Idaho House committee backs bill to simplify statutes and align rulemaking

The Idaho House State Affairs Committee voted to send House Bill 14 to the House floor with a “do pass” recommendation after debate Tuesday over statutory cleanup and regulatory oversight.

Representative Mike Boyle, R–District 10, the bill sponsor, told the committee the measure “delves into the statutes” and is intended to make statutes easier to read and to remove obsolete or unnecessary language. “We want to clean all that stuff up,” Boyle said, adding the process would be ongoing and could identify statutes agencies consider obsolete.

The bill, Boyle said, builds on recent efforts to change how administrative rules are adopted in Idaho and seeks to align statutory text with that regulatory reform. Representative Boyle said the change would make statutes easier for legislators and the public to navigate and allow agencies to flag other statutory sections that should be revised.

Representative Crane moved that the committee send House Bill 14 to the floor with a due pass recommendation. Representative Barbieri said the bill would help establish legislative continuity without binding future legislatures and said she would support the motion. The committee approved the motion by voice vote; individual roll-call tallies were not specified.

Committee members asked no substantive technical questions of staff during the discussion recorded in the transcript. Boyle said the work would take time and that staff had been consulted over the past two years about how to identify unnecessary statutory language.

The committee did not record additional amendments or conditions on the bill at the meeting. The bill will proceed to the full House under the committee’s recommendation.

Less urgent procedural details discussed in the meeting included committee procedure and next steps for floor consideration.