Quotes from the 2008 session

April 3, 2008
"Y'know, brain surgery was easy. I came back here 10 days later and was happy to be relieved of the pressure on my brain."  -- Sen. Clint Stennett (D-Ketchum), who underwent brain surgery in January to remove a cancerous tumor, commenting on the session, and its end.

April 3, 2008
"I don't think anybody expects us to grant property tax relief when we don't have any money. That was something I was willing to die on my sword for."  -- House Assistant Majority Leader Scott Bedke (R-Oakley), on the compromise business personal property tax relief bill agreed to by lawmakers before adjourning.

April 2, 2008
"The House is now considering turning down the removal of property taxation for 86 percent of businesses in the entire state."  -- Sen. Joe Stegner (R-Lewiston), urging House leaders to accept the Senate's version of the business personal property tax exemption.

April 1, 2008
"It's not perfect, it's not where I would like it to be, it's not where it should be, but politics is the art of the possible."  -- Sen. Dean Cameron, JFAC co-chair (R-Rupert), commenting on the compromise reached with Gov. Otter over funding for substance-abuse treatment programs.

March 31, 2008
"Sometimes the problems have to get larger before you can solve them. We can still drive around the potholes, so they must not be big enough."  -- House Speaker Lawerence Denney (R-Midvale), explaining that lawmakers still need to be convinced about the extent of road maintenance problems before they'll agree to tax or fee increases.

March 28, 2008
"Even if you can only get a bite of the apple, I think it's better than going hungry."  -- Sen. John Goedde (R-Coeur d'Alene), arguing that proposals for raising only some of what the governor says is needed for road repairs are better than doing nothing at all.

March 27, 2008
"Neither the House nor Senate leadership is interested in hearing this. Mostly it's sticker shock. They said, 'Let's talk about it next year.'"  -- Brent Reinke, Director, Dept. of Correction, after lawmakers told him they wouldn't consider a proposal for a new 1,500-bed prison costing more than $190 million.

March 26, 2008
"Idaho is ranked last in the nation in protecting the safety of children in day care centers."  -- Sen. Kate Kelly (D-Boise), in support of an unsuccessful move by Senate Democrats to force a daycare standards bill out of committee.

March 25, 2008
"I find this bill to be, frankly, crafted by the people benefiting from it. It is a very good deal for the people who pay personal property taxes. It is a very bad deal for everybody else."  -- Sen. Joe Stegner (R-Lewiston), arguing against repealing the business personal property tax.

March 24, 2008
"We're giving them options for less money out of their pockets and far better coverage. And we relieve the state's unfunded liability."  -- Sen. Charles Coiner (R-Twin Falls), arguing that retirees' fears about a new health benefits plan the Senate passed are unfounded.

March 21, 2008
"I told them, 'I think everybody should give up something for Lent.' I think they should give up their registration bills."  -- Gov. C.L. "Butch" Otter, expressing displeasure with proposals House leaders have put forth to fund road and transportation needs.

March 20, 2008
"How in the world will we look them in the eye and say 'No?'"  -- Sen. Joe Stegner (R-Lewiston), wondering if Micron will want bigger tax breaks if lawmakers give breaks to Areva, the French company that proposes to build a uranium enrichment plant near Idaho Falls.

March 19, 2008
"We've wrestled with this thing for two years. I would far prefer that we just got rid of the grocery tax altogether. That doesn't seem to be realistic this year."  -- Sen. David Langhorst (D-Boise), commenting on bill that would gradually raise the income tax credit for groceries.

March 18, 2008
"I'm a professional dairyman. I have milked and milked everything I can possibly milk."  -- State Police Maj. Ralph Powell, arguing that the state crime lab's bare-bones operation has reached its limit and now costs the state money as testing is sent to private labs.

March 17, 2008
"We will all feel great once it is signed into law. It should bring a lot of comfort to people."  -- Rep. Shirley Ringo (D-Moscow), lauding bill that will shield the home address of abuse victims on state, county and local Idaho records.

March 14, 2008
"We have to do everything possible to end this. It's the biggest ecological challenge we'll be faced with."  -- Rep. Eric Anderson (R-Priest Lake), supporting legislation that would authorize the Idaho State Department of Agriculture to take aggressive action against quagga mussels.

March 13, 2008
"I've got Chambers of Commerce people pounding my door down asking for more transportation funding. Now they're here telling us that they don't want to pay for it. You can't take it with one hand and take it with the other, too."  -- Rep. JoAn Wood (R-Rigby), objecting to bill that would eliminate up to $120 million annually in taxes on business equipment.

March 12, 2008
"It astounds me that some folks think we can pave our way out of our traffic problems."  -- Rep. Nicole LeFavour (D-Boise), voting in favor of a bill to cap GARVEE money for Connecting Idaho road projects.

March 11, 2008
"I don't have any GARVEE that's doing squat in my district."  -- Rep. Lenore Barrett (R-Challis), voicing support for bill that would cap funding for the statewide Connecting Idaho road-building project.

March 10, 2008
"If you can smell it, then that business would probably be regulated."  -- Rep. Mark Snodgrass (R-Meridian), noting that even tougher and broader air quality regulations could be imposed by the federal government if the state doesn't take care of the largest pollution source, vehicle emissions.

March 7, 2008
"We are going to be sending checks to people based on this program – we are going to create another entitlement program. . . . We're going to generate enough paper to go from the eastern border of Idaho to the western border of Idaho. I think we'll have quite a few people who are buying food out of state who didn't pay the tax in the first place [receiving the increased credit], and I think that creates an unfairness."  -- Rep. Phil Hart (R-Athol), opposing the plan to provide an income tax credit for grocery sales tax relief.

March 6, 2008
"I'm still willing to work with 'em, but I'm no longer prepared to provide the political cover. It's an election year – they're standing for election, I'm not."  -- Gov. C.L. "Butch" Otter, expressing his disappointment in withdrawing his $150-a-car registration fee plan to fund transportation improvements.

March 5, 2008
"We're going to take that money and give it to poor kids. If you want to weigh in against that, let's go."  -- Rep. Fred Wood (R-Twin Falls), explaining why he favors slightly lower raises for teachers and using the difference to help low-income high school students take classes that will earn college credit.

March 4, 2008
"We can't continue to ride a horse that won't move. This is not the bill I would prefer, but it's the bill I'm going to support."  -- Rep. George Sayler (D-Coeur d'Alene), offering grudging support for a grocery tax credit bill, though preferring removal of the sales tax from food altogether.

March 3, 2008
"Every other state that offers food tax benefits recognizes that low-income families have the greatest need for those benefits."  -- Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (Washington, D.C.), from report released one day before new grocery tax relief legislation is introduced in the Legislature.

February 29, 2008
"GARVEE is like swallowing a raw egg - it seems to be one of those things that's really hard to stop in the middle of."  -- Rep. Marv Hagedorn (R-Meridian), in comments on a package of transportation bills introduced by House GOP leaders at an emergency committee meeting.

February 28, 2008
"Economists that I read, including Nobel laureates, made a claim that you get higher rates of return by investing in early childhood education than by any other form of public investment, infrastructure and everything. I went on this issue from being to the right of Ghengis Khan to being in support of the bill."  -- Geoffrey Black, chairman, Boise State University Economics Department, testifying in favor of bill to fund pre-K pilot programs.

February 27, 2008
"What's next? Will we pay college kids with money if they don't rob a bank or steal a car? We are telling our young people we don't trust them to obey the law and don't believe that a drug-free life is an end in itself."  -- Rep. Lenore Barrett (R-Challis), opposing bill that would reward students who stay off drugs with college scholarships.

February 26, 2008
"Is their priority state employees? No, it's drug users, that's their priority. All the money they've saved so far in the general fund, they've just spent."  -- Wayne Hammon, Administrator, Division of Financial Management, reacting to JFAC's restoration of funds for substance abuse treatment services that the governor wanted cut.

February 22, 2008
"There are a lot of players out there. This is for whoever wants to come in and bid on the project."  -- Rep. Eric Anderson (R-Priest Lake), comments on the potential of a House bill that could open some of Idaho's endowment lands for renewable energy projects such as wind, geothermal and solar.

February 21, 2008
"What are you going to get out of it? There's no numbers there. There's no actual quantification."  -- Sen. Chuck Coiner (R-Twin Falls), wanting to know whether various recommendations for increasing the water available from the Eastern Snake Plain Aquifer would actually work.

February 21, 2008
"It's a sad day for Idaho. It's not only turning a blind eye to genocide, it's putting a thumb in the eye of the president and the Congress."  -- John Sullivan, a retired Boise attorney who represents the Washington, D.C.-based Sudan Divestment Task Force in Idaho, expresses his dismay after lawmakers killed an effort to force Idaho's $11.3 billion public employees pension fund to dump millions of dollars in investments in companies that do business in Sudan.

February 20, 2008
"There are a lot of things that are needful, and there are a lot of things that are good. But at the end of the budget setting, if you're upside down, it really doesn't matter. Tomorrow, there's going to be something else that isn't quite adequate."  -- Rep. Maxine Bell, JFAC co-chair (R-Jerome), commenting after JFAC voted down adding additional staff to the State Police crime lab.

February 19, 2008
"There's nobody on this committee who would not love to give that 5 percent. . . . Nobody likes being the bad guy, but we've also got to be honest with ourselves and honest with our state employees."  -- Sen. Jim Hammond (R-Post Falls), after Committee on Employee Compensation trimmed the proposed pay raise to 3% in light of declining state revenues.

February 15, 2008
"Go ahead and build your trophy homes. But doing that, you need to provide low-income housing or pay a fee."  -- Rep. Dennis Lake (R-Blackfoot), commenting favorably on legislative attempts to encourage affordable housing for service workers in expensive resort communities.

February 14, 2008
"If we're at each other's throats, it will be hard to sing 'Kumbaya.'"  -- Sen. John Goedde (R- Coeur d'Alene), observing that acrimony between the legislature and the State Board of Education, brought on by lawmakers' investigation into the Board's spending and management practices, may hurt the state's chance to compete for foundation grant money.

February 13, 2008
"I've never seen a group as dysfunctional as this one."  -- Sen. Chuck Coiner (R-Twin Falls), commenting on the Idaho State Board of Naturopathic Medical Examiners' failed attempt to come up with rules to license naturopathic physicians.

February 12, 2008
"We've got laws and we've got rules and we've got to adhere to those laws and rules or change them."  -- Sen. Russ Fulcher (R-Meridian), arguing against legislation that would extend in-state tuition rates at public universities to students who are children of undocumented immigrants.

February 11, 2008
"Just because we're the odd person out doesn't mean we're doing things wrong."  -- Rep. Lynn Luker (R-Boise), commenting on Idaho's status as the only state that doesn't require all sudden, unexpected, and unexplained deaths of children to be reviewed.

February 8, 2008
"While we're not raising the panic flag or the red flag, we are certainly raising the orange or yellow flag."  -- Sen. Dean Cameron, JFAC co-chair (R-Rupert), commenting on report that state revenues for January came in $36 million below projections.

February 7, 2008
"The creation of a gun-free zone is not going to stop terrible things from happening within those zones any more than laws against murder are going to stop murder."  -- Brian Judy, NRA Idaho liaison, speaking in support of a bill that would require the State Board of Education to allow concealed weapons on college campuses with prior notification.

February 6, 2008
"We are like many other ranchers who have been somewhat stunned by the amount that very wealthy, out-of-state developers and investors will pay for open space."  -- Former Sen. Laird Noh (R - Kimberly), supporting a bill that would grant a tax credit to Idaho landowners willing to conserve their lands for habitat and wildlife.

February 5, 2008
"I believe that there's an elephant in this room and you're only addressing the toenail of this creature. The real issue is whether we should have a grocery tax or not."  -- Roland Wolfe, retired salesman (Boise), testifying against bill that would increase the grocery tax credit, available only to those who pay income taxes.

February 4, 2008
"If you read the attorney general's opinion, Mr. Luna is 100 percent wrong."  -- Rep. Tom Trail (R-Moscow), contradicting Supt. Luna's claim that a teacher could return to continuing contract status if the employee gave up her contract rights on the promise, subsequently broken, that the Legislature would allocate enough money for bonuses.

February 1, 2008
"I don't want to be supporting genocide, but I don't like to be getting into micromanaging PERSI."  -- Rep. Robert Schaefer (R-Nampa), arguing against bill that would require the Public Employee Retirement System to divest in companies doing business in Sudan.

January 31, 2008
"I will be voting against this. . . . The mission of the liquor dispensary is to promote temperance and sobriety. . . . I think this is contrary to that."  -- Rep. Raul Labrador (R-Eagle), on bill to allow election day sales in state liquor stores.

January 30, 2008
"We do not have a compromise or agreement."  -- Jon Hanian, Press Secretary for Gov. Otter, on bill, backed by GOP House leaders, to give differing rebates for grocery taxes based on income.

January 29, 2008
"Eighty-three percent of all [prison] violence is attributed now to gang activity."  -- Pam Sonnen, chief of prisons, Idaho Department of Correction, asking legislators for more money to create additional solitary cells at the state maximum security prison.

January 28, 2008
"It's very hard to go home and say, 'I want to give teachers a big raise.' There's a part of my constituency that would flip out."  -- Rep. Paul Shepherd (R-Riggins), siding with Supt. Luna's plan to pay teachers more only if they give up their right to a continuing contract.

January 25, 2008
"The reality is my office has become a training ground for the attorneys who turn around and sue us."  -- Idaho Attorney General Lawrence Wasden, telling JFAC his office has seen a two-thirds turnover in its personnel since 2001.

January 24, 2008
"In many areas of the state, we've tapped out our capacities."  -- Hal Anderson, administrator, Idaho Department of Water Resources, arguing for bill that would give state water officials $20 million to study, monitor and develop plans for future management of 10 aquifers scattered across the state.

January 23, 2008
"We can just barely keep the families that work for us afloat."  -- Lonnie Hughes, general manager, Inland Vending (Boise), arguing that repealing the tax rate differential for some vending machine items could put some vending companies out of business.

January 22, 2008
"This could make a felon out of me by me standing there mute."  -- Rep. Leon Smith (R-Twin Falls), using a hypothetical example to question a bill that would make it a crime for someone to fail to notify police when they're aware a violent sex offender hasn't registered his location with the state.

January 21, 2008
"Frankly it's not in a condition where I'm comfortable using it. I wouldn't want my dog on the back porch. That thing goes straight down."  -- Lori Otter, Gov. Butch Otter's wife, telling the Governor's Housing Committee that the donated Simplot mansion is not suitable for living in, perhaps ever.

January 18, 2008
"Those people that believe in shooting animals through the fences . . . ought to turn the rifle the other way."  -- Former Governor Cecil Andrus, at sportsmen's rally, decked out in full camouflage, urging opposition to "shooter bull" operations on domestic elk farms.

January 17, 2008
"This [anti-discrimination bill] is something we will propose every year until it passes."  -- Rep. Nicole LeFavour (D-Boise), responding to the latest BSU Public Policy survey in which 63 percent of Idahoans think it ought to be illegal to fire someone for being gay or seeming to be gay.

January 16, 2008
"Dr. White, how many lawyers do we need - to change a light bulb?"  -- Rep. Maxine Bell, JFAC co-chair (R-Jerome), asking UI President Timothy White whether Idaho really needs more lawyers, and thus expanded law school programs in both Moscow and Boise to produce them.

January 15, 2008
"Well, I still, and many of the other legislators, don't want to see us go to a national ID card. And we don't like Washington, D.C. telling us how we need to run things in the state."  -- Rep. Phil Hart (R-Athol), objecting to the federal REAL ID law, that would require states to issue new driver's licenses or identity cards by 2011.

January 14, 2008
"The one thing that does please me is we're going to have a good majority of the people vote on it and it's going to be done locally. It's not going to be dictated from Boise. The local people are going to develop the program and take that to the voters. That calms me a little bit."  -- Rep. Dell Raybould (R-Rexburg), commenting on this year's proposal to allow local option taxes for transportation needs.

January 11, 2008
"As a senator, I say slow up the train, stop the train, so non-lawyers can get information."  -- Sen. Shawn Keough (R-Sandpoint), noting the large, and vehement, difference of opinion on whether a court-supervised adjudication of water rights in Boundary and Bonner counties would be beneficial to local stakeholders.

January 10, 2008
"It shows that in Idaho, that what we are doing at the department of education is moving in the right direction."  -- Melissa McGrath, public information officer for the Idaho Department of Education, commenting on Idaho's D+ score in a national Education survey.

January 9, 2008
"On these issues [climate change, air and water quality, improving health care and mental health services] we are standing with the governor. But let's be frank. The Republican Legislature is standing in the way."  -- Sen. Minority Leader Clint Stennett (D-Ketchum), offering the Democrats' response to the Governor's State of the State address.

January 9, 2008
"I think it's a little bit too early to be calling us obstructionist. We haven't even seen any legislation yet."  -- House Speaker Lawerence Denney (R-Midvale)

January 7, 2008
"[T]hose of us here in Boise have no corner on common sense or wisdom. Rather, it is our job as public servants to champion the real sources of wisdom and the real solutions that the people themselves identify."  -- Gov. Butch Otter, State of the State/State of the Budget address.

January 6, 2008
"I'm not sure we'll have support to pass anything right now to raise enough revenue to start filling that gap."  -- Sen. Pro Tem Bob Geddes (R- Soda Springs), on the $200 million more needed to fix and maintain roads and bridges versus what's currently budgeted.