Narrator: 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.

Melissa Davlin: It's the third week of session, and lawmakers are already addressing big concerns like fentanyl trafficking and guns on school campuses.

Tonight, Senate Majority Leader Kelly Anthon gives us his take on the progress so far.

I'm Melissa Davlin.

Idaho Reports starts now.

Hello and welcome to Idaho Reports.

This week, Kevin Richert of Idaho Education News gives us an update on the open meeting lawsuit against the state Board of Education and what it might mean for the University of Phoenix acquisition.

Then Senate Majority Leader Kelly Anthon joins me to discuss the session so far.

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

On Tuesday, the House Judiciary Committee passed a bill that would add mandatory minimum prison sentences to people trafficking fentanyl.

The bill also includes a section establishing drug induced homicide where a person could be criminally charged if they distribute a drug that later kills someone.

The committee debate focused on the lethality of fentanyl versus whether mandatory minimums are the best way to address it.

Sen. Todd Lakey: We have a gap in our fence representatives, and that is the fence that helps protect us against cocaine, meth and heroin.

But fentanyl is pouring through that gap.

70% of the pills, as was testified, are potentially lethal.

Our law enforcement community is united in asking for this.

Our community leaders are asking for it.

And 86% of Idahoans are saying, we need this.

Please send House Bill 406 to the floor with a do pass.

Rep. David Cannon: Four grams of marijuana, which would which are laced with fentanyl, would pull this, would pull a possessor into the mandatory minimums that are set forth by this fentanyl trafficking bill.

Furthermore, one ounce of marijuana laced with fentanyl would subject the possessor to the maximum amount of mandatory minimum prison time.

Ten years.

Rep. John Gannon: Well, I have a very serious concern about charging kids with first degree murder, for that reason, for the reason that they are immature and that I'm not sure that I am very uncomfortable with putting them in a situation where they are punishable with up to, I believe, 99 years.

Rep. Kenny Wroten: Maybe we can't stop it as they've testified to, but we can certainly do something to slow it.

Certainly give something to our law enforcement, all the branches.

That give them a tool to help protect the good people of Idaho.

Davlin: A similar bill failed last year in committee.

The full House of Representatives is scheduled to take it up next week.

We have more on the proposal on the Idaho Reports podcast this week.

Associate producer Logan Finney sat down with Senate Judiciary Chairman Todd Lakey, one of the sponsors of the bill.

You can find it on the Idaho Reports podcast online wherever you listen to podcasts.

On Monday, emergency medical service professionals from around the state highlighted their concerns about funding during a panel for lawmakers.

Producer Ruth Brown has been covering challenges to the state's EMS system, particularly in rural areas.

Here's some of her coverage from last winter.

Chief Bill Arsenault: We receive no major government funding.

We do not have an ambulance taxing district.

We don't have an ambulance district.

The only funding the Kamiah fire rescue receives for it's ambulance services is from our transports.

And that is a situation that's hard in general, just because of the Medicaid and Medicare reimbursement fees.

We receive a very, very small amount of the total cost of that operational response.

When we tie in Medicaid, in the nutshell, we receive pennies on the dollars to support the full time staff, to support the volunteers.

Ruth Brown: The possibility of not receiving additional funding is frustrating to some responders.

Arsenault: I once heard an elected official say, When you come to my county, you have to expect your house will probably burn to the ground before the fire department gets there.

And you shouldn't expect to be taken to the hospital in a timely manner.

I disagree with that statement.

Absolutely, 100% disagree with it.

And it's not because I'm in this role, it's because as public servants, we want to help people.

And even the elected official who made those comments should want to help his or her constituents have survivability of life.

Brown: Rural areas also face challenges with recreators.

While thousands may visit the area, those people don't contribute to the property taxes that help pay for emergency medical services.

Chief Garrett de Jong: If you compared us to a county with 11,000 that is not a tourist area, that we, I would guesstimate that we run about 75% more calls than those counties.

Cody Killmar: Riggins EMS is definitely a unique agency in the state of Idaho because of our destination, our vacation destination.

People come into Riggins, for instance, when you go to the grocery store on a weekend, you can't even recognize who you're shopping with just because they're all out of towners.

And then also our steep mountains, as you can see.

It's like this all around us.

So our geographical location is a lot more unique than other locations.

Brown: For many rural areas, such as Riggins.

There is no local hospital, and transporting patients can be one of the biggest problems.

Killmar: So we have 45 minutes of lights on on the highway with cars needing to pull over.

So it's a nerve racking job with them in the front just making sure that we're getting to the hospital safe with our amount of traffic.

We only have one highway through Riggins.

de Jong: I feel like Idaho EMS and fire is already underfunded and the state legislature just seems intent every year to cut funding even more.

And we're at a point where, you know, with the House Bill 389 and the cap on levy rates with annexation, not increasing your ability to collect collect taxes makes it impossible, mathematically, for us to save for a second station.

And it delays hiring full time firefighter, firefighter EMTs by 3 to 5 years.

Davlin: The House Education Committee advanced a bill that would allow school employees to carry guns if they have an enhanced concealed carry permit.

The bill passed out of committee despite concerns from education stakeholders.

Paul Stark: Parents have the ultimate responsibility, and in this situation, a parent, not only do they not have any input on this, they have no say, they have no voice.

They can't even go to their elected officials, the school board members, and discuss their what they may have troubling or supportive of an individual, a volunteer perhaps, bringing a firearm into their child's classroom.

Andrea Wilson: Each school district should be able to determine their own policy concerning weapons on campus, since they will be the ones that will have to deal with the consequences.

Legislators should not dictate from on high that people should be allowed to bring deadly weapons around my kids while they're just trying to learn at school.

No, thank you.

Scott Brock: I will tell you that the enhanced carry class is the lowest common denominator.

That's the lowest level of training.

It's the entry level of training.

It is not active shooter training.

Rep. Ted Hill: These fears are unfounded.

Always focus, I always say every time I get up here, focus on the objective.

Focus on what we're trying to do.

We don't want to have a stack of 20 kids dead in a classroom because we didn't do anything.

That's the reason I'm doing this.

It can happen.

Let's get on top of this.

Get in front of it.

All these other things are not going to be a problem.

I don't want to see that carnage happen in my state.

Davlin: Joining me to discuss the bill and other topics is Kevin Richert of Idaho Education News.

Kevin, this is not the first time this debate has come up.

Kevin Richert: No, and this isn't the first time we've seen legislation to this end to try to pave the way for more school employees to carry guns on campus.

It's worth noting that some schools already do allow staff and faculty to have guns on campus.

A little bit different requirements.

I mean, those school districts and those charter schools that have gone down this path, those staffers have to have active shooter training.

And that's training, I think, was one of the big issues that came up in this hearing this week, is with these would these staff members have adequate training to have guns in school?

Davlin: And that would be through an enhanced concealed carry permit class.

I think it's about 8 hours.

Richert: Exactly.

And that's the question.

Is that adequate training to have staff in school with weapons?

Davlin: This conversation comes as we've had so many issues come up over school security and concerns come up over school security in the last couple of decades, especially after Sandy Hook, but certainly since Columbine in the late nineties.

What are other things the state has done to address school security?

Richert: I think it comes at a time, obviously because of the national discussion of school security and the tragic cases that we've seen across the country and the nearly tragic case that we saw in Rigby just a couple of years ago.

Obviously, there's much more attention being paid to this.

And there's money that's being put into school security.

The state put $20 million towards grants to allow schools to enhance their physical security, know whether we're talking about fences or gates or better alarm systems or camera systems.

Locked doors so parents can't just walk in.

Exactly, just the basic security.

And I got to tell you, I mean, I go to schools a lot in my job, and there are times that some schools have really strong, you know, security systems in place, really solid safeguards.

Others not so much.

So the $20 million that we're talking about that's going out, and not all of it has gone out yet, is designed to help schools, especially maybe some rural schools that don't have the resources to do this, to upgrade their security.

Davlin: Well, let's talk about that a little bit, because we heard so much this week about rural EMS, emergency medical services, and what happens if you have a health emergency, too.

The same is true in some areas of the state for law enforcement.

A sheriff's office might only have a handful of deputies and they might be on the other side of the county.

Richert: And that, I think, is a big element of the debate about this bill and, you know, arming school staff.

There are a lot of remote school districts that are far away from a sheriff's office that, you know, you could have an hour or more between the time when the unthinkable is beginning to unfold in a school and first responders can get onto the scene.

Davlin: Custer County, Idaho County.

Richert: Custer County.

And you've seen, you know, some of the districts that have, you know, allowed staff to carry weapons are in very remote areas.

So that's a legitimate question that comes up and it's a legitimate issue that's part of this debate.

Davlin: You know, that wasn't the only education issue that made headlines this week.

You also sat in on the trial over a potential alleged open meeting violation.

Attorney General Raul Labrador alleges that the state Board of Education had an open meeting violation when it was considering University of Idaho purchasing the University of Phoenix.

What did we learn this week?

Richert: What we've learned, we've got some insight into the process that got us to this point where the U of I, you know, and the state board agreed on this potential purchase.

We learned more about some of the discussions that took place in those closed meetings.

We learned a little bit more about potential bidders, aside from the ones we already knew about U of I obviously and the University of Arkansas.

Another name came up in the the four days in court.

University of Massachusetts apparently at least, was looking at Phoenix as a potential buy.

So we heard a little bit about that.

We heard very little about what is probably the crux, the important issue that I think a lot of Idahoans are still kind of wrestling with.

Why does the U of I and the state Board of Education see so much value in purchasing Phoenix?

We didn't really hear much testimony about the pros and cons of the purchase.

And the judge, district Judge Jason Scott kind of cut off that kind of discussion early on in the trial, and understandably so.

I mean, this is an open meetings trial.

It's not a trial about the pros and cons of Phoenix, but really, we haven't had that public discussion in the, you know, where we were like almost nine months into when we first learned about the possibility that the U of I would purchase Phoenix.

I mean, we're eight months and we've not had that kind of discussion because most of those discussions again took place in closed meetings, which, you know, may or may not have been warranted closed meetings.

That's the that's what's being hashed out in court.

And we don't have a ruling yet.

And we won't get a ruling until next week at the earliest.

Davlin: Does the fact that there was another potential bidder, at least somebody looking at it, does that change the outlook for for the veracity of this lawsuit in the first place?

Richert: It was really interesting, Melissa, because I would say yes and not necessarily.

Yes, this lawsuit is really about competition, because when you when you unwrap the reasoning behind these closed meetings and you really, you know, dig into the exemption that the state board used with the U of I's consultation, it comes down to preliminary negotiations about a transaction that involves competition with another public bidder or public bidders from other states or nations.

So it can't just be that you're in competition.

Or it can't just be, Well, we think there's going to be competition.

You have to have competition with other states or nations, and they have to be public entities.

So University of Arkansas, how active were they in April after their board of regents voted against this?

That's a question.

UMass Global, which is a nonprofit affiliated with a state university.

So that would be, you know, a public bidder.

So, yes, that revelation does tend to lend credence to the idea that, yes, U of I was in a competitive process.

The question is, did state board members know this when they voted to go into executive session?

Throughout the questioning, board members were asked, Have you ever heard of UMass Global?

None of them said they did.

So, you know, there could be competition.

But the question is, did the state board know enough about the competition?

Had they done adequate research about the competition before they went behind closed doors?

That's what the attorney general's office has been arguing in court this week, saying they didn't do enough legwork.

Davlin: And so much of this might sound wonky or in the weeds, but it all comes down to government transparency and what state public entities are doing, you know, on our dime.

Even if they're using other other means to pay for this transaction in the first place, they're still using state employee resources.

Richert: And here's what I thought was so interesting about that open meetings discussion that we saw unfold in court this week and obviously you know, look, open meetings are oxygen to you and I and to reporters in general.

We love open meetings, so we're going to geek out on this stuff.

But what I thought was really interesting and I found myself thinking about other elected and appointed officials along the way, the state board and Trudy Houser, their attorney, kept pointing to the process and kept pointing to you had Kent Nelson long time attorney with the U of I who sort of engineered the reasoning, the case for these closed meetings, then it went to a deputy attorney general with the state board, who's been there almost 12 years.

Jennifer Marcus also went through the executive director of the state board, Matt Freeman, who's been there for eight and a half years.

So the point that she was making is you had this very detailed process that involved very experienced staff members.

Well, that's fine for the state Board of Education, which is a much larger entity with much larger support staff.

I found myself thinking about rural school districts, you know, cities, counties, highway districts, you know, smaller government entities who don't have that kind of a support network in place, a staff network in place, who also have to comply with the open meetings law because transparency is important at all levels of government, state and local.

Davlin: And not to remark on whether this lawsuit is warranted or not or the potential outcome, but in my experience, whether it's a public records violation or an open meeting violation, so often those violations are unintentional.

Richert: If I were an elected or an appointed official in this state, I would invest a little bit of time in looking at this case and looking at what was argued in this case.

I think it's very illustrative and very informative.

And at the end of the day, a discussion about openness in government, in an open courtroom is an inherently good thing.

Davlin: Kevin Richert, Idaho Education News, thanks for joining us.

Thanks.

Lawmakers just wrapped up their third week of the session.

Here to give me his take on how things are going so far and where we might be headed is Senate Majority Leader Kelly Anthon.

Senator Anthon, thank you so much for joining us today.

Sen. Kelly Anthon: Thank you.

Davlin: How is it going so far?

Have there been any surprises?

Anthon: Well, you know, I guess the short answer is there are always surprises.

You get to Boise thinking you have a feel for what's going to happen and it doesn't play out the way you think.

I do think that one of the surprises that is coming forward in this session is an ongoing discussion of how the Joint Finance and Appropriations Committee should function.

And in particular, what are the rules that govern the Joint Finance Committee.

And that's something I didn't really, we had a little flavor of it last year, but this year I think it's become really a paramount issue for the session.

Other than that, you know, it's business as usual.

It's a political season because the upcoming primary election.

And so to the extent that plays a part, it's playing a part.

Davlin: Let’s talk a little bit about that joint budget setting committee.

We know that they drastically changed their process this year.

We've talked about it on the show.

It's been the subject of a lot of coverage.

We know that they kicked off week two by passing, you know, billions of dollars in maintenance budgets for major state agencies.

But we haven't seen any of those budgets hit the House or Senate floors yet.

Are there some behind the scenes discussions going on that are affecting the progress of those bills?

Anthon: Well, I don't know if the discussions are affecting the progress of the bills.

The process itself is a lengthy one.

So what happens is a motion is made inside of the committee and it's treated as an RS, and then it finds its way to LSO's bill drafters.

And so it's a unique.

Davlin: Legislative services office.

Anthon: Yeah, it's a unique process, different than other committees.

And when you throw all that money into ten different bills, I think the work that Legislative Services has is enormous.

So you will see those bills in the next week or so present themselves and then make their way to the floor.

Davlin: Are there any other issues that are popping up with this new way of approaching budget setting that maybe, you know, Senate leadership or the JFAC team didn't anticipate?

Anthon: Yeah, I think absolutely.

I mean, you have a group of 105 people who are very smart and strong, and they all have their opinions on how this money should be spent.

I think the nice thing to say is that everyone shares the same opinion, that it should be transparent, it should be very carefully done, and that the public should be able to see what we're doing.

There is concerns, of course, with an omnibus process or a semi omnibus process when you throw that much $12 billion into the process very quickly and you call it the maintenance budget.

And so one of the things I'm hearing that you'll continue to hear about is a discussion of what is what does that mean, what is a maintenance budget?

And so there are concerns amongst membership about omnibus bills, what really constitutes maintenance, and then how we will deal with the rest of the budget going forward.

Davlin: And we'll have much more on that hopefully in next week's show.

You are also very involved in a lot of bills that go through the Senate Judiciary Committee.

You're an attorney, you had one that passed the Senate floor on Thursday morning about domestic terrorism.

Can you walk people through what that bill aims to do?

Anthon: Yeah, And I would always challenge people, if you have a concern about a bill, read the bill.

I think that's a good first step.

Sometimes the keyboard warriors and social media don't tell you all the truth about what's happening in the legislature.

The overarching message in the purpose of that bill, which is read right on the first page, is to make sure that we provide protection for people's constitutional rights while at the same time dealing with those folks who want to do harm and hurt our community.

So interestingly, if you talk about what is a domestic terrorist, no one seems to know.

There are multiple definitions, some in federal law, some in federal policy.

In Idaho code, there's nothing.

And so this was an attempt to actually codify what the definition is.

Make sure that when we call someone a domestic terrorist, we actually know what that means and that they have due process.

Meaning, you know, if you're going to call someone a murderer, you first have to let them be charged, let them go through the process, have a defense, have a jury trial and so forth.

And what we've unfortunately been seeing in the United States is people being, I think, innocently designated domestic terrorists and then having the full power of the judicial or I'm sorry, the the federal government come down on their heads.

Davlin: What are some examples of that?

Because I know that, you know, some of the ones that have been cited where people testifying at school board meetings against COVID mandates, but but people who were involved in the January 6th riot at the Capitol, would they be included as a domestic terrorist or are they specifically set aside from that designation?

Under your definition.

Anthon: Under Idaho law, of course, it would be different than the federal system and how they're pursuing those those prosecutions.

But the answer is, I believe it just depends.

You know, all these things are fact driven.

What we're trying to do is make an understanding that if someone commits a crime in Idaho, we have a good set of criminal codes that can deal with that.

The ambiguous use of the term domestic terrorists in those settings has not been helpful.

As a matter of fact, I think it has done more to hurt people's rights than to help protect the public.

Davlin: And that's an important distinction too.

A lot of these prosecutions happen under the federal prosecutors offices, whether we're talking about January 6th, or other other criminal acts that might fall under domestic terrorism.

Because those are handled by the federal prosecutor's office, is this bill necessary in Idaho?

Anthon: I think it's necessary in Idaho, because what we're trying to establish is that if you're going to call an Idahoan a domestic terrorist, it should mean something.

You know, to indicate that someone's a criminal when there's no even criminal definition inside the code is just counterintuitive to me.

So I think what it does is open up a dialog.

It starts the process of understanding what is it going to mean in Idaho to call someone a domestic terrorist and what rights do they have to protect themselves when they're called a domestic terrorist?

I think that again, this goes back to what are the purposes of the policy, and I think those are shared across the political spectrum, Democrat, Republican.

You know, let's try to figure out what that means.

Let's try to figure out how we protect people from being falsely accused.

And let's try to control the power of the government in going after folks without being able to adjudicate their guilt or innocence.

Davlin: I also wanted to ask you your thoughts on how the establishment of the statewide Public Defense Office is going so far.

There were surprise, some senators were surprised that child protection cases are not covered by that statewide public defender's office.

Was that a surprise to you?

Anthon: It was a surprise.

I think that for many of us who voted on that bill and voted to make the change statewide.

It was understood that all of the functions of the public defender in local communities would be translated to this public defense office.

And so those that dialog continues.

I think there is definitely need to have the state, in my opinion, pick that up, and here's why.

Because we took away the power really of the local governments to pay for it as well.

So if you shift that that burden back onto the counties and they don't have a way to pay for it, we've only compounded the problems.

And in fact, that bill was passed also as property tax relief.

So if you're shifting the cost back to the counties, you've defeated the purpose, at least in part, and that's to make sure that we get some property tax relief to our folks at home.

Davlin: Reading between the lines here, I'm seeing that there might be a change to that statute then in that establishment.

Anthon: I will tell you, I'm part of a group that's encouraging the state of Idaho to reconsider their scope of services in terms of the state public defender.

Yeah.

Davlin: What might we anticipate from that change in scope?

Anthon: Well, I think it's going to be maybe in part an internal policy piece, but then a determination of what it's going to cost, if anything more, for the state to pick up those cases or administer those cases.

It may be that on a local level, you have to hire public defenders to handle some of those things where there are conflicts and so forth.

But I will tell you that Erik Fredrickson, who's been been running the thing and getting it organized.

Davlin: The appointee for, to head.

Anthon: The appointee as public defender.

He's very competent, he's had a lot of experience in administering programs such as these.

And so he'll be due for confirmation soon.

And I think he'll do a good job.

Davlin: We have about 2 minutes left.

We heard a debate in the House Judiciary Committee this week on mandatory minimums on fentanyl, and there were two parts of that debate, the specifics of the bill, but also, you know, the wisdom of mandatory minimums in the first place.

And I wanted to get your take from the attorney perspective, from the Senate Judiciary side, is this a wise approach to take away some of that judicial discretion when it comes to sentencing on drug offenses?

Anthon: So, look, we're always going to have to debate this.

I think it's something that we should always debate.

But the fact of the matter is that even judges have limits to the scope of their power in their decision making, that discretion is not, you know, forever.

The fact of the matter is that I look to my prosecutors, I look to my police.

And what they're telling me is, that as a as a policy, it's been very effective to have some mandatory minimums.

And they have evidence.

They have recordings of people saying, hey, don't do this in Idaho, because they'll throw the book at you.

And so, you know, for the people who are on the front line of making sure we get rid of these fentanyl problems in Idaho, I tend to listen.

Davlin: We have, as you mentioned before, it is an election year and we have primaries coming up.

And some of those contentious primaries are in the Senate between incumbents and challengers.

We're already seeing a lot of money going into those races.

Is that going to affect the ability of the Senate to get things done this year?

Anthon: It won't.

I don't think it'll affect the ability to get things done.

But I do think there is something to be said about all of the money that's flowing into Idaho for races.

You know, when you go down to southern Idaho, a little town like mine, I'm from Declo and you see money coming in from Virginia and Texas to influence the outcome of a state Senate race.

I think we better be paying attention to that.

That dark money is not good for Idaho.

And so, yeah, there's influence in that money.

You bet.

You bet.

But it's not going to affect our ability to get things done in the Senate.

Davlin: And I have to leave it there.

Thank you so much, Senator.

And thank you for watching.

We'll see you right back here next week.

Narrator: 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.