Heather Scott District 1 – Legislative Update 1/24/16
The first two weeks of the 2016 Legislative session are now in the books. Most of my time was spent getting organized, working with legislators on language for various bills, and discussing pending legislation and House matters.
No bills were passed during the first two weeks of session, but many have been printed and will likely move through the various committee system this coming week. Most of my committee meetings were spent reviewing and approving or rejecting administrative rules and regulations created by government agencies earlier in 2015. We will be reviewing these rules and regulations one last time over the next few weeks, so if you have any concerns make sure to let legislators in the appropriate committees know your concerns. Remember that last year 1508 pages of NEW rules and regulations were turned into code after the 2015 session ended. Many of these rules were never vetted by average citizens. Let’s change that for this session and get more involved!
Here is the link to all of the Administration Rules and Regulations Books by category:
http://adminrules.idaho.gov/legislative_books/2016/
For more information on rules visit my website at:
http://www.repheatherscott.com/rules-regs
All business that occurs in the State Capitol can be viewed live or listened to later. Here is the link to the daily Agendas & Schedules of Committee Meetings and the Floor Sessions of the House and Senate:
http://legislature.idaho.gov/sessioninfo/agenda.htm
Please familiarize yourselves with this site. It is full of information and contains archived meetings and sessions. This is a very important way to hold your elected legislators accountable for each of their votes.
The Governor spoke on the first day of Session addressing “his” legislative plan for our session. Based on what I heard, big government is not going away any time soon in Idaho unless citizens ramp up their involvement in their government. You can view the Governor’s State of the State and Budget message at:
http://dfm.idaho.gov/fy2017/gov2017speech.pdf
I attended a presentation hosted by The Center for Security Policy and the Truth in Love Project on the current national and local situation regarding the federal/international refugee resettlement program. Despite the protestors at the capitol, 70 % of all Idahoans support Otter’s letter opposing refugees coming in (that is 70 % saying keep refugees out). It was a very informative and eye opening presentation. You can watch very accurate news clip here:
The media is everywhere in the capital always trying to get a juicy bite of info for their next story. I always remind my constituents that the majority of media is much more focused on selling papers or getting ratings than they are about actually presenting an unbiased report. Always keep that in mind when you hear or read something from any media source. Always do your own research, come to your own conclusions and thus be a true educated voter.
In the upcoming weeks the House will start to see more and more bills moving through the committees. Leadership hopes to be finished with the 2016 session by mid March. Stay tuned, there will be lots happening over the next few weeks. All of my updates can be viewed at:
