Voting should be easy.

This week I was privileged to introduce my first bill! The bill adds to our landlord tenant code to provide clarification around fees for residential tenants. It requires fees are reasonable and enumerated in any lease agreement, so that both parties know what they are getting into.

I worked on this bill with other legislators and stakeholders and I'm proud that it now has bipartisan support and that Senator Ricks, Representative Troy, and Representative Nash have all stepped up to co-sponsor it. This is something simple we can do to address our housing crisis right now, and it is the right thing to do.

Addressing fees is going to be more important than ever before as tenants continue to feel the crunch. More than one-third of Ada County residents are living paycheck-to-paycheck as housing costs rise and incomes remain stagnant. Studies have shown that homelessness increases in communities when the percentage of residents who are housing cost-burdened hits a tipping point - our community is there. Less affordable housing leads to more landlord and tenant disputes about rent getting paid on time, more eviction and homelessness, and - more fees.

Excessive fees do not solve any of our problems. Fees allow landlords to offer a stick incentive to getting tenants to pay on time and cover basic administrative costs, which is fine by me. But fees can also be easily exploited by a subset of bad landlords to put pressure on low-income tenants who are already having a hard time. A small change to our code ensures that landlords know how important it is to ensure fees are enumerated in the lease and reasonable, and that tenants can get through a difficult spot, pay their rent, and stay in housing without being held back by desperately trying to get caught up on fees. City Council member Lisa Sanchez and others started this work with an application fee regulation in the City of Boise. These types of issues are state-wide and we should all continue to work together with landlords and property managers to find sensible solutions to keeping our neighbors housed.

This week, I had the opportunity to talk to the Boise Metro Chamber of Commerce and the Coeur d’Alene Regional Chamber of Commerce along with Freshman Republican Senator Peter Riggs. We discussed recent property tax bills, health districts, and Medicaid expansion among other topics including civility and getting young people involved in politics. I encourage you to watch on the Chambers' Facebook pages!

Legislation introduced this week focuses on restricting voters' rights and powers in Idaho. One bill would make permanent the absentee ballot changes first approved in the special session last August which allowed County Clerks to open and scan ballots seven days before the election, but not tally them. The second bill would eliminate ballot harvesting, a non-issue in Idaho, by only allowing someone to drop off two family members' ballots at a time - otherwise it would be a felony. When discussing this bill the proponent said "Voting shouldn't be easy," prompting much outcry. Voting should be easy, and these bills will reduce access to this basic right.

Another bill would make it harder to get Idaho initiatives on the ballot, taking powers away from the voters and consolidating statute-making power in the legislature. Our state already requires 6% of all voters and 6% of voters from 18 of Idaho’s 35 legislative districts to sign initiatives to get a statute change on the ballot. There are many other requirements to ensure petitions are legitimate, and once something is on the ballot everyone has the ability to vote for or against it. This new bill would require 6% of voters in all 35 districts to sign the petition. This is very likely unconstitutional and would give small rural districts veto power to keep key issues from getting on the ballot. The legislature is simultaneously attempting to minimize the power of initiative by enshrining policy issues - such as drug policy - in our Constitution. This piece of legislation is likely a response to the initiative that expanded Medicaid in Idaho, allowing thousands of Idahoans to have access to health care for the first time.

It's no coincidence that "power" continues to be a theme this session. Alongside the many pieces of legislation targeted at limiting the Governor's powers, the House has introduced legislation that would eliminate crowd size restrictions in response to restrictions placed on the size of high school sports championships. These restrictions are currently mandated by the venues themselves. Generally, players and coaches of the teams playing in these championships don’t mind the restrictions, as long as they can play. Again, this is an example of the legislature attempting to make rules that limit the ability of local entities and private actors to make their own decisions.

Local control, or control of localities? In the same vein, Idaho’s Attorney General has found that the House bill that would require legislative action to change the name of something with a historical name is unenforceable. The approval would be done through concurrent resolution, which is difficult, if not impossible, to enforce. Additionally, the Idaho Constitution says that making laws that affect specific localities are unconstitutional, and since each concurrent resolution can apply to one place at a time, each state decision would be subject to court challenge. I understand that some decisions made in other cities about monument name changes have crossed the line for some people, but that doesn't change the fact that these decisions should be local.

We are still waiting for legislation that provides property tax relief to residential homeowners. Before I ran for office - I'll be honest - I didn't know much about property taxes. While campaigning I learned that this is one of the most important issues facing residents of my district. I have been studying and learning from some of the veterans on this issue (especially Senator Burgoyne and Representative Necochea!) to find ways to provide property tax relief for our citizens. A few easy fixes would be to expand our circuit breaker - a tax waiver targeted at serving people on a fixed income - to more families under a certain income threshold, increase the homeowners' exemption, index our home values in line with tax increases, and eliminate a number of exemptions which apply to a few commercial properties and lessees of public land. I am still attempting to get a hearing for a bill which would expand our circuit breaker, but I'm afraid that our legislature may instead be focused on attempting to cap and reduce local government budgets. Are you sensing the theme here? Stay tuned.

The conversation on marijuana continues. SJR101, the constitutional amendment which makes all psychoactive drugs permanently illegal, is waiting to be considered by a House committee. At the same time, the House will soon introduce the bipartisan bill to legalize medical marijuana, while other new legislation would make it legal to grow hemp in Idaho. Hemp is legal in all 49 other states and federally, but attempts to legalize in Idaho have failed for several years due to concerns about it being a gateway to growing marijuana. Legalization would open up a new market to Idaho farmers - one that is in increasingly high demand. At the same time, the citizen-led initiative aimed at getting the Idaho Medical Marijuana Act in front of voters in 2022 has qualified to collect signatures.