BOISE, Idaho – The Idaho legislature voted on Friday to close for several weeks due to a Covid-19 outbreak.
House and Senate lawmakers decided to go into recess until April 6, with significant pending deals, including setting budgets and promoting a huge cut in income tax.
At least six of the House’s 70 members tested positive for the disease in the past week, and there are fears that a highly contagious variant of Covid-19 is at the Statehouse.
“The House has had a number of positive tests, so it is probably prudent for the House to step back for a few weeks until things calm down and it’s not hot around here for Covid,” said House majority leader Mike Moyle before the polls.
Five of those who tested positive are Republicans and one is a Democrat. Another Republican lawmaker isolates himself. The chamber has a supermajority of 58 Republicans, most of whom rarely or never wear masks. All Democratic lawmakers usually wear masks.
The three lawmakers who tested positive this week, two Republicans and one Democrat, participated in debates in the House floor.
The Chamber, with the disease spreading, also requested the Senate recess. Two senators hired COVID-19, but recovered and returned to the Senate, with 35 members.
The Senate honored the House’s request and voted to recess about an hour after the House, with Republican Senate President Chuck Winder calling it “an unusual historic request that has been made to us”.
Majority leader Republican Senator Kelly Anthon said the senators could use the time to prepare for when the Senate meets again. “We will use this time productively for the people of Idaho, so that when we return together on April 6, we are ready to work quickly,” he said.
Republican House Speaker Scott Bedke said after the vote that the delay could be good because it could give the legislature time to figure out how to spend the $ 2.2 billion the state is receiving in the last round of federal aid against the coronavirus.
Republican leaders in the House and Senate, who control both chambers, did not impose a mask mandate on this session.
“I think maybe when they get back, it might be different,” Bedke said. “But I don’t regret the security protocols here so far.”
Legislators will receive daily fees to cover their normal subsistence expenses related to sessions during recess, and secretaries and attachés will also be paid during recess. Bedke characterized it as essentially a long weekend that many will use to catch up on paperwork and other business.
One of the main goals of Republican legislators in the Legislature in this session was to restrict the Republican governor’s emergency powers to respond to things like pandemics. Lawmakers made several proposals that would restrict Governor Brad Little’s ability to make comprehensive guidelines in the future.
The Chamber is also presenting a bill that prohibits local governments from requiring people to wear masks. Little, who wears a mask in public and encourages others to do so, has never issued a mask mandate across the state, but a handful of counties and about a dozen cities currently have such orders in place.
In a joint statement, Democratic minority leader in the House, Ilana Rubel, and Democratic Senate minority leader, Michelle Stennett, said they expected their colleagues sick with Covid-19 to recover.
“But we can’t help but be disappointed at how bad things have become at Capitol, when we could have prevented it from becoming a hot spot all the time,” they said. act. We must do better when we return, or else we will continue to find ourselves in this position. “
In addition to the eight lawmakers for having hired Covid-19, a handful of House and Senate officials also contracted the virus in this session.
During recess, lawmakers must travel home to all parts of the state, potentially spreading the virus variant.
Dr. David Peterman, a pediatrician and CEO of the Primary Health Medical Group, said on Thursday that 30% to 40% of positive tests at the health group’s facilities in southwest Idaho were the variant.
About 175,000 Idaho residents were infected with the coronavirus and more than 1,900 died. But about 200,000 residents received both injections of the double vaccine, and another 125,000 received the first injection. About 1.8 million people live in the state.