Idaho Dems decry Legislature’s focus on ‘divisive social issues’

BOISE — Idaho House and Senate Democratic leaders gave their reactions to this year’s legislative session Monday as lawmakers continue to try to wrap up the session this week.

“We’re hopefully getting really close to that,” said House Minority Leader Ilana Rubel, D-Boise, who said she was “still reeling from last week’s horrific display on the House floor, culminating in a post-midnight session on Friday night.”

She decried GOP lawmakers’ moves to cut the Commission for Libraries Budget in part because they were angry over emails from librarians opposing HB 666, a bill that passed the House but didn’t get a hearing in the Senate, seeking to criminalize librarians if minors check out harmful materials.

“I think it reflects a problem that goes far beyond library funding, and if normalized, would undermine our very form of government,” Rubel said. “We cannot allow citizens to be punished for speaking out on legislation that impacts them.”

“We have a House GOP caucus that has truly lost its way from conservative small government,” Rubel said. “That caucus now prefers to fixate on imaginary, divisive social issues that are ginned up on Fox News, and they focus on those to the near exclusion of the very real issues that actually face Idahoans.”

Senate Minority Leader Michelle Stennett, D-Ketchum, said, “It was blessedly not a long session, but unfortunately we didn’t get a lot accomplished.” She said the Senate served to “make sure that much that came over from the House that was mostly political grandstanding didn’t gain any traction.”

The two did laud legislation that minority Democrats supported that passed this year. That included funding for full-day kindergarten; infrastructure investments; a long-sought rural educator incentive program; a major improvement of Idaho teachers’ health insurance; and more.

“We had some real attacks on marginalized populations in Idaho, which is extraordinarily disappointing,” Stennett said. “We want to be better than we are for being a welcoming state.”

Rubel noted that it was only Democrats’ support in the House that pushed a long line of budgets for major state functions through successfully, as a majority of House Republicans voted against them.

“There is very little interest in much of that caucus in actually doing the work of governing,” she said.

Both Democratic leaders said they continue to push for property tax relief with bipartisan initiatives, but have been disappointed that those proposals, including restoring the indexing of the homeowner’s exemption, haven’t been allowed committee hearings by GOP leaders.

“There are very responsible, very bipartisan solutions,” Rubel said, “that if we could just get a chairman to let us have a hearing, I think would have a very strong chance of achieving the finish line.”

With big turnover coming in the Legislature in the coming year, she said, “I can’t imagine we’re the only ones who are hearing from their constituents that they want property tax relief. … I’m optimistic with a new batch that there’ll be newcomers who are going to be interested in working on this with us.”

House Republicans have delayed their post-session press conference until after the Legislature reconvenes on Thursday.

Betsy Z. Russell is the Boise bureau chief and state capitol reporter for the Idaho Press and Adams Publishing Group. Follow her on Twitter at @BetsyZRussell.