Short session, long shadow

BOISE (AP) - The 2010 Legislature was a short session that will cast a long shadow.

It lasted just 78 days, a third shorter than the marathon 117-day slog of a year earlier. Still, the actions that accompanied the main task of making up a $200 million budget deficit in fiscal year 2010 will have far reaching consequences on people's lives, in profound and subtle ways.

It's the first time in history, lawmakers said, that the overall public education budget fell from the previous year.

Teachers across Idaho may see lower pay, fewer classroom supplies and a dearth of field trips as lawmakers cut the budget by 7.5 percent, or $128 million. Gov. Butch Otter lamented the cuts, as did GOP lawmakers, but said they had no choice, given schools make up nearly half of annual state spending. Administrators will take 6.5 percent pay cuts, too.

"It's been the economy that has gotten us to this point," said Rep. Bob Nonini, R-Coeur d'Alene and the House Education Committee chairman. "The economy is the enemy."

Schools aren't the only victims.

Recipients of Medicaid, the big federal-state health insurance program for the poor and disabled, should also expect to bear the weight of austerity measures. Hospitals and nursing homes will suffer this year, as the state withholds a total of $135 million in state and federal payments to providers until after July 1.

Meanwhile, Idaho passed a law requiring Idaho to sue the federal government over any health insurance mandates.

Late in the session, Attorney General Lawrence Wasden followed through, joining 12 other states suing in federal court in Florida after Congress and President Barack Obama passed an overhaul that, if it holds, would require Idaho residents to purchase insurance coverage by 2014.

"The people of Idaho, not unlike the people of other states, are gravely concerned about the overreach of the federal government," said House Majority Caucus Chair Ken Roberts, R-Donnelly.

Democrats, who make up less than a quarter of the 105-lawmaker Legislature, notched a few victories. They joined Republicans in the Senate who refused to block a 1 percent increase in pension payments for state government retirees in a mid-session battle with GOP House members. Still, they spent most of the session incensed by the idea of suing the federal government, something Wasden conceded won't be cheap.

"The only jobs bills we have are for lawyers," said House Minority Leader John Rusche, D-Lewiston, summing up the session for his colleagues.

Rusche's compatriots complained Idaho is missing out on revenue by not hiring more tax auditors. They lamented Idaho's refusal to join a nationwide push to tax Internet sales to expand its revenue base. They said Idaho Republicans, starting with a vote in 2006 to take school maintenance and operations funding off the property tax rolls, had made decisions that left the state less capable of weathering the budget crisis.

"We wouldn't have had to starve the budget to the extent we are," said Rep. Shirley Ringo, D-Moscow.

Still, a look at surrounding states shows Idaho's budget woes could have been more dire.

Idaho's total $2.35 billion final budget for fiscal year 2010 was less than the $2.8 billion budget deficit of Washington state. Don't even mention California, which has a $20 billion deficit through mid-2011.

Lawmakers from the GOP insist Idaho, with its modest size and willingness to cut costs rather than raise taxes like residents of next-door Oregon, is poised to emerge from the deepest recession in decades perhaps better than its neighbors. Still, the cutting has taken its toll, said Senate President Pro Tem Bob Geddes, R-Soda Springs. Legislators finished Monday exhausted, beaten.

"It proved to me how much more difficult it is to subtract than it is to add," Geddes said.

Here are some of the highlights - and maybe lowlights, depending on perspective - from the 2010 session. Of the bills that passed, Otter hasn't signed all of them into law yet.

VOTER ID: Idaho voters come November must show a photo ID to cast their ballots, just like they do in seven other states. Republicans concerned about voter fraud have been pushing this for years.

POLITICAL PARTY CHECKOFF: The House and Senate voted overwhelmingly to dump a provision that's allowed Idaho residents since 1976 to donate a buck of their taxes to their favorite political party. They decided the roughly $35,000 raised annually should go to the state general fund, not to campaigns.

- GAMBLING POOLS - A law dating to Idaho Territory days that required law enforcement agents to pursue all instances of gambling was dumped, making Friday-night poker all-stars and football-pool addicts a little safer from prosecution.

- PERSI PAYMENTS: Lawmakers voted to ban sweetheart pension deals like the one Gov. Otter's staff gave the outgoing human resources director in 2009. Otter agreed during the 2010 session that ending the practice made sense when other state employees were facing furloughs or losing their jobs.

- HOUSE, SENATE PERSI STANDOFF: Senators refused to block a 1 percent pension increase for government retirees and teachers in what became a mid-session standoff between the two chambers. The Republican-led House wanted to freeze the payments, on concern the pension fund has been buffeted by poor stock market returns and needed to conserve resources.

- HEALTH-CARE CONSCIENCE: Health care workers got the right to refuse to give care they find morally objectionable, under a bill aiming to shield nurses and pharmacists opposed to providing treatment for end-of-life care, abortions, emergency contraception and stem-cell therapy. Otter didn't sign the bill, instead letting it go into law without his endorsement.

- TRIBAL POLICING CONFLICT: The Coeur d'Alene Tribe came to lawmakers asking for the power to arrest non-tribal members on the reservation after a standoff with Benewah County Sheriff. Lawmakers gave the tribe and sheriff a week to work things out. The sheriff agreed to a compromise with the tribe, which said it has been powerless to go after drug dealers, domestic abusers and drunken drivers without arrest rights since a similar agreement collapsed in 2007.

- STATUTORY RAPE: Young men who have consensual sex with their 16- or 17-year-old partners will avoid tough penalties under a measure backed by Sen. Brent Hill, a Rexburg Republican who says Idaho's rape laws are now ruining some people's lives by forcing them to serve prison time and register as sex offenders for youthful indiscretions.

- CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENTS: Voters in November will consider three constitutional amendments aimed at helping local governments finance their public hospital operations and expand airport infrastructure without a vote, provided no taxpayer money goes to pay off the debt. Some activists complain the airport and hospital measures skirt the state Constitution's anti-debt provisions.

- DRUG PRISON: First, Idaho lawmakers and Otter said there was no money to staff a new $50 million drug treatment prison amid the budget crunch. But a week later, in mid-March, they announced they'd come up with a way to pinch pennies to open the 432-bed drug treatment prison starting July 1.

- IMMUNIZATION REMINDERS: Health officials hope to improve the state's 66 percent immunization rate for kids 19- to 35-months-old with a revamped reminder system for childhood immunizations. The House still insisted on changes emphasizing that shots are voluntary, a shout-out to parents who object to immunizations.

- CONCUSSION CONFLICT: A plan to help educate coaches, parents and teen athletes about the risks of head injuries cleared the House and Senate, but it wasn't everything its Democratic sponsors wanted. Rep. Liz Chavez, D-Lewiston, lamented that provisions requiring injured players be removed from games or practices and checked out by doctors were stripped from the bill.

- FIREARMS FREEDOM: The House and Senate Republicans passed northern Idaho Republican Rep. Dick Harwood's bill that would allow Idaho to sue the federal government over its authority to regulate firearms made and sold in-state is facing questions from lawmakers concerned about legal costs. It's similar to measures passed in Montana and Tennessee.