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.

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The Idaho Republican Presidential Caucus drew just under 7% of registered Republicans to caucus sites last Saturday, but didn't draw any presidential candidates to Idaho to campaign.

We get lawmakers takes on whether the party should consider a different approach.

I'm Melissa Davlin.

Idaho Reports starts now.

Hello and welcome to Idaho Reports.

This week we get a different take on the debate over the best way to fund courts in the state.

Then Dr. Jaclyn Kettler of Boise State University joins us and a panel of lawmakers to discuss last week's presidential caucus and what the legislature has left to address before adjournment.

But first, on Thursday, Democratic and Republican leaders from the House and Senate joined reporters for an on the record discussion about issues they're facing.

Reporters asked about this week's House vote on a resolution to request that the state Board of Education reconsider its vote on the University of Phoenix purchase.

That resolution also seeks to involve the legislature in the process.

The resolution passed 49 to 21, and on Thursday, House Speaker Mike Moyle and Senate Minority Leader Melissa Wintrow addressed their concerns with University of Idaho and the University of Phoenix, as well as its owners, Apollo Global Management and the lack of information they felt they had on the attempted acquisition.

The pro tem and myself have asked for an independent, outside neutral party to give us another opinion to see if if that's correct and if those concerns are justified.

If they are, I would assume that there will be an effort to try to find another way to proceed that would hopefully involve the legislature and not the behind closed doors, in my opinion, garbage that happened, the way it was handled on the on the front end of this issue.

But but to Phoenix's and Apollo's credit, they're now sharing information.

We're now hearing more than we've heard in the past, which is helpful.

You know, information alleviates concerns.

And so I'm glad to hear that they're trying to get that information out.

I think the University of Phoenix is a really complex and troubling question, right?

I think for me, the big question is, if something goes wrong, who's on the hook?

And is the state on the hook or is the University of Idaho on the hook?

Who's on the hook for all this?

Leadership also fielded questions on school choice legislation, which hasn't seen much action.

Senate President Pro Tem Chuck Winder said he hopes to see an expansion of the existing Empowering Parents program, which gives grants to families of K through 12 students.

We all realize that our first responsibility under the Constitution is to fund a thorough and free education for our students in Idaho.

That will be our first priority.

But we've been very fortunate over the last five years to have additional funds available.

We've given back $3 billion in tax relief through rebates, almost $1 billion in ongoing.

$300 and some million in property tax relief.

So we've had the money to do a lot of really good things.

And I think this is a high priority to allow some expansion of the Empowering Parents program.

We have the entire press conference online at our YouTube channel, YouTube.com/IdahoReports Over the last two weeks, associate producer Logan Finney has been looking into funding mechanisms, I.T.

support and cybersecurity for the courts.

This year, Idaho's judicial branch is requesting general funds for its I.T.

staff and services, and to complete the courts transition to a cloud based technology system.

For the last ten years, the state has largely funded the court technology system by imposing fees on the people who use the criminal justice system.

Last week on the show, Sarah Omundson, administrator for the state courts, explained the judicial branch budget request.

And on Wednesday of this week, I spoke to Lisa Foster of the Fines and Fees Justice Center about problems with the current fee based funding set up.

The fees into the system, the fees into the court technology fund, they're dropping about two and a half percent a year.

So we're getting less money.

So what the Supreme Court has asked is that we receive some general fund dollars instead of relying solely on the fines and fees that are coming in and going into that dedicated fund.

Even without the needed cybersecurity upgrades, getting away from user fees to fund the justice system is a good idea, says Lisa Foster from the nonprofit Fines and Fees Justice Center.

You go a little too fast, you get a ticket.

There's a fine that's meant to punish and deter you from speeding again.

That's what a fine is.

A fee, by contrast, is really much more like a tax.

What it's doing is funding government.

So it's a tax imposed only on people who happen to touch the criminal legal system.

When legislators look to fees, they often don't think about the collateral costs.

Somebody has to collect those fees.

That takes staff time and energy.

Those are all costs that you have to consider when you're thinking about revenue and may not have been considered when the legislature imposed the fee for technology.

And the second thing is the cost to the community and to individuals.

When we take our poorest communities who are already disproportionately in the justice system and we impose on them a greater responsibility for funding government, we are perpetuating and exacerbating poverty, and we are keeping people from being able to reach their full potential and our communities to reach their full potential.

Foster says state governments across the country are increasingly turning away from court fines and fees to generate revenue.

First of all, of course, courts were shut down for a period of time during the pandemic.

Fewer people were filing lawsuits to the extent that there are civil filing fees that may be involved.

So all of the courts business shrank some.

And we are seeing, as I said, a good trend, and that is a downward, a decrease in actual crime in most places, including in Idaho.

And so that impacts the system's ability to raise revenue this way.

We think the courts are right about this one.

This is not the right way to do it.

It should be funded out of general revenue.

There really is no difference if the legislature needs a new technology system to do its business, that should be paid for with general revenue.

The same is true in the executive branch and the same is true for the courts.

So the courts are right in our view, to be going to the legislature and saying we need revenue to do this and to do it well.

The justice system is a core government function.

The system doesn't just serve the people who are in it.

It serves the whole community.

Just as the executive branch and the legislative branch serve the whole community.

So in our view, the justice system should be paid for by the whole community.

Because when you raise revenue through fees, what you're essentially saying, and to be specific to this program, court technology is going to be funded by fees imposed on people who, for example, get traffic tickets or are convicted of misdemeanors or felonies.

You are relying on people committing more crime to fund government.

That's not good public policy.

We want to discourage people from committing more crimes.

And that trend downward is a good thing that we should be celebrating.

But what it really demonstrates is that fees are an unreliable funding source.

You can find much more of that conversation with Lisa Foster on the Idaho Reports podcast.

On Friday morning, the Joint Finance Appropriations Committee set the judicial budget.

Lawmakers granted most of what the court is asking for except for new field technicians in each of the seven judicial districts.

Those positions assist the local courts with technology.

The Budget Committee approved two of the seven positions the courts have requested.

The appropriation now goes to the full legislature.

On Saturday, March 2nd, Republicans across the state gathered at local caucus sites to cast ballots for their pick for presidential candidate.

The state Republican Party's rules allowed only registered Republicans into the caucus sites, not allowing for media to come in and observe.

Though those of us who are registered Republicans could attend their own caucuses and report from there.

The caucus I attended at Borah High School in Boise was orderly, as more than 600 participants filtered through the school gym to deposit their ballots.

They used a black and yellow plastic tote that was zip tied shut as their ballot box.

They shut the doors at 2 p.m. and five volunteers started counting votes by hand with two counts to make sure the numbers were accurate.

The only real hiccup was confusion over when the event would end.

A caucus volunteer told me the state party allowed each side to choose their own closing time.

As I left at 2:45 p.m., there were still hopeful voters showing up in the parking lot.

I went back and checked all the caucus materials from the party and none specified any closing times.

Statewide, turnout among registered Republicans was just under 7%.

It was especially low in some places like eastern Idaho, where a blizzard shut down roads and hampered access to caucus sites.

On Thursday, I asked leadership what they thought about the caucus and if they want the party to go in a different direction in the future.

Senator Winder said he had a draft bill that would establish a presidential preference primary held at the same time as the regular statewide primary.

But it would be advisory, the party could use it or not use it.

It wouldn't interfere with what they've already done because the state really can't determine how they get their delegates.

So, hopefully, I would, you know, I was a big supporter of the consolidation.

Senator Winder introduced that bill on Friday morning.

Also Friday, the Senate passed a bill that would establish a presidential primary in April.

Joining me to discuss all these paths forward is Dr. Jaclyn Kettler of Boise State University.

Representative Lauren Necochea, House Assistant Minority Leader.

And Representative Dustin Manwaring, Majority House Caucus Chair.

Representative Manwaring, there are lots of different directions that both the legislature and the Republican Party could go in right now.

Yeah, we've been dealing with this for a full year now, really, and trying to decide what we're going to do with the presidential primary process.

We've seen attempts to go back into special session before we came into this legislative session.

Now, we've been through the caucus process and we're starting to get the input and see where we might want to go forward, and I think that's why you've seen some now legislative proposals introduced this week.

You were a proponent of consolidating elections last year with that legislation and attempts to reestablish that presidential primary, as you said, didn't happen.

What are you in favor of now?

I'm in favor of having a consolidated primary.

I've told my colleagues that I would support that being an earlier date or a May date.

I'm, that's just my personal preference.

Now I have to have deference to where I think the House is at and our caucus is at.

And we've, we as you've seen, to go into special session, our preference from the caucus, we had a majority say we wanted to do that earlier in March and bring it back.

So we didn't have consensus in the House to put it in May.

So now I think having this bill come from Senator Guthrie in April is an interesting discussion that we haven't had yet in the House and one that I think we're going to have to take up if it comes over to us.

Knowing that both of the state parties can do what they want with their presidential nominating process.

Do you have any indication from party leadership what they would prefer?

Were they fans of the caucus on Saturday or in other words, or do they want to see the legislature reestablish a primary date?

I can't speak for party leadership, obviously.

What I do know is I think they're proud of the organization they put out there and the way that they ran it.

I think the other aspect of this is to look at what turnout was and if we really feel like we had that voter participation.

And that's what I'm concerned about, making sure that Idahoans feel like they had a chance to participate in that primary process.

Let's talk a little bit about that participation.

6.8% turnout among registered Republicans statewide.

We know that it was a fairly short window.

There was no absentee voting.

You couldn't vote early.

If you were not available from noon to about 1:30 or 2, depending on your location, mountain time, you weren't able to participate.

That's pretty notable, Right.

I mean, we know caucuses have lower turnout compared to primary elections for some of the reasons you just stated, right?

There's a limited window.

You need to be there in person often.

Like, it just it is more limiting and who can participate.

So we expected a lower turnout.

But 7% is quite low.

And there maybe there's discussions about is this the most competitive nominating contest?

But in total numbers it was lower than 2012.

So maybe that was more competitive.

But the state has grown a lot since then and there are a lot more registered Republicans.

So I think those are some questions kind of moving forward and not just how do we ensure access, but I mean, there is a question, do you want larger turnout in a party nominating contest?

But this was notable, I think, for quite low turnout.

I think that that 7% turnout isn't dissimilar from a lot of these off cycle school bond and levy elections or a school district trustee election.

You see pretty low participation in those August school elections.

And I've seen some conversation, is it necessarily a bad thing to have low turnout if you have highly engaged voters on this one specific issue?

Right.

So maybe these are the most passionate and engaged and informed voters that are participating.

And so they are the ones that want to be making the decision, that should be the ones making the decision, those types of things.

But I think the question comes back to where there are people who wanted to participate that were unable to give in some of the different circumstances of the caucuses.

Well, I know, and I know that, you know, at my caucus site as I was leaving, there were people who were still showing up trying to participate.

At 2:45 in the afternoon, and they were very disappointed that they couldn't.

Well, and I'll just say, going back to originally when when I got involved with this discussion, originally, my motivator was trying to minimize voter confusion.

I've felt like for years when we had that March date separated from the May date, that it was confusing to voters of when the president was on the ballot and when all the other elections were on the ballot.

And if you remember last year, we were eliminating that March date for school bonds and levies and everything else and that's all that was left.

So it seemed like a good opportunity to have that discussion, obviously.

It got us to the point we're here today discussing this and trying to decide what to do moving forward.

But it really comes back to how do we minimize voter confusion.

And the Democrats, of course, have their own nominating process.

That's coming up.

Yes.

And we wish we had the primary election still on the table as an option.

That was swept away with kind of those legislative fights last year.

We were willing to compromise, you know, be it March or May.

We weren't picky about when.

We just know that to address the barriers that were just shared is really, in a primary election makes it so much easier.

And you know, with the caucus that the Republicans did on Saturday, if you were a deployed military member, you could not participate.

So we'll be doing our caucus, our presidential caucus in May, because that's the way we have to do it.

We're trying to make it as accessible as possible.

We will have an option for mail in ballots and you won't have to be at the polls at a certain time within the time frame, you know, get there any time.

And we're trying to make it feel like a regular election.

You'll get your ballot, make your choice, submit it, and you can be on your way.

But I'm hopeful.

I'm hopeful that we can compromise and come together and get back to a primary election for good.

You're also the chair of the state Democratic Party.

Yes, that's correct.

You know, between now and the next presidential election, you have two cycles where the state party picks its leadership.

And, you know, they could choose to retain current chairwoman Dorothy Moon or they could have a change in leadership.

We see this pretty frequently.

How much would that change the conversation?

Well, I think leadership of a party sets the tone and direction, and that does filter into the legislative body.

I mean, we are part of those parties.

We're in those same precincts as some of those people, and we wear those close associations.

Right.

So it totally sets the tone for for how that could go.

And I think it very well could play into this type of a decision going forward.

I also want to talk a little bit about the upcoming legislative primary races.

The filing period, we're about five days into the filing period that will close off in about a week.

Representative Necochea you have chosen not to run for reelection for your legislative seat.

Yes.

It's been an honor and a privilege these past five years to represent my constituents.

And such important work happens at the legislature.

What I am seeing is I feel like the most important use of my time is my work as role of the Idaho Democratic Party.

I think working to restore political balance in Idaho is urgently needed.

So I want to focus on that.

But I'm going to do the job as well as I can as I finish out my term this year.

Representative Manwaring, you are in one of the few districts in Idaho that has not just competitive primary races, but also competitive general elections.

You're in Pocatello and one of three split legislative districts right now in the state.

You are running for reelection.

Yeah, I have filed for reelection.

I did that last, well, early this week I guess.

You know, as we're hopefully nearing the end of the legislative session.

Are you seeing election fever affect any of the decisions that lawmakers are making, whether it's in bills to introduce or whether they're trying to wrap things up so they can go home and campaign?

I haven't really seen that set in yet.

There's so much work left to do and I feel like we're a little bit behind.

I think we'll get to that point where people are getting antsy to get out and get to work campaigning.

What I do, what I have seen is kind of an earlier start to the campaign cycle.

I haven't seen that in prior years.

The donations kind of started earlier this, before we even got into session.

So that kind of changed and I think I think maybe that could could set the tone going forward once we do get out of session.

I wanted to talk to you about that, too.

Because it's not just that the cycle started earlier, but there's a lot more money going in than we have seen, you know, certainly from a decade ago.

Right.

A lot of money coming in and particularly in some races where it started to look like, okay, we're probably gonna see some rematches, or some key primary races.

And so a lot of different interests and organizations giving quite a bit of money pretty early as mentioned.

Even before the session started.

And so this suggests that we're going to see quite a bit of money, I think, especially spent in some of these competitive primary races.

And that just seems to be a trend in general, more and more money.

And but I think that raises some questions as we move forward.

But definitely looking to see some very active primary races.

Absolutely.

And I don't want to speculate too much as that filing period is still open, but we already know that there are going to be some big rematches in District 1 in north Idaho.

Former Senator Jim Woodward has filed for reelection.

He lost his seat to current Senator Scott Herndon.

We were hoping that Senator Herndon could join us today, but he had to cancel.

But lots of interest.

Lots of money.

Is it healthy to have that much money in a state legislative race or is it just reality?

I think what's concerning is not quite so much how much money goes into the individual campaigns because we have good limits on those donations.

What is concerning is the outside money coming in.

The PACs, we know, you know, the pro voucher dollars coming in at really extreme levels has I think it's changed the makeup of the legislature and pushed pushed us rightward.

And so those when there are no limits on that, those PAC dollars, it is concerning because you start to see misrepresentations by these people who are coming in from out of state and then there's no accountability.

And it can sway elections.

And we do know outside money is often spent on negative advertising.

And can play a role in those discussions.

Yeah, I mean, I would have the same thing with the outside.

I mean, I think it goes both ways.

There has been support and opposition, a lot of opposition, and obviously that's independent from the candidates.

And I do see that same trend more and more of that going on.

But just going back to just the candidate fundraising as well, these races are getting more expensive, but I also would say that they don't that doesn't necessarily mean that the race is going to turn on dollars, Right.

I mean, I think you can pull out examples and show there was a lot of money and competitive and one that wasn't.

And so I think the concerning pieces to watch for these outside entities and how they continue to spend money in these legislative races.

We have just a few minutes left, but I did want to ask you what issues you were keeping an eye on in these, again, hopefully final weeks of the legislative session, whether, what you anticipate is going to be a hot debate or what the legislature hasn't addressed that you thought they would.

There's still quite a few issues that come up.

But I mean, one I think I'll be continuing to watch is Idaho Launch, which we've talked about before, which there's still funding questions there and other questions.

So that's one thing that I'm continuing to watch.

How about on your must address list?

Yeah, so fully funding Launch, the scholarship bill that so many graduating seniors are planning on.

They've made career plans around and they're really excited about and families are excited about their kids future.

I'm worried that there's a target on Launch and we have to get that across the finish line.

We need to fully fund Medicaid.

Our seniors our pregnant moms, low income kids, people with disabilities.

They rely on that funding.

I hope we can hold hoping we can hold the line on vouchers because we cannot afford them.

And then we have we didn't make schools whole.

We didn't deliver the resources that we promised and that got hung up in this kind of school.

How we a school funding formula debate and the schools have been shortchanged and there are holes in their budgets Representative Manwaring.

Well, I think we have the tax cut and school facilities bill that we have to get done or, you know, we're working to get that through the process.

And it's on the Senate floor.

The House has already taken that up.

That's a big one.

That provides ongoing funding to schools for school facilities and maintenance, up to $1 billion over the next ten years.

It lowers the tax rates both individually and corporate rates come down in that bill.

There's some other things in there, but that's the one that I think is the going home bill to get done this session.

I also think we're going to be dealing with this school choice issue one way or another before we get out of here and see what happens there.

Do you think Launch is in danger?

I don't know if Launch is in danger.

I think I'm waiting to see the proposal that rises to the top.

We've talked about that this week in leadership meetings.

And, I don't think anybody's pointing to a specific solution yet, but I think we expect one to come.

Okay.

Majority Caucus Chair Dustin Manwaring, Minority Assistant Leader Lauren Necochea and Dr. Jaclyn Kettler, thank you so much for joining us.

That is all the time we have for this week.

A quick note before we go.

Two weeks ago, we let you know that our friend and long time Idaho reports contributor Dr. Jim Weatherby passed away.

Dr. Weatherby's service will be in Boise at 4 p.m. on March 12th at Boise State University's Alumni and Friends Center.

The public is welcome to attend.

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.

By the Friends of Idaho Public Television and by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.