The state of the legislature

POST FALLS — All nine of Kootenai County’s legislative delegation traveled home from Boise to update their constituents Saturday morning on the issues moving through this year’s legislative session.

Lawmakers outlined what they are focused on and fielded questions ranging from increased healthcare premiums and education reforms to concealed weapon legislation.

Bonner County Sheriff Daryl Wheeler kicked off the question-and-answer portion of the town hall meeting, hosted by the Kootenai County Republican Central Committee.

Wheeler asked legislators to reconsider House Bill 422, which was introduced by Rep. Heather Scott, R-Blanchard and Rep. Ron Nate, R-Rexburg, which among other things would make Idaho a permitless carry state. The bill also outlines who can carry a concealed weapon.

That bill was introduced early in the session, but was assigned to the House Ways and Means Committee, which lawmakers say is “where bills go to die.”

Wheeler told lawmakers and the crowd of roughly 60 constituents that he is a proponent of the second amendment and the chairman of the legislative committee of the Idaho Sheriff’s Association, which took a neutral position on the legislation.

He read from a letter he sent to legislators asking them to at least consider giving the bill a fair hearing. He said HB 422 is designed to close loopholes that he said were passed in legislation during the 2015 legislative session in HB 301. Wheeler said HB 301 was passed without any input from the law enforcement community and it contains language that “is unacceptable to law enforcement.”

“The language inadvertently allows people who have lost the trust of our society to carry concealed weapons,” he said, adding HB 422 includes language that would close the loopholes that the new laws have created. He said passing the bill would not create any more risk to law enforcement because police officers are already trained to assume everyone they encounter is armed with a weapon.

Wheeler concluded the reading of his letter with a plea to lawmakers to reconsider moving HB 422 out of committee with a “do pass” recommendation, which drew applause from the audience.

“I have to say I agree with Sheriff Wheeler,” said Rep. Steve Vick, R-Dalton Gardens.

Rep. Kathy Sims, R-Coeur d’Alene, also agreed, saying she has confidence in Rep. Scott.

As a former law enforcement officer, Rep. Don Cheatham, R-Post Falls, said he supports concealed carry as long as it is done right. He said any legislation that is passed should be designed to protect the common citizen as well.

“We do have the right to keep and bear arms and that should not be infringed,” said Rep. Ron Mendive, R-Post Falls, adding there some 20,000 laws in the United States that infringe upon the Second Amendment and supports fixing them to adhere to the constitution.

Rep. Eric Redman, R-Athol, who has signed on as a co-sponsor of HB 422, said “You cannot co-sponsor a bill without being on it.” Redman said the Ways and Means Committee will be a challenge, but if it comes out he will support it.

“I just have to agree with everyone here,” said Sen. Mary Souza, R-Coeur d’Alene. “I am very happy the Sheriff’s Association is involved with helping to construct the language of the bill.”

If the bill gets out of the House of Representatives, Souza said she would take a close look at the bill, but she supports the concept.

During his opening statement, Rep. Vito Barbieri, R-Dalton Gardens, explained how it takes time for relatively new legislators to “get in the driver’s seat” and move controversial issues through the legislative process. “But right now, (HB 422) is in Ways and Means, and for practical matters it is likely dead,” he said. “Done. Next?”

Former Republican Lawmaker Gary Ingram asked the legislators how one committee could decide to hold legislation and essentially kill it. Rep. Luke Malek, R-Coeur d’Alene, explained the Ways and Means Committee is the one committee controlled entirely by the leadership of the House. He said he is not aware of how the members of the Ways and Means Committee view HB 422, but he suspects they want to give the legislation more vetting. “I cannot speak specifically to this bill, but that is what I suspect,” he said.

Healthcare

Malek also took some criticism by one member of the audience who said his health insurance premiums went up by $600 this year despite his high deductible. He directed his rant toward Malek because he is the only legislator left on the Kootenai County delegation who voted for the state health exchange under the Affordable Care Act, commonly referred to as Obamacare. “I want to know what you are doing to change this,” the audience member asked Malek, to a round of applause. “You are breaking our backs by voting for this kind of stuff.”

Malek said the state was faced with either passing a state exchange that it could control, or turning the exchange over to the federal government to manage.

“Obamacare is a travesty, the Affordable Care Act, I am not going to defend Obamacare,” he said, adding health insurance companies are losing tremendous amounts of money on Obamacare. “The reason I voted the way I did is so that the state would have competition,” Malek said, adding premiums are lower in our state because of that competition. “Costs would have gone up significantly more had we not voted to do that. Whether or not that will contribute to the ultimate failure of Obamacare, which I think is imminent, I don’t know. “But I can tell you that premiums would have gone up significantly more in my estimation had we gone with the federal exchange over the state exchange.”

He said the legislature is trying to deal with the gaps in coverage for certain segments of society that Obamacare has created. He said he is also focused on preventing laws that interfere with the doctor-patient relationship.

Barbieri said health insurance companies in Idaho are seeking a 40 percent increase in premiums to stop their losses under Obamacare, which he believes will lead the country closer to a single-payer healthcare system in the future.

Cheatham said the vast majority of emails he receives are concerning the cost of healthcare and his constituents want the legislature to do something about it. He said he is attending every healthcare meeting that he can, and even took some heat over his vote for the governor’s Primary Care and Access Program that was shot down by the House State Affairs Committee a couple of weeks ago when lawmakers could not get answers from the administration on how they plan to pay for the program. “I am still trying to look for a solution just like you are,” he said.

Souza said she has talked with other legislators, who say they intend to bring back the PCAP legislation. “They are working to pull all of the pieces together to advance PCAP,” she said, adding they held a meeting on Friday to try and come up with a plan to advance the program and they’re planning to meet on the issue again Monday. “We’ll see how it goes and if it gets out of committee.”

Souza said she is also concerned about the state continually picking up the increase in health care premiums for state employees. “This year that increase was $600 per state employee and last year it was even more,” she said. “So it is a problem because not only are taxpayers having to pick up the increase in their own policies but they all have to pick up the increases for state employees, including all of us (legislators). You are paying for our increases as well.” She said there are roughly 13,000 state employees. “Do the math on that,” she said. “there are no easy answers.”

Sen. Bob Nonini, R-Coeur d’Alene, said he has worked in the health insurance industry for 30-plus years, and has been working with other legislators to find solutions since he was elected to office. Nonini drew a comparison between healthcare insurance and automobile insurance. He said automobile insurance doesn’t cover maintenance to an automobile. It simply covers accidents. He believes healthcare insurance should be the same to only cover catastrophic healthcare needs.

Nonini said healthcare savings accounts could be a solution toward covering the cost of “first dollar service,” such as flu shots, other minor ailments and preventative care procedures. He said the whole system needs to be changed.

Sims agreed with Nonini on first-dollar services, but said in addition to that medical providers should have to publish their procedural costs so people can shop around for best prices. “I should be able to shop for health insurance or medical care,” she said. “If I only need a tonsillectomy, I shouldn’t have to pay $11,000. I need the ability to shop around to see if I could get a better price.”

Redman said other states have implemented right-to-shop legislation that has saved millions of dollars in healthcare costs.

Education legislation

Post Falls School Board Trustee Carol Goodman said she traveled to Boise during this legislative session with the state school board association and she wanted to talk about two bills in particular.

“Two of the bills that interested me the most, one was the one that lets the family’s tax dollars follow the child,” she said. “In other words that child would get whatever was allocated per student within the state and if you were going to send your child to a parochial school or a private school that money could go toward tuition.”

Goodman thanked Souza for being very supportive of that legislation as a parent’s right. But Goodman also opposed a bill that Souza is co-sponsoring in the Senate. “The other one that interested me was the change in the way school board members are elected,” she said, explaining that if that bill were to pass it would change who she represents. “Instead of representing the neighborhood I am closest to, I would be representing the entire school district — I am against that.”

She said that bill would allow the voters in each school district to vote on every school board seat in the district. Currently voters can only elect the board member that represents his or her school zone. Souza’s bill, SB 1308, would allow all of the voters in a district to cast a vote for each of the five seats on the school board instead of only one seat.

Currently Souza said if a taxpayer doesn’t like what school board member does outside their zone, they cannot vote to hold that board member accountable even though that board member is spending that voter’s tax dollars. Souza said her bill not only provides the taxpayers more ability to hold the school board accountable, but passing the bill would be necessary to pass a companion bill that would move all school board elections to the November ballot like all other state and county elections.

Souza said the state passed legislation in the 1950s to suppress voters in school board elections and moving the election date away from the general election was part of that effort. She said the result has been extremely low voter turnout rates for virtually all school related elections statewide.

“Currently most people don’t know when they are able to vote, and people are disengaged from their school districts,” she said, explaining how the two bills will result in much more accountability and let taxpayers get more involved with the people who are spending their money.

Goodman said she is not in favor of the entire district holding her accountable because they may not be informed of the issues. She said she works hard to educate the voters in her school zone by going door to door talking with them, but expanding that districtwide would be a much larger task.

“Frankly I don’t want all of those people going to the polls,” Goodman said. “I don't want people outside my zone to decide if I can represent the people in my zone.”

Several other issues were discussed such as urban renewal reforms that are still being developed but lawmakers say may be facing an uphill battle this session. Many issues are still working their way through the “sausage grinder,” but lawmakers said they should know much more at the next town hall meeting in March.