Sometimes in life timing is everything and it seems like the stars line up. Other times not so much. I have been working for quite some time on a piece of legislation to change the date of the primary election from May to August. The Primary election was held in August before Idaho decided to join in a presidential primary. And now that the political parties will be caucusing to choose their nominees, there is no longer a need for the presidential candidates to appear on the primary ballot, it seemed like a good idea to move the election back to August.

Little did I know that the Supreme Court was about to dispense with the redistricting plan that was adopted by the Redistricting Commission. You can call it foresight, or just plain luck or even coincidence but the agenda for introducing the legislation was in place before I had any idea the court was about to rule. With the commission having to come up with a plan that will pass constitutional muster, the counties will have a tough time complying with the May primary date and to get everything in place for the election. At this moment, legislative candidates don’t know what district they might be in and the filing date is about a month away. Needless to say the bill, House Bill 392 has already stirred things up and everyone has an opinion.

We don’t seem to lack for controversy, even this early in the session. A bill introduced in State affairs twice this week, is scheduled for a hearing to make it unlawful to camp on the Capital Mall or around any other state owned building. There is a group that has tents around the old Ada County Courthouse that is across the street from the capital. We took some testimony from some “occupiers or 99 per centers” as they call themselves. One of the committee members asked a BSU student who spoke before the committee, what event would cause them to be satisfied so they would disband on their own. The fellow stammered a bunch but was unable to come up with an answer. Is it good idea to pass a bill that in effect would evict them from the property? From a PR perspective, probably not. One thing for sure is that there will be no shortage of press coverage on this one and some of us are feeling like this is not a winner no matter how we vote.

Joint Finance is still hearing from agencies and their wish lists, that are in competition for the state’s resources. Committees are dealing with the rules that have come forward since last session. Two years ago we put a resolution in place in an attempt to better define what would constitute a reason for new rules and to try to curb the explosive growth in rules from the agencies. For the last two years we have seen fewer rules instead of more. That’s a good thing and we continue to be optimistic that we will see the cost of this process reduced. I think we can count that as a success. Again, maybe that is due to the stars lining up, or good luck or even coincidence. I’d rather call it success because of the efforts of a citizen of this state, who brought the idea to us.

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After being in session for two days this year one of my colleagues told me it felt like we had been in session for two weeks already. I’m not sure what that says about how things went this week, but I would say that that the interim seemed to me like it went by rapidly.

I get asked a lot about what to expect this year, and if the first few days are an indication of what is to come, it won’t be dull by any means. Governor Otter didn’t hesitate to declare that we have weathered the storm and predicted almost a six percent increase in revenues but only wants to spend about five percent of that. I have been told that our forecasting committee is not quite so optimistic. The State of the State message was brief this year and he did not give many specifics for his budget requests.

The minority party has wasted no time posturing on several issues but the most drastic is a sales tax bill to increase revenues by a mere 400 million dollars. It would reduce the sales tax rate to five percent but would eliminate a list of exemptions. I haven’t had time to go through the specifics yet but the most glaring is that when you buy a new or used car you would be taxed on the gross sales price with no allowance for your trade in. It doesn’t leave much to the imagination to see what that would do to auto sales.

Then the bill goes after nine categories of services, professional, (attorneys, accountants, etc.) personal, (beauticians, barbers, house cleaning, etc.) business, construction, (building a house, repairing your house, etc.) and repairs of all kinds including getting your car fixed. The list is too long to go through here so I would suggest you take a look at the statement of purpose for House Bill 345 and let your imagination wander. And most amazing of all is that they think they will be taxing a whole new group of folks. But in reality it is you, the consumer, the ones who buy this stuff who would be footing the bill. Our housing industry is still in the tank and there is thought that this would help things by increasing the cost? I guess I don’t quite catch the vision of how this would help the taxpayers.

Another topic that will be debated extensively will be the Health Insurance Exchanges. Every state has been told that if we do not have an exchange in place, the federal government will set it up for us and we will pay the costs. The two schools of thought on this matter are that it would be better to have a state program than a federal one and we would pay the costs, and if federal government sets it up for us, we will be required to do what we are told to do and we will pay the costs. Looks like we get soaked either way. Oh, I almost forgot. If the plan we come up with on our own is not acceptable to the federal government, they will require us to fix it to their liking and we will pay the costs. Confused yet? I’m sure you can see how much debate this will generate.

So it looks to be another busy session with a dab of controversy mixed in. My only hope is the session goes by as quickly as the interim seemed to escape. We’d be done in record time. What a dreamer I am.

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I’ve been trying to come up with a way to describe the 2011 session of the legislature. I have decided to leave the discussion of how well we did to others, and I know you will be hearing plenty of negative comments and self praise from those directly involved. I’ll try to stay away from that.

It was the most difficult session of all the time I have observed there. To say that there was a lot that went on behind the scenes would be an understatement. It’s hard to describe the new process of legislating in Idaho. Part of that has come because of the culture change that has occurred because of the renovating of the capital. We used to run across each other quite frequently and now in order to talk to someone you have to search hard to find them. I don’t know whether that’s good or bad but I can tell you that it has changed the way we deal with each other and how we talk about the issues.

We passed a lot of legislation, some good and some not so good. The variety of topics is the largest I remember and those matters were more difficult to deal with than ever before. The numbers of people coming to the capital was remarkable. It seemed more like a pressure cooker at times than an honest discussion of the issues. It was a time of attempted political maneuvering coupled with parliamentary wrangling. The last two weeks of any session are tense but these last two weeks are sure to go down as a record for rancor. Most of the time we are able to overcome some of the problems in the place with a little bit of humor, in an effort to not take ourselves quite so seriously. During the final meeting in State Affairs the other day in an effort to lighten the mood a bit I made a comment that didn’t receive even a smile from anyone in attendance. Smiles were hard to come by at the end of this session.

You may ask, what took so much time? Here’s a short list of the things we talked about: Primary election law, video services act, horseracing, conscience law, fetal pain, concealed weapons, nullification of national health care, legislative legal services, wind moratorium, wind siting, just to name a few. And that’s just a partial list of the matters we dealt with in the State Affairs Committee in the House.

Then there was Health and Welfare with the most prominent topic there being Medicaid reworking and how services will be delivered in the future. Also in Health and Welfare a two-day discussion took place on medical marijuana. Then, there was education with a multitude of bills, the effect of which will not be known for quite some time. I don’t want to leave out all of the talk surrounding a potential cigarette tax increase, wind turbine sales tax rebate, or the taxing of Internet sales.

Now that it’s over my Duramax will get a little rest, with emphasis on little. Sitting on the house floor the last day of the session I composed this little ditty as a very brief synopsis of the session.

As Sessions Come, Sessions Go

We came to the capital with a flurry of snow
With hopes that debate would warm winter air.
Though the heat came about as the winds of time blow,
In spite of Spring coming the weather’s not fair.

So now the time comes for the process to end
And we get back to things of tractor, rake and a hoe.
The weather outside has not made much of a bend
And it looks like we’ll get home with a flurry of snow.

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Late one afternoon during the week several of us in the House were sitting around the desk of Representative Bateman from Idaho Falls. He was in the House long ago and has come back this year after a 20+ year absence. He was reminiscing over some of the crazy things they used to do in the House. Some things may not have been crazy but the parliamentary maneuvering in those days seemed to be quite different than it is now. He told us about some of the old-timers who really knew the process and how it worked best.

One of the things that has been used effectively over time is reading the bills at length on the House floor. Starting on Wednesday the minority party decided to have us read bills because of a couple of issues that they want to have discussed around this place. Neither of the measures that they seek have enough votes to come out of committee. We read a lot of bills the last three days of the week but one of them was of particular interest. The bill was one updating some provisions of the sex offender law. I was talking to one of the attorneys around here about the sad nature of having such graphic terms in state law. The bill is about 28 pages long and the reading of all those terms being broadcast over the Internet did not seem appropriate. One gentleman of the majority party finally stood and pleaded with the minority to stop sending all that kind of language out over the airwaves. They finally relented.

In spite of reading bills we made some fairly good progress in clearing off our third reading calendar in the House. It took some long days to accomplish. Another bill that was read at length on the floor was the third piece of the education “reform” effort. I studied the matter at length and there are several things in the bill that I don’t like. The most glaring problem that I see in the legislation is that the money for “mobile computing devices” comes from the top of the appropriation for schools. Another part of that formula would be taking the merit pay for teachers off the top as well. What that means is that after those things are taken out of the budget to begin with, only what is left can be used by the school districts at their discretion.

Some districts, like Westside School District, who have already made great strides in using technology in the classroom could be penalized. If I read the legislation correctly, if they are unable to utilize the funding for things that they already have in place, they would lose those funds. The school districts like to call that the use it or lose it method. There are so many other things that come from the top of the appropriation that I think it punishes those districts who have already used their initiative in developing technological advances in their classrooms. I voted no. Representative Bateman gave the best debate of the day. He said that the use of technology in the classroom was already well underway in Idaho. “You can’t stop the advance of technology in the classroom anymore than you can use a pitchfork to stop the tides of the ocean,” is how he put it.

We still have a few budget bills left to pass and some other issues that remain bottled up in one place or another in the process. But if all goes well this could be our last week for this session. That of course is assuming that we don’t get any of those 50 page bills to read at length in the House. At least we’re getting in some reading practice.

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I was thinking just the other day that I wondered where February had gone. Now March is almost at an end. I’m very much relieved that spring has finally arrived and I guess that’s why we in Bone were snowed in on Sunday morning for one of the two times this entire winter. It seems that winter just won’t let us out of its grasp. That’s kind of how it seems here in the Statehouse, that the session still has us in its firm grasp. We’re working very hard to wrap things up, but it’s going to take another couple of weeks.

Now that all of the population numbers are out, there is a lot more talk about the redistricting process that will begin shortly. Several people have asked me who I think will be on the redistricting commission and at this point I have to say that I don’t know. It won’t be long before the computer programs will be available for the process. I have been told that every legislator will have access to the program so that it can be used as a resource for our people at home to draw lines. I know that I will be spending a lot of time after the session ends this year, providing input so that our district will be treated fairly this time around.

The joint finance and Appropriations Committee has just about finished its work for the year. About the only budget left to set is for education. The third piece of “School Reform” has now passed the Senate and will shortly be considered in the House. My e-mail box is overflowing and I have had a lot of concerned folks expressing their wishes on the matter.

One from a parent in our district caught my eye last week. This mother said that she had no idea how anyone could think that a computer could replace a teacher. I am reminded of when computers were fairly new on the scene and I thought at the time just how much work they would save. What I found out was that the workload really didn’t decrease because of computers, but it did make the information more detailed and organized and faster to process. To this day I’m not sure that computers save me much work. My computer is like every other tool that I have, it only works when I do.

We still have several pieces of legislation to consider in the House State Affairs Committee. I don’t suppose that the world would stop turning if we somehow didn’t get to some of the stuff, but I have learned over the years that these issues are important to somebody. I am hoping that the most major of the issues have now been considered and dispatched.

Maybe this last couple of weeks we won’t see some of the big items like wind generation and concealed weapons permits. I hear there’s another one of those texting while driving bills out there. And then there is another little “noncontroversial” item called party registration. The session definitely does have us in its grasp but I’m optimistic that we will get it to relax soon. On Saturday I actually saw some dry ground around the farm, only to have it covered with 2 inches of new snow Sunday morning. We are never short of variety. I just love Idaho, I really do.

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I decided that it was time to get another haircut. As luck would have it the same person that cut my hair the last time was there again that evening. She remembered me from my previous visit and said that since that time she had decided to get a little bit more involved in what is going on in the legislature. She was a good sport about my having told her comments to my colleagues and had written about them in a previous article. She told me that she’d become more aware of what was going on with the education bills and what her friends had been telling her about the issue. Then she told me that she had encouraged her sister to get involved in politics. I asked her why that was. She said, “I told my sister that she would be perfect for politics because she liked to be the boss of everyone and she thinks she knows what is best for everybody.” I guess that pretty well describes what a lot of people think about politicians. When I told this little item to several other legislators they merely laughed and said, “Yeah, that pretty well fits.”

The revised Medicaid bill came before Health and Welfare and most of the concerned parties are more comfortable with the changes that are being made. That bill went before the house later in the week and passed pretty handily. The passage of the legislation clears the way for the Department of Health and Welfare budget to proceed. This is the first time I can remember that policy for the dispersal of money for these programs has come from a germane committee. Most of years, in the recent past at least, those policies have been spelled out as intent language in the appropriations bills.

It’s interesting to see that so many difficult issues have accumulated themselves into one session of the legislature. Wind energy has been a topic that has been discussed at length throughout the last week. There are a lot of unknowns at this point and many are desiring to have a timeout and study what the overall effects of wind will be on power rates among other things. During all of the discussion with Rocky Mountain power and the Public Utilities Commission, we have learned that one of the major factors in the granting of a rate increase came from the incorporation of wind energy onto their system.

Legislation has been introduced and we are currently hearing a bill that will provide for a moratorium on new wind projects for two years so that our interim energy committee can look into how it affects Idaho ratepayers and our citizens around whom these projects are being located. There’s a lot of resistance to having a moratorium but in this case I think it is warranted to have an in-depth look at how wind energy affects Idaho.

Two of the education bills have been signed into law and it will be interesting to see what the long-term effects of that legislation will be. Very few of us in the house have had much of an opportunity to look at what is contained in the third education bill that was crafted in a Senate committee during this last week. I’m sure there will be lengthy hearings on this bill as there were on the previous two.

During our early Monday morning meeting of the house state affairs committee I noticed that the wife of one of the members had dozed off in the back of the room. I made a comment to my colleague and tried to tease him about keeping his wife up too late at night. He and his wife told me the story later. They arrived in Boise late Sunday evening and before retiring, while his wife was in another room, he set the clock forward an hour. When she came back he left the room for a few minutes and not knowing that he had already set the clock, set the clock forward another hour. That made for a very short night’s sleep. Daylight savings time strikes again.

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Sometimes in life things seem to come full circle. I’ve seen the Legislature respond to problems and put solutions in place only to find out later that the changes made either haven’t worked or have created new problems. So in an effort to fix those things we tend to go right back to where we started.

A case in point is the reworking of the Medicaid law. Over the years the Legislature has put things in place to make it plain how programs would be reimbursed, how certain populations would be eligible for the programs, and other provisions that have sprung out of years of confusing rule-making by the Department of Health and Welfare. There were, of course, good reasons for having done that but one of those reasons was not necessarily to save money.

On Tuesday afternoon we had a very large group of people assemble outside the auditorium where there was a joint House and Senate Health and Welfare Committee having a hearing about proposed cuts to Medicaid. It was one of those marathon meetings of which I have attended many. Out of that meeting and in conjunction with negotiations that were taking place behind the scenes, many changes were put into the legislation. On Thursday, one of those things that most folks say is difficult to observe (and some folks say is dangerous) was the writing of legislation by committee. The outcome takes us full circle putting us in exactly the same place we were several years ago. Most of the changes allow the department to make changes by rule rather than having it done by statute.

What was even more interesting about this process was that most people who are concerned with the cuts seem to be pleased with what was done. One of the areas most carefully considered was how the trimming of Medicaid will affect the developmentally disabled. Most around the table thought that we had at least addressed the majority of the concerns. Time will tell.

By now I’m sure that you’ve heard about House Bill 222 which would allow for concealed carry permitted individuals to carry weapons on college campuses. The discussion on that bill spilled over into two days, which is something I had not anticipated. The bill was sent to the floor of the house for further discussion and that too will be a lively one on the house floor. One of the issues that came up in the committee, was just how many law-abiding permit holders already take weapons onto campuses not knowing there are policies in place from the Universities that would prevent them from doing so. Even more alarming is that those folks who do not have concealed weapons permits are also carrying weapons on the campuses. It will be interesting to see how the vote comes out in the house.

We are moving full steam ahead at this point with several budget bills on the agenda for the coming week. The challenge now is to consider all of the house legislation and get it sent to the Senate and then getting all those Senate bills passed (or not) so that we can go home. In the western part of the state the ground is bare which is nowhere near what it looks like in our part of the world. I was commenting to Linda over the weekend that it seems like the weather has tipped over just a bit and that spring just might get here soon. Hold that thought, it’s still freezing every night and the ground is covered with snow.

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President Dwight D. Eisenhower said once that,” Farming looks mighty easy when your plow is a pencil and you’re a thousand miles from the cornfield.” And that’s how it is around these halls. It may look easy from a distance but it seldom is.

We crossed the first hurdle last week by passing the first appropriations bill that pays for fire suppression for the past year. It’s normal for us to start with the small budgets and finish with the big stuff. There are a couple of pieces of the puzzle that have to clear hurdles in the legislature before some of those large budgets can be set.

Last week saw the introduction of what we are calling the Medicaid bill. A lot of what is contained in this legislation are corrections that are needed in order to make the budget work this year. I’ve requested that we be furnished with how the changes will affect each program and discuss the number of people that will be involved in those changes. The reductions that are contained in this legislation affect the lives of real people. Those kinds of decisions are never easy.

It’s always good to get home and it was especially good this weekend as Linda and I traveled to Montpelier for the annual Lincoln Day celebration. In addition to the festivities superintendent Luna met with teachers, students, and parents in an effort to explain the education reform bills that are making their way through the legislature. As meetings go I thought it was very productive and was happy for the opportunity to sit and visit with a lot of the concerned parties about this issue. The best comment came from a parent who said that her concern was that there has not been enough emphasis placed on the family’s role in education.

We are always looking for the magic bullet, one that will solve all of our problems. I don’t know about you but my experience tells me there are no magic bullets, at least I have not been able to find many. Some of our problems are too large for the feds or the state or even the communities to solve. Real solutions to education will come best from families.

Sometimes to my own downfall I tend to look at the world in simple terms. Life has become very complicated. President Eisenhower got it right. Very few things are as easy as they seem, especially from a distance.

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I’ll bet you’ve seen the posters around some businesses that come from a website called despair.com. I’ve rather enjoyed some of the sayings over the years and one that I ran across this last week has to do with what is happening right now in the legislature. The one I am talking about is a picture of a tornado and the title of it is Change. It goes like this. “When the winds of change blow hard enough, the most trivial of things can turn into deadly projectiles.” What we are experiencing here with the debate on education is certainly not trivial, but as we know the little details of things seem to become projectiles at some time or other.

We as human beings tend to resist change with everything we have. It may be just because we have some fear of the unknown or that we just have a hard time getting our arms around a new concept. There is a lot of resistance around this place mostly from outside, from various groups that hate to see change occur in the way we educate students. I suppose I’m one of those who likes to be an innovator and I can’t blame Superintendent Luna for trying to bring about change. New methods are worth exploring and if all of the dire reports about how we are doing in education in Idaho have any validity, we definitely do need to do something. I’m just not sure that this plan is the something we need to do. Everywhere I went over the weekend I was asked about the “Luna” plan.

At the first of the week we had the young 4-H kids from our area come for the annual Know Your Government conference. It was a pleasure to sit with kids from our area and one of the first things they asked about was the new plan for education. I turned the tables on them and asked what they thought of Superintendent Luna’s program. To a person they said that they didn’t like the idea and had some concrete reasons why they didn’t think it was good. I told him that I thought they were very fortunate to live in the times they do, when they have access to so much information and the ability to learn so much from the resources they have. I asked them if they would be willing to help in the design of the next generation of learning in the classroom. They indicated a willingness to do so. I am impressed with the quality of kids that we have and that they are able to figure out ways of doing things that we in the older generation haven’t dreamed of.

There is one thing that I know for sure and that is that I do not have all the answers. What I would like to see us do at this point is to take a deep breath, step back and try to get buy-in over this next year into programs that teachers, administrators, students, and parents can help implement. I really think that’s the only way that education reform can happen with any degree of success.

Several years ago while meeting with teachers, I told them that I would be willing to meet with them anytime to discuss education and some of the problems that they face. That invitation is still extended. All good ideas take time to develop and to implement correctly. We mandate too much from the legislature, demanding things that do not improve education that just cost money. We need to stop mandating and this is the right year to start.

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While I was growing up, it used to drive me crazy to hear some of the older generation talk about how good things used to be in days gone by. It must be my age, but I catch myself looking back to times that seemed to be less complicated. It reminds me a bit of when the phone line was put into Bone. I could tell that the contractor who was laying the cable came from a small town where there was little traffic. Whenever he would stop to check on his employees, he would stop right in the middle of the road with no thought of the heavy traffic that was going by. Since then I have often envied someone who could deal with things in a simple manner.

That doesn’t seem to be the way things are going around the Statehouse these days. The issues seem to be getting tougher and the hearings in the committees are longer and more complicated. Again this week it was necessary in the House State Affairs Committee to continue a hearing for a second day. The issues were concerning union activities and after a long discussion the two bills were sent to the House floor. My hat is off to the good people of Idaho who have been coming to these committee meetings these last weeks in a calm yet passionate manner.

Being busy around this place is a very large understatement. The other day I was trying to catch up on answering some of my e-mail. It seemed like for each one I opened and read and answered two more would pop up on my screen. Floor debate on two bills, one that has been called nullification, and the other having to do with peace officers and Indian tribes each took a full day. The first bill passed the House (I voted yes) and the second failed to pass (I voted no).

There is an old saying, “May you live in interesting times,” that was once thought to be a blessing but actually was given as a curse attributable to the Chinese. I can’t help but think that it does apply to us one way or the other depending on your point of view. We definitely do live in interesting times, and I can’t help but think after seeing some of the things that have happened over the weekend in other parts of the country, that we are fortunate once again to live in Idaho. While we are definitely having our own budget crisis this year, it is not nearly the magnitude it is in other states. I think a lot of legislators are looking for a magic bullet, but there is nothing on the horizon that looks magical at all. As my mother used to say, “The only way out of this, is through it.”

The budget committee hearings are pretty much at an end and that means that once a budget number is reached that the budgets will soon be set by the committee. If all goes well, and no one knows if it will, it gives the signal that there is about a month left for the work of the legislature this year. So keep your fingers crossed. I know I will.