The Proper Care and Killing of Bad Bills

A guest editorial by IDFC member Senator Brian Lenney, Nampa

Bad bills should never see the light of day.

Calvin Coolidge nailed it when he said:

"It is much more important to kill bad bills than to pass good ones." 

As Nampa's Senator, I've lived by these words, taking pride in shooting down lousy legislation rather than pushing through the so-called good ones.

In my tenure, I've seen my fair share of legislative drama. 

Sure, I've led the charge on a series of "good bills" that have made waves and garnered praise—like my initiative to protect families from CPS investigations over vaccine decisions (S1029), my effort to eliminate DEI in higher education (S1357), and the bill to guarantee Idahoans will never be subjected to mask mandates again (H493). But let's be honest, showcasing the successes is a breeze when you have the luxury of selecting from the myriad of bills we evaluate every session.

But here's what you don't hear much about: the disastrous bills we kill before they get out of the Statehouse and wreak havoc on our state. And while some find their glory in “how many bills they pass,” I beg to differ. Because simply “passing a bill” isn't a feat if it's a train wreck in disguise. Just in the past few years, I've watched legislators boast about snagging billions in ARPA funds, gloating over saddling our grandkids with federal debt, and expanding Medicaid to its breaking point (which is crumbling as we speak).

My point?

Stopping bad bills is crucial—it's the antidote to the bureaucratic beast's growth, the key to curbing reckless spending, and the only way to keep government truly limited.

This year's legislative session serves as a prime example. Just recently, we axed a bill (S1289) that would have made it prohibitively difficult and expensive for parents to remove obscene materials from libraries. We also torpedoed S1245, which was set to give multinational corporations such as Bayer legal immunity, protecting them from the fallout of any harm caused by their products in product liability lawsuits. Lastly, we derailed H393, an interstate compact bill that threatened to let states like California and Washington make rules that would act as statutory law here in Idaho. 

These instances highlight just a few of the detrimental bills we've successfully neutralized in the Senate this year. But while it's satisfying to halt these train wrecks, regretfully, we can't erase the mess from past blunders. 

Consider Medicaid expansion—Idaho's leap to broaden eligibility cost us dearly, ballooning from $1.6 billion to $3.1 billion in just five years, fuelling the unreal deficit increase. Or take S1393 from 2020, the failed “Idaho Health Data Exchange,” which blew $93 million before going bankrupt and compromising our private medical data. And don't get me started on the "Syringe and Needle Exchange Act" (H180), a misguided attempt to turn Idaho into a needle swap haven, much like San Francisco. Thankfully, we're on track to repeal it with H617 this year, but the damage is already done. 

As Coolidge wisely observed, some doors are better left closed from the get-go.

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