There has been a bit of chaos happening down in the State Legislature this week after the Speaker of the House, Scott Bedke, called the House to reconvene a few weeks ago. There was an air of relief surrounding this reconvening; Idahoans were hopeful that the House could get some work done to help people around the state who were losing their jobs because of the federal mandates (or threat of federal mandates) were handed down.
Priscilla Giddings Ethics Report
The relief lasted about 5 minutes once Monday's House Session began. The first matter of business was to censure Priscilla Giddings from a committee based on her bogus ethics hearing, led by District 1 disappointment Sage Dixon. Even after 20 minutes of back and forth debate, the House majority decided to approve the ethics report and censure Priscilla Giddings from the Commerce and Human Resources. Check out the roll call for the censuring below. Note if any of your district representatives in green, as True Idaho News put it, don't care about the truth.
House Bills in Committee This Week
There were 29 bills that started in the House Ways and Means Committee on Monday to try to get through the Legislative process and become laws. There were some on the Senate side as well but the glaringly important ones started out in the House. Out of the 29 bills they were filed into the following locations:
1 was filed for a 2nd reading
2 were referred back to the Ways and Means Committee
1 was referred to the Appropriations Committee
8 were referred to the Business Committee
9 were referred to the Health and Welfare Committee
7 were referred to the State Affairs Committee
1 was referred to the Judiciary, Rules and Administration Committee
Any bills that were left over from May, sitting and waiting to be dealt with on the floor, including S1193 - $6M federal childhood education grant trying to bring CRT into Idaho, was sent back to their respective committees to be dealt with at a later time.
One thing to note, the chair of the Health and Welfare Committee, Fred Wood, and the vice-chair, John Vander Woude, have refused to call the committee to meet with Wood confirming that he does not think that any discussion or testimony about the nine assigned bills is worth his time.
“I profoundly disagree with all nine of them," Wood said in an Idaho Reports article.
The bills covered a range of issues, including licensure, employer vaccination and testing mandates, and treatment of minors. Wood, the only physician currently in the Idaho Legislature, said many of the proposals were poorly written, and he had philosophical disagreements with others. For example, House Bill 431, sponsored by Rep. Randy Armstrong, has language that would “supersede any conflicting rules or orders issued by local officials” and suspend “all relevant statutes.” That language is way too broad, and way too vague, Wood said.
Wood also said all of these issues could wait until January. When asked about people who are currently losing their jobs because of those companies’ vaccine and testing requirements, Wood said that’s a discussion between the employer and the employee.
“If you don’t like that company and you don't like its policy, go work somewhere else,” Wood said. In response to those saying it’s their right to not get vaccinated, Wood said “I have the right not to be infected by somebody that has a communicable disease.”
House Bill Progress
There has been some progress on the rest of the House bills these last few days. I'm going to give you a quick rundown of all the bills that have popped up this week and let you know where they're at in the whole Legislative process. You can reference the image at the top of this post for a general overview of a life of a bill.
Also, if you would like to follow along in our crazy session "commentary," I have been live-Telegramming the sessions this week on my Telegram page here.
Bill # | Description | Status |
Fed overreach legal defense fund | House Appropriations | |
Employee medical info protect act | House General Orders | |
Mandated vaccinations, prohibition | House Health & Welfare | |
Immunization status, discrimination | PASSED House 48-22-0 Senate State Affairs | |
Employment, vaccinations | House Business | |
Religious freedom, med treatment | PASSED House 46-24-0 Senate State Affairs | |
Employment, immunization | PASSED House 43-24-3 | |
Occupational licensing, vaccination | House General Orders | |
Worker’s compensation, vaccines | PASSED House 67-3-0 Senate State Affairs | |
Attorney general, vaccines | House State Affairs | |
Employment, COVID vaccine | PASSED House 41-27-2 Senate State Affairs | |
Minors, medical treatment, consent | House Health & Welfare | |
Immunizations, government | PASSED House 50-18-2 | |
Vaccinations, employees | House General Orders | |
Education, content standards | House Ways & Means | |
Medical privacy | House Health & Welfare | |
Immunization status, discrimination | House State Affairs | |
Immunizations, legal defense fund | House State Affairs | |
Employee medical information | House General Orders | |
Minors, consent, treatment | House Health & Welfare | |
Schools, masks, barriers, exemption | PASSED House 42-28-0 Senate State Affairs | |
Mask mandates, prohibition | House State Affairs | |
Vaccine exemptions | House Health & Welfare | |
Immunizations, approval | House Health & Welfare | |
Occupational licensing, medications | House Health & Welfare | |
Occupational licensing, medications | House Health & Welfare | |
Health care services | House Health & Welfare | |
Vaccine mandates | House 3rd Reading | |
Rule rejection, content standards | House Ways & Means |
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