Tax relief, abortion, transgender rights: Idaho lawmakers adjourn eventful session

The Idaho Legislature adjourned Thursday, wrapping up a legislative session that produced significant investments in education and tax relief along with controversial new policies targeting abortion and LGBTQ+ rights, which likely will attract legal challenges.

Following adjournment, Republicans touted the session’s investments in education, infrastructure and property tax relief. House Speaker Mike Moyle, R-Star, said Republicans accomplished most of their priorities, and Idaho Gov. Brad Little applauded the Legislature on a “productive” session.

“Working together, we achieved major investments in teacher pay, workforce training, roads, water and other critical infrastructure to improve the lives of the people we serve, in addition to passing simple enduring property tax relief,” Little said in a news release.

Democrats, meanwhile, denounced GOP policies restricting gender-affirming care for transgender minors and limiting travel for abortion, amid other “assaults on civil liberties.”

“The Idaho Republican Party, which once boasted that it was the defender of freedom and local control, has now really proven itself to be the party of big government and, increasingly, Big Brother,” House Minority Leader Ilana Rubel, D-Boise, told reporters.

Property taxpayers, public schools were session winners

Property taxpayers, who have seen their bills climb in recent years, will soon see some relief, but it remains unclear exactly how much of a discount one can expect.

House Bill 292 — and two trailer bills — will subsidize about $117 million a year in property taxes across the state, according to estimates from the governor’s office. Moyle, who co-sponsored the legislation, said discounts will range from 10% to 25% depending on which taxing districts apply to the bill. Another estimated $65 million this fiscal year will go to public schools to pay off debt obligations.

“That was historic,” Moyle told reporters Thursday.

The property tax bill also eliminates March elections for school districts, the most successful elections for public schools to pass bond and levy measures.

“I fear for the future for our schools without those election dates, “ said Senate Minority Leader Melissa Wintrow, D-Boise.

But overall, public school funding fared well this year. Lawmakers upheld last year’s promise to direct an additional $410 million to education.

Public schools will see a 16.4% boost in state funding in the next fiscal year, according to the governor’s office. That includes $171 million for teacher raises, which could amount to more than $6,300 pay increases for each teacher.

“We invested significantly into public education,” House Majority Caucus Chair Dustin Manwaring, R-Pocatello, told reporters.

Additionally, public schools will get $100 million in pay for classified staff — such as bus drivers and cafeteria workers — along with $54 million in discretionary funding, $10 million for classroom technology and $5 million for dyslexia training.

“The 2023 session of the Idaho Legislature was nothing less than a monumental success for students, public schools and Idaho’s educators,” Layne McInelly, president of the Idaho Education Association, a teachers union, said in a news release.

Altogether, Idaho lawmakers OK’d a more than $370 million increase in spending for K-12 public schools. That’s on top of $80 million for workforce training scholarships proposed by Little.

Little’s “Idaho Launch” grants had a rocky path through the Legislature, but ultimately lawmakers approved them. High school graduates will be eligible for up to $8,000 grants if they stay in-state for community college education and workforce training programs.

Lawmakers also approved another $50 million proposal, from State Superintendent for Public Instruction Debbie Critchfield, to help middle and high schools expand their career technical education program capacity.

“The combination of the two programs are really going to do well for Idaho, and I think that is a major accomplishment,” House Majority Leader Megan Blanksma, R-Hammett, told reporters Thursday.

Little signs abortion ‘trafficking’ law

Republicans this session enacted a unique law that makes it illegal to cross state lines to help a minor obtain an abortion without parental consent. They also clarified some exceptions to the state’s abortion ban, but an exception for pregnancies that cause health risks wasn’t among them.

The “abortion trafficking” prohibition, which carries up to a five-year prison sentence, is the first of its kind in the U.S., according to Planned Parenthood. The pro-abortion rights group likely will challenge the law that takes effect next month.

Moyle said the intent of the law is keeping parents involved with pregnancy decisions.

“I think that it was a way to protect not only the children but the parents and the knowledge the parents have of what’s going on in their child’s life,” he said.

Meanwhile, Idaho hospitals are halting pregnancy care, and physicians are fleeing the state over fears of prosecution for treating complicated pregnancies.

In an attempt to address the issue, Republicans adopted measures clarifying exceptions to Idaho’s near-total abortion ban, including explicitly exempting treatment for miscarriages and ectopic pregnancies.

Physicians told lawmakers last week that they “reluctantly” supported the changes because they cleared up some uncertainties about what the law prohibits. But doctors pushed for an exception to the abortion ban when the health, not just the life, of a mother is threatened, which didn’t make it into the bill.

The final product was the “bare minimum” that provided “reasonable relief” to physicians’ concerns and that everyone could agree on, Blanksma, who sponsored the bill, told reporters Thursday.

“What we got was what everybody could agree on and not everyone liked, which is often the case with legislation, right?” she said. “If no one’s happy, then it’s probably the best that we could do.”

Democrats opposed Blanksma’s bill because it narrowed the window for allowable abortions — in cases of rape, incest and to save the mother’s life — to the first trimester of pregnancy. And the clarifications on non-viable pregnancies already are law, according to an Idaho Supreme Court decision from last year, they argued.

It was a “bad, bad session for women,” Rubel said Thursday. On top of tightening abortion laws, GOP lawmakers phased out a committee to study maternal deaths, eliminated funding for teen pregnancy, rejected a bill for free menstrual products in schools and declined to expand postpartum Mediciaid coverage from two to 12 months, Rubel noted.

“The attacks on women and girls did not end in the reproductive rights arena,” she said.

Legal fights on abortion, gender-affirming care ahead

Planned Parenthood officials have said they intend to challenge the “abortion trafficking” law, and that likely won’t be the only policy from this session state attorneys will be called on to defend.

Republicans passed a law banning gender-affirming care for transgender minors. The American Civil Liberties Union of Idaho announced Wednesday that the group intends to sue.

“I hope that the judiciary will prove to be a more effective guardian of our freedoms than the Legislature was,” Rubel said.

The state in recent years has spent millions in legal fees defending controversial laws. That included laws blocking transgender Idahoans from changing their birth certificates and prohibiting transgender girls from competing in female school sports were challenged in court. A federal court ruled the birth certificate law unconstitutional, and litigation on the transgender athlete ban is ongoing.

House Republican leadership Thursday was tight-lipped on the gender-affirming care ban, which goes into effect in January. Moyle said it’s a “tough issue” that you don’t go “waving a flag” about, but it was “a good bill.”

“Every one of those issues that we’re being threatened with lawsuits were important to Idahoans or they wouldn’t have passed with the majorities they did,” Moyle said. “Sometimes you have to go through that process, to let the courts weigh in.”