Legislative Breakdown

After 95 days of wrangling, infighting and lawmaking, Idaho’s 2019 legislative session wrapped up last week. Our theme this week is catfights and civility (or the lack thereof). “It’s been a difficult session,” says Boise State political science professor Gary Moncrief. We also take a look at why things didn’t get done in the legislature this year, why non-lawmakers were so frustrated, and we answer a listener question. Join us as Samantha Wright and Gary Moncrief say goodbye to “Legislative

It’s been a wild session and an even wilder week. Medicaid expansion sideboards and citizen initiative bills were the headliners. Lawmakers talked about everything from two-headed camels to moon shots to people losing their faith in lawmakers.

This week we head back to the Statehouse to chat with freshman Rep. Brooke Green (D-Boise). We talked to her in the first podcast this season about being brand new to the job. Now we find out how it's going several months into the session, and what she learned along the way. “What I know now that I didn’t know then is that getting a bill forward is really tough. It’s not easy. I never did think it was. You really truly have to do your homework and certainly have everybody lined up, especially as

This week we tackle stadiums, agency rules and the Idaho Department of Agriculture.

You had questions about redistricting and we’ve got answers on the history, legality and mechanics of Redistricting. We get really wonky and go way into the weeds on the topic of redrawing the state’s legislative district lines. Some GOP lawmakers want to make a change to the way Idaho does that, switching from a six-member redistricting commission to a seven-member board.

It’s been a very emotional week at the Idaho Legislature as lawmakers argued, debated and walked out of a hearing over the heated topic of redistricting .

Rakesh Mohan, Director of the Office of Performance Evaluations. Credit Samantha Wright / Boise State Public Radio Edit | Remove Every state legislature spends money and someone has to keep track of how well that money is being spent. In Idaho, that’s the job of the folks at the Office of Performance Evaluations. They spend their time investigating stage agencies and programs to find out how they are doing. The Office released a report in January on the Southwest Idaho Treatment Center that made

We're back! After two weeks into the session, lawmakers are getting their feet under them at the Idaho Legislature. And for about two dozen of them who are brand new to the office, that means figuring out everything from their new email system to where the bathrooms are. This week we visit a freshman lawmaker in her new job. And Samantha Wright asks Boise State Political Science Professor Gary Moncrief the question why do lawmakers want this job anyway?

After 80 days of wrangling, bargaining and lawmaking, Idaho’s 2018 legislative session wrapped up this week. We take a look at what didn’t get done during the session and why. Lawmakers failed to take up a health care bill, continued to ignore the Add the Words campaign and didn’t reconsider a grocery tax repeal.

Despite a lot of cooking this session, the Idaho Legislature failed to make “soup” out of Governor Butch Otter’s health care bill.