Session ends - finally

BOISE, Idaho (AP) - The Idaho Legislature has adjourned, capping the 2006 session at 93 days - the third-longest in state history.

Property taxes dominated the final debate Tuesday, and an agreement between the state and the Idaho Power Co. was reached on a plan that could aid recharge of the Eastern Snake Plain Aquifer, which has been depleted due to drought and 50 years of groundwater pumping.

Both houses passed and were sending to Gov. Dirk Kempthorne a plan to increase a homeowner's property tax exemption to $75,000 from $50,000, where it's been since 1984. Kempthorne said he'll sign it.

Still, lawmakers remained dissatisfied with the property tax relief efforts, with House members complaining that the Senate failed to act and senators criticizing the House for passing bills whose consequences were unknown - and thus doomed to fail in the Senate.

The 2007 session could again be dominated by property taxes, with assessed values due to rise again, lawmakers said.

"It'll be the first thing up," said Rep. Dennis Lake, R-Blackfoot.

The longest session was 118 days, in 2003.

This year's session produced sex offender legislation, revision of 32-year-old rules governing lobbying activities and Kempthorne's historic revamp of Medicaid, the federal-state program that provides health insurance to the state's poor and disabled.

Here is a look at issues considered by the House and Senate. Some proposals failed, while most have been either signed by the governor, were headed to his desk, or - in the case of one constitutional amendment on gay marriage - will be voted on in November's general election:

-PROPERTY TAXES: Lawmakers expanded a tax break for low-income elderly and disabled residents, created a revolving fund to allow senior homeowners to defer paying their taxes so they can stay in their homes and boosted the basic homeowner's exemption to $75,000 from $50,000, indexing future increases in the tax break to inflation. Even so, many lawmakers in the House and Senate were disappointed - the House passed several bills that were rejected by the Senate - and expect the issue to resurface next year.

-AQUIFER RECHARGE: Even though a plan by House Speaker Bruce Newcomb, R-Burley, to allow Idaho to take water from the Snake River failed to win Senate support, state lawyers with the attorney general's office and Idaho Power Co. officials reached an agreement on a scaled-back plan to take water from three southern Idaho rivers and use it to revitalize the Eastern Snake Plain Aquifer. Further, the state and utility agreed to resolve future disagreements either through negotiations or in a special water court.

-EXPERIENCE IDAHO: It didn't look like the plan Kempthorne proposed back in January, but lawmakers finally passed a parks improvement plan that funds improvements at five state parks and provides money to plan a new park in eastern Idaho. In all, the state set aside $11.5 million, and approved a program in which the Idaho Department of Parks and Recreation could mine as much as $15 million worth of gravel from Eagle Island State Park west of Boise to pay for improvements there.

-HIGHWAY BUDGET: The governor's "Connecting Idaho" plan to improve more than 250 miles of the state's highways ran into trouble again in 2006 before reaching a compromise: Six projects, $200 million - and the Idaho Transportation Board gets wide discretion over where to spend money reaped from selling bonds that will be repaid by future federal highway funding. The agreement averted a veto battle similar to last year's.

-LOBBYING REVAMP: In the first reform of Idaho's rules governing lobbying registration in more than three decades, lawmakers expanded the definition of lobbying to include those trying to sway all elected officials, agency directors and appointed members of state boards and commissions, on issues including multimillion-dollar contract awards. Before, only those paid to lobby legislators were required to register and report their spending.

-COMMUNITY COLLEGES: Lawmakers balked at Kempthorne's $5 million proposal to establish a statewide community college system, instead opting to study the issue for another summer and come back next year with recommendations.

-CAMPAIGN CONTRIBUTIONS: Secretary of State Ben Ysursa pushed through a pair of campaign finance reform measures - one that prevents companies or organizations from skirting contribution limits by giving candidates money through subsidiaries or splinter groups and another that puts limits on how candidates or officeholders can spend their campaign contributions.

-MEDICAID REVAMP: Kempthorne spearheaded an effort to reform Idaho's health insurance program for poor and disabled residents. He says it's already working: State spending on the program will rise just 7.8 percent in 2007, half of last year's increase and well below the 17 percent annual growth in Medicaid since 1987.

-INDIAN RIGHTS: Idaho's American Indian tribes - the Kootenai, the Nez Perce, the Coeur d'Alenes, the Shoshone-Bannocks and the Shoshone Paiutes - rallied against efforts by the state to tax their gasoline and limit tribal gaming. Still, negotiations are due to begin between the state and tribes over a plan to distribute gas taxes, and some lawmakers on the Senate Indian Affairs Committee believe relations between Idaho and the state's tribes show signs of improvement.

-OPEN COMMITTEE MEETINGS: The House and the Senate tightened rules governing committee meetings, establishing new guidelines for when the sessions could be closed to the public. That's after the Legislature won an Idaho Supreme Court ruling on March 20 that said lawmakers could set their own rules for closing such meetings. The case resolved a lawsuit by the Idaho Press Club, which sued the state after legislative committees were closed to the public in 2003 and 2004.

-EMINENT DOMAIN: Lawmakers passed new restrictions on government's property seizure, a response to a 2005 U.S. Supreme Court ruling over a case from Connecticut in which homes were seized to clear the way for a shopping development.

DEVELOPER'S DISCOUNT: Lawmakers voted to close one of the most unpopular property tax loopholes that had allowed developers and others - including the governor - to pay just pennies in taxes on some of the state's most valuable vacation property. The changes leave intact the exemption for farmers who subdivide their land but keep it in agriculture.

-SEX OFFENDERS: Legislators passed several bills to tighten and expand sex offender laws, including one that removes the statute of limitations on sexual abuse of minors. "If you have ever done this to a child, you are going to remain accountable," said Rep. Debbie Field, R-Boise. Other bills that passed make combined rape and murder cases punishable by the death penalty and prohibit sex offenders from having access to school children.

- GANGS: Kempthorne made gangs a priority in his State of the State speech in January. His Idaho Criminal Enforcement Gang Act - which became law in March - makes gang recruiting and providing gangs with firearms illegal. It also extends sentences for gang-related crimes. "This is organized crime," Kempthorne said in his January address. "(Gangs) run like a business, but their business is no good."

- NO EXTRA MATH AND SCIENCE: Legislators rejected a state Board of Education proposal that would have required high school students to take four years of math and three of science. Currently only two years of each are required. Legislators want more time to study the issue and gather input. The proposed increase was prompted by a report from the National Center for Education Statistics that said only 45 percent of Idaho's high school graduates went on to higher education in 2000, compared to the national average of 56.7 percent.

-GAY MARRIAGE: After two years of seeing the issue die in the Senate, advocates of a plan to ban gay marriage via the Idaho Constitution convinced enough lawmakers to send the issue to a vote in the Nov. 7 general election. Religious groups pushed hard on the issue. "I've been told by some that if I vote against this bill, I'll never see this place again," Sen. Tom Gannon, R-Buhl, said after the vote. "Sometimes you've got to go with what your constituents are telling you."

-CAPITOL RESTORATION: After years of waiting, Idaho's Statehouse in Boise is due to get a $115 million makeover, including refurbishing the 100-year-old existing building and adding a pair of underground 50,000-square-foot wings on the east and west sides of the sandstone structure to help accommodate a growing state government.

-ENERGY REBATES DIE: Kempthorne's plan to spend about $60 million to give each Idaho resident a $50 check to help defray higher gasoline, electricity and natural gas prices wound up getting no traction among lawmakers, who favored using the money - about a third of the state's $214 million surplus - for other priorities.

- PAY RAISES: State employees, including teachers, walked away from the 2006 session with more money and better health benefits. A measure called for by Kempthorne gave all state employees a 3 percent raise and will cost the state about $11 million annually. Another proposal gave state workers mental-health coverage. Judges were also granted an additional 3 percent pay raise.

-BREATHABLE BOOZE: Lawmakers drew the line on partying when they outlawed devices that allow people to inhale alcohol, rather than drinking it. The devices haven't come to Idaho, but legislators said making possession, use or sale of the devices a misdemeanor was needed because the rapid intoxication they promote could lead to brain damage or mental disorders.

-NOT FOR SALE: Legislators passed a resolution declaring that Idaho's federal land, treasured by residents for outdoor recreation, shouldn't be sold to help pay for other programs. The resolution, which isn't binding, is a response to the Bush administration's plan to sell 300,000 acres of federal land, including 26,000 acres in Idaho, to raise $800 million for rural schools and road maintenance.

-ETHANOL: A proposed requirement for Idaho service stations to eventually sell gasoline that contains 10 percent fuel made from corn or straw died in the House Agriculture Committee, after the bill passed the Senate 27-8. Lawmakers plan to study the issue over the summer.

-DEAD BODIES: Failure to notify a coroner of a dead body is now a misdemeanor punishable by a maximum year in jail and a $1,000 fine. If the body is so badly decomposed that medical experts can't determine the cause of death, those who conceal it could face a felony charge, with a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison.

-MY APOLOGIES: Doctors will be able to say they are sorry to patients when a medical procedure goes wrong, without fear that their apology could be used in a malpractice lawsuit. Proponents of this legislation, including the Idaho Medical Association, said that the healing process can begin more quickly if a physician can express regret following medical mishaps.

-BRAIN-WASTING DISEASE: After nine suspected 2005 Idaho cases of Creutzfeldt-Jakob, a brain-wasting disease, lawmakers voted to require that autopsies be performed in suspected cases to determine the cause of death. They want to learn whether the person died from the variant form of the illness, which has been linked to consumption of beef tainted by mad cow disease, or the classic form, which is not believed to be linked to mad cow.

-MOVIE TAX BREAKS: The Legislature passed a law giving tax breaks to media productions that decide to shoot in Idaho, in an effort to try to lure investment in the state's motion picture industry.

-METHAMPHETAMINE: Lawmakers and the governor agreed that stricter limits needed to be placed on the sale of certain ingredients used in methamphetamine. Among the bills to win support was one requiring stores to keep cold and allergy medicines containing pseudoephedrine in locked display cases where the public isn't permitted. Limits were also placed on how many packets of such medicine could be purchased at once.

-RAINY DAY FUND: Lawmakers voted to boost the so-called budget stabilization fund by $70 million, to about $108 million, shoring up an account that in recent years has been raided to patch holes in Idaho's budget.

- LICENSE PLATES: More graphics helping more groups will start appearing on Idaho license plates next year. Five bills were introduced to create new specialty license plates and all passed, including plates for veterans' motorcycles, "historic preservation" to repair deteriorating state buildings, Breast Cancer research, the Elks Rehabilitation Hospital and the National Rifle Association. A failed proposal would have taken the "Famous Potatoes" slogan off Idaho plates.