House Business Committee sends HCR 7 on state-based title insurance to the floor

The House Business Committee voted Feb. 17 to send House Concurrent Resolution 7 to the full House with a do-pass recommendation, committee Chair Clow announced at the conclusion of a public hearing and brief debate.

The resolution, sponsored by Rep. John Schertz, expresses the state's opposition to what he described as federal efforts to undermine state-based regulation of title insurance. Schertz told the committee the measure is intended to push back on "federal overreach" and to affirm the state's authority over title insurance regulation.

Schertz said the measure is fundamentally about federalism. "This is a concurrent resolution, that talks about state based title insurance and it's really at its heart it's a federalism, type of resolution," he said, adding that he and industry stakeholders saw recent federal actions as an attempt to "usurp the state's powers of regulating title insurance."

Barbara Rice, identified in committee materials as president of the Idaho Land Title Association and offering testimony for the record, described prior federal activity that prompted industry concern. "This issue came to light during the prior Administration," Rice said, describing pilot programs she said were revived at the federal level without broad public input and citing use of "title waiver" and "attorney opinion letter" programs as examples.

Rice told the committee those approaches, she said, would allow substitutes for traditional title insurance and cited concerns that other insurance lines or attorney opinion products could be used in place of monoline title insurance. "The problem," she said, "is in the state of Idaho and most other states across the country, title insurance is a monoline statute ... allowing the Federal Government to come in and allow title insurance under another name just takes away from the state's ability to regulate that product."

No members of the public signed up to testify. Rep. Crane moved to send the concurrent resolution to the floor with a do-pass recommendation; after brief remarks from Rep. Birch and questions from Rep. Wheeler about next steps if federal agencies do not follow the state's request, the committee approved the motion by voice vote.

The resolution does not itself change state law; it is an expression of the legislature's position and would be transmitted to the appropriate federal recipients if adopted by the full House. The committee recorded no formal public opposition during the hearing.

The committee adjourned after completing its agenda and said it expected other items to return to the full House in future floor action.