4-11 IAT Latest Legislature

The latest in the legislature.

Capital News reporter Shawn Ellis who covers the Idaho Statehouse weighed in on the latest legislative session outside the Statehouse: it was one of those press pool kind of moments. “Heading into the session, because of redistricting last year, there was a lot of concern by some farm leaders that I talked to that urban gain more seats and rural lost more seats because of the population shift that has been going on for years, there is a lot of concern that rural Idaho, more specifically,  farmers would lose some of their clout. there were 40 new legislators out of 105 where there was a significant concern. In all of the meetings I covered and all the votes that I saw, there wasn’t even a hint of that. There was this  group called the gang of 16, all freshmen lawmakers, got together because of whispers in the hall. They had significant influence on major  issues like the health exchange. I did not see even remotely that agriculture was influenced in a negative way by the shift.