H162 Hits Major Roadblock: Public Sentiment

On a workday, hundreds of public land supporters wearing “Keep your hands off my public lands” stickers packed the statehouse in opposition of HB162.

*Public land supporters walk to the state house wearing “Keep your hands off my public lands” stickers.*

The bill would create a “Council on Federal Lands”, to be populated by legislators that have a demonstrated history of anti-public lands agendas. Each Council member would be paid with tax dollars to do the work already done by 12 Idaho agencies- growing government just so state legislators could extend their power. And these are legislators that champion small government.

But they weren’t expecting citizen participation in the middle of a Monday. The Lincoln Auditorium seats 200 people and there weren’t enough seats. Clearly people value their public lands and any attempt to put political ideologues between the public and their land will be met with massive opposition, even at 1:30 on a Monday.

People wait in line to get into the Lincoln Auditorium.

The bill was sent to the Amending Order for potential fixes. That isn’t a good place for bills to be this late in the session. But it isn’t dead, not by a long shot. The bill needs some major fixes that may be insurmountable to clear the Senate floor, which says two things: 1) It is alarming that the House was no-questions-asked on board to pass a bill widely panned as extremely bad public policy, and 2) the persuasive power of public sentiment ain’t dead yet.

The sentiment was quite clear. Keep your hands off our public lands.

Stray observations:

The same two sponsors of H162 co-sponsored the Trespass bill.
The Idaho Freedom Foundation was supportive of government growth. That is a head-scratcher.
When the Chairman asked who was opposed to the bill, nearly everyone raised their hand. When asked who supported, only the team of lobbyists of the Idaho Farm Bureau and H162’s sponsors raised their hands.