originally published in the Moscow-Pullman Daily News February 17-18, 2007
By Judith L. Brown
The Idaho Legislature is in session again and so, working as I do on state-level budget and tax issues, I’ve been spending a lot of time in Boise. People often ask what it’s like to participate in the goings-on at the Idaho Statehouse (also known as the Capitol), so I thought I’d try to share a typical day. This particular day was Feb. 6 and I was in Boise to talk to legislators and others about proposals for either increasing the grocery tax credit or reducing the sales tax on food. But plenty else always happens in a day’s work too. Here’s a recounting of how that particular day went.
I’m staying in a friend’s apartment about a mile from the Capitol. Walking toward the Statehouse for an early-morning meeting, I’m suddenly not sure I can believe my eyes. Barely 30 feet in front of me, a fox slips out from between two houses, crosses the sidewalk and sniffs the base of a tree. It’s well known that foxes are around in the north and east ends of Boise, increasingly so as subdivisions climb Boise’s foothills. Still, it’s rare to actually see one. My day is made and it’s not yet 8 a.m.
Inside the Capitol, I climb the curving marble stairs to the third and fourth floors, where the legislative chambers and committee rooms are located. The House Revenue and Taxation Committee is meeting at 9 a.m. and today they will decide whether to send one or none of four grocery tax proposals on to the full House. A colleague and I touch base with several members of the committee before the meeting to see where things stand. We would prefer to see the governor’s proposal get the go-ahead but it is not clear how committed the governor and his team are to their own proposal.
The sponsors of the four proposals presented them to Rev and Tax yesterday. Today the committee will discuss the proposals, exchange arguments for and against them, and then vote. Immediately it is clear that the governor’s proposal is in trouble. When Rep. Mike Moyle, R-Star, House majority leader and also a member of Rev and Tax, denounces the governor’s proposal as “social engineering” I can practically hear the pens of all the reporters in the room scribbling away and I know that quote will be all over tomorrow’s papers. After fairly brief discussion, the committee votes down the governor’s proposal but sends an alternative proposal, less preferable but still acceptable from our point of view, on to the full House.
From Rev and Tax, I head straight for the House State Affairs Committee meeting where a print hearing to raise Idaho’s minimum wage to $7.25 an hour, index it to inflation, and tighten both the tip credit and training wage, is already in progress. At a print hearing, the sponsors briefly present their proposal and ask the committee’s vote to have it formally printed as a bill and assigned a bill number, after which the bill would come back again before the committee for a public hearing. The minimum wage proposal has several co-sponsors, including both of Latah County’s representatives, Shirley Ringo and Tom Trail, and both are involved in making this morning’s presentation.
Even though this bill is not expected to become law, as of yesterday it was expected to get printed. Today it goes down, 10-8. Yesterday it had the votes. Today it doesn’t. What happened?
The scuttlebutt around the Statehouse is that it’s payback for a committee vote yesterday killing a bill to close Idaho’s primary system, meaning only voters registered with a political party could vote in primary elections, and they could vote only for their party’s candidates. Apparently, Idaho’s Republican establishment is mortified at being represented in Washington, D.C., by Congressman Bill Sali, and they think Democrats’ cross-over votes pushed Sali to victory in last May’s primary.
Yesterday the Republicans’ bill for closed primaries went down. Today the minimum wage bill, considered to be the Democrats’ bill, goes down. I start to find the Statehouse stifling.
Which is OK, because after a quick lunch and an afternoon of sounding out where the grocery tax proposals will go from here (the governor quickly puts out the word that his proposal is “not dead yet”), I’m heading for home — until the next time.
* Judith L. Brown is an economist and director of the Idaho Center on Budget and Tax Policy. She lives in Moscow with her family and can be reached at jlbrown@turbonet.com.