Special interest groups including big labor unions like the Idaho Education Association seem to be winning the day at the state Legislature, thanks to liberal Republicans and Democrats on the Senate Education Committee.

First, members of the committee rejected a simple House-approved measure to let school boards opt-out of collective bargaining. House Bill 174 would have given locally-elected school boards the ability to decide whether they wanted to negotiate with labor unions. If a union behaves badly, as happened last year when the West Ada Education Association staged a sick-out, the school board would not be compelled to sit at the bargaining table with them, as they are presently under Idaho law.

Read the rest here. 

Idaho’s legislative budget writers are being dishonest when they say a proposed higher education budget combats the leftist indoctrination happening on college and university campuses. It does not. Not even close.

It is true that the Legislature’s budget committee voted to restrict the use of state funds for social justice. But that prohibition does not preclude the schools from accessing other pools of public money to keep funding such programs, rendering the restriction wholly meaningless.

Read the rest here. 

Rep. Greg Chaney, R-Caldwell, joins The Hoff Time Report to discuss his targeted picketing bill, which aims to curb at-home harassment of public officials. 

It’s hard to believe this, but several lawmakers have confirmed for me that there’s a plan to raise gas taxes on Idahoans during this legislative session. The word is that the proposal is to raise the tax by as much as 10 percent on the state’s already-high assessment of 32 cents per gallon.

The good news though, is that raising gas taxes has never been particularly popular at the Legislature. An effort to raise fuel taxes in 2009 failed so spectacularly, it took another six years for lawmakers or the governor to bring the issue up again. When it did come up, lawmakers wound up passing the bill in the dead of night. The optics for a tax increase this year are not so fantastic given all the other promises lawmakers have made and haven’t been able to follow through on.

Read the rest here. 

Idaho lawmakers have only one job each and every year: deciding how much money to take out of the economy to run whatever government program they decide to fund. Media distractions to the contrary, this is the job, and lawmakers aren’t very good at it. They’re focused on evading responsibility so they upset no one – or at least, none of their donors. So when public money is spent against Idahoans’ interests, lawmakers can claim plausible deniability and say they’re not responsible.

Case in point: Idahoans are deeply concerned that they’re the ones funding the instrument of our country’s demise. We are the ones on the hook because we’re paying taxes and fees to indoctrinate young minds at Idaho’s public colleges and universities. But chairmen of the House and Senate education committees didn’t bring up the issue when they met recently with the Legislature’s budget panel, JFAC.

Read the rest here. 

Sen. Carl Crabtree of District 7 sits on the Senate Education Committee, which gives him considerable power over education-related legislation. What will he do with his power? Wayne and the senator discuss all things education, from reading to funding and beyond. 

Be sure to sign up for IFF's email list to ensure you stay up to date on all of the legislative action and excitement. Subscribe here: IdahoFreedom.org/email

Also, C. Scott Grow wins Statist of the Week for his awful anti-drug constitutional amendment. 

Read Wayne Hoffman's full column on the GOP oligarchy's unwillingness to hear conservative bills: https://idahofreedom.org/gop-head-honchos-run-oligarchy-keep-conservative-ideas-at-bay/

Idaho lawmakers have one job each year: To set a budget for the next fiscal year. It's an incredibly complicated task, and getting lost in the budgetary weeds isn't hard. In this episode, Rep. Priscilla Giddings, who sits on the budget-setting committee, and IFF's Legislative Affairs Director Fred Birnbaum, IFF's go-to guy for numbers, break down the budget for you.