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Idaho Revenue and Taxation chair invites statewide email testimony, outlines rules
Summary
The House Revenue and Taxation Committee chair announced an email-testimony process for residents statewide, providing submission rules, deadlines and a preference for geographically diverse responses ahead of scheduled hearings including the grocery credit RS32033.
The chair of the Idaho House Revenue and Taxation Committee outlined a process on Jan. 27 for receiving public testimony by email and urged residents to use the committee’s email address to participate in upcoming hearings.
"We will not be a committee that has remote testimony per se, but I am inviting people to weigh in across the state on issues via email testimony," the committee chair said, and provided the committee address: hrev@house.idaho.gov. The chair asked that email subjects clearly state they are "testimony for our committee" and that the message body begin with the sender’s name, legislative district, whom they represent and whether they are "for or against the bill in question."
The chair said submissions should be concise — readable in about two minutes — and must be submitted by 4 p.m. the day before a hearing. The chair said staff would not read every submission into the record but would summarize totals (for and against) and read a geographically diverse sample into the hearing record.
He cited geographic diversity as a priority when the committee selects which emails to read: "I would give a preference to ... legislative districts that are located a distance from the Capitol to where it's impractical to show up to testify in person," the chair said. He also said the committee would aim for proportional representation when picking example emails to read (for example, if 20 emails are against a bill and 10 are in favor, the chair said he would likely read two against and one in favor).
The chair noted several bills already pending for full hearings to which the email process would apply, including the grocery tax-credit RS32033 (to be assigned House Bill 25), an education choice tax credit (House Bill 39) and an income tax rate reduction package (House Bill 40). He encouraged members and the public to spread the word about the email option.
The chair said the secretary maintains the committee’s mailbox and will help process submissions; the chair asked members to distribute the information to constituents. The committee adjourned after announcing that a hearing was likely to be scheduled the following day, subject to the House floor schedule.
