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>>The legislature didn't hit its target adjournment date and still has some major issues looming, including high profile library policy bills and multibillion dollar budgets.

Are there any debates that might keep them there longer than next week?

I'm Melissa Davlin.

Idaho Reports starts now.

Hello and welcome to Idaho.

Reports this week, House Minority Caucus Chairman Ned Burns and House Majority Caucus Chairman Dustin Manwaring talk about their new leadership roles and end of session debates.

Then Kevin Richert of Idaho Education News and Dr. Jaclyn Kettler of Boise State University's School of Public Service join me to discuss education budgets and debates, as well as a legal fight between the Attorney General and the Idaho Department of Health and Welfare.

But first, let's get you caught up on the week.

The Senate passed a bill that would allow the use of a firing squad as a legal means of execution if lethal injection chemicals aren't available.

>>The department's continued inability to secure such drugs seems to indicate the unavailability may be indefinite.

Making our ability to carry out the lawful sentence impossible.

the lawful sentence impossible.

>>I've seen the aftermath of of shootings, shootings and it's psychologically damaging to anybody who witnesses it, anybody who has a hand in it, anybody who plays a role in the the aftermath and the cleanup and all the logistics involved.

and all the logistics involved.

It's, in a word, brutal.

And the use of the firing squad, in my opinion, is beneath the dignity of the state of Idaho.

We have to find a better way.

>>That bill now awaits the governor's signature.

The Senate has also passed other critical bills this week, the big property tax compromise that helps school districts pay down bonds and levies and establishes a tax credit for those who qualify for the homeowner's exemption.

That bill is now in the governor's hands.

Another bill awaiting the governor's signature is the overhaul of the state's public defense system.

The legislation establishes a statewide public defender's office.

For more on these and other bills, including a public defense panel on the proposal with Seth Grigg of the Idaho Association of Counties and Richie Eppink of ACLU of Idaho, visit IdahoPTV.org/IdahoReports The House has passed a new library content bill that would allow parents or guardians to sue a library for $2,500 if the library allows a child to check out materials deemed obscene.

>>They go to all the meetings, they do what they need to do to remedy the situation, and they can't get it fixed.

So they've come to us to help find a solution for them.

>>It gives that chilling effect It gives that chilling effect.

that we can come tell you That we can come tell you if we whomever we are and whatever we decide is inappropriate, have now somewhat been weaponized to bring suit.

to bring suit.

>>A private school shall not make available to a minor any picture of a person that depicts sexual conduct.

that depicts sexual conduct.

Private schools can't have books of two dudes kissing?

Or doing anything that homosexuals do?

Come on!

Now, I'm not saying this is a bad bill for that reason, but it makes you want to look a little bit further, doesn't it?

>>That bill passed on a 40-30 vote and is now awaiting action in the Senate.

Meanwhile, the Senate State Affairs Committee introduced two new bills on libraries, one that establishes an expedited process for legal proceedings on civil challenges against libraries and one that would require every library district to appoint a citizens advisory panel, which would include a religious leader, a law enforcement officer with experience investigating sex crimes and library patrons.

At the committee meeting, Meridian Library Trustee Jeff Koehler told the committee if the library bills pass, he may recommend his library rescind all library cards issued to minors and ban any unaccompanied minors from the library for liability reasons.

These debates come the same week as the Ada County commissioners heard testimony on a petition to dissolve the Meridian Library District over content concerns from a small group of patrons.

The library bills aren't the only ones awaiting action.

On Friday, I had a chance to speak to House Majority Caucus Chair Dustin Manwaring and House Minority Caucus chair Ned Burns about the first few months in their new leadership roles, as well as their respective parties politics and end of session issues they have yet to address.

Thank you both so much for joining me.

I wanted to start by saying, I wanted to start by saying, you know, you know, you're both new to your roles as caucus chairs for your respective parties.

Were there any surprises as you took up the roles this session?

I'll start with you, Representative Burns.

>>Well, thanks, Melissa.

I'm happy to be here.

I have been it's I have been it's been interesting to see some of the personality dynamics that have shaken out.

You know, we sometimes have a little bit of tension, but for the most part, it's been it's been really easy.

Sometimes the most exciting thing is is really trying to coordinate with Dustin here to get to a get a pair slip filled out before before we got to go.

But that's it's been nothing that I was unprepared for.

>>How about you?

>>Yeah.

I mean, I think with a lot of the new legislators we had this year, we had a large freshman class, and a lot of that obviously falls on the majority side.

So we're all learning to work together with each other, but we also have a new leadership team, so it would be different.

I think if I knew I was coming in as caucus chair to an existing leadership team, so we're all learning to work with each other.

So that's probably the biggest thing that we had to work through this year just to, to get how how we work with each other and then the dynamics in our caucus.

But we've got along well.

And that's, I don't think, been a surprise.

I expected that as I saw this freshman class come in, they hit the ground running and they were well prepared.

So I've been excited to work with them.

to work with them.

And it's >>It's the morning of March 24th as we're having this conversation.

This was the target date for the end of the session.

There are still There are still a number of bills left on the reading calendars in both the House and the Senate.

What are the going home issues for you two?

Well, we still have >>Well, we still have some appropriations, and I think today we hopefully will see the last of the appropriations be introduced.

So we need to get those through.

We saw yesterday we got the higher education budget passed off the floor, but we still haven't taken up the K through 12 budget.

So we need to get that done.

We have a trailer bill for Idaho launch that the House will take up today.

But the going home bills, I mean, we passed the property tax relief bill and we need to see if that makes it through the governor's approval.

But that is a that is a priority, making sure we get property tax relief this year.

>>You still need to take up the Medicaid budget as well.

>>Yeah, correct.

We do need to take that up.

We had a we had a good budget earlier in the week.

Sadly, it didn't quite make it across.

I think that we've got a Department of Lands that we're still kind of hanging out there on Secretary of State's budget like, like Dustin said, definitely K-12 budget and there will be some interesting fights to be had there for sure.

I'm sure there will be vigorous debate.

Yeah.

>>You know Representative Manwaring, you brought up Idaho Launch, which barely passed the House by one vote earlier in the session.

There have been some conservatives who have criticized bills in which the majority of Republicans voted no, but they were able to pass with a minority of Republicans plus all of the Democrats.

I wanted to get your take I wanted to get your take on that criticism.

on that criticism.

Yeah, >>Yeah, I don't really view it that way.

I know that's the message after the fact when you look at the vote count.

But we have these debates and we we vote on these Idaho issues when they're on the floor.

And I never view it as we're voting as blocks or voting with, you know, with with Democrats or not.

I know we have these these criticisms after, but I don't view it that way.

These are tough issues.

When you're on the floor and we're voting for our district and our for our constituents and they are very different around the state of Idaho, my district in Pocatello is very different from some of the districts up north or even in Idaho Falls.

You know, I feel the same.

>>You know, I feel the same.

It's It's we are a body of 70 we are a body of 70 and that body to get something through.

You've got to get 36 votes.

You don't have to get a majority of Republicans or a majority of Democrats.

You have to get a majority.

And that's all it is at the point that we're in there voting on something.

The 36 is the important number, The 36 is the important number, not the who makes it up.

>>Representative Manwaring, you sponsored legislation that passed the Senate on Thursday to move the presidential primary to May.

The chair The chair of the Republican State Party, Dorothy Moon, sent out an email earlier in the session.

Really criticizing that bill and encouraging Republicans to reach out to lawmakers to oppose it.

And that wasn't the only bill that the Republican state Party opposed with, opposed with you know emails and blasts to Republicans.

Have you Have you talked directly to Chairwoman Moon?

>>I have not talked to Chairwoman Moon, Moon directly, but I know Secretary of state on that specific bill.

Secretary of State Phil McGrane has talked to her.

We also have they have represented representatives from the party in the legislature.

So Julianne Young is the representative that represents the party in the legislature that they've designated to be the representative.

I've talked to her a lot.

So there have been conversations.

And I think one of the reasons that we sometimes those conversations get if you're there’s too much talking going on, then you don't get direct conversations.

And so my line of communication my line of communication was directly with the secretary of state's office, with the directly with Julianne Young.

And I'm happy to talk to to the chairman Moon And that's not the that's not the issue.

They're just there was miscommunication as that bill was moving through, but happy to but happy to talk to her about it.

>>After those emails went out from the state Republican Party, did you see an increase in emails from Republicans across the state?

I saw a few, not very many.

>>I saw a few, not very many.

I saw a few that came in to me.

>>Representative Burns, you sit right next to the chairwoman of the state Democratic Party on the House floor.

Do those statewide politics ever come up in conversations?

>>You know, not really.

You know, she kind of focuses on party business when she's wearing her her party chair hat and when she's in the building, she's pretty much exclusively focused on on the work that we're doing for the people.

Now, you both mentioned >>You both mentioned, working on behalf of your constituencies and voting for the people in your districts.

But as the caucus chairs, you also wear different hats too, you represent not just the people in your districts, but also your your party in the House.

Does that change how you approach decisions when you're voting or when you're debating on the floor?

I think I think >>I think I think to a degree it does.

You know, I mean, there's times that, you know, I reach out to members across the aisle members across the aisle and and we're working on things or trying to get things accomplished.

And maybe it changes the way I debate or choose not to debate.

The vote is always the vote.

The vote is always the vote.

You know, that doesn't you know, I don't change my vote based on a relationship.

I'm trying to get down the road, you know, to to accomplish something else.

But I certainly will sometimes hold my tongue if I think that it's going to be beneficial for a greater goal.

Well, yeah.

>>Well, yeah.

And I am my my my vote is for my district every time.

But when I look at my role as a caucus chair, I'm trying to bring I'm trying to bring together my caucus because there is diversity in that caucus like we talked about earlier.

And so I think I think there is more I think I think there is more that holds us together than there is that takes us apart on these issues.

So I think So I think I think it is a factor.

But at the end of the day, again, we're all voting for what is best for our districts.

>>Even if the legislature doesn't adjourn today, we are coming up near the end.

As you look back at the last couple of months, what are issues that you're really happy about that that made it to the governor's desk?

Yeah, I'm >>Yeah, I'm happy about House bill 292, the tax relief plan that we passed.

I'm excited I'm excited to see what that does for property tax relief and actually to try to put more money into supplementals and paying off some of these school bonds and levies.

If we could have a system in place where we're able to have school districts around the state that are able to bond off that money without going to the voters to ask for increases.

That could be a game changer if that really works.

And I'm excited to finally, hopefully provide some direct property tax relief to Idahoans.

I would echo that same thing.

>>I would echo that same thing.

I mean, I was a co-sponsor on the bill.

I worked really closely with Chairman Monks and Speaker Moyle, you know, negotiating hard on behalf negotiating hard on behalf of some of the things that I thought were important for, you know, some Democratic priorities.

But I think this is going to work, and I hope that the governor signs it and I hope that we get to see some real meaningful relief and also maybe a lessening in reliance on bonds and levies.

>>How about issues that you wish the legislature had addressed but didn't this year?

You know what?

>>You know what?

I think I'm going to twist that question just a little bit.

I think that we addressed a number of, you know, voting issues.

you know, voting issues.

And I think that that, you know, when you look at how some of those votes came out on the floor, I think that we did the right thing.

You know, we said that we are not going to take away the right for absentee ballots.

We are not going to take away affidavits.

affidavits.

And I think those were strong messages that say that, you know, we believe in our integrity of our elections and we also trust that both the people that are voting and the people that are conducting the elections are doing them in a in a good, safe, fair manner.

in a good, safe, fair manner.

Yeah.

>>Yeah.

I mean, one of the issues that I think we're going to continue to address maybe not a disappointment, but but sure, surely something that's at the top of the priority list going forward is making sure that we have Medicaid spending under control and we're making sure that we understand the costs.

And there's some cost containment measures because that budget continues to rise and rise.

So that's one that we continue to keep our eye on for sure.

And another one that we're going to be dealing with.

And there's there's litigation pending is the abortion issues.

And we've seen a couple of attempts to do something this year, but there's still going to be a lot to play out on those issues and we're going to be dealing with them next session as well.

>>What are the issues in your mind that need to be addressed with abortion?

Well, >>Well, we know there's there's pending litigation regarding them to all of the federal law.

And the emergency room treatment stuff.

And we'll see what happens there.

We also have >>And that’s specifically when a woman comes to the emergency room to a hospital that receives Medicaid funds and may have a health threatening issue with her pregnancy, but not necessarily life threatening.

>>Yeah, that's right.

And that federal that federal law allows requires the treatment, permits the treatment in those emergency situations.

There's also an affirmative defense in our current statute, and there's litigation over that affirmative defense.

And then we have doctors and doctors and hospitals around Idaho that are asking us to have some limited exceptions and to clarify our statutes.

Going forward there's a lot of clarifications and cleanup that I think we need to do.

So there's but those few issues, I think you're going to see us try to deal with.

>>Those were the same issues at the beginning of the session.

None of those are necessarily new.

Why didn't the legislature take those up this year?

>>Well, I can tell you, there's been a lot of discussions, a lot of work on trying to decide whether the timing and whether we needed to do it this session and the right way to do it.

There has been a lot of negotiation and attempts and you've seen it even as early as even as early as as I was, I guess as early or late, however you want to say it in session as a few days ago, a bill introduced into House State affairs that was pulled back because there still, you know, some back and forth on whether this was the right approach.

So this this continues.

These are difficult issues and timing and opportunity, but we're trying to negotiate things that we know we can pass and get signed.

>>I wanted to give you a chance to respond.

>>You know, Dustin's right.

It is a difficult issue.

It is a difficult issue.

And I think he and I are going to have some disagreement on potentially how much what the what the right amount of of a woman's right is, whether we're talking strictly, you know, medical necessity medical necessity or if there is, you know, any ground anywhere else that that should be discussed.

And it'll be a robust discussion next session for sure.

>>All right.

House Minority Caucus Chair Ned Burns, House Majority Caucus Chair Dustin Manwaring, thank you both so much for joining me today.

>>Thank you, Melissa.

>>Thanks, Melissa.

>>After our interview, house State Affairs Chairman Brent Crane announced his committee would introduce two abortion bills on Monday, with hearings scheduled for Tuesday.

We'll continue to follow this story online.

Look for updates at IdahoPTV.org/IdahoReports The Joint Finance Appropriations Committee passed another Medicaid budget on Thursday after the first failed on the House floor on Monday.

This budget appropriates $4.5 billion, including $3 billion of federal funds and needs approval from both chambers before making it to the governor's desk.

Another Idaho Department of Health and Welfare issue made headlines this week.

The department is asking a district court to stop an attorney general investigation into how the department awarded community partner grants meant to go to programs that serve children between the ages of 5 to 13 to help with issues like learning, loss and behavioral health.

In March, Attorney General Raul Labrador requested information from those grant recipients on how they spent the funds, specifically looking to see if any of the organizations used the funds for children younger than five years old.

Labrador also requested information from Health and welfare Director Dave Jeppesen, plus two other department employees.

On Thursday, Jeppesen filed a petition to stop the investigation, saying the attorney general doesn't have the statutory authority for the investigation.

The department also pointed to two letters from a deputy attorney general saying the department could award grants to programs that serve children younger than five as long as they also serve school age children.

Idaho Reports has since learned that the Joint Budget Committee co-chairs alerted Labrador's office to the potential issues with the grants.

The department maintains that it awarded those grants legally.

It's a complex story and we have much more on line.

But joining me to discuss the political implications of this fight are Kevin Richert of Idaho Education News and Dr. Jacqueline Kettler of Boise State University's School of Public Service.

Dr. Kettler, this isn't the first time that an AG has been at odds with other people in state government, whether in Idaho or elsewhere.

But how often do these fights, do these tensions become public like this?

>>I think this is a fairly unusual case.

fairly unusual case.

Sometimes we'll see high profile conflicts when there's a partizan split.

Right.

The governor and the attorney general are elected from different parties.

But this is a fairly different situation.

And I think it is really interesting, the conflict that it does put put both perhaps the attorney general office, but also health and welfare as trying to figure out, okay, how do we pursue how or how do we proceed in this situation?

>>Do you think there may be any policy or a functioning government implications depending on how this plays out?

>>For sure.

I mean, first of all, there’s just like, kind of trust in how how the executive branch is operating.

Right.

And how actors within the executive branch are cooperating and engaging, especially when the attorney general office is that legal representation in most situations for agencies.

And now you have, you know, health and welfare, most likely, I assume, pursuing private or outside counsel in the situation.

So these tensions can play a role down the road as well.

In addition to this, this current debate.

>>And that's so interesting.

So so, yes, the department did get outside counsel.

And ultimately we can assume that taxpayers will will pay for that.

But you say trust in government and, you know, already I've seen responses to the story that there are some people who are pointing fingers at the Department of Health and Welfare and other people who are pointing fingers at the attorney general's office.

So it it almost seems like it's confirming positions that people may have already had.

>>Right.

I think I think that is right.

And I mean, there's been some debates.

There have been for several years about health and welfare, kind of some of the the different policy actions or or mechanisms there.

mechanisms there.

But also now we have a new attorney general and kind of how that office is going to operate and run and what is within the bounds of that office and what is not will be kind of questions for moving forward.

>>And, Kevin, this debate stems from a 2021 legislate a fight that involves pre-K education and whether or not the state government can fund it.

>>Right.

This adds a whole new layer of political intrigue and political political implications to a long standing fight at the statehouse about whether the state has a role or should take a role in pre-K, whether there's a you know, a role in the in in that the state should play in funding pre-K or is the state's education role strictly K-12?

>>And that was, you know, in in 2021, you and I both sat through debates where the only way they could get that community grant program passed was if they guaranteed that the money wouldn't go to as a money wouldn't go to as a roundabout way of funding pre-K. >>Right, exactly.

This like I say, this has been a fight and it goes back well beyond 2021.

There have been attempts to fund pre-K at the state level that have really gone nowhere.

>>So we have plenty of education debates that are new for just this week.

I want to ask you first of all, for an update on school choice legislation.

We already know that we've seen a number of proposals die.

There was a proposal that looped in the Empowering Parents Grant program.

What's the latest on that?

>>Well, it looks like it's kind of fizzled out.

The bill was supposed to have a hearing in the House Education Committee on Wednesday.

It was pulled off of the agenda Tuesday evening.

Basically, there wasn't the support in the House Education Committee to get that bill out of committee and onto the House floor.

And that was the leading And that was the leading school choice legislation of the session.

That was probably the last bill standing and with it fizzling out in house education.

The issue appears to be dead for 2023, but we're certainly going to see this issue resurface in 2024.

The debate continue in 2024, which is an election year for 105 legislators.

>>Well, and this is a bill that passed a Senate that was skeptical on other school choice proposals.

>>And a split Senate in and of itself.

‘t mean, this bill passed the Senate on a 19-15 vote.

There were several Republicans who changed their votes.

They voted against the far more far more aggressive and extensive universal education savings account bill that that failed on the Senate floor.

This passed didn’t pass by much, but but the changes in the bill, the changes in the bill, in the scope of the bill, obviously were not enough to sway skeptics on the House Education Committee.

>>Let's talk education budget.

Starting with the higher education budgets.

Community colleges are rarely controversial in the legislature, but it's usually those four year institutions.

Boise State, University of Idaho, ISU and LCSC that that find the sticking points.

>>It was more or less the kind of debate that you would expect on a higher education budget was more or less the debate we've heard on higher education budgets in past years.

Really not a whole lot of discussion about the dollar figures themselves, but about diversity, equity, inclusion, social justice.

All of those buzz buzzwords emerged in the debate.

Ultimately, the bill did pass 41 to 28.

It's on its way to the governor's desk, and it's more or less the budget that Governor Little wanted in the first place.

So I would imagine that it'll get signed into law, but it sets the stage.

Again, here's another debate that we're almost certainly going to see resurface in 2024.

I thought one of the interesting things we heard in the debate on the House floor on Thursday evening, Representative Wendy Horman, the co-chair of the Joint Finance Appropriations Committee, said We've done about as much as we can with the budget.

If you really want to address DEI, if you really want to address social justice, what you really ought to do, colleagues, is write a policy bill that bans DEI the eye and social justice and social justice spending on public campuses as has taken place in other states.

commi you can almost you can almost hear the wheels turning.

I mean, this is almost certainly going to be a bill that somebody presents in 2024.

I think we haven't even put the 2023 session to bed.

And we're talking about issues that are going to make the 2024 session pretty fascinating.

>>Don't jinx us because we haven't adjourned yet, so we still have some committe meetings >>I said we haven’t put the 2023 session to bed yet.

we haven't talked about yet.

>>There’s still time.

How about the K-through-12 public education budget?

It passed the Joint Budget Committee.

We haven't heard it on the floor yet.

>>Hasn't come up in either House, hasn't come up in either House, but we know that they're coming back next week.

I would imagine that's going to come up pretty quickly.

I don't envision much, I don't envision much, many sticking points on the K-12 budgets, but who knows?

>>We've been surprised before, certainly by that K-12 budget.

You know, we have about a minute and a half left.

I want to ask you for an update on that Idaho Launch program.

>>That also appears to be well on its way to the governor's office.

The Senate took them a while, took 2 hours for them to pass the two Idaho launch bills.

And it gets complicated because the one basically the one basically fixes and changes and tweaks a lot of things in the original bill.

in the original bill.

That bill is on its way to the governor.

The original bill is on the governor's desk or on its way.

The follow up bill, the trailer bill that came out of House Committee on Friday, I would imagine that the House takes that up, you know, maybe as early as Tuesday when they come back into session.

So it looks for all intents and purposes, like this program is on its way to the governor's desk.

>>And as a reminder, the Idaho launch program is it's an expansion of an existing program.

And it would give give grants to graduating high school seniors for workforce training.

>>Up to $8,000 for community college or workforce training.

Right.

>>And what is the trailer bill?

What does the companion bill fix or change rather?

>>What it does, it does a lot of things.

But one of the things that it does is it kind of limits the amount of money a high school graduate can get.

It reduces it to $8,000, requires that student to put 20% of cover 20% of their costs, among other things.

But those are the two biggies that would affect students.

>>Fantastic.

Kevin Richert of Idaho Education News.

We'll see you back at the state House next week.

Lucky you.

>>I’ll be there all week.

>>And Dr. Jacqueline Kettler from Boise State University's School of Public Service.

Thank you so much for joining us today.

And thank you for watching.

Again, we have so much more online.

Go to IdahoPTV.org/IdahoReports You'll find it all there.

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.