Our state legislators have just finished the 2024 session. But while many of them are patting themselves on the back, the rest of us are wondering what they have accomplished.
Readers will remember my complaint in a Letter to the St. Maries Gazette-Record back in January over the State Fire Marshal’s power grab. You can read it here.
The bill got shelved but key provisions still found their way by stealth into other legislation updating the fire code. The State Insurance Director was the primary mover behind this particular legislation, but he was not alone.
This year, the language of legislation has changed in general. It wasn’t just this bill . . . every bill that was passed (over 300 of them) ended with a “declaration of emergency” clause – from the rules for midwives, electricians, and farmers to state agencies which run all of Idaho’s institutions.
I wonder what it means to declare an emergency and then not tell anyone what the emergency is? Sort of like the four year old that dials 9-1-1 because her kitten is stuck in the tree . . . maybe a personal crisis, but certainly not one which demands the commitment of public resources.
So, I tried to get a response from our legislators, even the Attorney General, to find out what this emergency might be all about. They were just too busy. I guess it must be one of those “everything-is-an-emergency-now” things. Maybe, we are the emergency and they don’t want to tell us!
As for state conservatives, Mr. Ridley from Idaho Chooses Life ranks the session with an A+ rating, even though his pro-life legislation also ended with this menacing emergency clause.
In contrast, the folks from the Idaho Freedom Foundation (IFF) gave the legislators a big fat “F.” So, obviously, the conservatives are sharply divided.
IFF got closer to the reality with its dismal assessment, but it still has a freedom “Hall of Fame” listing legislators who are our “freedom guardians,” yet they seem not to have noticed this declaration of an emergency and the imminent power grab.
Are they that incompetent? Or are they in on it?
Earth to Hart . . . Earth to Heather . . . Earth to Harkins. . . Hello, anybody out there listening?
(For more, go here.)