cut taxes in Idaho, including: Reduce income tax for individuals and corporations from 5.695% to 5.3%, costing $240 million annually; Expand the income tax exemption to military pensions, at a cost of $12 million; Eliminate capital gains tax for gold bullion sales, at a cost of $1 million. House Bill 40 is one of three bills introduced this legislative session to cut taxes, the Idaho Capital Sun previously reported. Other bills aimed to cut taxes include House Bill 61, which would increase the sales tax credit on groceries for Idaho taxpayers from $120 a year to $155, and House Bill 74 which would offer $100 million of property tax relief to Idahoans. If all three bills are passed into law, it would offer up to $403 million in reductions to state revenues, more than the $100 million in tax reductions Idaho Gov. Brad Little called for in his State of the State address at the start of the legislative session. Ricks said the bill would help Idaho families pay less in taxes, keep their money and ultimately stimulate the economy. But opponents criticized it as irresponsible under times of economic uncertainty nationwide. The Idaho Senate voted largely along party lines to advance the bill. Sen. Melissa Wintrow, D-Boise, was the first to speak against the bill. She said the bill is 'irresponsible,' and would betray working families in a time of economic uncertainty. 'Here we go, chopping off this revenue (when) we couldn't even pay our employees,' Wintrow said, recalling that it took weeks for legislators to agree on a pay raise rate for state employees. 'We thought about it for weeks and then we gave them a buck to a buck 55. When they see that, how are they going to feel?' Wintrow cited a study from the nonpartisan Idaho Center for Fiscal Policy, which said an Idaho family earning between $55,000 and $91,000 would expect to see a tax break of about $127 under House Bill 40. Idaho Gov. Brad Little concerned about magnitude of tax cuts that reduce state revenue 'I don't know last time you went to the grocery, but I could barely get out with $127,' Wintrow said. Sen. Jim Guthrie, R-McCammon, was one of two Republicans to vote against the bill — the other being Sen. Jim Woodward, R-Sagle. While Guthrie said he supports tax cuts, House Bill 40 does not meet his requirements for balance and fairness. 'We are in some unique times that carry with them some incredible unknown. We must think beyond today,' Guthrie told the floor, noting the federal government has aggressively cut federal employees, federal programs and implemented significant tariffs on countries including Mexico, Canada and China. 'I'm not here to say that the actions at the federal level are a good or bad thing, and what kind of effect it'll have on our economy,' Guthrie said. 'Who knows? But the point is, we are in uncertain times.' In response to concerns about an economic recession, legislators supporting the bill said letting Idahoans keep money would boost the economy. 'If there are hard economic times for the people of Idaho, the best thing this body can do is cut as many taxes and fees as possible,' freshman Sen. Joshua Kohl, R-Twin Falls, said. House Bill 40 already passed the Idaho House of Representatives in a 63-7 vote. It now heads to Gov. Brad Little's desk, who can sign it into law, allow it to pass without his signature or veto it. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX
Yahoo
04-03-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
Bill requiring Idaho Legislature's approval to expand public assistance programs advances to Senate
The Idaho State Capitol building in Boise as seen on Jan. 11, 2023. (Otto Kitsinger for Idaho Capital Sun) A bill to require approval from the Idaho Legislature to expand eligibility for public assistance programs is headed to the Idaho Senate — one of its last legislative hurdles before potentially becoming law. House Bill 90 would require legislative approval through passed laws, called statutes, to expand eligibility criteria or benefits for public assistance programs — which are largely run by the Idaho Department of Health and Welfare. The Idaho House already widely passed the bill last month, with only two votes against it. The bill is cosponsored by House Health and Welfare Committee Chairman John Vander Woude, R-Nampa, and Sen. Brian Lenney, R-Nampa. Presenting the bill to the Senate Health and Welfare Committee on Monday, Lenney said at a high level, the bill ensures Health and Welfare doesn't decide on policies that can impact the budget — while the Legislature isn't in session. He referenced Health and Welfare's decision in August 2024 to pause new enrollments in the Idaho Child Care Program until January, as the agency projected a $15.5 million budget deficit, the Idaho Capital Sun previously reported. Since 2011, the agency changed the program's income eligibility level for families twice, Department of Health and Welfare Director Alex Adams told the leaders of the Legislature's budget committee last year. 'This is a bill that addresses bureaucrats behaving badly,' Lenney told the committee. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX The bill would repeal language in Idaho law that required statutory approval for changes that amount to 'any change in financial' eligibility criteria, expanding the law's language to 'any change that would expand eligibility criteria' or benefits for public assistance programs. The committee advanced the bill to the full Senate. It could go up for a Senate vote in the coming days. Senate Minority Leader Melissa Wintrow, D-Boise, voted against the bill in the Senate committee Monday. But she said she might support the bill later. 'I was on the committee and remember the conversation distinctly that the department did present with their estimates, and we as a group voted to support that rule. Because, and I believe one of the things we said was, … if we could help more people we should,' Wintrow said in committee. Generally, Idaho agency administrative rules — which are subject to legislative approval — are easier to change than state laws. Wintrow said she has supported recent moves by the Idaho Legislature to convert rules into laws, but she said she's starting to question the impact of that practice. 'What are the cons to this? What have we not seen or thought about in the future that we could have some misgivings about?' Wintrow rhetorically asked. Expanding on language already in Idaho law that says eligibility changes can't be made in agency rules, the bill would add new language specifying that eligibility changes can't be made through state plans, state plan amendments, agency guidance or other documents. In a text message, Lenney told the Sun that Health and Welfare had made several other program changes to the Idaho Child Care Program through those mechanisms. 'Beyond childcare we have like 10-15 welfare programs that are primarily spelled out in state plan or rule — food stamps, heating bill assistance, weatherization assistance, cash assistance, etc — and this ensures what happened at childcare doesn't happen in any other state program,' he told the Sun. If the bill passes the Idaho Senate, Idaho Gov. Brad Little has three options: He could sign it, allow it to become law without his signature, or veto it. If passed, the bill would become law July 1. SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE
