I no longer have any delusions that the Idaho legislature represents me, or that anything I wish they would do is actually going to happen. Still, hope floats, and I thought it would be nice to hear everyone’s “wish list” for what they would like to see happen in the 2008 Idaho Legislative session (January through March-ish 2008). Feel free to offer broad solutions or hammer on the details. After some discussion on this article, I hope to run a poll in early January about the proposals most favored.
The Post Register carried a report today about Governor Butch Otter, and included some of his wish list items. It appears Butch is going to push this year for increasing Idaho’s vehicle registration fees, delaying the Transportation Department’s “Connecting Idaho” bonds, make another attempt at grocery-related tax relief, and propose a California-styled property tax relief plan which would require constitutional tinkering. Do you agree or disagree with our governor’s initial plans, and why or why not?
I wish the 2008 Idaho Legislature would prioritize their agenda to first work on the overdue matters from the past couple years, the things that should have already been fixed. These include the grocery tax reduction, the statewide community college system, daycare regulations, and allow individual cities to decide for themselves if they want to fund light-rail transportation systems. The legislature should tackle these items first so as to put the old business to rest and create a fresh slate for new items. I hate to see our lawmakers rehash old business while proposing new business, and the old business does not seem to get fair attention.
New proposals I wish the 2008 Idaho Legislature would at least give attention to include:
- Make dog fighting activities a felony, including attending, participating in, or failing to report a dogfight. This is overdue and Idaho was embarrassed nationally last year because are one of the few states with lax punishments.
- Create a state medical school campus in Pocatello and Idaho Falls. Yes, “and” in Idaho Falls. I think the academic facilities should be at Pocatello’s ISU campus, but internship and hands-on opportunities should be created among Idaho Falls’ richer medical community.
- Set the mandatory minimum sentence for sex offenders to fifteen years if the offense was non-statutory in nature.
- Require lifetime GPS ankle bracelet monitoring for non-statutory offense sex offenders living in Idaho.
- Develop a plan to deal with Idaho’s prison overcrowding, encouraging entrepreneurs to develop local prison facilities in for-profit contracts.
- Abolish sales tax exemptions for everyone but religions and charities. My mom’s old boss used to take employees to Sam’s Club for major purchases so the employees could save on sales tax. It was a cheat to the state of Idaho, and it is a common manner in which Idaho businesses offer “benefits” to employees on the public’s back.
- Create an earned income tax credit for lower income taxpayers, similar to the federal program.
- Permanently ban Internet sales taxes, both on purchases and on access. Take it off the table forever.
- Reform unemployment and welfare benefits to require at least 10 hours weekly service to an Idaho farmer during spring through fall seasons. Payments would be at least minimum wage, and would be exempt from counting as part of your income in calculating your benefit pay.
- Require only a simple majority (50.1%) instead of a supermajority (66.7%) for school bond elections to pass.
Finally, I would like to see the 2008 Idaho Legislature on their very first day, their very first order of business, pass a resolution condemning Senator Larry Craig for his conduct as unbecoming a senator and un-representative of Idahoans, and encourage Larry Craig to resign from his position for the good of all Idaho. I think this would be huge if they did it first thing out of the gate, it would finally create some positive national news for Idaho, and might be the final push that Larry needs.
What do you think of Butch’s wish list, my wish list, and what is your legislative wish list?
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Let's have a new poll, alright, Joe?
:@:)
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{ 18 comments… read them below or add one }
One wish list item a friend has is to reform Idaho’s liquor license laws. He thinks it is ridiculous for private citizens to hold onto liquor licenses their entire lives and lease them out. He compares this to being able to lease out your driver’s license or business license to other people.
He thinks it should be that when someone closes or sells their business and is not using their liquor license anymore, it should expire and return to the state, who can then issue it to the next person in line for a $2,500 fee. No more of these $80,000 liquor license leasing shenanigans.
I thought I read about the state looking at reforming these laws, but I was not sure if this particular issue was on their radar. What do you think?
Joe, don’t hold your breath for a Medical School at ISU, or anywhere else in Idaho. First of all on the very slim chance a Med School comes to Idaho it will probably be established in Boise at BSU. The price for a Med School in Idaho would certainly make a vast majority of the Idaho Legislature go into respiratory arrest. Lets face Idaho is still 20th century. With the current legislature, and state administration, if any of them can’t gain financially then they don’t want anything to do with coming out of the stone age.
You’re probably right, but hey that’s why I called it a “Wish List”.
What would you wish the Idaho Legislature does this session?
I guess wishing they would all move to another state would be too much to ask.
Both Joe and Jodie are right. We live in a State where we elect persons to governmental positions not because of their experience or willingness to serve. We vote because they are a neighbor, fellow member of the church or a friend of a friend. Too often the public does not investigate who is on the ballot and name recognition plays a significant role. Then we are victimized by the redicilious laws that they pass. It wasn’t too long ago that the public asked for term limits on two separate ballots and won. Then the State Sheriff’s Association with a number of other highly positioned politicans were able to get it changed so they could all stay in office past the time that the public believed was beneficial. This is the reason lobbist make so much money, they take those who can pay and get them what they want. The public fails to fight back when these type of things occur. As a result a few try to fight but are not sucessful because they do not have the support.
I think your wish list is very ambitious, and I’d be really happy if only one item each year could be done…but I think we have more chance of them all abdicating their positions before we get any kind of meaningful representation from them.
Special interests rule the day.
Is it such a sad state of representation in Idaho that folks cannot even dare to dream anymore?
Joe…I hear ya but Dreams don’t put food on the table, Dreams don’t put your kids through college, and Dreams won’t replace the dopes that will gather in january in Boise to decide how the people of Idaho live their lives. Its sad that people like the Village Idiot (Bryon Fischer (sp)) have more say in how we live than native Idahoans, people like Leonore Barret would like nothing more than Idaho to become a seperate country (maybe to save her mining rights on public land?). Take a good look at our local Senators and Represenatives…yep they’ve done wonders for us. I can atleast say I my husband and I have helped Lurch Loertscher (sp) get his ag welfare (aka farm sunsities).
I’d have to agree with Jodie regarding her “dream statement”.
Since it is a /wish/ list I would like to see high-speed rail linking the cities in East Idaho together and to the INL…fat chance.
ISU just released a study showing 4/5ths of their dropouts cite financial / credit problems as the reason.
http://www.kpvi.com/Global/story.asp?S=7483455
I’ve thought for a long time that Idaho education should include more financial training. There should be a basic block of financial education introduced in 5th grade, then more involved classes in junior high and high school. I do not think the current single consumer education class is enough.
Tha sounds like a good plan Joe but I don’t think the state board of education or the state legislature would go for it…that would make kids a threat to them, Knowledge can be harmful to some.
Here’s another wishlist item: force companies to honor their advertisements, do not allow them to claim it was a misprint.
KIDK 3 did a story on this yesterday,
http://www.kidk.com/news/12446111.html
about our local PetCo trying to claim their $110 sale on a 55-gallon aquarium was a misprint, and refusing to honor their ad. They stuck to their normal $155 price until KIDK got involved.
I see these stories more and more lately cropping up at Digg.com, and I am beginning to think retailers are using it as a marketing strategy.
Think about it. The marketing departments that create advertisements almost always use either Adobe InDesign or Quark, and these software programs have multiple exporting and previewing functions. Maybe in the past prices were handed to the ad layout person in written form, and a ‘9′ could be mistaken for a ‘4′, but nowadays these numbers are vetted by several people and passed around via spreadsheets. With the numerous previewing functions and ability to share documents across world offices, there is absolutely no excuse for retailers to claim a misprinted advertisement.
To reinforce this point, how often do these “misprints” feature higher prices than the actual sale price? Of course NEVER, they always feature lower prices that the retailer then does not want to honor. I think this proves that retailers are pulling shenanigans and we need to hold them accountable.
Either state attorneys general should investigate, or the legislature should force retailers to honor their ads. Doing so would increase accountability and trust between retailers and consumers, so I don’t know what reason our lawmakers would give to not do this.
Make the law such that if the retailer will not sell their advertised product at the advertised price or lower, the consumer can file a complaint and get the item for free and the state levies a $1,000 fine for each instance. We will see the end of “misprinted ads” in a heartbeat.
Kind of like Wal-Mart adversting rock bottom prices on HiDef tv’s and laptops, then you get there and find out they only provide 1 per store. The ad is just to get people in their store, knowing that most will end up buying something else, even if the original item they wanted is no longer available.
Crafty bastages!
One of my pet peeves with our legislators is their continued refusal to pass any kind of meaningful laws regulating building contractors. I have written to several and it appears the Idaho Builders Association is spending plenty of lobbying money to insure these laws do not get passed. It’s time we started demanding Idaho drag itself into at least the 20th century (21st is a lost cause) and get up to speed in regulating certain industries like every other state in the US. Either that or I’m going into business myself as a general contractor and start bidding on state contracts. I have a hammer and tape measure so that qualifies me!
I cannot remember the specifics of the building contractor laws they defeated last session, would those registration rules have helped the person(s) who got ripped off by Randy Webb, as recently reported by the PR?
Yes! Today, the law to make dog fighting a felony in Idaho became active! Finally! Eventually, even we catch on.
Today, the law making dog fighting a felony in Idaho, went into effect! Eventually, even we catch on!