Presentation of Idaho reports on Idaho Public Television is made possible through the generous support of the Laura Moore Cunningham Foundation, committed to fulfilling the Moore and Bettis family legacy of building the great state of Idaho.

With additional major funding provided by the estate of Darrell Arthur Kammer in support of independent media that strengthens a democratic and just society.

And by the Hansberger Family Foundation.

By the Friends of Idaho Public Television.

The Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

And donations to the station from viewers like you.

Thank you.

The Idaho Legislature blew it.

It voluntarily reduced revenue year after year for five years.

We heard that this was all the Republicans fault, this, this, this terrible, you know, budget that we have in this terrible crisis.

We're one of the best run states in the country.

We're all looking at the same numbers, but evidently there are two very different interpretations.

I'm Logan Finney filling in for Melissa Devlin.

Idaho Reports starts now.

Hello, and welcome to Idaho Reports.

This week we bring you some reactions to the governor's state of the state address and talk legislative priorities with two new members of House leadership.

Assistant Majority Leader Doug Pickett and Minority Caucus Chair Monica Church.

But first, on Tuesday, the US Supreme Court heard oral arguments in Little v Hickox concerning the Fairness in Women's Sports Act.

That law, passed in Idaho in 2020, bans transgender girls and women from playing on girls teams in schools.

Idaho Solicitor General Alan Hurst represented the state in defending the law, while attorney Kathleen Hartnett challenged its constitutionality under the Equal Protection Clause.

Idaho's law classifies on the basis of sex because sex is what matters in sports.

It correlates strongly with countless athletic advantages like size, muscle mass, bone mass, and heart and lung capacity.

Gender identity does not matter in sports and that's why Idaho's law does not classify on the basis of gender identity.

It treats all males equally and all females equally, regardless of identity, and its purpose is exactly what the legislature said preserving women's equal opportunity.

Idaho's articulated justification for this line is to protect women's sports from birth sex males because of their, quote, biological advantages.

That means HB 500 is aimed at controlling for sex based biological advantages, not for all the many reasons one athlete may be better than another that have nothing to do with sex on the preliminary record in this case, and as the experts below agreed, circulating testosterone after puberty is the main determinant of sex based biological advantage that HB 500 sought to address.

And on this record, Lindsay Hickox has mitigated that advantage because she has suppressed her testosterone for over a year and taken estrogen.

On Wednesday, President Donald Trump and U.S.

Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins held a bill signing ceremony at the White House allowing schools in the National School Lunch program to once again serve whole and 2% milk alongside low fat and fat free options.

Idaho Senator Mike Crapo took the opportunity to highlight the importance of the Secure Rural Schools program, which Congress allowed to lapse for two years before reauthorizing the funding in December.

I really appreciate you and Brooke bringing up the Secure Rural Schools legislation.

This is critical legislation to our rural communities across this country, and we have to fight every couple of years to get it extended.

Just a couple of years.

In this extension we got this year, went back to pick up a few years that we missed and is going to expire again at the end of the next year.

And Mister President and Secretary, I'm going to encourage us to get back in here to sign a health, a Secure Rural Schools bill that is permanent.

I want to set a goal or hope that you'll set a goal with me to get back then.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Education funding was also a key topic Monday in Governor Brad Little's 2026 State of the State address.

The governor's budget for the legislature proposes tapping into public education stabilization funds for any increases related to growth, and making policy reforms to other education programs to save money.

Our plan also right sizes funding for online schools, enhancing accountability and ensuring long term sustainability for this important school choice option for thousands of Idaho families.

Folks, some of these budget decisions are tough, but we will emerge stronger in the long run because of them.

This is what financial responsibility looks like.

Planning ahead and living within our means.

Our Enduring Idaho plan was carefully designed with strategy and foresight to protect what matters most.

The things that will keep Idaho strong today, tomorrow and decades to come.

I appreciate Debbie Critchfield for her strong partnership in supporting education.

She deserves credit for advancing new solutions for special education students in our public schools.

Debbie, thank you.

I made some changes to the budget around a special education request that I had previously submitted.

But as we have more information and more numbers came in, it was not going to be possible to have new dollars added in to the current budget.

But what we are looking at, are one time sort of fixes bridges that will get us through until we can kind of have that sustainable funding formula that really is going to take in some of the needs we have around funding our classrooms.

We are continuing to talk about updating the current funding formula, with public schools.

The formula that we're operating off of right now is from 1994.

The classroom of the 21st century is different.

And what worked in 1994?

Fantastic.

It's not in alignment with what our goals and priorities now.

And so I will continue to talk about why that needs to be updated, getting more people at the table so that they can see and understand what our school leaders are living day to day.

Funding structures and a balanced budget are of course driving the discussion this session.

House leaders from the two political parties had two very different outlooks on the fiscal picture.

After revenues came in nearly $60 million under projection in the latter half of 2025.

Many of the legislators in the legislative body here today only know what it's like to set budgets when we have surpluses.

This is going to be a new experience for them, and it won't be pleasant.

They're going to hear about it, as we did in 2009, at grocery stores and restaurants from our constituents who want to know why this is happening.

And they are going to be confused because they've been told for more than a year, for years, actually, that we have surpluses.

frankly, we could just repeal two bills from last session and largely solve the problem that we're in.

I fear that those who drove the car into the ditch are very unlikely to call the tow truck.

I think we're more likely to hear about what a beautiful ditch it is, and how fortunate we are to find ourselves in it.

But that doesn't make that the reality.

I take a little bit of umbrage to that thought that this was, you know, the Republicans drove us into a ditch.

And, and I think, the speaker laid out very well that we, we, we left a good cushion for that very reason for it to be used.

And that's what we did.

The other big budget factor to consider this year is the growing cost of Medicaid, and whether lawmakers will attempt to fully repeal Medicaid expansion, despite Governor Little telling reporters last week that repealing expansion is not among his proposals to reduce spending in the health and welfare budget.

If Medicaid expansion is repealed, it will cost the state more due to the budget holes that will happen in behavioral health courts, public health, the reinstatement of the county indigent and state catastrophic care funds, and other programs that are covered under Medicaid expansion.

Medicaid is the fastest growing increase in Idaho's budget, certainly.

Cutting Medicaid expansion is not the answer that the governor is looking at, but we are looking at where are some places that we can reduce some spending or at least control spending.

We'll see what bill he brings forward to cut those cuts.

Make those reductions.

I still think that when we were sold Medicaid expansion, we were told it was going to be a 30, what, 40 million, I believe was the number.

It was going to save property taxes, it was going to do all these great things.

It didn't do any of them just save property taxes now you’re $100 and whatever million in cost and skyrocketing, somehow we've got to get that Medicaid expansion under control because it's taking resources away from, in my opinion, most important issue that being education, and others, but education in particular.

If we keep dumping all that money in the Medicaid hole, it's going to have an effect on those other budgets.

The Medicaid cuts that have already gone into effect in the interim are really hitting, particularly the disability community hard, seniors hard, parents of kids with severe disabilities can't get care for their kids already.

Sheriffs are sounding the alarm on public safety.

But we've seen complete eradication of very necessary programs for people who are facing serious mental health crises.

That is not going to end well for any of us.

When those folks have no treatment that they need.

Of Little's $45 million Medicaid savings proposal.

About half of the savings is from extending current 4% provider rate cuts, with the other half from eliminating Medicaid coverage for certain services, including dental coverage and services for adults with developmental disabilities.

Kyle Pfannenstiel at the Idaho Capital Sun has a great story out this week with the specifics.

The governor also showed off his proposed cuts to Idaho Code this week, as requested by the 2025 legislature.

Last year, this body took the next step by passing the Code Clean Up act, turning our attention and our scissors to state statutes.

The agencies my administration got to work, dedicated countless hours to scrub the Idaho Code and deliver our red tape rollback report to the Idaho Legislature.

The report follows through on a key component of the Idaho Act.

Our report recommends repealing 145,000 words of state law, the equivalent of the length of 20 football fields if you lined up the words in the end.

The report provides a roadmap to remove outdated, duplicative and unnecessary laws.

Mr.

Pro Tem, Mr.

Speaker, here's our red tape rollback plan for the legislature's consideration.

I thought that was pretty cool prop.

But we've been going through those binders and there's issues.

I don't know if you've watched.

A lot of stuff in there, It doesn't work.

Some of it actually raises taxes, some of it, it's a mess.

So we've got staff going through it now and you'll see some big changes.

Remember that was a bill that Kelly Anthon, Pro Tem Anthon I brought forward.

And we're going to do a bunch of reductions.

The prop was beautiful.

But now we got to make sure that he doesn’t do any nefarious things in all those books.

And we'll do that.

The legislature will go through that.

Those pages we've gone through so far, we've found a lot of mistakes.

And that's why we look at, you know, have to look, that came from the legislature.

We ask the executive branch.

Now we'll look at what they've got and we'll make it go from there.

Joining me to discuss the week and the session ahead is Representative Doug Pickett, assistant majority leader in the House, as well as Representative Monica Church, Minority Caucus Chair.

Thank you both so much for joining us this week.

Thanks.

It's good to be back.

Representative Church, I want to start with you here.

Why did you want to run for this leadership position?

Yeah.

Thank you.

I'm glad to be here with both of you.

You know, it's not often in the legislature that your outside skillset gets to be used on the inside.

And, you know, my skill set is administrative, leadership, education, you know, working with groups of people.

And there was an opening, and I thought, if not me, who?

So, the caucus chair really does internal work, keeping people organized and up to date, and those that just happen to be skill sets that I have.

So that's why I ran.

And Representative Pickett, what drew you to run for the assistant majority leader on the Republican side?

Thank you.

Yeah.

You know, as I've come to Boise the last few years and observed the growth, particularly out coming from the south with Micron and everything and the population growth and seeing how things are moving, the direction things are moving, it just became more apparent to me that, in the future, we're going to need more representation from outside of the Treasure Valley to make sure those rural interests, those areas outside of the Treasure Valley, continue to be represented at the state level.

That was important to me.

We have good leadership from the Treasure Valley, and in the legislature in both branches.

But I felt like we need to broaden the tent a little bit, and I wanted to be a part of that.

Sure, before the position opened with Representative Tanner being appointed to JFAC co-chair that whole House leadership team was an Ada and Canyon County, Treasure Valley team.

Correct.

You've been talking to your fellow Republican members, trying to get their votes for the leadership position.

As you're talking to folks, what are the goals that you're hearing from the Republican caucus for this upcoming session?

Good question.

Yes.

We did have a lot of conversations.

It takes a lot of effort to run a leadership race with 61 members of the caucus.

And so we spend a lot of time talking about where Idaho's going, where we want it to go.

We talked about, you know, agriculture versus tech.

We talked about, you know, what are things going to look like five, ten years down the road?

In my area in particular with the water situation.

Is the water plan going to hold out?

You know, are we going to be able to meet those objectives and goals?

We talked about education since that's been a part of what I've been doing.

And, there's just, we ran the gamut, really, but there are a lot of important issues that are particularly important to those of us that come from outside of the Treasure Valley.

You've got a really large caucus like you recognized.

There's a big range of opinions in there.

Oftentimes for us outsiders watching the legislature, the most public fights that we see are not between Republicans and Democrats, but actually between Republicans internally.

What is the approach from House leadership?

When it comes to dealing with those disagreements, when you're a member of leadership who can't necessarily pick sides in one of those internal fights?

Good question.

And I like to describe it as kind of a natural tension.

I'm actually proud of the fact that we have diverse views within our caucus.

I think that's a healthy thing.

Sometimes it does boil over a little bit, but that's fine.

And we have a natural tension between branches of government, and that's a part of the process, too.

And so the important thing to me is just to make sure that there's no manipulation, that we're able to bring all the voices to the table and everybody who's there feels vested.

They feel like they have ownership in the decision.

Even if they didn't agree with it, that they feel like they have their part to play, their role to play, and that they're able to move on.

Representative Church, on the other side of the aisle in your caucus, what are some of the goals you've heard from your Democratic colleagues in the House for this upcoming year?

Yeah.

Well, I mean, I would parrot the things that Representative Pickett said.

You know, affordability issues, issues with tech versus, you know, our rural communities.

Growth and development, not only in the cities, but across the state.

Issues of healthcare, education, you know, access to resources that are necessary for our families.

So, you know, similar issues all around.

With the sometimes dwindling number of Democrats in the legislature, you guys are less geographically diverse in the districts you represent than the other side of the aisle.

Are you all on the same page when it comes to these issues, because you come from similar urban districts around Boise?

Yeah, I would say that we're much like the Republican Party.

We are different people, and so we come with it with different ideas.

We also well represent, you know, predominantly the Boise area but are from all across the state.

I mean, we have representatives who are from Kellogg and Rathdrum and Caldwell, Lewiston.

So we are from different parts of Idaho and so we bring those experiences, whether it's timber or mining or education, and the east and rural areas, to our legislation.

So we're not singularly focused certainly on the valley.

How do you guys plan to leverage the influence that you do have?

Sometimes votes do come down to the Democratic caucus leaning one way or the other when there are disagreements on the other side of the aisle.

Does the Democratic caucus come at this with any sort of strategy on specific issues?

Well, that is a really great question.

And I think, absolutely, yes, there has to be strategy on specific pieces of legislation that are going to be determined by the caucus.

Or by the caucus and, you know, a few others who may join us in whatever the issue is.

That said, we are a fiercely independent caucus and we value each other as individuals.

But we do meet, you know, near daily as either leadership or as a group to communicate what it is that we, you know, our nonstarters or the bills that we really, really want to see pass or defeated.

So, yes, I guess would be my answer.

The governor's proposals that were unveiled on Monday for this upcoming year, Medicaid is a big question, how we're going to handle Medicaid, with the amount of growth that we've seen in the Medicaid budget.

The governor's proposals include reducing some services for adults with disabilities, other things like dental.

What would your caucus like to see when it comes to handling the growth of Medicaid expenses?

Yeah.

You know, I find it really interesting.

Former director Alex Adams was able to convince the legislature and the state more broadly of the value of preemption, of preventative care when it came to a specific aspect of Idaho's most vulnerable.

And that was in the foster care system.

And thank goodness for it.

You know, preventative care works.

And we know that if we spend the money in the beginning, that it's going to cost a lot less, you know, on later down the road.

And so I think these cuts to dental health, to screenings for children, to in-home care, these are preventative measures.

Medicaid itself is a preventative measure for so many.

It's really, really going to hurt us later.

I mean, we've been here before and if we don't value the preventative care upfront and those costs, then we're just going to see it on the other side.

The same with education.

I mean, we know, this country knows that if you spend the money upfront, pre-K even earlier, child care, women's health, that those outcomes then are significantly better and cheaper.

It's a fiscally responsible thing to be preventative.

And so I wish that we could all see, and that the governor's budget could see, what we in the legislature saw in the last couple of years under Director Adams.

That prevention works fiscally and socially.

It's the right thing to do.

Representative Pickett, the governor and his team are kind of offering this suite of things that the legislature could cut to save money, almost as an alternative to repealing Medicaid expansion.

There is an appetite among some House Republicans to just get rid of expansion in its entirety.

Do you think that your colleagues will be on board with the governor's proposal, or do you think Medicaid expansion is really in the crosshairs from the folks in your chamber?

I think the idea there is, and we have had bills to repeal those things in the past, but they're mainly, in my opinion, they've been there to raise the red flag.

That in fact, what we really need to do is make it sustainable because, you know, we can talk about preventative care.

And I think we have agreement on preventative care.

It's fairly well demonstrated in the numbers.

You know, we can quantify that preventative care pays.

But the fact of the matter is that Medicaid is on an unsustainable course.

And so we have to continue that conversation, to extend that conversation logically down the road to what can we do to make it sustainable?

And that doesn't necessarily need to cut those important services.

I think we need to find the efficiencies that can be gained there.

And that's the direction that the director had taken us in.

You know, when he came out with his wildly important goal or his WIG goal of focusing on foster kids, that's where he wanted to start.

My question to him at that time was, well, what about everything else?

But you know, his idea was that we can't really get our arms around everything at once, but we can start here.

And that was very successful in that.

And we just need to work in those areas, find where the efficiencies are, find those and weed them out that are abusing the program, unlawfully or otherwise, and make it sustainable again.

And I do think we can get to that point.

Medicaid is one big spending area for the state.

The other big spending area is education, something that the governor and a lot of folks are really passionate about.

Representative Church, you are an educator by trade.

Are the governor's promises to fight for education and keep them harmless in the budget season that we're facing, do those give you any reassurances at all?

You know, I don't think that education has been held harmless, and I don't think it will be, under even his current budget.

You know, well, the idea is to keep education out of some of these cuts.

There are not going to be any increases in spending toward education.

We are going to see about a 14.5% increase in premium expenses in health care for teachers, that is in effect a cut to their spending ability, as families and as parents and as people that work in our communities.

And then one of the things that the governor has said that he is willing to cut is IDLA and, you know, IDLA was created in large part because we were unable to fund fully our schools, and specifically our rural schools, 20 years ago.

And if we are going to mandate that students take a certain number of courses, then we are constitutionally mandated to provide teachers for those courses.

And when we couldn't do that, when we couldn't make that work, we created a program that allows for students to take courses from Idaho teachers.

Board licensed, certified Idaho teachers and administrators in a virtual setting.

So that kids in Rupert or kids in Sandpoint can take those mandatory classes, but then also take the classes that maybe they also wouldn't be able to have because there isn't a physics teacher or an AP chemistry teacher in those areas.

And so to cut that essential lifeline that was created because we had already failed to meet our constitutional burden of providing teachers for the courses that we said that every single student has to take?

I just think would be disastrous.

And it's certainly not holding education harmless.

And just in case anyone's unaware, IDLA is the Idaho Digital Learning Academy, online course offerings for public and private home schools across the state.

Representative Pickett, you're the outgoing chair of the House Education Committee.

What are your education priorities in the upcoming year?

Well, yeah, just to dovetail off what Representative Church was saying, you know, IDLA is important.

It's, I would define it a little bit differently, I guess.

It's not so much as a result of us not being able to meet the obligations, but it's the evolving technologies and the efficiencies that could be had from using IDLA instead of maybe funding those positions in every single brick and mortar school in the state.

I think that that's part of the changing evolution of education, virtual and digital and otherwise.

And so, in fact, Representative Church even indicated that she had taught at a local high school, my hometown school, on IDLA.

And I thought that was really unique and interesting, and so, yeah, I think that we need to work to preserve that.

I agree with that because it is efficient.

We have just a couple of minutes left here.

Affordability is a really big national issue, and part of that conversation is housing and land use.

We talk a lot about growth that we've seen here in Idaho.

Before we started filming, we were talking about the communities that the three of us grew up in and how they've changed over the years.

Open question to both of you.

When it comes to land use and public lands, what can we do from the legislative perspective, when so many of those decisions are made at the local planning and zoning level?

What can the legislature really do to help make sure that, as Idaho is growing, we're making wise land use decisions?

I mean, I'll give just one example to that question.

The Idaho Department of Lands provides grants for communities for fire mitigation efforts, on a small scale and on a larger scale.

And those kind of grant programs that provide communities, whether it's a neighborhood or a city or county, with the opportunity to do the mitigation efforts that are science based and we know work, I think are really important, especially in those WUI areas where you've got homes that butt up against public lands.

And we are in an incredible fire season or series of fire season.

So, I mean, that's just one way that that we as a legislature can help, is in funding those grant programs and really making sure that the Department of Lands and our other organizations that partner with our federal agencies have the resources they need, to continue to do the mitigation efforts and provide safety and security to the people that live in and around our public lands.

Yeah, very good question.

You know, I just came from a conference where we learned that Idaho, and specifically the Treasure Valley and in the Magic Valley, we are one of the six most important areas for seed production in the United States.

And yet we're developing those lands that provide seed for the production of food throughout the entire world.

And so these trade offs become even more important between an urban interface or some public land around a city, as opposed to developing prime farmland that cannot be replaced.

And I think that we need a very pragmatic approach to both of those issues.

Are we going to continue to develop these prime lands, or can we possibly develop some isolated, non manageable public lands?

And that's important.

All right.

We are out of time.

We're going to have to leave it there.

Thank you both so much for joining us.

Thank you.

Thank you.

We have more discussion of public lands this week on the Idaho Reports podcast, where I sat down with Senator Ben Adams to discuss a constitutional amendment he plans to introduce next week.

You'll find that conversation online at idahoreports.org, or wherever you listen to podcasts.

Thanks so much for watching.

We'll see you next week.

Presentation of Idaho reports on Idaho Public Television is made possible through the generous support of the Laura Moore Cunningham Foundation, committed to fulfilling the Moore and Bettis family legacy of building the great state of Idaho.

With additional major funding provided by the estate of Darrell Arthur Kammer in support of independent media that strengthens a democratic and just society.

And by the Hansberger Family Foundation.

By the Friends of Idaho Public Television.

The Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

And donations to the station from viewers like you.

Thank you.