I would like to congratulate the Bear Lake High School girls’ basketball team for their well-earned state championship title. They did an amazing job!

The Short-Term Rental (STR) issue came to a head this week in the Senate Commerce and Human Resources Committee. Efforts to reach a compromise before the hearing date on the two bills fell short, but not from lack of trying. I facilitated three meetings between the sponsors of the legislation, as well as lobbyists from the different parties. No agreement could be made. On Thursday, both Senate Bill 1263 (S 1263) and House Bill 583 (H 583) were up for a hearing at the same time per direction of the Committee Chair Dan Forman (LD-6). After about an hour of testimony, the committee voted to hold S 1263 in committee and voted to send H 583 to the Senate Floor for debate. House Bill 583 removes most local authority over STRs, treats all STRs the same as residences, regardless of size, and prohibits registration and bans cities and counties from collecting contact information. House Bill 583 also prohibits business licensing, and occupancy and duration numbers. We will see how the bill fares when it comes up for a vote on the Senate Floor in the next couple of weeks.

An E-Verify bill, Senate Bill 1247 (S 1247), passed the Senate this past week and is now in the House waiting for a hearing. S 1247, called the Idaho E-Verify Act, requires all state and local government agencies, as well as large private contractors, to use the federal E-Verify system to verify employment eligibility of new hires. This would create a uniform verification standard across all Idaho public agencies. It would also leverage existing federal E-Verify infrastructure rather than create a new state bureaucracy. I am skeptical that the House will hear the bill since they have drafted their own bill that is much more strenuous. House Bill 704 (H 704) requires all employers to use E-Verify. This means all employers, from the largest to the smallest, including the kid that gets hired to mow lawns, would have to be E- Verified. Federal requirements include I-9s and 13-page MOUs for every employee, along with federal requirements of signage, training and notification requirements. We will see soon if this bill passes the House.

One other bill that was introduced this week is Senate Bill 1340 (S 1340) that requires vehicles to be driven on the right-hand side of multilane highways with some exceptions and certain circumstances. The purpose of this legislation is to enhance roadway safety and optimize traffic flow. The bill states “no vehicle traveling in the left- hand lane shall be driven at a speed slower than any vehicle traveling to its right on the same roadway.” Some of the exceptions include preparing for a left hand turn into an intersection or private driveway when the road is congested, or when no one else is around. This idea was brought to me by constituents concerned about road safety and problems trying to pass on the right-hand side of the road. We will see how far this bill goes in the Legislature.