Legislative update

By Rep. Mark Sauter, R-Sandpoint
Reader Contributor

We have entered our twelfth week of the 2024 legislative session. The leaders in the House and Senate originally forecasted March 22 as our last day. However, the introduction of bills hasn’t stopped. Ten bills were introduced on March 25 in the House Ways and Means Committee. 

These bills could be heard on the House floor with little notice during a regular meeting. Some could be sent to various committees for a full hearing. Still others could be printed and left as “introduced” for the record and as a start for the next session. 

Rep. Mark Sauter. Courtesy photo.

At the beginning of the session, House leadership advised representatives that the last day to introduce a new bill in a committee was Feb. 12. Obviously that deadline was extended.

Many of the bills started (and approved) by the Senate are now being heard in the House. However, not all Senate bills will get a House vote. Some bills will be held by the House speaker and stopped; others will be held by the House committee chairman. A few other bills will be heard after a negotiation between the House and the Senate. 

This recent volume of bills and their content brings challenges — kind of like drinking out of a fire hose. During our daily House floor session there are numerous new bills read into the calendar for the next day. To be ready for the next day, representatives must buckle down each evening and spend some time reading and re-reading the bills (some amended from their original version) to be prepared for the next day. 

Contacting affected parties at home is also wise but must be done quickly. Writing good legislation often takes time. 

Several successful bills each year have been presented in past sessions but were found to need tweaks and edits before they were deemed ready to become state law. Rushing things doesn’t necessarily lead to the best outcomes. 

The rush to run bills also interrupts some important parts of the Idaho lawmaking process. Ideally a new bill is introduced in a print hearing with no more than a five-minute introduction by the bill carrier. Sometimes this process results in edits or amendments to the bill. Other times the bill is held by the chairman of the committee until such time as edits are made or more support for the bill is built up. 

Once a bill passes the first hearing, gets a bill number and is printed, more legislators and involved parties are able to read the bill and consider its merits. The committee chairman is then in charge of the decision to hold a full bill hearing with a complete explanation of the bill, public testimony and committee discussion. There are sometimes motions to send a bill through an amendment process as well. Occasionally a bill carrier will force a vote with a “take it or leave it” proposal, accepting no edits or amendments. Sometimes this slow, deliberate process takes a month or more. 

This time of year, the process can take as little as a day or two with little to no edits or amendments accepted. Some will use votes on these time sensitive bills as a test. 

If you vote against a bill, you could be labeled as someone who doesn’t support an issue (family values, parental rights, etc.), when the truth is the non-supporting legislator has found a problem with an identified consequence — constitutionality, for example — that overrides the benefits of the original bill. 

These are layers that are exposed to legislators but not always brought to the attention of the general public during the various hearings. Bills in their entirety are available to the public for reading and researching, if you are interested and have time to delve in. 

[Editor’s note: Find the Idaho Legislature’s bill-tracking page at legislature.idaho.gov/sessioninfo.]

We should be finished with this session in a week or two. I’m looking forward to going home and beginning my campaign and visiting with you. If you like, please send me your insights and provide some feedback. You can email me at [email protected] or call at 208-332-1035.

Rep. Mark Sauter is a Republican legislator representing District 1A. He serves on the Agricultural Affairs; Education; and Judiciary, Rules and Administration committees.