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.

According to legislative leadership's calendar, the session is just about halfway over, but plenty of bills are still being introduced, and big topics like property taxes haven't been addressed yet.

Let's hear what the governor thinks.

I'm Logan Finney filling in for Melissa Davlin.

Idaho Reports starts now.

Hello and welcome to Idaho.

Reports this week, Governor Brad Little addresses reporters questions about the session so far.

And Secretary of State Phil McGrane talks about some of the pending bills that could change the way Idaho votes.

Then Senate Assistant Majority Leader Senator Abby Lee talks about a bill she's sponsoring regarding mistreatment of vulnerable adults.

But first, on Friday, Attorney General Raul Labrador announced his office has obtained a new death warrant for Gerald Pizutto, Jr. A copy of the order says the new execution date is scheduled for March 23rd.

The state had previously scheduled Pizutto's execution for December, but canceled it because the Department of Correction could not obtain the necessary chemicals to carry out a lethal injection.

On Friday morning.

Prior to the news from the AG's office, Governor Brad Little answered questions from members of the media.

Reporters touched on his Idaho Launch workforce training initiative, restrictions on the use of absentee ballots, and a proposal to bring back the firing squad for executions.

Here's some of what he had to say.

>>You know, in north Idaho, obviously jobs and timber industry are important in southeast Idaho.

It's food processing.

All over the state it's health care.

In eastern Idaho it's it's nuclear engineering.

So tailoring workforce development for the local jobs is what's going to be important.

But I this goes back to what I said earlier, Scott.

Everybody has complained about the increase in tuition and fees.

This is the one biggest action by the state to make post K-12 training available to the vast majority of Idaho.

We you know, our goal is 60% to go on.

I take issue with the fact that that only means an associate or a bachelor's degree, that we have more of those good career technical in that 60%.

But we're down to less than 40 right now.

So we got a lot of runway to get there and we're going to have to build capacity.

You know, training and nurses is probably well, the state board has already said that's your number one priority is what do we do to get the nurses.

So I this this addresses the affordability thing.

You know, they beat up the college presidents, state board about increasing fees and tuition, as they should.

This is going to fix that problem.

You used to have to say I need an absentee ballot because I'm going to be gone or I know I'm going to have surgery or fill in the blank.

That was the standard.

I don't know How many years ago did they bring it up in the bill in the hearing, but that was the standard.

I we have some precincts in Idaho where it's all absentee voting right now.

And in fact, when I was at the governor's conference, I was talking to Governor Gordon in Wyoming.

He's got the same proposal over there.

But they've got like 20 counties in Wyoming where all the voting is by absentee.

They can't get poll workers.

So I understand the concern.

I think, again, Ruth’s interview with with Phil McGrane and I am very thankful that I proposed the election audit two years ago.

And we've gone through two audits.

I think we've found two votes out of two random audits.

I'm a proponent for capital punishment, but we need to do it in the most dignified, humane manner.

That creates the least amount of stress with my corrections team.

>>As of Friday morning, only five pieces of legislation had made it to Little's desk for his signature.

The full press event can be found online at YouTube.com/IdahoReports In legislative news, let’s get you caught up on the week.

Multiple bills have been introduced this year regarding elections and voting, ranging from whether student ID cards should be used as identification at the polls to whether voters should have to give a reason to request an absentee ballot.

Our producer, Ruth Brown, sat down with Secretary of State Phil McGrane on Tuesday to hear about his concerns and what policies he supports as chief elections officer.

>>Student IDs is one example.

That bill came out early.

I was anticipating it would come out it’s just part of the greater conversation regarding registration and voter ID at the polls.

I am supporting the bill in terms of removing the student IDs, but that's because there's a companion bill that I've been working very closely with.

Representative Mitchell on to update our registration requirements to specifically specify what forms of ID you can use to register to vote.

What forms of proof of address you can use to show what your residence is and a key component of that bill is including a free ID for anyone who needs one for the purposes of voting.

The standards used to produce student IDs isn't quite the same as it is for all of the other forms of identification.

Many times it's just a a printer on a desk in a student office printed by students.

And when we think about our driver's license or other things, those requirements are higher.

But honestly, the thing that has really influenced my opinion about IDs at the polls.

I know this has been a national issue for a decade, is just having data and information.

I think we need to make informed policy decisions and this is a key area for that.

We introduced electronic poll books over the past two election cycles throughout Idaho.

These poll books make it easier for poll workers, easier for voters, but they're also collecting a lot of data and information.

And while we all would have assumed that driver's license is the most common form of voter I.D., we probably wouldn't have realized just how common it was.

In the November 2022 general election, 98.8% of registered voters showed a driver's license.

It's overwhelmingly the most common form of ID.

On college campuses.

Driver's license is overwhelmingly the form of ID, and it's surprising out of the near 600,000 people who voted in November, only 104 used a student identification card.

Personally, I would like to see us tighten the security related to the affidavits, and I've made some proposals in terms of how we can do that by adding additional personal identifying information that poll workers could verify.

When a voter doesn't have an ID with them.

Right now, though, from talking to legislators, especially in the House, they wanted to start and pursue what we see Representative Alfieri, are removing that.

I don't think there's any way we could remove the personal I.D.

affidavit without those free IDs.

I think that's really important.

One Idaho has secure elections.

We have a very good system.

We ran a very good election in November.

In addition to that, security does not have to come at the cost of accessibility.

You can have access to voting and have secure elections.

And I think too often they're pitted against each other.

And I just don't believe that's the case.

I've mentioned to the sponsors of this bill that the secretary's office will be opposing it.

And we really think that absentee ballots are an important part of being able to vote in our state.

And there's a number of voters who utilize them.

One of the misconceptions I've heard is that, you know, absentee ballot use is exploding and on this significant rise, and while we certainly saw a huge uptick during COVID, especially when the state required people to vote absentee, we've actually seen it normalize.

And, you know, there's been a healthy balance in our state of people who vote by mail through absentee ballots, people who vote in-person early before an election, and people who choose to vote on Election Day.

I actually think it's one of the areas where Idaho stands out is that we have all these different options.

That's not true in many states across the country, including many blue states.

>>All of those election bills started in the House and must make it through the Senate to reach the governor's desk.

Ruth’s full interview with Secretary McGrane can be found on this week's Idaho Reports podcast.

On Thursday, the Senate Education Committee considered a bill that would prohibit transgender K-12 public school students from using facilities that match their gender identity.

The bill requires that restrooms, locker rooms and sleeping quarters be separated by male and female biological sex.

The schools would also be required to provide accommodations for students who are unwilling or unable to use multi occupant facilities.

>>There are lots of different interest groups that have, and Caldwell School District is a perfect example of this, where the school boards and the school administrators have been caught in a no win situation.

And we recognize that, which is one of the reasons why this legislation is here.

You know, the bottom line is, you know, our schools shouldn't be fighting a culture war in the courts.

They have no business there.

They should be teaching our kids.

This legislation really gets out in front of that, lays a baseline for all the schools on how and and the majority of our schools, an overwhelming majority of our schools in the state already follow this policy.

So there will not need to be much adjustment for that.

>>This bill is not only unconstitutional, but it also perpetuates harmful stereotypes and contributes to the stigmatization of marginalization of transgender individuals.

Banning transgender youth from the bathroom that aligns with their gender identity not only denies them the right to use facilities that align with their gender, but it also places them at an increased risk of harassment and violence.

This bill incorrectly states that trans kids using their preferred restroom leads to Cis students experiencing harassment, embarrassment and other terrible acts like rape.

Not only does this perpetuate the trans community as pedophiles, abusers and totally false characteristics, but legislation, precedent and rhetoric that is in this bill and other hundreds of bills introduced across the U.S. isolates this isolates the trans community.

>>But the bottom line is, from Lake Ponderay to Bear Lake, there are there are district there.

There are trustees who are confused and don't know what to do.

They're looking for the state to act to create a uniform policy, which this does.

It makes it crystal clear as to what they have to do to provide them more opportunity and be able to provide some certainty for them so that they know they have protection not only just within their districts, but also legally.

eek- authors are correct that students deserve privacy, that should be real privacy in the form of peek-proof, stall doors and individual curtained changing areas.

I won't argue as to whether gender dysphoria is caused by a physical or a mental defect.

Either way, this bill is part of a broader campaign to deny vulnerable children the life saving treatment they need.

>>That bill passed on a 6 to 2 party line vote and moves on to the full Senate.

Senate Assistant Majority Leader Abby Lee joined Ruth Brown on Friday to discuss the session so far.

>>Senator Lee, thank you for joining me.

>>Thank you for having me.

>>On Tuesday, the Senate passed a bill regarding vulnerable adults and the maltreatment statutes around them.

Can you walk me through what the changes will lead to?

>>Yeah, this is really, I think, significant legislation for Idaho.

These are statutes that haven't been updated since 1998.

And so when I first came into the Senate about nine years ago and was a member initially a member of the Health and Welfare Committee, a committee that I've served on since that time, I really saw a disconnect between what the Department of Health and Welfare was doing and the Commission on Aging.

And so what what happened is when we had a vulnerable adult and these are adults often who have Alzheimer's or other dementia related diseases, we really didn't have the ability to provide, I think, enforcement or the support services that our policy required.

So folks got together and they really worked hard over this last year.

I really want to recognize director Judy Taylor and with the Commission on Aging.

But essentially what this does is for the first time ever in statute, we can provide support services for caregivers before we get to a place where somebody has had maltreatment and maltreatment is defined in this new piece of legislation, really importantly as physical abuse, financial abuse undue duress.

Human trafficking, as horrifying as that is.

We had to add that in because there are cases where somebody is, you know, being forced to work or take care of grandchildren and they just simply are not in the mental capacity to do that.

So I'm really excited about some of the improvements, the definitions and but most importantly, it really delineates what the commission and even with Adult Protective Services is supposed to do and what the Department of Health and Welfare does and the department does Licensing for facilities and APS, Adult protection services really helps to get into those issues and and and problems in our community.

And it's a way to scaffold things so that people can stay at home.

And it's I think it's a monumental piece of legislation that probably didn't get a lot of attention.

And I appreciate the opportunity to talk about it.

>>Some of the reporting requirements have changed, correct?

What else can they do now that perhaps they wouldn't have been able to do under prior statute?

>>So, again, I think that in addition to the reporting, when we saw a problem.

So, for example, if you had a neighbor who all of a sudden was outside in cold weather and not dressed appropriately, and you really could tell that this elderly person was struggling, adult are not vulnerable just by nature, whereas children by definition are.

But we know that we have vulnerable adults in our community.

And so instead of calling the police, we can or even if the police do happen upon somebody or we have a community need, now, we can get adult protective services to go into the home.

And one of the examples that I shared is an elderly man who had untreated diabetes.

And you can imagine what that does to somebody.

If you aren't getting your medication, it changes your mental status.

And when people came to the home, they could see that the home really had some serious health and safety concerns.

This individual was able to get to a hospital, get dialysis, and then come home with a little bit of support services with home care.

And he is now healthy in his home, able to take care of himself.

And he just needed that little bit of gap in service.

And without adult protective services in this statute being able to get some prevention pieces in this, an individual who likely would have gone to a long term care facility and been removed from his community, his home, and certainly didn't need to do that.

So I think this really is a way to help people and save money, which I think is, you know, a great conservative value.

>>Speaking of saving money, you said on the Health and Welfare Committee this week there was a presentation regarding Medicaid and the efforts to address some enrollees who may no longer be eligible.

Can you walk me through some of your concerns around that?

You've voiced quite a few to the the administrator of welfare.

>>Yeah, I did.

Thank you for the opportunity to clarify maybe some of those those comments.

We we know that during the pandemic, the federal government was pretty restrictive on not allowing us to do income verification and dis enroll anyone who potentially is no longer eligible.

And now that that's over, we have the ability to really look at who is eligible and who should be receiving these benefits.

And but the federal government has also put some pretty significant restrictions that are going to make us slow roll this disenrollment.

And so we have about 150,000 people who may be not technically eligible for Medicaid.

And so my position really is in order to preserve the fidelity of what Medicaid is in our state, we have to ensure that only those who are eligible are receiving those services.

And I really want the department to be able to look at moving people off.

And moving people off means moving them to Your Health Idaho or other plans that that may be more appropriate.

We know that we struggle with funding Medicaid.

And so in order to ensure that it really is for the the most at need, we've got to make sure that we keep those parameters in place.

>>And, of course, the reason that the state was unable temporarily to remove people from Medicaid was because of the COVID emergency.

Congress has since changed to that.

I believe CMS is asking for one ninth, one ninth of renewals a month and we have 100 about 150,000 employee or excuse me, enrollees.

Is is your concern that we need to move the process faster?

I suppose?

>>I do, I think we need to move it faster.

And of course, I also appreciate that the federal government is not incentivizing that.

T so they were putting restrictions.

In fact, if we go faster than they have told us that they would find us and do some other things.

And and we looked at, you know, how do we create capacity?

We have a lot of employees who have a regular job and now they're having to do these other pieces.

And so one of the things that I've offered the federal government is even so restrictive that we can't have contractors.

They’re they won't allow us to hire additional people to do this exact process.

>>Right.

>>But nothing says that we can't hire additional individuals to do the regular eligibility and free up our current employees to take a look at this.

And and again, I think it really is about fidelity for the program and ensuring that our policy of taking the steps needed to move people off who are not eligible and will reduce cost and it will also preserve the function of what Medicaid was intended in Idaho.

>>Do you believe health welfare has been receptive to the legislature's concerns?

>>I think they're trying within the parameters of what how they're reading the guidance.

And so it is certainly our role to push a little bit and to come up with some other creative solutions.

And I think they're I think they're trying we may have a little bit of a disagreement on on how fast this should go.

>>Okay.

Speaking of disagreements, the House had several notable bills that will soon come before the Senate.

Let's start with there's a House bill that passed that prohibits gender affirming care to transgender children that has not yet come to the Senate.

What do you anticipate?

>>So that bill has been referred to judiciary and rules.

Last year it was referred to state affairs.

And so I think that's a little bit of a difference.

And I think that this bill gets a hearing.

Last year, the Senate didn't respond favorably, at least to having a hearing.

And but we have a lot of new members and we have a lot of, I think, new interest for the issue.

So I think I think this bill gets a hearing.

>>What are your interests?

>>So my interests are really in preserving the rights of parents to make fundamental decisions for their children.

I am absolutely opposed to gender reassignment surgery for children under 18.

And I think those surgical pieces we all can agree on.

But I've met with many families, and these are heartbreaking, scary times for these families.

And I think it's one that we would do well to really make sure that we are crafting the right policy.

We have stood strong with allowing our parents to make decisions for their children.

I think this gets caught up in a lot of of other issues.

But I can remember tearfully supporting parents rights to make medical decisions based on their religious beliefs, their fundamental beliefs.

And and so I think that we would do well to to pause and make sure that we are doing the right thing and not just creating a headline for behaviors that maybe people are assigning other, I think, motives, too.

And again, when I talk to the families who have struggled with these issues and these are families who are in Idaho who when their child comes to them and says, I'm struggling and they are scared, and I, I wonder how many of these families want necessarily the government to come into their living room and and and make these decisions.

I talked to doctors and and many people now again, I think we all agree that, you know, surgery for dysphoria in any way for children under 18.

Again, one of the examples I've given is if we had a 14 or 15 year old who had an eating disorder, that child would not get to have gastric bypass.

Right.

And so we really want to make sure that we are you know, talking about these issues, but ensuring that our parents are able to work with medical providers and psychologists and really grappling with these hard issues.

>>Sure.

And the bill, just for folks that may not know the bill is about more than just surgery.

It would also prohibit the use of cross-sex hormones, puberty blockers.

And in committee in the house, there was some medical associations that that oppose that local Idaho physicians that explain that, you know, they're not seeing a lot of surgery or if any surgery in juveniles.

But they do use some of these hormone blockers for various medical reasons.

>>And that's really the challenge of being a legislator.

I'm not a physician, but sometimes I play one in the legislature, I have to make these decisions.

And so I really think that you're going to see in the Senate a really thoughtful hearing if if it gets to a hearing.

Senator Lakey, he is a phenomenal chairman who I think is going to make sure that that all sides are represented.

And so I would just encourage people to participate in the process.

And and we really are setting policy.

And so I'm hopeful that that will have some some robust discussions.

I've heard from people on both sides.

And these are deeply held beliefs.

And so these aren't really issues where you can nuance and you and these are these are tough issues, much like when we discussed guns, when we discussed abortion.

I mean, these are deeply held issues.

>>I want to touch on one more topic with the last of our.

We have about a few minutes left.

There was a House bill that did pass that would change the oversight of the Office of Performance evaluations.

The oversight is currently held by JLOC which is a bipartisan committee.

It would change to the Legislative Council, which is also by bipartisan, but it is majority led.

What are your thoughts on this bill that will soon come before the Senate?

Well, if it gets a hearing, I, I, I can't predict that.

>>Yeah, I can't predict that either.

But, you know, I am a big fan of the Office of Performance Evaluation and I've made a number of requests and for some pretty significant reports that have helped change policy, specifically with foster care and child welfare.

We use those as data, as information to really change and transform that system.

So I'm grateful for those reports and I've been the beneficiary of that.

So my preference is let's keep it as it is.

My ultimate goal, though, is I want to preserve the Office of Performance Evaluation and so I can also appreciate right now, I think it works to have that balance.

On JLOC.

The Legislative Oversight Committee is also a fantastic committee, and the minority is also represented on that committee.

Certainly not an equal, but probably more of a majority than if you take the entire legislature together.

>>Sure.

So I think proponents of the bill would argue that we are a Republican majority state.

So should the oversight of OPE be oversight from a committee that is Republican led?

What's your take on that?

>>So I can see that.

>>Sure.

>>The majority likes to be the majority.

I think I've already been on the record a few years ago saying we really need to get the the politics as much out, the partizanship as much out of these review things so that these are not punitive reports and that they really are informational reports.

And so I think I'm already on the record as as wanting JLOC to stay the way that it is.

But ultimately, if it's the will of the Senate, I will be a champion of just making sure the OPE exists as its own independent group rather than being housed under some other areas, as has has been proposed.

>>Outside of individuals who are maybe working in the press corps, lobbyists and legislators.

I think they don't know what OPE is.

They don't always read the reports.

You offered a great example.

Some of the work they did on the foster care.

We have a couple of minutes left.

Can you give me some examples of what you learned from the foster care report?

>>Yeah, you know, we we learned a lot.

We learned that we had a statute that requires our children to have representation in these cases.

So a child who's in a child protection case, the parents have have an attorney.

And our our system requires that these children have guardian ad litem, which is just a phenomenal program.

We should talk about that some time.

But but these are really the advocate and the voice for the child.

And we were able to kind of look through this systems review and see where we had gaps, where children were actually not being represented.

And so it was not only not following the statute, but it was an opportunity to look and say, how do we fix this?

And, you know, and years later, our courts have actually picked this up, and now they have a guardian ad litem committee.

And I, I actually am privileged to serve on that.

And we're starting to look at a whole systems and look at guardian ad litem.

The other piece that we really found is that this was such a closed system that there wasn't transparency.

And so just bringing a little bit of sunshine to these most vulnerable children's cases, I think has systemically and systematically improved the culture of the department and also impacts for these children and these foster families.

>>All right.

Well, Idaho Reports will keep an eye on whether it gets a hearing in the Senate, but I do appreciate your time, Senator Lee.

>>Thank you.

>>We have much more coverage online of the legislation making its way through the state House.

You'll find it all on our Web site at IdahoPTV.org/IdahoReports and while you're there, sign up for our weekly newsletter to get Wednesday and Friday morning news roundups delivered right in your inbox.

Thanks so much for watching.

And 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.