A guide to the past 2020 legislative session

Before the start of the legislative session, Idaho Business Review looked at issues on the agenda likely to affect Idaho’s businesses. What ended up happening? Here’s an overview of the session, which effectively ended on March 20 when the House voted to adjourn sine die.

Rules. When the Legislature adjourned last year, it failed to pass the traditional “drop dead bill,” which automatically continues all rules forward until the next year. This gave Little, along with state agencies, unprecedented control over rules, resulting in what he said was elimination or simplification of 75% of them, making Idaho the “least-regulated state in the U.S.”

So what happened this year? The Legislature spent several weeks going over the rules and considered a new procedure to replace the “drop dead bill,” which would also create a new process when the House and Senate disagreed on a rule. Currently, only one body has to approve a rule for it to go into effect. But the bill for the new process didn’t pass, nor, did it appear, the traditional “drop dead bill,” meaning that Gov. Brad Little may get another opportunity to Marie Kondo administrative rules.

Occupational licensing. Some rules govern requirements for people to enter and work in a particular profession. Legislators wanted to reduce or eliminate those rules to make it easier for people to work in Idaho, particularly military spouses and veterans. The Legislature passed a bill to set up a review committee for future occupational licensing regulations, to create a process for recognizing out-of-state licenses and to remove archaic language around background that would make someone ineligible for a license.

City budgets. As property values have gone up, some property taxes have gone up as well, and citizens were protesting. A property tax working group held hearings over the summer, considering the possibility of limiting the ability of cities to raise revenue.

However, especially with the rush to get out of town at the end of the session due to the COVID-19 coronavirus, the Legislature was unable to agree on any of the property tax proposals, other than one intended to help veterans — and one to create an interim committee to look at the issue again — with most of the rest being sent to a committee to die. On the other hand, the Legislature also didn’t cap the ability of cities and counties to increase their budgets.

Broadband. The governor’s Broadband Task Force issued a final report that called for a number of initiatives, including setting up a state broadband office. The office was funded as part of the Department of Commerce budget.

IT modernization. Idaho’s Office of Information Technology Services put forth the next steps in the state’s IT modernization project, which centralizes IT control in an office under the governor instead of in individual agencies. The project was funded as part of the Controller’s budget.

Data center tax exemption. After several years of trying, the Legislature passed a bill exempting data center equipment from sales tax to encourage large data centers to set up shop in Idaho. At press time, it was awaiting Gov. Brad Little’s signature.

Ban the box. Similarly, supporters of a bill to help former felons more easily apply for jobs tried again, and the bill — now called the Fair Chance Employment Act — passed the Senate and the House Judiciary and Rules Committee. However, it never got voted on by the full House.

Hemp. Little signed an executive order in November to allow companies to transport hemp across Idaho but called it a stopgap measure until the Legislature could address the issue and comply with federal law. However, three bills to address the issue died in the Senate State Affairs Committee, meaning Idaho will remain just one of two states that don’t allow growing or transporting of hemp.

Grocery tax. Little campaigned on eliminating the sales tax on groceries but also said funding education took priority. While the Legislature considered several options, such as using tax collected from internet sales to increase the grocery tax credit, in the end nothing passed.

Liquor licenses. Sen. Jim Rice, R-Caldwell, said he didn’t intend to try again to ease restrictions on liquor licenses, and no other legislator picked up the issue.

University diversity. Some legislators said earlier this year that they planned to limit state universities’ efforts to fund diversity programs. As it happens, it took the House three tries to pass a higher education budget, with some legislators specifically calling out the diversity programs as the reason.

Transportation funding. A report on the transportation funding backlog isn’t due until June, and Little had said he wants to wait until that report is done before considering how to fund transportation going forward. A bill to create a transportation endowment fund was pulled; a bill to devote 2% of sales tax revenues to bridge repair and road expansion passed the Legislature but was vetoed by the governor.

Sine Die. With this being not just a legislative election year, but also a presidential election year, there was pressure to end the session early, with added emphasis from COVID-19. In fact, several legislators decamped early due to coronavirus concerns. The Legislature ended up adjourning on March 20, as planned, giving up the opportunity to overrule Little should he veto any bills, such as several controversial bills about transgender people that led major Idaho businesses to encourage such action.