Legislative week

[RingoShirl@aol.com]

Dear visionaries:

I note that you have received information from Representative Trail, so I'll 
attempt to augment somewhat.

The maneuvering surrounding the public school appropriation was interesting, 
and disturbing.  JFAC had sought input from the House and Senate Education 
Committees.  (belatedly)  It seems that they pretty much ignored this input 
when making their final decision.  As I understand, they considered a number 
of motions, one of which was the recommendation from House Ed.  (Which was 
exactly the same as Dr. Howard's most recent proposal.)  These motions were 
all defeated, so finally Rep. Robert Geddes (the House chair of JFAC) made a 
motion that the Department of Education be given the amount of the 
appropriation, and decide how it should be spent.  Surprisingly, that motion 
passed.  I doubt that Dr. Howard's final budget will look much different from 
her most recent proposal.  We had a scare on Friday when some of the very 
conservative House members threatened to send the bill with the public school 
appropriation to the amending order, to remove $10,000,000 to address school 
facility needs.  Luckily, they did not have the votes to do so.

The appropriation was a pretty good one, but I am not as impressed as some 
folks.  It does include over 5% more monies for salaries.  The per classroom 
support increases by less than $400.  Of interest with respect to that figure 
is the following.  A while ago, the IEA surveyed its members to ask how much 
of their own money teachers were using each year to purchase items for their 
classrooms.  Of those who responded, the average was about $400.  

The Governor will sign (perhaps already has) the religious freedom 
legislation.  As you may recall, this allows that state to place no barriers 
in the way of an individual's free expression of religion, unless the state 
can show it has a compelling interest to do so.  When the legislation was 
passed, it was declared an "emergency," and was to go into effect 
immediately.  Since the governor heard from many church officials, and 
others, who are concerned about the language of the bill, the effective date 
has been moved to Feb.1, 2001.  I urge you to consider and discuss the 
implications of this bill.  There would be time to amend it at the beginning 
of the next legislative session, if there would be support to do so.

You have probably read about the lawsuit the state of Idaho lost to the 
American Truckers' Association.  There are many interesting aspects about 
this lawsuit.  The legislators had the opportunity to address the issue 
during the 1997 and 1999 sessions, to avoid the lawsuit.  Among 
considerations was the assurance from our Attorney General's office that we 
would probably not lose the suit.  Now, we face a suit on behalf of certain 
school districts concerning the state's failure to deal with the issue of 
school facilities.  In my opinion, legislation passed during this session 
will be insufficient to address this suit.  We should have a decision soon, 
and I'll be very surprised if we don't lose this one as well.

There are other interesting issues, but you've probably read more than you'd 
like by now.  It's been an honor to serve you during this session.  I'm 
looking forward to seeing you in Legislative District 5 after we adjourn.  
(Probably next week.)

Shirley Ringo