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.

Hello and welcome to the special online episode of Idaho Reports with Governor Brad Little.

We recorded this conversation with the governor Tuesday morning, shortly before the U.S. Justice Department announced it is suing the state of Idaho over its abortion laws, accusing the state of denying lifesaving health care to pregnant women and violating the Federal Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act.

Though Idaho's law criminalizing abortion does include a provision for the life of the mother U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland said on Tuesday it doesn't allow for abortions to prevent serious jeopardy or harm to the woman's health.

Idaho's laws criminalizing abortion aren't currently in effect, and the Idaho Supreme Court will hear arguments on August 3rd on whether it should stay those laws, as well as combined oral arguments for them during a potential future hearing or remand them to lower courts.

As the news from the US Justice Department came out after our interview, we don't discuss that specifically in our conversation about Idaho's abortion laws.

We'll continue to follow this story at Idaho Reports as it unfolds.

In the meantime, here's the full interview.

Thank you so much for joining us today.

$1.4 billion surplus that we closed out fiscal year 22.

And what are your priorities for the upcoming legislative session?

They're the same.

Well, obviously we'll see what happens in the election this fall.

But, you know, we're preparing to do the same thing we did before give a healthy percent of it back.

Continued investments in education, continued investments in infrastructure.

Obviously, we've done some incredible things in behavioral health, and we'll continue to work on that.

But we're as we see where we put money into education, We want to make sure that we we're successful.

We've got a new dashboard that's coming out on our reading initiative, which is really my highest priority, is to get kids reading proficiently at the end of the third grade.

And as that data comes out and it's available to teachers, problem is, teachers aren't around right now, but that will give us an indicator of where we need to target those dollars.

You have critics on both side sides, one saying that you know, this is a budgeting problem.

If you have this much money left over in a state with a budget like Idaho's.

That means that you're neglecting some of the duties that the state has yet.

The other side says that if you have this much left over, you've been taxing way too much.

I wanted to get your thoughts on that.

Well, Nobody in this.

I alluded I just talked to the budget officers from all over the state.

Nobody knows what normal is when the federal government puts $5 or $6 trillion, maybe $7 trillion into the into the economy.

We know that that's not normal.

We know that income taxes sales taxes are going to go up and down from there.

So everybody's trying to figure out what the new normal is.

That's why we've chosen to pay off the any debt that's available that we can pay off to fund needed infrastructure, make big investments in education, get part of the money back until we know what the new normal is and all the states are struggling with what's the new normal?

The nice thing about it is if things tip over, you know, there's rumors about a recession, you're going to be in as good a shape and Idaho as any state because of what we've done, because we're prepared.

You could spend it all, but then you build your base up.

And if the economy doesn't have to go down, if it just slows, you're going to be in a you know, in a problem because, you know, we've had a 20 to 30% increase in revenue every year.

And I don't think anybody thinks that's normal.

You know, as we're having this conversation, there have been a lot of Idahoans who have been hurting at the gas pump, you know, with gas hovering around $5 per gallon in Idaho.

Other states have called special sessions to send out immediate relief to their citizens.

Why didn't you call a special session and send out tax relief in response to those concerns?

Yes.

Whatever you paid in taxes last year, you got 12% of it back.

Matter of fact, that 12% came right as the fuel the you know, I was I was ahead of the game.

We'd already made the determination myself and the legislature to give that 12% back.

And in Idaho, most everybody pays income taxes.

So that was an income tax rebate.

But that was in motion before the gas prices went up.

This summer.

Well but it was it was you know it would have been a windfall had it not been for inflation but but instead of a windfall it was exactly what people needed to compensate for.

You know, if the CPI has gone up 10%, I give everybody back 12%.

It's you know, it depends upon where you are in the on the continuum, how much of your disposable income you you spend, particularly on fuel and and so that's that's what we've done.

And then the other time and the same time, we lowered the rates.

So you're paying you had less taken out of your check to taxes for income and then we gave you a rebate in between because that's that's state money.

If if we do anything on the fuel tax side that means as some of the things we're planning to do as far as bridges and roads and other thing is going to be somewhat disrupted.

So I'm comfortable.

But, you know, if it continues, we'll get ready to do another big tax rebate.

Even without $1.4 billion.

You're worried about that disrupting the projects that are going on as well.

We'll we'll give a big chunk of that back.

You know, I wanted to ask you about the GOP state convention in July.

One of the biggest news items to come out of that convention was a resolution to limit Republican primary participation to those who had been registered Republicans for at least 25 months and those who hadn't donated or supported candidates from other parties.

Among other restrictions, do you agree?

I. I you know, the summer meeting is where, you know, these things are floated and then it's not totally dissimilar from the legislative process.

Well, then you ruminate on them until January when they're implemented.

And if you remember, a year ago in January, they had a they had and I think it was the last time I was on.

No, it was the preview.

I got asked the question about allowing precinct committee people to select all the candidates.

That was in January 2022 right.

And I said, right.

They that was an idea that kind of the rose to the top when people started looking at the unintended consequences of it.

There'll be unintended consequences.

You know, we finally the Republican Party has more people in Idaho than unaffiliated.

But that is just very, very recent.

Unaffiliated was has been our largest block of voters in the state of Idaho.

And I know those people and they're Republicans, but they choose to be unaffiliated.

So conservative unaffiliated voters, so So if I'm reading between the lines of what you just said, it sounds like you're not thrilled with this plan.

Well, you know, we got time to figure out what the unintended consequences of it.

I, I just, you know, I, I know a lot of people, and, and it depends what county you're in.

You know, if you're in, if you're in Blaine County, or Teton County, you're in some of those counties and you want to have your Republican, but you want to select candidates for prosecutor, county commissioner, whatever it is, you're going to stay.

But of course, the Democrats can go back and forth.

But that's the way it is with the Republican.

People want to be able to participate to select some of those local officials.

And if you don't participate in the primary, you flat don't participate.

What would you say, though, to criticisms of the current process?

That allow people to come in and essentially pick a party's candidates for the general election for them?

I've seen that happen, but it doesn't last I know people that have that weren't my kind of a Republican that ran and got elected and and you know, usually in a light, light turnout election.

But our system works.

And eventually they lost.

It causes a temporary issue.

But, you know, you're you're voting record is what you're going to stand on.

So I've seen it happen.

It's no different than the Democratic Party.

I was just with Governor Hogan of Maryland, the National Democratic Party selecting the least capable Republican candidate to win in Maryland so that the preferred candidate by the Republican Party there didn't win.

People participate in other primaries.

It is you might get something in the short term, but long term, your record is still going to determine.

And, you know, I know people but in fact, I think the candidate that brought this proposal served in the House and the Senate is a Democrat.

That that is true.

You know, you said people who aren't your kind of Republican.

What do you mean by that?

Well, I mean, the fundamentals, long term fundamentals of Republican Party, limited government and maximum freedom, you know, the lighter hand of government, those those fundamentals, you know, basic Idaho family values that are not not out there on either side.

I've been involved in the Republican Party since 1964 when Goldwater ran.

I've got a pretty good idea of what Republican Party politics are in Idaho.

You know, there are a lot of people in your own party, though, who would disagree who have called you Rino for many years now.

I'll say and after this last convention.

All right.

Is that the direction that the party is shifting?

Is that telling you that this is this is what Idaho Republicans want?

The Republican Party and I've watched this for years, has gotten large enough that that nature abhors a vacuum.

And if you don't have competition, then there's going to be competition there.

I understand that.

I get it.

I've seen it happen before.

I remember what it was like in 1990 when we had a tied Senate and it was a whole different deal than it is today.

You know, I wanted to ask you, of course, of course, about Idaho's abortion laws, the trigger laws and the ones that are going to be in front of the Idaho Supreme Court, specifically the one where prosecutors can prosecute a doctor who has performed an abortion.

Is this a workable law?

How will prosecutors know if a pregnancy is valid under Idaho's law?

Well, as I in my when I do my transmission letter, when I sent it back, I said there's some you know, I've been I've always been pro-life and I'm still pro-life.

But there's some we've got two different lawsuits that are going to be in front the Supreme Court this month.

We've also got things happen at the national level.

So there's a lot of things in in flux.

And and we'll have to see.

I am concerned about that very question you asked about.

In a state with the least amount of doctors and even and particularly pediatric doctors in rural areas, that we've got to make certain that the unintended consequences because I'm I'm I'm pro-life and that includes the life of the mother and I'm very concerned about it if we have an exodus of of good trained pediatric physicians.

So why did you sign the law?

Well, I signed it because I was pro-life and I said, we're going to have to work some of these things out.

We had an idea that Roe was going to be the Dobbs decision was going to trump over the top of of Roe.

But we didn't know what all the details are.

And we still don't know.

And we've got these two lawsuits.

If the new legislature that's coming in, in 23, if they pass a ban on IUDs, would you sign it?

Well, we'll have we'll have to see.

I mean, know why, obviously, birth control is is a is a totally different area.

Than than a fetal heartbeat situation.

You know, if there are more births in Idaho as a result of this law and if the court says that, it can go into place.

Is the state prepared to support these families?

We should have been doing it anyway.

But now we're going to this is going to predicate us doing more.

You're familiar with all the good work we did in foster care because we had some real problems with foster care adoptions, Mother support, foster care, every one of those areas, which is the right thing to do, we will implement in Idaho.

We will, you know, have to sit down with the legislature, have to sit down with the board of Health Welfare about what we can do to to be as supportive as possible of of mothers in situations that are difficult for them.

We've been playing catch up with foster care through no part or through no fault of the social workers who have been working so hard.

Is this going to be too little, too late?

No, no, I don't believe so.

But I mean it it's going to highlight the issue.

It's going to make it it's going to make it more important and that's but that's that that's a good thing.

And it dovetails a little bit with what we're doing in the behavioral health area about what kind of support services we provide to everyone, but particularly these mothers that are having challenging situations.

So there's lots of speculation nationwide that Obergefell is next in both the Idaho Constitution and the Republican Party platform.

Define marriage as between one man and one woman.

Do you support overturning same sex marriage in Idaho?

I of course that's again, that's going to be decided at the federal level.

I, I, if, if I was if I was to make a prediction, I'd say I think it's going to stay the same way it is right now.

I so I think it's and, and again, we just want to encourage healthy families.

That's the most important thing, is to have an atmosphere for these kids, grow up loved by their family and have the best possible route to success in their lives.

You know, recently, Idaho's two congressmen split their votes on the Respect for Marriage Act, which would codify protections for same sex marriage.

Do you agree with Congressman Simpson's vote to support same sex marriage?

I, I Knowing full well that that wasn't going to make it across the rotunda.

Sometimes those are symbolic votes.

They're important for them.

But I'm more interested in subject, you know, in things that actually happen rather than a symbolic vote that doesn't have a chance of a snowball in hell.

Getting across the president's desk.

Hypothetically, though, if you were if you were Congressman Simpson, would you have voted for that symbolic.

I, I frankly, because it had so little chance of becoming law, I didn't even spend any time on it.

I wanted to ask you about state employee retention as well.

You know, the state of employee has about 350 job openings right now.

And a lot of them are in the 14, $15 range, lots in the $20 range.

Construction and legal jobs where people can make a lot more money in the private sector.

What's your plan to catch up and retain those employees?

You know, it's interesting.

I this was when I was doing my budget as lieutenant governor in front of when I used to go up in front of JFAC.

And I says, you know, this is a good problem, that wages are rising.

And every state agency has a problem.

And we're trying to be as creative as we can to help some of these agencies.

We're kind of reworking how we go to make particularly for those most competitive jobs.

I think one of the biggest things we're going to have to do this year is in the nursing area, because nurses were so negatively impacted by COVID and then by the traveling nurse.

So I if I complain about state pay, I got 1000 businesses by me going, what about us?

So, you know, we're we're increasing teacher pay significantly 12% this year and really enhancing the benefits.

That's what you have to do.

But I mean, we have the responsibility of state government, both the executive and the legislative branch to do the same thing that businesses.

How can we be more efficient?

What can we do you know can we hire some part time deal part time people to reduce full time positions.

All of that's going to be on the table but you're not going to get much sympathy from small and large businesses and say we're having a hard time doing retention.

You know, there you mentioned teachers, of course, which is critically important for our public schools.

There were 900 vacant positions among teachers earlier this summer.

You said there's a lot on the table.

Should districts have more flexibility to hire people to teach who aren't traditionally certified?

We should, but we got to.

I, I wouldn't necessarily want to open that floodgate all the way up because we still have as in any field, we still have to have some level of professionalism.

But you can't allow a classroom to not have a science teacher, a math teacher.

And of course, one of the areas we have the biggest problems is special education.

STEM special education are two of the areas where we have the biggest problems in school districts.

When I talk to principals and superintendents I I always this time of year, how are you doing?

And some of them say we're all filled up, but more and more they're having problems.

But it's just exactly the same problem as what you asked me about State.

We we are victims of our own success because of our incredible growth that's taking place here in Idaho.

Lots of families living here with lots of kids.

I know that much.

You know, along those lines, more and more parents are supporting public education dollars being used for private education, you know, dollars following the students is often what they say.

What's your ideal setup?

Well, I've I have I think maybe the first charter bill was right before I got in the legislature.

But I've been a huge advocate for choice.

But I've always said that I'm an advocate for choice to the point where it's not significantly diminutive to detrimental to our public education funding because, you know, Boise's a heck of a lot different than than Midvale or fill in the blank from some rural area.

And and so we have to have a system of I mean, we've got a constitutional mandate to have a system of schools.

If we if we dilute or significantly reduce the funding available, you're going to have big problems, particularly in rural Idaho.

And that's kind of the lens that I look at all these issues.

Speaking of school funding, will you support the Quality Education Act?

I I know there's a debate now over what the fiscal note was on the on the Quality Education Act.

Particularly relative to the tax bill we had last year.

I would just add that you look at the amount of money that we put into education.

You look at the amount simultaneously with all the tax issues.

We've had Idaho education and the taxpayers have got a good deal under what we've done the last two years.

And I, I don't know why people they need to look at make their decision on that vote predicated on the trajectory that we've been on and the trajectory that we'll continue on if I'm successful in November.

If you're successful in November, is that trajectory going to include fixing problems like we've read about recently with, you know, the Middleton School District, for example, having to hold classes in public spaces like libraries or teachers, teacher lounges.

Is is this a good deal that you speak up for Idahoans enough to fix those very real problems related to growth?

Well, you know, we do bond levy equalization.

We help out in quite a few areas in schools.

But, you know, Middleton's a good example and I used to represent Middleton.

If you're going to have wholesale growth and not maintain your your facilities, you're going to have an issue.

Is that a state problem or is that a local problem?

That that's a debate we have to have.

It's a legitimate debate.

Does every school district get the exact same number of gymnasiums that, you know, Blaine County has?

We have got about 12 different laws we passed in response to a.

How sufficient were we in meeting our constitutional challenge We need to continue to look at them, but we can't fix everything at the state level.

That's why you elect your local trustees and you participate in and hypothetically, if you've got enough growth, you get new tax revenue coming in there should pick up part of the part of the growth going through there.

People will object to a school board once in a while, but if they plan it correctly and they got one ball and going off and another one going on, they basically make the case we can have a new school in, your taxes won't go up.

You know, switching gears here.

There was a BoiseDEV investigation this summer that found that ITD knew about potential problems with construction on Highway 55.

It's now significantly overbudget behind schedule.

It had some pretty dangerous landslides at one point.

You asked for answers from ITD after that investigation came out.

Did you get those answers and are you satisfied?

We did.

But what we weren't satisfied with was the magnitude of the problem and that we didn't know about it.

And the fact that, you know, legitimate questions were being asked and they weren't being answered in what what we expect and I believe we've got that problem.

I'm never excited when a project goes double over over their budget.

Now, the Department of Transportation is run by an independent board.

I was with two of them yesterday at a groundbreaking for a big project in Pocatello.

And they they're the ones who are ultimately responsible.

But for us, you know, we've got an expectation about when there's a legitimate request that that request is is not answered.

And I think they would agree that there was the old classic failure to communicate.

And but we I got a lot of feedback about how safe it was.

I drove through there Sunday morning early, and that cut eight which is the controversial part of it that goes clear to the top of the hill and and there.

And the other thing is, which we didn't have before.

I grew up driving that road from I've been driving that road for 50 some years.

And rolling rocks have always been a problem there.

The new construction, they've got to put nets in there too.

Where that's not going to be a problem because I know when the weather changes in the spring, particularly when you have freeze and thaw highway 55 is something that every driver needs to be very careful with.

Are you satisfied with changes that ITD may be making after having those conversations?

Oh, yes.

They they you know, it looked like it was you know, it's not a big deal, but it was a big deal, particularly when they when they dove into it.

And I think we've got the correction.

But we were I think needless to say, I wasn't very excited about it when I first heard about it that, A, we didn't know about it.

B, there was an issue, but you know, I did a lot of work.

The legislature did a lot of work to get ITD more funding if things are going to cost double what they are what's what's going to fall off the end of the And, you know, and that's a unique piece of real estate there, no question about it.

But we we have to be better at bidding these projects.

I used to ask every state agency, are we on time and are we under budget?

I joked the other day that if you're under budget, you probably bid it too much, given particularly in the construction area, the hyper inflation we have there, which is a real problem.

So here's a really wonky question for you.

Does that mean that the bidding process on the state level needs to change so we get an accurate view of what these projects are going to cost with our actual needs as a state?

You can you could do that.

But we I mean, you could say we got to do every in this particular instance.

We got to do every kind of core drilling.

We got to do every kind of everything before it.

But then the board has to make the determination is that money that we spend preparing the bid going to be counter to efficiently doing the job?

It's something you always need to review.

And in fact, in a new inflationary, if this is going to be the new normal, the cost of steel concrete construction equipment is going to be the new normal.

We do need to relook at just like business would bidding these projects with a finer, finer point than we did before.

But I you know, I expect all the agencies to be adaptive to a changing economy.

Speaking of that road up to McColl, there are a lot of upset people in Valley County right now after the land board voted to auction off Cougar Island You're constitutionally bound to make decisions that get the greatest financial benefit, of course, but that doesn't take into account other uses of the land or the effects on the community.

Do you support a constitutional change on this?

Well, you kind of got two questions in there.

One of them is that was in the queue for over two years.

And I don't know what the community up there was thinking about.

And in fact, there's one house on it now under the under the probably the wildest scenario, there might be two on it.

The endowment is going to get who knows how many million dollars.

It's really not going to change much from what it is.

The bigger question is the state over 80 years is aggregated real estate and would call because they knew it was going to be worth more.

So there are communities in Idaho that had state land that now have all federal land because that all got exchanged to there.

We and we actually we had the earlier discussion.

We have not been precluded from saying maybe we can get enough revenue here with somebody to expand Ponderosa Park to have more open space and still capitalize on it.

Ponderosa park is that state park for people who are familiar with the area.

Expand Ponderosa State Park.

But the question is, are you going to allow affluent people in Ada, Blaine, Valley, Bonner, Teton County, to say we want our state land for a park and you guys everywhere else generate cash off of it?

I don't think now the people in those counties would love that, that you convert that state land.

And in fact, if we do that, it leads to your second question.

You'd have to amend the Constitution.

Do you support amending the constitution?

Well, there's a lot of different ways you can amend the Constitution.

That they did that in Colorado.

I was I I've been aware of that.

And in fact, most states have different ways in which their lands were given to them at statehood, how they're used You know, the devil's in the detail of what that constitutional amendment looks like.

But we do have an obligation to maximize income off of that land.

Okay.

One last question.

Are we going to see you at the debates in October?

We shall see.

Okay.

The regular season of Idaho Reports returns to Idaho Public Television on October 2nd.

And be sure to watch for the Idaho debate schedule, which will be out in September.

We hope to see you there, Governor.

In the meantime, you can always find our political analysis and in-depth reporting from around the state online, as well as our weekly podcast at IdahoPTV.org/IdahoReports Thanks so much for watching.

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