{"id":1201,"date":"2020-03-25T10:15:53","date_gmt":"2020-03-25T17:15:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/danschmidtforsenate.com\/blog\/?p=1201"},"modified":"2020-03-23T22:26:24","modified_gmt":"2020-03-24T05:26:24","slug":"calvinball","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/danschmidtforsenate.com\/blog\/?p=1201","title":{"rendered":"Calvinball"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"
Bill Watterston, author, artist<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

I loved the Calvin comic strip. He and the tiger played\nCalvinball. There were no rules in Calvinball. The Idaho legislature must love\nCalvinball too. For the second year in a row they have not approved any rules. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The legislature passes laws (we hope with clear intent) and\nthe details are left to administrative\ndepartments<\/a>. The departments publish proposed rules, take public comment\nand often negotiate with the businesses or organizations that will be affected\nby the rules. The rules are then brought back to the legislature for review to\nmake sure the rules reflect the legislative intent. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

You may remember in the 2019 session no resolution was\npassed by the legislature to approve or reject the rules. That\u2019s because the\nHouse and the Senate could not agree on how they should be doing this process.\nSo newly elected Governor Little sent his departments to work and trimmed a lot\nof obsolete rules. They worked hard to make sweet lemonade from legislative\nsour lemons and sold it as such quite publicly. Good work; now do it again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This session the legislature (at about $20K\/ day) spent the\nfirst five weeks reviewing and not agreeing on the big pile of rules. And they\nadjourned AGAIN last week with no concurring resolution. We\u2019re wasting our\nmoney paying these children.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Also remember, the legislature fought to get their review\nprotected by the Idaho Constitution. They ran an amendment on the ballot in\n2014; it failed. They brought\nit back<\/a> in 2016 and with lots of Farm Bureau support, got voters to\napprove. It seems like they desperately wanted to protect their right to\nreview, approve or reject administrative rules so bad they needed a\nConstitutional amendment to protect it. Now that they have the right protected\nby the Constitution, they don\u2019t even bother to do the work. They are acting\nlike Calvin.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Big deal you may say. The Idaho didn\u2019t grind to a halt in\n2019. All the rules were made new. And why do we need these silly rules anyway?\nIdaho does great playing Calvinball.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Consider the law that we all have to live by, even the\nlegislature. They passed this law thirty years ago. It reads in part: <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2026no pending rule or portion thereof imposing a fee or charge of any kind\nshall become final and effective until it has been approved by concurrent\nresolution. <\/em>Idaho Code 67-5224(5)(c)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Of all the rules review I did for weeks\non end the first weeks of the legislature, fee rules were the ones I paid\nattention to the most. Most of the time when a law is passed, fees are directed\nto be charged for specific state services. A certified Death Certificate will\ncost you $16. (Admin\nRule 16.02.08.251.01<\/a>) I pay $200 every year to the Idaho\nBoard of Medicine to renew my medical license, though the rule says they can\ncharge \u201cless than $600\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rather than raise your taxes, if you want\ngovernment to do some work for you, they charge a \u201cuser fee\u201d. Seems fair to me.\nOnly, without a legislative resolution to adopt these fees on record, to quote\nthe law: \u201cno fee or charge of any kind shall become final and effective\u201d. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I think a lot of folks should be\nscratching their heads when they are asked to pony up for state fees. When I\nget my license renewal request from the Board of Medicine, I\u2019ll be asking them\n\u201cWhy do I have to pay this?\u201d The way I read the law, I don\u2019t see how they have\nany authority to charge me a fee. But I appreciate that they are doing their\njob.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Don\u2019t get me wrong, I kind of like when\ngovernment does work for us. And I haven\u2019t run into any specific fees that\nseemed onerous. Think of it though; vehicle registration fees, hunting and\nfishing tag fees, cattle brand registration fees; all of them are not \u201cfinal\nand effective\u201d because our legislators love playing \u201cno rules\u201d Calvinball. Some\nadult should send them to \u201ctime out\u201d. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I loved the Calvin comic strip. He and the tiger played Calvinball. There were no rules in Calvinball. The Idaho legislature must love Calvinball too. For the second year in a row they have not approved any rules. The legislature … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/danschmidtforsenate.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1201"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/danschmidtforsenate.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/danschmidtforsenate.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/danschmidtforsenate.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/danschmidtforsenate.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1201"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/danschmidtforsenate.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1201\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1203,"href":"https:\/\/danschmidtforsenate.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1201\/revisions\/1203"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/danschmidtforsenate.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1201"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/danschmidtforsenate.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1201"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/danschmidtforsenate.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1201"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}