IDAHO RECEIVES $6 MILLION EARLY CHILDHOOD GRANT
Idaho was notified in early January that we were receiving $6 million over a three-year period to build partnerships between educators, and community business partners for early learning opportunities. This grant will help Idaho work towards “building a mixed-delivery system for parents with young children,” according to a joint release in January from the State Board of Education and the Association for the Education of Young Children. The goal is to connect early childhood programs throughout our local communities in partnerships to improve school readiness throughout our local communities. We are so thankful for our partners throughout Idaho who are working collaboratively on this project.
CITIZEN INITIATIVES
On Friday, the Senate State Affairs Committee printed SB1110, which would require signatures of at least 6% of qualified electors in EACH of the 35 Idaho legislative districts for citizen driven ballot initiative or referendum petitions. Current law requires 6% of qualified electors statewide, as of the last general election, but within that, 6% must come from 18 of the 35 legislative districts. SB1110 will ultimately eliminate the ability of citizens to bring forth legislation. It also includes an emergency clause making it go into effect immediately if passed.
BALLOT TRANSPORT
On Thursday, the House moved HB88, the anti-“ballot harvesting bill,” back to the amending order after numerous representatives from both sides spoke out against it. The bill would make it a felony to “collect or convey” other people’s signed ballots. This means a family member going to the post office could only mail theirs and one other family member’s ballot. Many families know that the reality is when going to town you are efficient and send all the mail. Unfortunately, families greater than two who drop off all family member’s ballots would be guilty of a felony if this passed. Additionally, anyone attempting to assist homebound individuals or those who are in assisted living facilities by dropping off their ballots would be guilty of a felony as well.
LOSS OF LOCAL CONTROL
On Tuesday the house received an Idaho Attorney General's opinion on HB90, the “monument protection” bill, which passed the House and now is pending in the Senate State Affairs committee. The opinion found, “This bill's procedure for approving and denying the mandated requests, legislative concurrent resolutions, likely has no legal effect and is therefore unenforceable.” In addition, the attorney general’s office wrote, “Further, given the lack of definition of certain terms, HB 90 may implicate First Amendment concerns.” The bill requires legislative permission, through a concurrent resolution, any time any local government wants to change the name of a street, school or park that currently has a historical name. In addition to having to find a place to put the replaced item in public.
MEDICAL CANNABIS
In the House, a bipartisan bill, HB108, to legalize medical cannabis was introduced last week. The legislation was written by Ret. Senior Master Sgt. Jeremy Kitzhaber, who is terminally ill with Stage 4 cancer (hear his story here). Idaho is the only Veteran's Administration Hospital in the nation not allowed to use some form of medical cannabis. This is a very limited scope bill, that would only allow specific diagnoses which are listed in the legislation to be able to obtain a prescription for medical cannabis.
Additionally, it penalizes anyone caught giving away or selling their medical cannabis. It aims to help those who would greatly benefit from medical cannabis, while not opening the door to full legalization, which many in the legislature and the state are opposed to. House Health and Welfare Committee Chairman Wood is willing to hear the bill if enough Republicans on the committee are in support AND if Chairman Martin, of the Senate Health and Welfare Committee agrees to hear the bill. So, if you are in support of Idaho legalizing medical cannabis for those who would benefit from it, please consider emailing both the House and Senate Health and Welfare Committees.
You can send emails to the committee secretaries and ask them to share with the committee members. Those emails are:
House Health and Welfare Committee: hhel@house.idaho.gov
Senate Health and Welfare Committee: shel@senate.idaho.gov
SJR101, the proposed Constitutional Amendment to ban all forms of drugs in Idaho is still being held in the House State Affairs Committee, after passing out of the Senate. If you are opposed to this prospective bill, please email the House State Affairs Committee at: hstaf@house.idaho.gov
COVID-19 VACCINE UPDATE
Idaho now has a public dashboard dedicated to providing transparent information about our vaccine roll-out. As of last week, South Central Public Health District has the best percentage of vaccines administered out of those distributed. Unfortunately, only 70 percent of vaccines in hand have been administered; the rest is unused, sitting with providers.
Idaho continues to vaccinate those 65 and over, along with healthcare and essential workers.
For information about when and where you can be vaccinated, please visit the South Central Public Health District's Covid-19 vaccine information webpage. Additionally, Vaccinate the 208 has information in Spanish.
Unfortunately, scammers are trying to take advantage of the vaccine situation. Please be aware that private individuals do not have the vaccine for sale.
HOUSE HAPPENINGS
The House Agriculture Committee voted unanimously this week to introduce new legislation, HB126, brought forth by the Idaho Farm Bureau, to legalize industrial hemp in Idaho, for production, processing, transportation, and research.
The House rejected HB53 to end the requirement that government agencies in Idaho publish official notices in the newspaper. The bill would have allowed all government agencies in Idaho to just post the notices on their own websites instead.
The House also voted 55-15 in favor of HCR5, a resolution aimed at declaring “null, void and of no force and effect” the governor’s 50-person guideline for public or private gatherings statewide due to the ongoing pandemic.
SENATE HAPPENINGS
JFAC members also voted 16-2 on Friday to authorize spending $24 million of the $58 million COVID-19 grant the state received for child care.
The Senate passed SB1017 in a 30-3 vote to update Idaho’s list of scheduled drugs to mirror the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration’s controlled substance scheduling and de-scheduling decisions in 2020. One of the changes included removing Epidiolex — non-psychoactive pharmaceutical drug developed by a British firm that is a pure form of CBD oil — from the current listing as a Schedule V drug in Idaho.
The Senate voted unanimously, 34-0, in favor of SB1041, legislation proposed by Idaho petroleum marketers and convenience stores to change Idaho’s price gouging law. This was done after a $1.5 million settlement that the state Attorney General’s office reached with three of Idaho’s largest fuel retailers in Idaho over prices charged during the COVID-19 pandemic.
