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.

Logan Finney: Idaho becomes the only state with the firing squad as its primary method of carrying out the death penalty.

We look at what it will take to make that policy a reality and progress on other legislative priorities.

Filling in for Melissa Davlin, I'm Logan Finney.

Idaho Reports starts now.

Hello and welcome to Idaho Reports.

This week, producer Ruth Brown sits down with Representative Bruce Skaug, chairman of the House Judiciary Rules and Administration Committee, to talk about criminal justice issues and changes to the death penalty.

Then, Melissa Davlin interviews East Idaho farmer Brian Murdock about legislative investments in water recharge projects.

But first, let's get you caught up on the week.

Idaho's U.S.

Senator Mike Crapo appeared at a Boise Chamber of Commerce forum on Monday.

The event drew protesters, largely people opposing a lack of congressional push back on executive orders issued by President Donald Trump and the DOGE team, led by Elon Musk.

Protestors: Do Your Job!

Do Your Job!

Do Your Job!

Finney: On Wednesday, Governor Brad Little signed a bill called the Medicaid Cost Containment Act, which contains major changes to the state's Medicaid system.

In a statement, Little said, we want Idahoans to become as self-sufficient as possible.

House Bill 345 reinforces that goal.

While reasonably reeling in Medicaid spending.

The bill includes possible work requirements for the roughly 90,000 Idahoans on Medicaid expansion.

It also moves the normal Medicaid program to what's called a managed care model, where the state contracts out management of Medicaid care to private companies.

Idaho Democrats condemned the move with a statement from party chair Laura Necochea, who said these so-called work requirements do nothing to help find jobs, but they will take away insulin, cancer treatment and mental health services.

Supporters and users of Medicaid protested on the Capitol steps Thursday against possible federal cuts to Medicaid under the Congressional budget plan.

The plan directs $880 billion in mandatory spending cuts over the next ten years, which critics fear would affect Medicaid.

Jim Jones: There is talk of an 80 or an $880 billion savings from various programs, including Medicaid, that will then be used to finance tax cuts for the billionaires who are in control of the country.

Now, is that right?

Protestors: No!

Jones: We have seen some of the same things happening here in our own state.

And there are people in control who just don't like programs that serve people, particularly taking people, taking care of people's medical bills, which is a tremendous problem, both nationally and the state.

You know, if we're really interested in saving money, I'm kind of wondering about those $400 million in tax cuts that sailed through the legislature to give tax cuts to people that don't really need them.

Is that right?

Protestors: No!

Finney: The Idaho Senate passed the final prong of House Republican’s tax relief package on Monday, $100 million in additional yearly revenue toward existing programs for homeowners and school bonds and levies.

The governor has until Wednesday to act on that bill.

Lori Den Hartog: We've seen these local entities go back to the property tax payers and ask for a vote of support in the November election, and we've seen those go through.

So, senators, I think this is important, but I also think it's important as we visit with our constituents to remind them that many of the property tax, property taxes that they pay, they vote for themselves and have been voting for themselves.

So it feels a little bit like an endless cycle that we can't quite figure out how to get out of.

Melissa Wintrow: The school will still have to do all these supplemental levies because we're still not funding them at appropriate levels, especially special needs, low income and English language learners.

So we have created this cycle.

Finney: On Monday, the House passed a bill that would bar undocumented immigrants from receiving certain public services, such as access to short term shelter and food assistance programs like Snap, as well as soup kitchens and food pantries that accept state funds.

The bill does leave in place an exemption for emergency medical care, but it bars access to publicly funded prenatal care, vaccinations and treatment of communicable diseases.

Jordan Redman: My thought is with this bill is we need to prioritize people that are here legally for these welfare benefits and not allow for people that are here breaking the law to start with, from accessing these welfare benefits.

Rubel: This bill has a laser focus and on taking away care from babies, pregnant women and hungry children.

That's it.

That's that's who's in the crosshairs of this bill, is babies, pregnant women and hungry children.

Josh Tanner: They broke the law to come into our country.

And yet we're supposed to just go ahead and give away our tax money and put ourselves continually at risk and at debt.

Clow: You know, I just cannot believe that we're going to take, in this case, the fear of spending, Medicaid dollars, or some tax dollars that we would deny prenatal care to someone in our country and that that prenatal care may be to someone who is conceived in this country, that when born, will be a United States citizen.

I can't support this bill.

Finney: The bill passed in a 46 to 22 vote and is moving through the Senate.

Governor Little announced Wednesday the departure of Idaho Department of Corrections Director Josh Tewalt for a job in the private sector.

Idaho Reports producer Ruth Brown sat down Friday morning with Representative Bruce Skaug, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, to discuss criminal justice bills he sponsored relating to the death penalty.

Ruth Brown: Thanks for joining me, representative Skaug.

Idaho is now the only state in the country to use the firing squad as its primary method of execution.

That was a bill you sponsored.

Walk me through the reason that we did that.

Bruce Skaug: 6 to 7% of intravenous injections of pentobarbital or other medications, so to speak, fail on executions.

And I thought, well, that is cruel and unusual punishment in a way.

And I couldn't talk that way until we passed this bill, because someone is about to be executed and then it fails.

Well, that's not good for them or anybody else involved in the procedure.

Firing squad is quick.

It's certain.

There's no failure.

The person that is condemned is unconscious immediately.

So I think it's the more humane way to go.

And as does the Idaho legislature and the governor.

Brown: The details of the bill do allow the director of the Idaho Department of Correction to, carry out most or most of the details in which an execution would be, carried out.

And that's the way it is now.

Currently under, execution by lethal injection.

Do you have any concerns with leaving that much power to one person?

Skaug: I do not.

The director is responsive.

The past director is very responsive to me, very responsive to the governor, and wants to do it right.

The past director.

We have a brand new director.

Just, announced yesterday, the day before.

So immediately, I went to her to make sure that we're able to get the firing squad remodel of the facility done.

It's on track.

It will get done.

She'll carry out her duties.

Now, the past director wanted to do it mechanically by button pushing two firearms.

And she may or may not do that.

I haven't asked her what she thinks is best, so we'll wait and see.

But it will get done.

Brown: Okay.

Senate Judiciary Rules yesterday passed a bill related to executions.

In some cases of lewd conduct with a child, and it would only be in cases where, the child is younger than 12 and there are aggravating circumstances.

The death penalty would be an option.

Walk me through what was your rationale around that bill?

Skaug: We tried to bring that bill, Josh Tanner and I last year, but there wasn't time to get it through.

Or really, the Senate stopped it in committee, and they rightfully did so.

We needed to redraft that.

So we modeled it after Florida and Tennessee, who currently have that law.

And five other states are trying to pass the same type of law this year.

I believe Idaho is going to get it through the Senate.

It's going to be signed by the governor.

And we will have death penalty for it.

There are some things that are worse than death.

Some testimony we had was, a child, was raped at age one and the perpetrator filmed it.

Those things make you gut sick as they should.

There are things worse, worse than death.

A child for instance in North Idaho, raped from ages 4 to 9 by the perpetrator.

He got a 20 year sentence.

Sounds tough, but eligible for parole within one year.

And that's not enough for taking someone's life.

The child lives, but really, their life is taken.

And the most heinous of crimes should be punished with the death penalty.

Idaho believes now, through their representatives.

I think that's going to happen.

It'd be very, very rare that we'd have a case like that.

And it's uphill because we have a Supreme Court battle we’ll be challenged on it.

But on that rare case, viewers of your station are gonna hear about that, and they're going to say, yeah, that's the guy that should be executed.

Brown: So something that came up in committee that I wanted to ask you about.

For viewers that don't know, when an individual, when a prosecutor files an intent to seek the death penalty, that defendant must have death penalty qualified attorneys.

These are attorneys that are not just your regular public defenders.

They have additional training.

At last count, I think there's only about maybe 30 or 40 of them in the in the state.

There's between 200 and 300 cases of lewd conduct filed every year.

Are you concerned with the lack of death penalty, qualified defense attorneys and what happens if there's a case where the defendant doesn't have a death penalty qualified attorney.

Skaug: They, a person, if they have the funds, can hire any attorney they want, whether they're death qualified or not.

And we had one of those cases recently go to trial in Ada County with a private attorney.

Yes.

I am concerned that we don't have enough qualified attorneys for such defenses with our public defenders, and we're working on that now.

There should be a funding that comes through the state, and hopefully we'll get some more.

But look at Florida.

They've had this law since 2023 and they've had one case.

It's ok. And they have a much larger population.

So it is going to be rare.

I'm not worried about there being a plethora of death penalty cases on this new law.

They'll be rare, but they'll be the right ones I believe.

Brown: So I believe that in the Florida case, that was, that was a case they used, there was a plea deal eventually.

It wasn't it wasn't an ultimate death sentence.

Skaug: Correct.

They brought they brought that.

And they want to take they want a test case like we will like Tennessee will, like probably other states will.

To go to the U.S. Supreme Court.

But they did a plea deal at the end of that.

That was life, I believe life without parole.

Brown: So you mentioned this being a test case.

I've heard you talk many times about, the state's budget.

And in 2008, the Supreme Court declared it unconstitutional to, to execute a person for a sex crime.

Are you concerned about the cost of the legal challenge that likely is to come if this were to be used?

Skaug: The legislature and Idahoans have not been shy about constitutional challenges.

We've constantly fought on the issue of abortion.

We fight other issues, women's and, Women's Protection Sports Act that those kind of things that we believe we should fight.

The US Supreme Court has changed drastically from that 5-4 close decision that struck down the Kennedy versus Louisiana case in that one.

I believe the result will be different.

And we just have to push forward for the victims and their families of these awful cases.

So I'm looking forward to that test case, whether we have to pay for it or we just trail along with Florida or Tennessee.

Either way, we're going to jump on board.

We have a good attorney general for this type of case.

Brown: I want to bring up one other thing that came up in committee, and that's, as you know, you're an attorney.

In child sex abuse cases, the perpetrator is often known to the victim.

And there were concerns about underreporting, meaning folks not reporting because they know that if they turn in their father or their uncle or their family friend, they could potentially be killed by the state.

Is are you concerned about, this causing underreporting of sexual abuse or has that been something that's been that's been brought up to you?

Skaug: It's been discussed, but we had the prosecutors answer that in committee in the Senate just recently.

They don't see that that will change one way or the other.

It's already difficult to report.

I prosecuted some of those when I was a young prosecutor.

Very difficult to report.

Our public defenders, our prosecutors, our defense attorneys, our judges, our juries, everybody has to deal with these.

It's heart wrenching.

And you cannot unsee the awful things you have to see in going through these cases.

But then think about the victim that actually goes through this in their life.

And that's who we're out to protect.

I think it will be a deterrent, and I think it will be fair retribution for the most awful crimes.

I think that someone could commit.

Brown: Shifting gears a little bit, we're going to talk about a constitutional amendment, that you pitched.

well, you explain it to me, talk to me about what the bill would do.

Skaug: HJR4.

In 2026 it's going to be on your ballot, and it will be called prop one.

Vote yes for it, please.

It only allows the legislature to legalize drugs that are currently illegal.

And we did that because we look at states like Colorado and Oregon and others where the initiative process was used to get by the legislature and legalize drugs.

Millions and millions of dollars were brought in for those campaigns to convince people that this was the way to go.

And those campaigns were full of lies.

There's no state that has been made better by the legalization of these drugs or marijuana.

No one of you has told me it's a better state because of this.

Now, Colorado is the center.

The center for, forget the name of the main gang, but they're in Colorado, and they use that because it's a sanctuary state to not cooperate with the feds on marijuana and other drug prosecutions.

And, that's where real problems are coming out of for the whole nation.

So Idaho, you're going to be able to vote to give the legislature only the power and not the initiative process to legalize those drugs, keep a watch on it.

And that means we may legalize marijuana someday.

I wouldn't support that, but maybe we will if the science and medicine supports that.

Right now, it does not.

Brown: There have been efforts, unsuccessful efforts to get a, citizens initiative on the ballot to legalize marijuana.

One day in the future, that could happen.

Opponents of this bill say that, it's an effort to try and get out ahead of the citizens and shut down any potential of them getting a citizens initiative on the ballot regarding marijuana.

What would you say to that?

Skaug: Again, this bill isn't just about marijuana.

It's about heroin and fentanyl.

All the drugs that are harming our families, our friends, we've all been affected in some way.

If you have friends and family at all, somebody you know has been affected badly by the drugs or even killed in an overdose.

So it's not just about marijuana.

It's to, just as I said, it's to protect us from being rolled over by millions of dollars from these out-of-state interests, to make the citizens vote for this.

Now they're giving us the power.

So it's up to the citizens if they want to do that for the legislature.

Brown: Bruce Skaug, I appreciate your time.

Thanks so much.

Finney: Water users on the eastern Snake River plain are hailing the Joint Finance Appropriation Committee's approval of $30 million in ongoing water project funding.

Last month, our lead producer, Melissa Davlin, sat down with Blackfoot farmer Brian Murdock to discuss the importance of the infrastructure investment.

Davlin: Brian, thank you so much for joining us.

First of all, how would you describe the problem that kicked off negotiations last year?

Brian Murdock: It was very unique last year, especially because we had a very good winter.

We had lots of snow that came a little later.

And then it started actually flooding.

And so we had it was probably the first time in history we've ever had the flood warnings come out on the same news cycle as then, a curtailment notice that we were all going to be curtailed.

So, very unique.

Davlin: And a curtailment noice, for people who aren't familiar with water issues, is basically you can't use the water that you have the rights to right now until the senior water rights holders are able to use theirs.

Murdock: Yes, they they came out and this was what we called the red tagging or tagging of our pumps, in which they told us to basically cease and desist and, and not, not run these pumps to irrigate our crops.

Of course, by then the crops were already planted.

In fact, they were already up.

They were at a very vulnerable stage of of plant growth.

And so that was also one of the major problems of last year is the timing.

Davlin: And roughly how many people were affected by these curtailment orders?

Murdock: Oh, pretty much all of East Idaho.

There was over 6000 farms we figured that was impacted by it.

You know, we've all jumped around with various numbers.

Depends on what you include, what you don't include.

I've heard, you know, as low as 500,000 acres and as high as 900,000 acres.

And, you know, they're all kind of right.

It just depends on what you want to include.

Davlin: So this kicked off negotiations with a whole lot of stakeholders at the table, including, you know, IDWR and senior water rights holders and junior water rights holders in eastern Idaho.

What were your, what were your issues with how those negotiations went?

Murdock: Well, the biggest problem we had was legally, legally, we were checkmated.

And this is where us as director Weaver says, I had to do this curtailment.

And legally, he was probably correct.

I argue that he could have, you know, if we want to stay with the legal terms, you know, we've all heard of continuances or, some other hearings that would have postponed it, or we could have dealt with this in the winter months rather than right in the middle of the summer months.

That's when we're, of course, very busy.

But, they chose to do it when they did.

And so we didn't really go into it with a strong negotiation point as, as Frank Vandersloot said at this meeting that we had back in July, he says, you know, they're literally holding our gun to our head saying, now negotiate.

You know, there wasn't too much that we could negotiate with other than I guess we'll see what we can come up with to, to mitigate or to appease these senior groundwater users down in Twin Falls.

Davlin: You know, at some point, like you said, there's only so much water.

And like, legally, the director at IDWR, director Weaver, had to work within the framework that already existed.

Was a continuance a realistic possibility if there was already a shortage.

Murdock: Well, and this was one of our the groundwater users always went back to.

Yes, legally they were also showing a shortage.

Due to the fact that there was so much water in the river, all of us farmers knew that those farmers in Twin Falls were not going to be crop impacted.

You know, maybe they were legally impacted.

Maybe they weren't getting their full water share during all this water, during, you know, because of the spring flows, you know, coming out of the aquifer.

But there was plenty of water in the river for them to irrigate their crops.

We don't ness, you know, farmers farmers don't like to hurt other farmers.

That's just not in our nature.

We are a small group.

We're getting smaller.

And so no one wanted to see and wants to see any grower in Twin Falls on that canal system be short of water.

I really think that there's a lot of, probably reciprocal sympathy that they didn't necessarily want to see us all end up in the position that we were in.

But at the same point in time, I think they had their lawyers saying, no, you got to do this.

Davlin: You mentioned the impacts on crops and a whole lot of people, especially in eastern Idaho.

At the end of the summer, did you see any real impact on the crops or were you still able to have a decent year?

Murdock: Let's put it this way.

Probably a majority of the farmers weren't good citizens and didn't shut off like we were supposed to.

You know, there was a, week to ten day period in which we technically were in violation.

If you were pumping water.

There were probably 10 to 15% of the farmers that were afraid of the fines and the penalties, and so they did.

But probably the vast the vast majority did not.

And I kind of joke that the, you know, the Department of Water Resources is saying we're going to shut you off, but please, please, please don't injure yourself.

But, we got it back on.

And so therefore, I really don't feel like anyone suffered crop injury from this short curtailment.

Davlin: Because of those short term actions where.

The governor is hoping that this year's legislature appropriates $30 million in ongoing funds specifically for recharge projects.

And he did cite recharge projects in the eastern Snake Plain aquifer.

Is that enough to address these concerns for stability moving forward?

Murdock: It's a good start.

How's that?

We haven't had that much money ever spent on recharge projects in East Idaho.

The state water board, as you know, is who is in charge of allocating this money.

And they've been playing with roughly $10 million.

In the past, we have not received, oh, well, let me rephrase that.

They the state Water board over the years has had somewhere over $200 million.

In which what has been actually spent in East Idaho is probably less than 14 or somewhere around $14 million.

A lot of that money has been spent on other projects in other parts of the state.

The Anderson Dam, raising that one, ate up a $100 million.

And of course, a lot of this was that ARPA funds.

You know, and so this was actually federal money that the the state Water Board was reallocating.

And so, you know, we just haven’t unfortunately felt like we've been getting our fair share necessarily.

I believe that had more been spent earlier, we maybe wouldn't have been in this position we are in right now.

Davlin: But there's no money in the budget for a time machine.

Murdock: Yep.

Davlin: So moving forward, do you think this is enough or is it just a start?

Murdock: Well, let's put it this way.

I did some napkin math.

How's that?

I figured that the East Idaho farmers are spending between 15 and $20 million of our own money to fight this water fight right now.

And unfortunately, a lot of that, I would call it band aid and lawyers, because it's not solving it.

We're just keep moving and kicking the can down the road with all these water fights we've had.

We now have an opportunity.

This is what the governor has given us.

Is we have an opportunity to start to fix this problem.

I, I'm a big believer that, I use a pie analogy.

Idaho has been eating out of the same pie forever, and all we do is we bake a pie, and then we start to divide up the slices.

And because of the growth, because of the expansion, because of the needs.

Everybody's slice is getting smaller and smaller.

And so I think that we need to actually and this is what I'm hoping we can do with the $30 million is start to make a bigger, another pie.

You know, and to where we actually expand the resource.

This is what our pioneer ancestors did.

They went out, they had the rivers, they said, let's build reservoirs.

Let's, have canals.

We'll put in ditches and we'll spread this resource out.

And unintentionally, we started to build up the aquifer.

And that was a great thing.

You know, we didn't probably even really understand what we were doing back in the, the 20s, and the 30s and the 40s and the 50s.

And of course, lately the science has got us to where we understand now the aquifer a lot better.

And of course, ever since we've stopped those irrigation style of practices, the aquifer had went down a bit.

This $40 or $30 million, which if you add it to the $10 million on ongoing funds, is actually the $40 million.

This can start to get these recharge projects going that we need to have to where we can recharge the aquifer back up to these levels that we need for the growth.

Davlin: And it's not all about money of course.

Are there any policy changes you would like to see, or anything you'd like to do to make sure that money is directed toward the aquifer?

Murdock: There's lots of policy changes.

We, one of the problems, like what I just said, legally, for instance, the director did what he needed to do.

Because he was legally bound.

I was hoping throughout this session of the legislature we could get lots of these little policy tweaks and changes done.

There are getting to be a few of them, and we've got some of these bills going through.

I'd like to see more of course.

But, these changes are slow.

And there's lots of fights over, you know, what's what we're doing.

It's just like the funding.

We're trying to hold on to this funding, especially this funding for the East Idaho or the East Snake Plain aquifer, which is where at the moment is the current largest water fight going on in the state.

Unfortunately, that water fight is affecting the economy, you know, can affect the whole economy of the whole state.

And this is why it is important that we get this solved and get moving forward again.

Finney: The budget Committee still has work to do and the legislative session continues.

We have so much more online at IdahoReports.org Thanks for watching.

We'll see you 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.