Legislative session proving unexpectedly busy

What started as a slow session has quickly become one of our busiest in recent memory.

As of the end of last week, we have already introduced roughly 100 more bills than last year, with 140 more than last year being prepared by our bill drafting office. At the end of this week, the afternoon committees in the House have been closed down for bill introductions and any new bill proposals are required to be introduced by one of the privileged morning committees or by the Ways and Means Committee.

Even though we are closing down the morning committees next week, there is another Ways and Means Committee scheduled for Monday and talk of more legislation on the horizon which means an even greater departure from previous sessions. Admittedly, many bills that are drafted never see the light of a committee (I have four bright ideas on my desk that never received an introduction …) and often, once a bill is introduced, a small error will reveal itself and a rewrite is done to improve the bill. 

While these occurrences lead to a greater drafted bill total, this happens every year so the comparison remains the same. Last year’s totals came in at 861 bills drafted and 595 bills introduced. With five weeks to go, we have had 806 bills drafted and 463 bills introduced into committee. The rule of thumb is that election-year sessions are usually shorter in duration and lighter in workload than non-election years, but this year is proving to be a bit of an anomaly. 

Prior to each legislative session, the Senate pro tempore and the Speaker of the House meet to decide on a rough end date for the upcoming year’s session. The Idaho Constitution mandates a starting date of the second Monday in January, but Idaho has no definitive finish date, or a mandated length of session, as most other states do. Our sessions traditionally last between 80 and 90 days with the occasional outlier on the long end rather than the short, and these numbers are what the two leaders look at when predicting a date to close the legislative session.

Typically, we will go at least one week past the predicted date. This is not always true, but there is often a difficult issue that demands more coordination between the two legislative bodies, as well as the governor’s office, which pushes the timeframe back. The target date for “sine die” (translated “without day” in Latin, meaning no appointed return date) this year is March 22. However, given the slow start to our work this year, we are expecting to add at least another week to that date, and possibly two weeks depending on the aforementioned coordination.

Another bottleneck we are experiencing is the amount of bills being heard in each legislative body. The House has passed 69 bills, as of last week, while the Senate has passed 28 bills with only nine bills being passed by both bodies. The House started holding floor sessions twice a day to move bills off our voting calendar this week but still has roughly twenty bills on the board with more to come in the upcoming week, and the Senate floor sessions are getting longer as well due to the backlog of legislation.

Another factor that can slow the process down is controversial legislation. The change to our budgeting process is what caused earlier delays, but the committee is moving bills through and we are passing them off the House floor. However, the Senate has been a little slower to address the base budgets which has caused the House to be reticent to take up the trailer appropriation bills. 

The large Public School Facilities Fund legislation has passed the House, although it appears to be in trouble in the Senate, and we still have legislation dealing with highway districts, education tax credits, and teachers unions to be heard, all of which will most likely generate long debates.

For these reasons, I am of the opinion we will not be adjourning until the first week of April. Others in leadership are optimistic that we will finish on March 29, but the workload seems too great to overcome at this point. 

Thank you for allowing me the honor of serving District 1 in the House of Representatives.

Rep. Sage Dixon represents Bonner and Boundary counties in District 1A in the Idaho House of Representatives.