WEEK EIGHT | 2024 LEGISLATIVE SESSION
February 26 - March 1, 2024
In the eighth week of the Sixty-Seventh Idaho Legislature’s Second Regular Session, the number of bills introduced continues to rise. Amidst the scurry on the House and Senate floors this week, long committees with contentious bills also dominated the Legislature’s schedule. Perhaps most interesting this year is the sheer number of bills, as reported last week. In addition to the volume of bills, the engagement process with affected parties has been generally absent on many of these bills. It’s been fascinating to watch as freshmen and Chairmen alike, present drastic changes to statutes with little or no involvement from stakeholders, industries, or input from other legislators, before introducing their bills. This creates immediate opposition and at times contention. It certainly isn’t how things have been done traditionally, but it seems to be the new normal this year.
Both the House and Senate began having the floor meet twice a day to speed up the process of voting on bills. The transmittal deadline is Monday, March 4th, when both chambers do their best to have all bills that originated from their chamber over to the other side of the rotunda. March 4th is also Idaho Day, meaning presentations and traditions may take precedence over hearing bills during the morning floor sessions. We can expect long afternoon floor sessions from this point on until both sides can catch up.
The Senate’s calendar has racked up dozens of bills to be deliberated within the next few weeks; however, the House has been moving through their bills quickly in preparation for this deadline. The Senate has started to use its procedural mechanism to roll votes on unanimous bills. This saves time as they bypass the required roll call vote on every bill. This trick speeds up their process tremendously on noncontentious bills. Nevertheless, both sides have plenty of bills to move through as the session races on.
Going forward, Governor Little will be acting on hundreds of bills that come across his desk. So far, there have only been nine (9) bills signed into law and no vetoed bills. As the Legislature begins to clear its log jam, this will change very quickly. Below, a list is linked of all the bills the Governor has acted on this session. This list, updated daily, will be useful going forward and will have every bill passed by the House and Senate on it.
This week is typically the 2/3rd mark for the session, thus leading to hopefully shorter committee meetings next week and longer floor sessions. Nevertheless, there are still plenty of contentious bills being heard in committee. Bills overhauling or limiting local government control including transportation, Medicaid program changes, equipment used by law enforcement, changes to the electrical code, two (2) more resolutions for constitutional conventions, and several HOA-related bills were all big conversations this week. Committees will begin to hear more bills sent from the other side of the rotunda, and some bills will be held by leadership and used as leverage, regardless of the policy merits.
JFAC has been hard at work hearing from Legislative Services Office (LSO) staff on budgets and setting line items weekly. The Committee has finally caught up to their schedule for setting budgets and aims to have all budgets set on March 13th, just before their deadline on March 15th. These appropriation bills have slowly but surely been introduced as LSO staff has been diligently working to draft these bills. The first few line-item appropriation bills are starting to be voted on by the House and Senate, but many more will come in the following weeks. The Committee has set nearly one hundred (100) budgets in the past month. Big items like transportation and mental health were funded this morning, along with over twenty (20) other budgets.
The BB&A team has been working hard to ensure we keep you informed of where everything is in the process. We are ahead of the curve and will identify potential bills that could help or hinder you. As always, stay informed by checking our Bill Tracker each week.
