Sometimes good things do happen. This year it is pretty rare but a few good things did happen in the past few days.
1) This morning we reduced the cut to funding for state employees from the deep 5% cut to only a 3% cut with no mandatory pay reduction. For the record, Senator Cameron and Senator Keough are my heroes for today. It is extremely worth noting that the proposal that passed did not put budgets at risk should the economy worsen because it used just over $6 million of the governor's $44 million in flexible stimulus funds which he again insisted that he wants to use mostly on roads. (To be clear that's on top of the other tens of millions in stimulus he got from the feds specifically for roads.) The House Republican caucus is clamped down hard. Not a single House Republican voted for the proposal. I wonder what they tell their districts when they go home? Yes, I voted as party leadership told me even when I thought it was wrong?
2) Yesterday the Senate Commerce Committee which is a frequent bane of my existence for its very great deference to insurance industry lobbyists wishes, that committee did something good and on a 5 to 4 vote actually killed a bill I disliked. The bill would have allowed the State Insurance Fund to skate from under a judgment of the Supreme Court. The sponsor, Senator Goedde, it turned out, is a member of the State insurance Fund Board, and was a named defendant in the Supreme Court case.
3) Senator Kelly, after years of work on ethics issues, passed a bill to require some disclosure of personal finances for candidates for public office in Idaho. Yep you might know a little bit in advance about the many conflicts we may have in voting on legislation in Idaho. As to a preview of my own disclosure, I'm pretty sure I don't own single share of stock or have investments in anything anywhere. I'm hoping someday I might make enough to have something to disclose but for now I'm going to be really boring.