Rep. Steve Berch Newsletter: One foot out the door

Rep. Steve Berch Newsletter:
One foot out the door

This legislative newsletter covers the last week of the 2025 legislative session, which ended on April 4^th. And none too soon! Several legislators literally had their boxes packed and one foot out the door while we were still voting on bills. It’s never a good idea to write new laws when legislators are more interested in going home.

My next newsletter will be a review of the entire 2025 session (my 2024 end-of-session review covered 66 bills). It will focus on bills that were signed into law and bills that failed along the way. Failed bills are just as important as those that passed. They are often harbingers of what’s to come next year.

One good outcome from the end of the session is that I can now continue meeting with my constituents. Please feel free to stop me and say “hi” when I’m out and about in your neighborhood!

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

Partisanship at its worst

During the last week of the session, one bill stood out as an insult to every voter in Idaho.

The bill is H359 (passed the House, died in the Senate). This bill would force every candidate running for a partisan position to advertise their party affiliation on every piece of election-related communications (mailers, yard signs, flyers, radio, TV, text messages, social media posts, newspapers, magazines, billboards, etc.). The bill’s Statement of Purpose claims:

“(This bill) enhances voter awareness, reduces misinformation, and prevents deceptive practices designed to mislead the public . . . By making political affiliations explicit, voters can better assess the motivations and credibility of those seeking to influence their choices.”

There are several false assumptions and absurdities inherent in this Statement of Purpose, including:

This bill assumes voters are stupid. Each candidate’s party affiliation already appears on the ballot! Anyone who wants to vote party line (either Republican or Democrat) will have that information right in front of them before they cast their vote. It insults voters to assume they’re too stupid read a ballot.

This bill assumes that party affiliation defines the candidate. The Idaho Republican Party proved this to be false. They recently passed a resolution that censured Governor Brad Little and 14 incumbent Republican legislators “due to their misleading the general public that they are Republicans.” It insults voters to claim that not disclosing party affiliation is misleading when the Idaho Republican Party itself censured elected Republicans for claiming they are Republicans.

It is absurd to think that this bill is necessary. The absence of this bill’s existence has not prevented the Republican Party from controlling 75-85% of the Idaho Legislature and the Governor’s office for the last 30 years. It insults voters to think that the absence of forced advertising of party affiliation has in any way hurt Republican candidates in Idaho.

So what is the real purpose of this bill? It’s obvious – to force Democratic Party candidates to put the word “Democrat” on all their campaign material throughout ruby-red Idaho. But why would majority party leaders care about that when they’ve controlled the legislature for decades? Because they want to target one Democrat in particular . . . Me.

I unseated a 12-year incumbent Republican in 2018 in one of the few competitive legislative districts in Idaho. I’ve since been re-elected three times by a district where registered Republicans continue to outnumber Democrats by over two-to-one. My opponents hope that the toxic nature of today’s partisan politics will help defeat me by forcing me to put “Democrat” on all my yard signs and literature. Some of my Republican colleagues told me that this bill was privately being called “The Berch Bill.”

There’s a simple reason I choose to not put party affiliation on my campaign material: My job is to represent everyone in my district, not just people who are affiliated with one political party. It insults voters to expect them to vote for a candidate based on the letter next to their name.

I’ve knocked on over 41,000 doors during my campaigns. Every one of the 2,000+ people who have put my sign in their yard is someone I’ve spoken with personally. I always tell them I am the Idaho Democratic Party candidate. People can and do vote for the person, regardless of their party affiliation.

In addition to the points above, I VOTED AGAINST this bill because:

It is unconstitutional. It is forced speech, which constrains one’s freedom to say – and not say – what they want.
It is the gateway to requiring every election in Idaho to be a partisan election.

The second point underscores perhaps an insidious, ulterior motive of this bill. As written, it only applies to partisan elections. If this bill was to become law, the legislature could subsequently remove the word “partisan.” This would effectively eliminate all non-partisan elections in Idaho (school board, city council, library board, etc.).

This bill is partisanship at its worst.

Rotunda Roundup

Appropriations

Much of the bills voted on during the last week of the session were supplemental appropriation bills. I VOTED FOR all of them except one: S1220, which rejected $24 million in federal dollars to help families in need with home energy costs. In fact, many of the Governor’s budget requests for vital services and functions such as education, health and welfare, libraries, etc. were cut to pay for a $240 million/income tax cut (H40) that will reward corporations, the wealthy and the well-connected. The average Idahoan, on the other hand, will see their income tax lowered by about $127.

Don’t spend it all in one place.

Health & Welfare

Medical Freedom Act (S1210 – signed into law). This was the last bill of the 2025 session. It is the final version of a bill that started out as S1023 (vetoed by the Governor), followed by H472 (died in the Senate), and finally this version which the Governor did sign. The only significant change to the original bill pertained to restrictions on daycare, which itself is problematic due to definition ambiguity. I did not see any compelling reason to support this final version of the bill. Here’s how I explained this bill – and my “no” vote – in an earlier newsletter:

This bill prohibits any government entity or private business from placing any medical requirement on any person or employee infected with a contagious, potentially deadly disease (e.g. measles, tuberculosis, pertussis, RSV, spinal meningitis, or some new airborne virus). A modern day Typhoid Mary (or perhaps Measles Mary?) would have the "medical freedom" – without any personal responsibility or accountability – to come and go as they please, and not even have to tell their employer or co-workers that they are or might be contagious. I VOTED AGAINST this incredibly irresponsible bill that violates the rights of private business owners (and places the liability on them), ignores the “health freedom” of workers to not be forced to unwittingly work side-by-side with a contagious co-worker, and presents a clear danger to public health and safety. CLICK HERE to see my debate against the House version of this bill (H472).

Allow pharmacies to sell Ivermectin for use by humans without a prescription (S1211 – passed the House and Senate, to the Governor). There is not a single member of the Idaho Legislature who is a medical doctor, an infectious disease expert, or a licensed pharmacist. In short, the legislature has no expertise or credentials to decide what medications are safe, harmful, effective, or ineffective for human consumption. This is a job for professionals, not politicians armed mostly with anecdotes. I VOTED AGAINST this politically motivated bill fueled by post-COVID hysteria whipped up by extremists on social media.

Education

Repeal the Empowering Parents Grant program (S1142 – passed the House and Senate, to the Governor). This program, which started during COVID, provides financial assistance to families for items that would aide in learning (especially remote learning). I VOTED AGAINST this bill. Getting rid of this program is a slap in the face to parents with children in the public school system. While the legislature throws $50 million of your tax dollars at private and religious schools with zero accountability (H93), this bill takes away $30 million of benefits available to the parents of public school students. This bill moves the legislature closer to establishing itself as the enemy of public education.

Remove everything that might be considered “DEI” from higher education (S1198 – passed the House and Senate, to the Governor). This bill prohibits anything considered to be “DEI” from pertaining to student admission, faculty hiring, employee incentives, offices and officer positions, diversity training, and reporting systems.

But that's not all. Any person can notify the Attorney General (AG) if they think there’s a violation – thus creating hordes of anti-DEI vigilantes. The AG must investigate the alleged violation and seek civil penalties of up to 10% of the amount of the college or university operating expenses for the offending division – or $50,000, whichever is greater. In addition, any student enrolled in a degree program at the college or university can file a private cause of action against the institution. I VOTED AGAINST this bill rooted in manufactured hysteria. I did not debate against this bill, but I did debate against a similar bill in the House Education committee last year (CLICK HERE to see my debate).

Local Government

Change the Ada County Highway District (ACHD) from non-partisan to partisan governance (H471 – passed the House, died in the Senate). This bill required ACHD to hold partisan primary elections for the members of its governing commission. It also required every seat on the commission to be elected county-wide, even though each candidate must live within a specified zone within the district. I VOTED AGAINST this bill which was written in retaliation when candidates who were registered Republicans lost their ACHD commissioner elections last year. If each position was partisan and voted on county-wide, it would significantly benefit Republican candidates given current political demographics. This would make it easier for majority party leaders in the legislature who live in Ada County to control ACHD through personal relationships and influence.

Make it easier to dissolve an Urban Renewal District (URD) (H436 – signed into law). This bill has several moving parts. It allows a URD to expand to include just one landowner. This was done specifically for Chobani, which will enable their property taxes to go to the local URD, which in turn will use it to help build infrastructure to accommodate a major operations expansion. The bill also includes a carve-out for fire districts within a URD, which helps them financially. I had mixed emotions about both those provisions. However, the reason I VOTED AGAINST this bill was the provision that makes it easier to shut down and dissolve a URD. It allows a majority of city council members (usually only three or four people) to simply adopt a resolution for dissolution. That would immediately halt any future URD activity. The city council and URD board can then decide to dissolve the URD without any involvement from the broader community. This provision was added by factions within the legislature whose goal is to do away with URDs. This bill can become a poison pill to achieve that goal via future legislation.


Other

Prohibit the advertising of illegal products and services (H271 – signed into law). This reasonable-sounding bill ignores the impracticality of enforcement when it comes to electronic and broadcasting advertising mediums. Cities bordering Idaho in other states cannot prevent radio and TV broadcasts from stopping at the border. Internet and text ads know no boundaries whatsoever. The motivation behind the bill is to prevent advertising marijuana and other drugs from being seen by Idahoans (especially from Oregon). I VOTED AGAINST this problematic bill which continues the legislature’s effort to prevent Idahoans from seeing, hearing and doing what the legislature doesn’t like.

In the hopper

The session is over - no more bills this year!