In a flashback to last year’s private school choice debate, the Senate approved a series of fixes to the state’s new tax credit law.

On Tuesday, senators focused on one section of the cleanup bill, House Bill 934: language that says that students who qualify for the private school tax credits can participate in non-credit sports programs and extracurricular activities at public schools.

HB 934 supporters say this is nothing new — and say this was their intention a year ago, when they pushed House Bill 93, the $50 million tax credit law. And during Tuesday’s floor debate, Senate Majority Leader Lori Den Hartog pointed out that parents cannot use tax credit dollars to cover pay-to-play sports or extracurricular fees.

“That was intentional,” said Den Hartog, R-Meridian, a sponsor of HB 934 and HB 93. “All of this was related to academics.”

Opponents said HB 934 would let families benefit from the publicly supported tax credits, while cherry-picking from public school offerings.

“To me, you don’t get to do both,” said Sen. Janie Ward-Engelking, D-Boise. “I think this is a double dip.”

Saying that sports and extracurriculars are part of the fabric of a community, Sen. Ben Adams discussed his own experience. Adams, R-Nampa, said he played on public school sports teams while he was a homeschool student.

“This is not dipping into anybody’s pocket,” he said. “I didn’t take anybody’s spot. I competed. Homeschoolers are still a part of a community.”

Sen. Ben Toews, R-Coeur d’Alene, said it would be unfair to punish parents who take a tax credit that comes out to less money than the state spends per public school student. (The tax credit maxes out at $5,000 per student, or $7,500 for a special-needs student.)

HB 934 passed on a 23-12 vote. The House has already passed it, so it now goes to Gov. Brad Little’s desk.

Senate committee advances library law rewrite

A library director turned to literature Tuesday to illustrate her scruples with the latest legislation updating Idaho’s “harmful” materials law. 

Like the tragic monster in Mary Shelley’s “Frankenstein,” which was composed of “pieces of the dead,” Senate Bill 1448 “has been put together from the pieces of other dead and damaged bills,” said Jenny Emery Davidson, director of the Community Library in Ketchum. 

“This past legislation has cost Idaho taxpayers money and unnecessary lawsuits,” Davidson said. And the bills “have diminished Idahoans’ ability to access information and lifelong learning freely.”

The Ketchum library director was among five people who spoke against SB 1448 on Tuesday before the Senate Judiciary and Rules Committee voted to advance it.

Sen. Todd Lakey’s bill would update language in the “Children’s School and Library Protection Act” — enacted in 2024 through House Bill 710 — to align it with recent court rulings on laws restricting library material. Attorney General Raúl Labrador’s office proposed the changes, said Lakey, R-Nampa. 

“This is about technical changes to the bill,” he said, referring to HB 710. “It’s not about the concept of the bill, the requirements of the bill that we passed two years ago.”

SB 1448 would: 

• Add a definition of “adolescent minors,” or children between 13 and 17 years old. According to the updated language, library material would be “harmful to minors” if it: “Taken as a whole, appeals to the prurient interest of adolescent minors as judged by the average person, applying contemporary community standards.”
• Add a definition of “sexually explicit.” This is material that contains “erotic depictions” of “nudity, sexual conduct or sadomasochistic abuse” or “any explicit and detailed description or narrative account of sexual excitement, sexual conduct, or sado-masochistic abuse.” Sexually explicit material would not include “diagrams about anatomy for scientific  education, religious books such as the Bible and the Torah, or content relating to classical works of art.” 

Libraries would be prohibited from giving minors material that is “sexually explicit and, taken as a whole, is harmful to minors.”

The Senate Judiciary and Rules Committee voted to advance the bill after little debate. Only Sen. James Ruchti opposed it. The Pocatello Democrat said that SB 1448 could “improve the language” of the existing law, but he has negative “holdover” feelings from previous library bills. 

Lakey, meanwhile, said members of the public who opposed the bill misunderstood it. “I think some people that testified, perhaps, don’t understand how to read the legislation and look at what’s new compared to what’s existing,” he said. 

But opponents noted that they only had a day to read it. The bill was introduced Monday and scheduled for a hearing Tuesday. This “gives the appearance of an end-run around public scrutiny,” said Michelle Lippert from the Library Alliance of North Idaho. 

Boise resident Bonnie Shuster suggested the best way to handle the “harmful” material law is to repeal it. “It’s OK to change your minds,” she said. “It would be a breath of fresh air to the people of Idaho if you did that.”

SB 1448 now heads to the full Senate.

JFAC gives go-ahead for federal healthcare grants

Legislative budget-writers gave the initial green light for spending $930 million in federal healthcare grants, money that could help the state address its chronic physicians’ shortage.

And a House-Senate tussle over governing the grants also came to an end Tuesday.

The federal healthcare money — an offshoot of the feds’ 2025 One Big Beautiful Bill — is already on the way to Idaho. The feds awarded the five-year grant program late last year.

However, the Legislature must give the Department of Health and Welfare the authorization to spend the money, and the Joint Finance-Appropriations Committee voted Tuesday to provide that go-ahead.

But legislators want a direct say in how the money is spent. Both houses have agreed on the need for a legislative committee to oversee the grants. They also agreed to the numbers: four House members, four senators and a nonvoting gubernatorial appointee.

But they didn’t agree on one point. The Senate wanted language that would guarantee six lawmakers come from rural communities; the House wanted no such restriction.

JFAC approved the House’s language. And that drew fire from a senator who has been pushing for rural membership.

“We can have all kinds of legislators positioned around Saint Alphonsus and St. Luke’s,” said Sen. Kevin Cook, R-Idaho Falls, referring to Boise’s two hospitals. “Why would you want city people representing rural?”

The committee also talked about the need for legislative oversight over the funds.

The Department of Health and Welfare has already turned in a budget for the grant program, said Rep. Dustin Manwaring, R-Pocatello. If the House-Senate committee doesn’t get the process done right on the front end, he said, “I believe the Legislature will have some issues (in 2027).”

But legislators sometimes get in agencies’ way, said Sen. Melissa Wintrow, D-Boise.

“We are not project managers,” she said. “We are policymakers.”

House approves cash transfers to buoy budgets

The House approved about $229 million in cash transfers, designed to buoy the state’s budget in case revenue doesn’t rebound in the coming months. 

Gov. Brad Little recommended most of the transfers. But the Joint Finance-Appropriations Committee proposed a couple others, including tapping $65.8 million in interest earnings from American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funds, federal money that the state received during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Rep. Josh Tanner, JFAC’s co-chair, said Tuesday that House Bill 968 “helps from our bottom-line aspect.” Tanner and Sen. C. Scott Grow, both R-Eagle, said last week that they hoped to leave at least $150 million on the bottom line this fiscal year and next fiscal year. 

The House voted 53-13 to pass the cash transfer bill. Eight Democrats and five Republicans opposed it. 

“I just can’t wait to tell my constituents that this Legislature left money on the bottom line, along with $1.6 billion in a rainy-day fund, while the Legislature is cutting vital services they count on and depend on,” said Rep. Steve Berch, D-Boise. 

The bill now goes to the Senate.