Senate GOP introduces new resolution to do away with COVID-19 restrictions

BOISE — Seven GOP senators, including all four members of the Senate Republican leadership, introduced a new resolution Friday seeking to repeal the governor’s current Stage 2 public health order regarding the coronavirus pandemic, despite two Idaho Attorney General's opinions in two days branding such an effort unconstitutional.

“We have received an independent legal opinion to the contrary,” Senate Majority Leader Kelly Anthon, R-Burley, told the Idaho Press on Friday. He said that opinion came from the Legislature's contracted legal counsel at the firm Holland & Hart.

The new resolution, SCR 103, would repeal all current Stage 2 statewide COVID-19 restrictions, including limits on the size of gatherings, requirements for social distancing and sanitizing, requirements that bar and nightclub patrons be seated and a mask mandate at Idaho nursing homes.

Sen. Patti Anne Lodge, R-Huston, chair of the Senate State Affairs Committee, said it was “just a little change” from SCR 101, the measure the same panel had earlier approved on a party-line vote aiming to repeal the current disaster declaration, but that was pulled from the Senate floor by its lead sponsor, Sen. Steve Vick, on Wednesday.

Read more: https://www.idahopress.com/news/local/senate-gop-introduces-new-resolution-to-do-away-with-covid-19-restrictions/article_5bf88ddc-0f1f-5f5d-bcbd-0015153f0906.html
(Nampa Idaho Press)