Rep. Steve Berch Newsletter: And we're off

Rep. Steve Berch Newsletter: And we're off - way off

We are two weeks into the start of the 2025 legislative session. As is typical in the early going, very few bills have come up for a vote. Committees are getting organized, and only a few bills have started to make their way through the process. However, what has been submitted sets an early tone and priorities for the majority party - and the state. The mood is apprehensive.

NOTE: You can look up any bill introduced since 1998 by CLICKING HERE.

Missing the mark

Every legislative session starts off with the Governor’s State of the State address which outlines his legislative priorities for the new session. Here’s some of what he discussed during his speech:

Proposed yet another tax cut ($100M/year) on top of the $4.5 billion provided over the last five years
Proposed $50 million for private and religious school tuition
Proposed deregulation and permit process reform for builders
Lauded his LAUNCH program
Noted the sending of four Idaho State Police missions to the border
Criticized Oregon as being “drug friendly”
Discussed cyber security as an issue
Closed by promising to “govern responsibly”

Meanwhile, the legislature has an entirely different set of priorities based on the bills introduced and being discussed during the first two weeks of the session:

Declare that marriage can only be between a man and woman
Praise the BSU women volleyball team
Prohibit rainbow flags in public schools
Require a Christian bible to be read daily in all public schools
Make it more difficult to pass a ballot initiative
Repeal Medicaid Expansion and/or restrict access to its benefits
Impose a mandatory $300 fine on any adult possessing marijuana
Further prohibit DEI to appear in public schools and universities
Allow anyone to carry a concealed weapon on college campuses
Allow any group to parade in public while bearing firearms

Both the Governor and the legislature appear to be missing the mark with what most Idahoans consistently say they want state government to fix. Neither branch of government has yet to discuss these priorities:

Fund public schools without constantly relying on school bonds and levies
Unaffordable housing
Low wages that fail to keep up with the cost of living
Get rid of the grocery tax
Healthcare, including OB-GYN and mental health services
Women’s reproductive rights
Child care availability
Adequately manage growth, especially infrastructure
Protect access to public lands from being blocked by gates and “no trespassing” signs
Stop extremist legislation, such as throwing doctors in jail and attacking libraries

There’s still time for those who control the legislative agenda to find the target. But even with it being this early in the session, it’s always later than you think.

On the air
Below are links to my recent appearances in the media:

Rotunda Roundup

There have been 27 pieces of legislation introduced in the House during the first two weeks (12 in the Senate), but we’ve only voted on two of them in the House thus far. One was a resolution. A resolution is usually a statement of opinion that doesn’t have the force of law. I often don’t include them in my newsletters. The other was a routine, procedural tax bill that would normally be of little interest. There was also a third bill, a personal bill, worth noting.

Resolution commending the BSU women’s volleyball team (HCR2 – passed the House, in the Senate). The BSU women’s volleyball team twice refused to play against an opposing team this year that allegedly had a transgendered woman on their roster – even though BSU had previously played against this same team and the same person in question.

The purpose of this resolution is to affirm the legislature’s desire to ban all transgendered women from playing on any women’s sports teams (H500, enacted in 2019) – and demand that the NCAA and the Mountain West Conference (MWC) do the same. Anyone who disagrees with this is accused of wanting to “let men to play on woman’s sports teams” (which I was accused of via relentless smear campaign ads during the 2024 election).

Opposing a bill such as H500 (which I voted against and which HCR2 reaffirms) doesn’t mean I support the opposite of its intent – it usually means I found a bill to be seriously flawed. H500 took a disturbing and dangerous approach in dealing with the issue of transgendered individuals in sports. It could require your daughter's genitals to be inspected by a third party and have her undergo genetics testing (at her expense) if someone accused her of not being a girl. This empowers:

a jealous parent of a rival,
the coach of another team,
a fan in the bleachers,

or anyone to subject an innocent, young woman – your daughter – to the humiliation and trauma of having to prove their gender – without any penalty for the accuser making a false accusation. This isn’t right.

I was temporarily absent from the House floor when the vote was taken on HCR2 and I did not return in time to cast my vote. However, I would have voted AGAINST it for the reasons stated above. However, I could have supported this resolution if it had called upon the NCAA and MWC to revisit their policies (instead of simply revoking them) to make sure athletes are not being put at a clear physical risk or disadvantage, which can vary by individual.

Conform the Idaho income tax code to the federal Internal Revenue code (H3 – passed the House, in the Senate). This bill allows the state income tax form to align with the federal IRS form, making it easier to file your taxes. I have always voted FOR this bill each year, along with just about everyone else.

What makes the vote on this bill noteworthy is that 14 people voted against it (nearly one-fourth of all Republicans in the House). These same 14 legislators also signed a loyalty oath to the 20-page Idaho Republican Party (IRP) platform, which calls for repealing the 16^th amendment to the U.S. Constitution. That Amendment gives Congress the power to collect taxes on income, which in turn funds a lot of things we all take for granted, such as the military.

It is also worth noting that on January 10, the chairman of the IRP (Dorothy Moon) designated the Assistant Majority Party Leader in the House to be her legislative liaison responsible for enforcing the party platform in the House, (along with a counterpart in the Senate). The fact that a quarter of the majority party in the House would march in lock-step with the dictates of every extreme element within a 20-page party platform is a harbinger of things to come.

Idaho Parental Choice Tax Credit (H1 – personal bill, dead on arrival). This bill would give parents $9,500 of your taxpayer dollars in the form of a refundable tax credit to pay for their child’s private and religious school tuition. "Tax credits" are this session’s version of a school voucher bill. However, it is personal bill. That means it was never introduced in a committee and will never come up for a vote. No one in the legislature knew this bill was coming.

Normally I would not even bother to include a bill like this in my newsletter. What makes this noteworthy is that it was submitted by a brand new legislator who just moved to Idaho about three years ago, but is convinced the entire Idaho public school system is a complete failure. I was later told by some of my colleagues that the bill was actually written by the Idaho Freedom Foundation.

It is disturbing to see how some legislators are willing to be pawns and sycophants to extremist third-party organizations – another harbinger of things to come.

In the hopper

This is a short list of bills that have been introduced in either the House (H) or Senate (S) that are worth watching. They provide insight into the legislature’s priorities. Some of these bills will move forward and some will stall or die along the way. Future newsletters will usually discuss the ones that come up for a vote either in committee or on the floor of the House or Senate.

H2 – Raise the requirement to pass a ballot initiative (e.g. Medicaid Expansion, term limits, etc.) from 50% to 60% of votes cast.

H6 – Allow the Idaho Attorney General (Raul Labrador) to bypass local government processes and directly prosecute elected and appointed city and county officers.

H7 – Set a mandatory fine of $300 for possession of marijuana for non-minors, thus removing current judicial discretion.

H10 – Prohibit the display of rainbow flags and banners on public school grounds by prohibiting the display of all flags and banners, with some exceptions.

H13 – Exempt persons under 18 from having to wear a helmet when riding in UTVs equipped with a roll cage and seat belts.

H14 – Idaho Code Cleanup Act: requires state agencies to review their portion of Idaho Code for unnecessary, obsolete, and outdated provisions.

H18 – Prevent local governments from imposing any requirement to install or maintain EV charging stations or parking spaces at their facilities.

HJM1 – Reaffirm Idaho’s ban on same-sex marriage (which is unenforceable).

S1001 – Allows for the swift dismissal of meritless Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation (SLAPPs). This is prompted by lawsuits that arise from actions people take on social media.

S1009 – Allows any group of people or private militia to parade in public while bearing firearms.

SCR102 – Create a study committee to revisit how the state handled the COVID epidemic, with the belief that there was no credible threat to public safety and that vaccines were harmful and not effective.