Narrator: Presentation of Idaho Reports on Idaho Public Television is made possible through the generous support of the Laura Moore Cunningham Foundation, committed to fulfilling the Moore and Bettis family legacy of building the great state of Idaho.

By the Friends of Idaho Public Television and by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

Melissa Davlin: The people of Idaho had their say on legislative representation.

And now lawmakers have elected their own leadership.

And that's going to have big implications on policy for the next two years, including potentially public money for private schools.

I'm Melissa Devlin.

Idaho reports starts now.

Hello, and welcome to Idaho Reports.

This week we discuss legislative leadership, race results, and the potential implications on policy with Kevin Richard of Idaho Education News and Doctors Stephanie Witt and Jaclyn Kettler of Boise State University.

But first, the Associated Taxpayers of Idaho held their annual conference in Boise earlier this week.

Associate producer Logan Finney sat down with ATI President Miguel Legarreta to get an update on the tax landscape for Idahoans.

Logan Finney: Miguel, thanks for joining us.

Miguel Legarreta: Yeah.

You bet.

Glad to be here.

Finney: So, as president of ATI, the associated taxpayer of Idaho, we're coming out of your annual conference that happened this year.

When we talk about Idaho and Idaho's tax structure, how do we compare to other states in the region and across the country?

Legarreta: We're doing extraordinarily well.

Revenue continues to go up for the state.

We have a lot of folks coming here, obviously.

And in terms of tax policy.

We've been very proactive.

We've addressed income tax.

We've lowered it, consolidated it.

We've addressed property tax to a large extent.

We've lowered it.

Folks just received their property tax notices.

I suspect they noticed, pretty substantive, decrease in their taxes due to some policy shift towards the state and towards the state funding schools.

So a lot of positives.

A lot of I've spoken in some other states, actually, Wyoming, Texas, who are facing a lot of the same issues with property and other tax issues and looking to Idaho as an example of some ideas to follow.

So really well.

Finney: And at the office at ATI, you guys have a lot of data over the years.

How has the tax burden changed?

In the last period of time for an average Idaho family?

Legarreta: I've seen the family.

The income has gone up substantially, which is a positive to see as we we often saw Idaho on the on the bottom end of income related to, to our state.

So incomes increase.

But along with that, and we're not feeling it as much as expenses and inflation have gone, gone up and increased, commensurate with that.

So there's, there's sort of a and that also doesn't address the stimulus checks that people received.

So there's a lot of like ebbs and flows in our economy where it's a little like challenging or a little bit muddy as it relates to how am I doing, how am I feeling, what type of expenses relative to my income.

And I am I experiencing.

So we're doing very positively.

I think that's why folks are looking to the state and looking to Idaho as an example.

However, like a lot of the rest of the country, there's there's a lot that's happened over the last several years, policy wise and in our economy.

Finney: Sure.

There's, there's always kind of an appetite at the legislature to cut taxes further.

I, I want to say our income tax is about 5.9 right now.

Other states like Louisiana have cut their income tax and also at the same time raised their sales tax, to kind of offset some of those, some of those revenue changes when lawmakers are looking at tax relief for families in Idaho.

Where can they get the most bang for their buck in terms of making an impact on that?

That day to day Idahoan Legarreta: The income tax relief is a benefit across the board.

So I like it.

I know that, you know, there's a lot of opinions of varying opinions on it.

And beyond it being like a broader benefit.

We're we're a little we're in a competitive position as a state as well.

And a lot of states are doing exactly what you said.

Logan is lowering their income tax and they're they're having the same conversations in their state that we're having here and how Idaho compares and how we're doing.

And so again, that's a fairly consistent thing.

And a lot of say there are states that don't have to do a with, such as Idaho did with, an increase to revenue.

They can do it because of the position they're in.

And that's what we've been doing.

Finney: When it comes to sales taxes, there's kind of a pretty consistent push from a certain group of lawmakers to get rid of the sales tax on groceries.

That 6% sales tax we pay on most things in the state when it comes to, selecting certain things to exempt from taxes.

How difficult does that become on the policy implementation stage?

Legarreta: It it's a difficult policy.

Position, I understand.

You know, this discussion has been going on for years, but Idaho is one of, I think, about five states at this point with the credit.

And I think some folks have looked at that like, maybe we need to change and go to the sales tax side and decrease that, however, the credit really addresses the issue when you look at it holistically.

About 90 plus percent of Idahoans get it.

People that are tourists and others don't.

And in addition to that, if increasing that credit is something we want to look at, we can address that inflationary component of it by increasing the credit that people claim.

And then look how that number aligns with the, the other side of the discussion.

So we get parity on that front.

So I think the credit is the way to like on a consistent way without destabilizing our, income and our revenue relative to the folks who don't pay it.

Or wouldn't, and you know, that that benefit with the credit would sustain itself.

Finney: And the credit structure is also unique in that it's changing.

It's it's cutting that money out of the revenue stream before the state collects it rather than the state, setting up some sort of program and then doling out funds to people.

Is that right?

Legarreta: That's correct.

Yeah, it's set up.

It's set up before, it hits the revenue and it's, it's already set up is what's the benefit to it's set up to go increasing.

It is, de minimis if any change to our policy.

And certainly that's, that's a big issue.

Right.

Everybody fills it at the grocery store.

So what can we do to address that.

It's a real quick fix.

Finney: And another policy area that's getting a lot of attention, especially the last couple of years, is school choice giving families options for private schooling.

I won't ask you about school choice broadly, but one of the one of the ideas is a tax credit for private school funds.

So that would be kind of a similar structure to the grocery tax credit.

In a way.

It'd be people taking money off of their income taxes to put toward, in this case, private school, expenses.

What's the is that a good way to to carry out public policy goals?

We have policy goals where we want to reward certain behavior or make certain behavior easier.

How effective is it to do those type of things through the tax code.

Legarreta: In terms of, the policy side and the influence side?

It works.

Credits work very well in that regard.

I think the discussion to a large extent will be to your point, on the the other side, what do we think of it in terms of a policy dynamic?

That's an interesting discussion.

They'll have, and also in terms of the revenue, our revenue, while stable and increasing, isn't what it was.

And so the piece of the pie isn’t as big as it was either.

So I think those are the big discussions there.

But in terms of the policy dynamics and the the credit in and of itself, it works well in that respect.

Similar to the grocery credit.

Finney: All right.

Well, Miguel Legarreta, president of the Associated Taxpayers of Idaho, thanks for your time.

Legarreta: Okay appreciate it.

Thank you.

Davlin: If you can't get enough tax policy, check out this week's Idaho Reports podcast.

Logan spoke to House speaker Mike Moyle about his tax priorities for the upcoming session.

You can find the Idaho Reports podcast on your favorite podcast player.

On Wednesday night, lawmakers met to elect new leadership for minority and majority caucuses in both the House and Senate.

You may recall that longtime senator and President Pro Tem Chuck Winder lost his primary election in May, leaving that position open.

And that meant all eyes were on the Senate Republican leadership elections this week.

Ultimately, senators chose Kelly Anthon as their new pro tem.

President Pro Tem Anthon is an attorney from Burley and was first appointed to the Senate in 2015.

Republican senators also picked Senator Laurie Dan Hartog of Meridian as their majority leader.

Senator Mark Harris of Soda Springs as assistant Majority leader and Senator Ben Tates as Majority caucus chair.

Democrats stayed the course with their picks, with Senator Melissa Windrow as minority leader, Senator James Rector as Assistant Minority Leader, and Senator Jamie Ward Angle King as caucus chair.

Joining me to discuss the implications of the leadership elections is Kevin Richert of Idaho Education News and Doctor Stephanie Witt and Jaclyn Kettler of Boise State University.

We'll get to house leadership in just a bit, but first, Kevin, no surprise that Senator Anthon moved from majority leader to president pro tem.

Kevin Richert: Fairly logical progression.

He's been in leadership for several years.

Yeah.

I think it's an interesting mix, though, that you have in the Senate leadership.

You know, you have some experienced folks like Anthon Mark Harris, who moves up from caucus chair to assistant majority leader of a couple of new faces in Senators Dan Hartog and Dave's, who are also more conservative members of that Senate Republican caucus.

So a little bit of a mix ideologically as well.

Davlin: New faces in leadership and also in the letters leadership in general with Senator tapes.

But Senator Laurie Dean Hartog is one of the longest serving members now of the Idaho Senate.

And and has played, I think, pivotal roles in a lot of really important legislative discussions over the years.

Jaclyn Kettler: Right.

We've had some really key debates.

And so seeing some changes, we had some openings.

Right.

And leadership.

And so seeing these changes will be really interesting to see kind of the direction of policy in a chamber that looks to be more conservative with some of the changes in the primary election and the general election.

And but, you know, we still see some institutional knowledge here too, which can be key for kind of shepherding through policy, right?

Davlin: By by several metrics.

You could probably argue that this is a slightly more conservative leadership team than we've seen with Republicans in a while now.

Stephanie Witt: Yeah, I, I think just anecdotally, and also, if you look at things like the Idaho Freedom Foundation Freedom Score, you know, we definitely see a shift to the right, in the leadership there.

The Senate for a number of years has had that role of kind of pumping the brakes on some, very, very conservative, bills that have come through.

And I don't know if the signals that maybe we get one less pump on the brake, I don't know.

Davlin: You know, I did want to ask.

Do you expect, a different sort of approach from this leadership team than what we've seen from, Pro Tem Chuck Winter or Pro Tem Brandt Hill?

But for him.

Richert: Stylistically, I wouldn't expect a whole lot of difference.

I think, Senator Anthon, as sort of an experienced, member of leadership, I suspect is probably going to now adopt more or less a similar approach to keeping the trains running on time on the floor and keeping the committees working along and keeping, you know, the the flow of bills, on on the Senate floor.

Davlin: On the House side.

House speaker Mike Moyle was unopposed in his bid for a second term as speaker.

Moyle is a farmer from star and has served in the Idaho Legislature since 1998, the last one standing from the 90s.

House Republicans chose to keep Representative Jason Monks as their majority leader, and elected representative Josh Tanner as Assistant Majority Leader and Representative Jaron Crane as Majority Caucus chair.

House Democrats retained Representative Ilana Rubel as Minority leader and elected Representative Steve Burch as Assistant Minority Leader and Representative Todd Achilles as minority caucus chair.

Lots, lots of, leadership from Ada County.

Only one from Canyon County, no one else from outside of the Treasure Valley.

Between both the majority and minority leadership teams.

How much of an implication does geography have on where the legislature goes?

Kettler: I think you can have several different important impacts, one of which is kind of the priorities issue priorities.

What needs more attention?

Additionally, if there's already a perception that the Treasure Valley may have some benefits or command more sway in policymaking, whether or not it's accurate, having leadership largely from one region may reinforce some of those perceptions.

And so I think it'll be interesting to watch, like how that kind of how that impacts both the policies we're seeing spending a lot of time on, as well as some of the positions and debates we have about them.

Davlin: I think the biggest areas that it might implicate are are things like transportation and water policy, because the view from the Treasure Valley on those two in particular is often very different than the view from the other parts of the state.

Witt: I think that's true.

The needs are different.

The scope of the needs are different in the rural setting as opposed to the Treasure Valley.

But I wouldn't read this to be that there's some kind of, friendliness towards urban issues, though, just because the, leadership team is coming from Ada and Canyon counties, you know, local option taxation, for example.

I think that lots of cities have brought forward as a priority is never has a chance really to get to get a to get going.

And so I don't think that means necessarily that, that cities are going to do better.

But maybe some of the things that are important to the Treasure Valley and, and I always wonder if one of those things is going to be, vouchers or the education money following the student, however you want to call that, because it's not really a choice.

In most rural communities, there aren't a lot of private schools.

There's not you don't really have that choice.

And the hit to their budgets might be more severe.

Davlin: And and I know that, you know, if you were to talk to these members of leadership, I'm positive that none of them would say, of course we're going to pay for Treasure Valley.

I don't think it's a conscious thing, but you know, the reality is your constituents from Ada County are going to have a different point of view than constituents from Bonner County, for example.

Richert: Well, yes.

But I think if, if a viewer is watching this from Boundary County or Bear Lake County and they're worried that this is going to be some monolithic legislative leadership on Treasure Valley issues, this is actually a really good microcosm of what we've seen in Treasure Valley and legislative politics.

We've got, you know, three leaders from Boise, Garden City, the blue legislative districts in this urban area.

And then as you head west into district 15 and into those, west Treasure Valley districts, very conservative, representation and a very conservative House Republican leadership team.

I mean, this is Treasure Valley legislative politics in a nutshell.

Davlin: Very representative of their caucuses and very representative, I would argue, of their constituents, you know, with representative Josh Tanner from that Eagle area and Rep. You know, Speaker Moyle from star, Representative Crane from Nampa, I would argue that they very thoroughly represent their constituents.

You also have three members of leadership between minority majority who are in their second term.

So very, very new, relatively speaking, with Speaker Moyle, you have somebody who's been around since 98, as we mentioned.

Otherwise, we've lost a lot of institutional knowledge in both the House and Senate over the past ten years, with retirements and people losing their primaries and general elections.

You have some very new, fresh faces in leadership.

Richert: And you have some very new leaders in these committee chairs.

As we get to talk about the committees, as we go here.

Yeah, it used to be that lawmakers had to spend maybe 3 or 4 terms to build up seniority and build up enough of a, of a base of support to run in leadership elections and win leadership elections.

Not so anymore.

Davlin: Well, in a weird way, that's kind of representative of how Idaho's electorate is also changing too, right?

It's becoming more conservative as more Republicans are moving here from Oregon, Washington and California especially.

Kettler: And are immediately getting involved and engaged in politics, running pretty quickly for office.

And this is something we're seeing across the country, is more legislators, whether you have term limits or not, seeking leadership positions, seeking policy influence earlier, you don't see some of the kind of apprenticeship approach of waiting around, learning the ropes for a couple, a couple terms more, more of these newly elected legislators wanting to get involved and make a difference pretty quickly.

Davlin: And I think we're seeing that in in county and city elections across the state, too.

I know there's been a big shift in some of those county and city elections and commissions and city councils.

You know, representative of that electorate.

Witt: Yeah.

There, I think it's good that people are seeing a pathway to public service that where they can get involved right away and, and make a difference in their communities.

And, and then we're, we're seeing an interesting kind of bounce back effect, at least here in the treasure Valley where people who had been in the legislature come back and then run for county commission or for city offices.

So it's a nice mix of, of new and, and, continuing ideas.

Davlin: The, the Caldwell Mayor and Ada County commissioner.

Yeah, multiple people involved.

It's not just about leadership.

On Thursday, lawmakers were sworn in and the majority leadership teams met to decide who would serve on which committees for the next two years.

As legislators waited, leadership released those committee assignments on Thursday afternoon.

Kevin, looking at those committee assignments, what stood out to you?

Richert: House education, obviously, because of what we cover.

But even if we weren't covering education, this is a really kind of a fascinating development.

This was the one committee that I think everybody was trying to figure out who winds up getting that chair.

And I have to tell you, as I talked to folks during the week leading up, Doug Pickett's name did not come up at all.

When I talk to people now, either he was really a surprise pick or I was talking to the wrong people, or maybe a little bit of both, but Representative Pickett kind of represents a lot of what we've been talking about here.

He is in his second term, so he's relatively new to the legislature.

He's new to house education because it was on the committee the past two years.

He told me that he became House education, got on his radar really Wednesday night into Thursday morning because he ran for a spot in House leadership.

He ran for the assistant majority leader spot that, Josh Tanner won in the leadership election.

Then the playing field opened up, as he put it.

And then all of a sudden, the conversation focused on house education.

It's a really interesting turn of events, and one that I think could turn that committee a little bit further to the right.

Davlin: You know, and, you know, you and I had talked about this before, but Representative Pickett is from Oakley.

So that many area, the same area that the Senate president pro tem, Kelly Anthony, is from, Lieutenant Governor Scott Bedke, longest serving speaker of the House.

You look back into history there.

Richert: A corner for the state that it's always punched above its weight in terms of political clout.

Davlin: Dean Cameron and Denton Darrington.

Richert: Bruce Newcomb Davlin: Right?

Right.

Exactly.

I don't know what it is, what's in the water and what's in that aquifer underneath it.

But they produce strong leaders.

But but as far as actual implications for education, you know, we've already brought up potentially public money going to private school choices, whatever form that might take.

We have heard about this year after year after year, and a lot of times one of the education committees ends up being, the spot where that conversation stops.

RIchert: Yeah.

Let's talk about the House first.

Mike Moyle ended the 24 legislative session saying he wanted to get school choice, private school choice addressed in 2025.

That's clearly a high priority of his.

While we don't know a whole lot about Representative Pickett's background, we do know that when a tax credit bill, a private school tax credit bill, went to the Revenue Tax Committee, where he served earlier this year, he voted for it.

Now it's, you know, died in committee.

But he was one of the lawmakers who voted for it.

So you would you would draw off of that that he's probably going to be a little bit more receptive to private school choice, certainly, than Julie Yamamoto, who had chaired the committee and was very skeptical.

And lost her primary.

And lost in the May primary, largely over the private school choice issue.

So you would think that right now the pathway would be more or less clear in the House to get something out of that committee and get something off of the House for Senate education, which was a very hard line conservative committee the past two years definitely took a shift towards the mainstream, just counting noses really quickly.

It's going to be a razor thin vote in that committee to see if a private school choice bill of any kind or, of any magnitude comes out of that committee.

It's a it's a lot more moderate committee than it than it was the past two years.

I think it's going to come down to certainly what that legislation looks like, what it talks about in terms of accountability, how much money goes to what.

And also, you know, going back to what you were saying, doctor, what about urban versus rural, viewpoints on private school choice, you know, whether it's vouchers or whatever form it takes.

You know, Douglas Pickett is from a very rural part of the state.

I have to imagine that that's going to be on his mind.

What's in it for?

How does this serve the rural families of Idaho?

Well, you don't have much of a choice.

If the only school within 100 miles is is the one public school right.

Or online.

Right, or homeschool, and all of those things are already available, homeschooling charter schools, if there is one.

You know, this would this would be the the big issue here is, of course, that the money would follow the student.

Right.

And, that has implications for rural districts that have, in many cases, a a much thinner set of property owners to tax for the property tax portion of the school budget.

And they don't really have the choice of a private school.

I mean, maybe there are some private schools in some smaller rural towns that I'm not aware of, but I think the vast majority of the private school choice is really here in the Treasure Valley, and it would be a great deal, I guess, for parents who are looking for that here.

But I don't know that that's, that that's the same issue if you're in Greenville or Salmon or Chalice, I, I don't know.

How much do you think the governor and superintendent, Debbie Critchfield, will be involved, or a factor in these conversations when the legislature has made it clear this is the path we want to take?

Well, we're getting some indications of a willingness to have more, to try to find some compromise positions potentially, than what we've kind of signals have been in the past.

So we may see more kind of collaborations or discussions trying to find some sort of middle ground that can appeal to, to a broader set of legislators.

Briefly, before we move on, other committees that you're watching included the Joint Finance Appropriations Committee, big changes on that committee as well.

Especially on the Senate side.

You have, a couple of you have a fairly even split, perhaps, between, you know, hard line conservatives on the Senate side as opposed to moderate Republicans in the two Democrats, on Senate finance.

And you have to remember, under these new rules, they're trying to pass budget bills with a majority of support from the House members and the Senate members.

So this wouldn't have mattered as much a few years ago.

But now it could matter quite a bit.

Also Thursday, the Idaho Supreme Court released a long awaited ruling in Labrador v State Board of Education.

Labrador sued the state board last year after the board announced it had voted to allow the University of Idaho to acquire the University of Phoenix.

There's a lot going on around this acquisition, but the lawsuit was specifically over whether the board violated Idaho's open meeting laws by closing off those discussions to the public.

As attorney General, Labrador argued, the opinion doesn't declare that the meetings were illegal, but does say that the district court aired earlier this year by saying all negotiations could be considered preliminary and therefore done out of the public eye.

Kevin, that by itself is significant.

There's there's a lot going on here.

But after this ruling on Thursday, where do we go with the University of Phoenix acquisition?

Well, let's start there.

Right now, I don't think this changes very much about the University of Idaho's plans to try to acquire Phoenix.

It's still in flux.

The parties are still talking.

Phoenix has the option of looking at other potential buyers, and the legislature is still probably the most important player in all of this.

And you have to remember the legislature was very skeptical about this idea in 2020, 2024.

A lot of their concern was that they felt like the state board talked about this behind closed doors and thought them, blindsided them with this proposal.

So I don't think a ruling that says maybe the state board was, complying with the state law here, maybe they weren't.

I don't think that's going to appease a lot of legislators who are already concerned about the process.

And you have so much more on this ruling at Idaho Education.

Is that your website?

I should note that Idaho Public Television is under the umbrella of the state Board of Education.

I do want to highlight this one passage from the opinion the legislature declared that it is the policy of this state that the formation of public policy is public business and shall not be conducted in secret.

That by itself is significant, in my view, as a journalist, Kevin, that that sunlight needs to be on these public policy discussions.

The district court decision on this really set precedent.

That would have been far more have have much more implications than just even the Phoenix deal.

Yeah.

The district judge was talking about how all negotiations are considered preliminary until you have a contract.

That really changes a lot of the process of negotiations and coverage of negotiations of public purchases.

We have about a minute left, but I do want to get your thoughts on this, this, ongoing fight to keep these public policy discussions, public.

Well, I, I don't know whether it makes sense to buy the University of Phoenix, but I do believe that that, making a half $1 billion decision without any public testimony is flawed process.

We can do better than that.

And the public should have been a part of that.

The legislature should have been a part of that, in my opinion, as a person.

As a citizen.

Stephanie.

Yeah.

Citizen Stephanie says we should have heard more about this before.

We're talking about signing a check.

Before we go, the Idaho Democratic Caucus announced on Friday that former Representative Elaine Smith has passed away.

Representative Smith represented Pocatello for nine terms in the legislature and served as the minority party caucus chair in the House.

Idaho Reports sends our condolences to Representative Smith's family.

Thanks so much for watching.

We have much more online.

You can find our content at Idaho reports.org.

We'll see you again next week.

Narrator: Presentation of Idaho Reports on Idaho Public Television is made possible through the generous support of the Laura Moore Cunningham Foundation, committed to fulfilling the Moore and Bettis family legacy of building the great state of Idaho.

By the Friends of Idaho Public Television and by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.