Election-year lawmaking

COEUR d’ALENE — As 2015 comes to a close, Idaho’s state legislators are gearing up for another round of election-year lawmaking.

The 2016 legislative session will get underway Jan. 11 in Boise.

Rep. Luke Malek, R-Coeur d’Alene, kicked things off last week with a town hall meeting to discuss what he sees coming during the next session. “I think the top issue for everyone this legislative session is education,” Malek told a crowd of 60-plus constituents at the meeting held Wednesday at Coeur d’Alene Fire Department Station No. 3. Malek said he expects to see bills that are focused on school choice, or alternatives to public education. Rep. Ron Mendive, R-Post Falls, agrees. “I know there are a number of us looking at education savings accounts,” Mendive said, explaining how the state of Nevada passed legislation this year to create the accounts. Mendive said education savings accounts are accounts where the state deposits the same amount of money they would spend on a student and their parents could use that money to enroll them into the public school system, home school them or enroll them into a private school. Mendive said it differs from the school voucher system that was proven to be unconstitutional in Idaho. The Nevada program is being challenged in court, Mendive said, adding some of Idaho’s lawmakers are watching that case closely. He said Arizona and Florida have had success with similar programs for developmentally disabled students.

“If you think about it, people who are sending their kids to private schools are paying twice for education because they pay taxes for public school and pay again when they enroll their kids in private school,” Mendive said. “Education in this state needs to change. They are using the same system we had when I was in school. The world has changed and we need to figure out a way to introduce some free market into the system.” Sen. Mary Souza, R-Coeur d’Alene, said educational testing is likely to come up in the upcoming session. “I think we are going to see quite a lot of stuff on testing this year,” she said. “We are going to see bills on school board elections to help them become more accessible to the voters.” Legislators do not get to see the specific details of legislation until it is introduced into a committee, but Souza said those are some of the conversations she has been hearing. Souza said there will likely be an urban renewal bill coming forward. The interim committee on urban renewal will meet again in January to finalize its recommended changes to the urban renewal laws. “Also the Association of Counties is going to introduce alternative ways to instill improvements without having to use urban renewal,” she said. Malek said he has also heard rumblings about legislation concerning charter school teachers and homeschooling. “And then there are some school districts that are having some heartburn with the career ladder legislation we passed this year,” he said. “They support the idea but there are some little things that need to be fixed.” Malek, who chairs the legislature's interim committee on broadband, said that committee is close to resolving the statewide school broadband issue. After the state’s Idaho Education Network was deemed invalid this year, the structure the state relied on to provide broadband to schools fell apart. Malek said after the state disbanded the network, schools were forced to secure their own contracts for broadband, and some of those school systems, like the Coeur d’Alene School District, prefer to keep it that way. Still, some of the small rural school districts would prefer a statewide network. “Schools can bring broadband to these rural communities and stretch fiber optics throughout the state,” Malek said.

He said it is very likely a statewide network will be developed that districts could opt out of if they choose. “What we are not likely to see is Medicaid expansion,” Malek said, explaining this is an election year for the state legislators and that issue is too controversial. Without the expansion there are an estimated 90,000 Idaho citizens who have no access to health insurance because they don’t make enough money to qualify for subsidized insurance in the state exchange and they don’t qualify for Medicaid. Those citizens are caught in a gap, he said. Malek said there are some alternatives that are likely to come forward to help offset healthcare costs for some of those people in the gap. Mendive said he, too, is hearing there are some alternatives to Medicaid expansion that will likely be considered by lawmakers this year. Rep. Eric Redman, R-Athol, who sits on the Health and Welfare Committee, said while the state’s position on Medicaid expansion isn’t expected to change, alternative legislation could provide preventative and primary care while cutting down on the use of emergency rooms. “Emergency room costs keep going up,” Redman said. Redman said he also expects to see Second Amendment legislation, and he is planning to introduce a couple of bills this session, but he could not discuss those until they come out of committee. One controversy that Mendive does see coming forward this year is legislation that would guarantee religious rights and the rights of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community. “I don't know how they are going to do it, but they are talking about it on the Senate side,” he said. In all, Mendive said, every legislative session is hard to predict. “Some are already saying it’s going to be an easy session and others are saying it’s going to get complicated this year,” Mendive said. “When I first went down there I was told each session takes on a life of its own. This will be my fourth session and all three years before this have definitely taken on lives of their own.”