AIC Bill TrackerAssociation of Idaho Cities · 2026 Legislative Session
Bills AIC is following this session, with its position and why. Click a column heading to sort.
| Bill ⇅ | Bill Name ⇅ | Briefer | Position ⇅ | Comments | Rating ⇅ | Status ⇅ |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| H0500 | Electric Assisted Bicycles | coming | Support | Local Governments support keeping our roads, sidewalks, and trails safe for all and ensuring that all operate under the same rules. | 3 | Signed/Enacted/Adopted |
| H0508 | Bikes, Pedestrian Projects, Federal Monies | coming | Support | Allowing locals to use federal dollars to support sidewalks, bike lanes and other necessary safety measures for residents is vitally important. | 3 | Signed/Enacted/Adopted |
| H0537 | Open Meetings, Public Comments | coming | Strong Oppose | While many cities and other local governing bodies already provide public comment opportunities and stream or record meetings, requiring public testimony and online streaming or audio for all open meetings would reduce flexibility and efficiency. In addition, many smaller cities and special taxing districts lack the staff, technology, and financial resources to comply with universal streaming requirements, which creates new costs that divert limited resources away from essential public services. | -5 | Dead |
| H0557 | Antidiscrimination, Local Government | coming | Strong Oppose | Preempting local governments from adopting or enforcing certain ordinances, limits the ability of cities and other local entities to respond to local conditions and community priorities. A one-size-fits-all statewide approach may prevent communities from addressing concerns in ways that reflect local needs, values, and circumstances. AIC will always strongly oppose local preemption. | -5 | Dead |
| H0561a | Flag Bill | coming | Oppose | Local governments should retain the ability to decide what flags or banners are appropriate for their communities. This legislation creates issues in regulating flags/banners displayed by government entities which unintentionally prohibits banners or flags that are celebratory or promotional displays like for America 250 or for local events and traditions. | -3 | Signed/Enacted/Adopted |
| H0564 | School Building Plans | coming | Neutral | Cities don't mind having school districts go out for bid prior to approval of new school plans; however, they ask them to recognize that there may be added costs if the plans need adjusting. Also, cities always try to approval complete plans as quickly as possible. | 0 | Dead |
| H0583 | Short Term Rentals | coming | Strong Oppose | This legislation strips away local authority to find a balanced approach to property rights within their city. Property rights are extremely important for both those that live in community full-time and those that have investment properties. | -5 | Signed/Enacted/Adopted |
| H0594 | Property Tax Penalties & Interest | coming | Strong Support | AIC recommends codifying the Supreme Court decision from last year to ensure counties send the proportional penalties and interest on collected late property taxes to each taxing district. | 5 | Signed/Enacted/Adopted |
| H0607 | Restrooms, Government Buildings | coming | Neutral | Local governments support privacy and safety in restrooms and changing facilities in public buildings. But a statewide mandate with mandatory $10,000 damages per incident creates liability and compliance costs that can divert resources. AIC is neutral, but the enforcement structure should be narrowed so accommodation decisions are not driven by litigation risk. | 0 | Dead |
| H0615 | Disturbing the Peace, Churches | coming | Support | Local governments support protecting worship services from disruption and giving law enforcement clear authority to respond. | 3 | Signed/Enacted/Adopted |
| H0625 | Public Record, Disclosure Complaints | coming | Neutral | AIC supports transparency and clear, fair public records processes. AIC is neutral and recommends guardrails, so the process improves access without creating a high volume, timeline driven workload. | 0 | Dead |
| H0626 | County Impact Fees | coming | Strong Oppose | Local governments support impact fees as a growth pays for growth tool tied to the infrastructure demands of new development. This bill would require cities to collect county impact fees and transfer them to the county with no method to recoup administrative costs, creating an unfunded mandate. It also potentially creates a liability risk if the county is sued and the city has passed an ordinance to collect the fees on their behalf. | -5 | Dead |
| H0647 | Multifamily Manufactured Homes | coming | Strong Oppose | Cities support expanding housing options, including manufactured homes, when they align with local plans and neighborhood standards. But allowing multifamily manufactured units to be placed in single family zones is a major land use change that should remain a local decision based on infrastructure, parking, traffic, and compatibility. ALSO, PLEASE NOTE THAT NONE OF THE PROPOSED HOUSING BILLS ACTUALLY REQUIRE DEED RESTRICTIONS FOR AFFORDABLE/ATTAINABLE HOUSING. | -5 | Dead |
| H0658 | Cemetery Districts | coming | Support | This is great legislation that remedies a current situation where a cemetery district's commissioners all resigned and left no one to govern the district. | 3 | Signed/Enacted/Adopted |
| H0670a | Urban Renewal Financing, Withdrawal | coming | Strong Oppose | While meant as a clean-up bill for the fire district urban renewal withdrawal code, this bill gets out in front of 2 pending lawsuits and creates more ambiguity causing greater potential for future lawsuits. | -5 | Dead |
| H0676 | Geothermal Water, Municipal Use | coming | Strong Support | This legislation creates a path forward for municipalities to expand geothermal services for growth needs. | 5 | Signed/Enacted/Adopted |
| H0686 | Employment of Relatives | coming | Strong Support | Idaho's smallest cities struggle to hire specialty contractors and staff, due to the reduced size of the work pool. This legislation helps remedy that problem with strong sideboards to prevent abuse. | 5 | Signed/Enacted/Adopted |
| H0705 | Multifamily Housing, Zoning | coming | Strong Oppose | This bill forces approval for housing in commercial zones, broadly limits local standards, and adds litigation risk through a private right of action. AIC strongly opposes it as sweeping preemption that shifts land use decisions away from local elected officials. ALSO, PLEASE NOTE THAT NONE OF THE PROPOSED HOUSING BILLS ACTUALLY REQUIRE DEED RESTRICTIONS FOR AFFORDABLE/ATTAINABLE HOUSING. | -5 | Dead |
| H0706 | Single Stairways | coming | Strong Oppose | Cities support the safety of our firefighters and other first responders who risk their lives to save ours. This legislation reduces their safety and the safety of those they are working to save. | -5 | Signed/Enacted/Adopted |
| H0708 | HOA's | coming | Strong Oppose | Cities do not want to take on the responsibility of dissolved HOA assets. We don't want to manage clubhouses, pools, and other common areas, nor do those residents want those assets opened to everyone in the city. | -5 | Dead |
| H0720 | City Elections, Districts | coming | Strong Oppose | Cities with populations of 100,000 or above already elect councilmembers by districts. It works at that level, because they have enough of a population base to pull candidates from. Smaller cities greatly struggle to find candidates already for citywide elections. Some smaller cities have tried to implement districts, but they have ended up having elections where some districts have zero candidates. For example, Burley tried it and unwound it due to those struggles. This bill is very harmful to city elections. | -5 | Dead |
| H0725 | State Insurance, Cities | coming | Support | Allowing cities to be added to the state insurance plan would allow some cities to more efficiently use taxpayer funds while still providing health insurance for their staff. It's not a great option for all cities, but where it makes sense, it would be very helpful. | 3 | Dead |
| H0749 | Annexation | coming | Support | A HUGE thank you to Chairwoman Ehardt and others who worked with AIC to fix concerns in a way that would not be harmful to cities. | 3 | Signed/Enacted/Adopted |
| H0765 | Taxing Districts, Boundary, Budgets | coming | Support | AIC supports the allowance and mechanism for fire and library districts to merge for cost-savings and efficiencies. | 3 | Signed/Enacted/Adopted |
| H0766 | Development Impact Fees | coming | Support | AIC supports the allowance and mechanism for fire and library districts to merge for cost-savings and efficiencies. | 3 | Signed/Enacted/Adopted |
| H0767 | Development Impact Fees | coming | Support | AIC supports adding fire and EMS districts to the definition of governmental entities, for development impact fees. | 3 | Dead |
| H0791 | Driver's License, Suspension | coming | Strong Support | Cities are struggling to pay for services, especially emergency services. This bill will help us collect the millions in unpaid infraction fines that exist, helping us with the critical funds needed for these services. | 5 | Dead |
| H0800 | Manufactured Homes | coming | Support | This legislation makes some good updates to Idaho's current manufactured home code, allowing for multifamily manufactured homes to be placed in multifamily zoned areas. | 3 | Signed/Enacted/Adopted |
| H0801 | Development of Religious Land | coming | Strong Oppose | Religious lands are tax exempt and the state/federal requirements to be recognized as a religion are set at a very low bar, making this a very dangerous and harmful proposal. To increase service demands by allowing housing on religious grounds, but removing the ability for the municipality to collect property tax for those new services is a huge problem. Plus, leases, regardless of the 40 years or not, usually have termination clauses and have people default on them all the time. | -5 | Dead |
| H0802 | Multifamily Dwellings, Commercial Zones | coming | Strong Oppose | This legislation preempts city ordinances, allowing multifamily dwellings in commercial zones by right, and with a cause of action that will be funded with taxpayer dollars. Housing already can and does occur in commercial areas, after public hearings/discussions. | -5 | Dead |
| H0804 | Highway Districts, City Boundaries | coming | Strong Oppose | AIC drafted a legislative proposal that would allow cities in a single-wide county highway district that are now also located in another county to receive a proportional share of highway fund distributions, based on census recognized population, just like is already done for other cities throughout the state. This legislation does not solve the problem we were looking to address and creates additional, greater problems for municipalities impacted. | -5 | Dead |
| H0808 | Medical Mandates | coming | Strong Oppose | Some of the provisions in this legislation, as currently written, will create litigious situations for first responders. The language ties their hands on helping citizens who are impaired, whether by substance or medical condition, who refuse help. Their creed requires them to do no harm and leaving someone on the side of the road when they clearly need help does not meet that creed. | -5 | Dead |
| H0811 | Community Infrastructure Districts | coming | Support | This legislation allows counties to utilize this tool for areas not identified in a city comprehensive plan. This can be a helpful tool for growth needs and counties should have access to this tool, as well. | 3 | Dead |
| H0819 | Material Harmful to Minors | coming | Strong Oppose | This bill removes a longstanding metric system used by libraries to assess the safety and proper categories for books. This will hurt libraries who are working hard to meet the demands of residents in their communities. | -5 | Dead |
| H0842 | Taxing Districts, Budget Limits | coming | Strong Oppose | Local taxing districts are hurting for revenue and need real solutions to solve the problems caused by H389 (passed in 2021). This bill solves the preliminary levy rate problem, but not the revenue needs, and it then also adds two very concerning provisions. | -5 | Dead |
| H0896 | State Law, Compliance | coming | Oppose | AIC fully supports following all laws and are grateful for the improvements in this bill over H743; however, cities ask that the language on page 2, line-3, "A chairman of a board of county commissioners" be REPLACED with "A county prosecutor", to maintain consistency with other Idaho code. With that amendment, we would be neutral. | -3 | Dead |
| H0914 | DOPL Rulemaking and Fees | coming | Oppose | AIC has been working with IDABO and other stakeholders to update building codes, but the rules died in House Business. This legislation will hurt those efforts. | -3 | Dead |
| H0926 | Community Infrastructure Districts | coming | Support | Cities have this tool and we agree that counties should have access to it, as well. | 3 | Signed/Enacted/Adopted |
| H0927 | Traffic Infractions, Delinquency | coming | Strong Support | Cities are struggling to pay for services, especially emergency services. This bill will help us collect the millions in unpaid infraction fines that exist, helping us with the critical funds needed for these services. | 5 | Dead |
| H0937 | Development Religious Lands | coming | Oppose | This is a much better version from the other two Religious Development bills; however, the leasing default/termination loophole still exists | -3 | Dead |
| H0967 | Liquor Fund, Distribution | coming | Strong Oppose | -5 | Signed/Enacted/Adopted | |
| HCR022 | America250 | coming | Support | Idaho has the most JustServe Cities in the nation and we love the encouragement for Idaho residents to celebrate America250 with 250,000 acts of service. | 3 | Signed/Enacted/Adopted |
| HCR026 | Wildlife Crossings | coming | Support | We thank the bill sponsor for recognizing the need for federal, state, and locals to collaborate on transportation safety needs, including wildlife crossings. | 3 | Dead |
| HJM014 | Water Storage | coming | Strong Support | Idaho's water is precious and should be protected for our current and future generation's use. Everyone from the federal to the state to the local level, including individual residents, has a responsibility to help on these goals. | 5 | Signed/Enacted/Adopted |
| HR020 | Political Violence | coming | Strong Support | Civilization does not and cannot exist without those first 5 letters, "CIVIL". Each of us has a responsibility to engage respectfully and civilly with each other, and we can't continue to tolerate bad behavior. | 5 | Signed/Enacted/Adopted |
| S1241a | Working Animals | coming | Neutral | Cities support legitimate working animal uses and want clear, consistent rules that allow for commerce while protecting public safety and neighborhood livability AIC thanks Senator Shippy for working with us to protect city authority for public health and safety. | 0 | Signed/Enacted/Adopted |
| S1263 | Short Term Rentals | coming | Support | AIC supports protecting private property rights while maintaining basic health and safety standards for short term rentals. This bill is a more workable approach than the House proposal because it preserves core safety requirements and allows licensing for larger operators. AIC supports it as a better balance between statewide consistency and limited local oversight. | 3 | Dead |
| S1277 | Accessory Dwelling Unit | coming | Strong Oppose | Cities support ADUs as a tool to expand housing options, but they must be planned locally to account for sewer capacity and other infrastructure impacts. This bill forces sweeping statewide standards, requires broad comprehensive plan changes, and adds litigation risk through a private right of action. AIC strongly opposes it as a one size fits all mandate that overrides local planning and strains city systems. ALSO, PLEASE NOTE THAT NONE OF THE PROPOSED HOUSING BILLS ACTUALLY REQUIRE DEED RESTRICTIONS FOR AFFORDABLE/ATTAINABLE HOUSING. | -5 | Dead |
| S1278 | Religious Housing | coming | Strong Oppose | Local control matters in land use because cities must match growth with roads, water, sewer, and neighborhood realities. This bill mandates approval of qualifying projects on religious land, limits standards like height, setbacks, and parking, and adds major litigation risk through a private right of action. AIC strongly opposes it as sweeping preemption that overrides local planning and shifts land use decisions to the courts. ALSO, PLEASE NOTE THAT NONE OF THE PROPOSED HOUSING BILLS ACTUALLY REQUIRE DEED RESTRICTIONS FOR AFFORDABLE/ATTAINABLE HOUSING. | -5 | Dead |
| S1279 | Starter Homes | coming | Strong Oppose | Affordable housing is a priority, but it works best when cities can plan growth in step with roads, water, sewer, and neighborhood design. This bill broadly preempts cities, counties, and HOAs by banning minimum lot sizes and limiting setbacks and fees, while forcing comprehensive plan changes statewide. AIC strongly opposes it because the private right of action invites litigation and shifts land use decisions away from local elected officials. ALSO, PLEASE NOTE THAT NONE OF THE PROPOSED HOUSING BILLS ACTUALLY REQUIRE DEED RESTRICTIONS FOR AFFORDABLE/ATTAINABLE HOUSING. | -5 | Dead |
| S1280 | Twin Homes & Duplexes | coming | Strong Oppose | Housing choices matter, but density decisions like duplexes and twin homes need to be planned locally to match infrastructure and neighborhood design. This bill forces approval in single family zones, broadly limits local standards, and adds litigation risk through a private right of action. AIC strongly opposes it as sweeping preemption that shifts land use decisions away from local elected officials. ALSO, PLEASE NOTE THAT NONE OF THE PROPOSED HOUSING BILLS ACTUALLY REQUIRE DEED RESTRICTIONS FOR AFFORDABLE/ATTAINABLE HOUSING. | -5 | Dead |
| S1342 | Chickens, Ordinance Preemption | coming | Strong Oppose | This legislation erases current city ordinances, some that already allow for chickens, setting a new "floor" for 4 chickens in all single-family residences' backyards | -5 | Dead |
| S1352a | Starter Home Subdivisions | coming | Strong Oppose | This legislation does not clearly define "starter home" and forces municipalities to accept smaller lot sizes without ensuring affordability outcomes. We greatly appreciate how the bill sponsor has worked with on amendments, but the AIC board and our members still feel these bills are problematic and will be costly to try to implement and possibly cause costly litigation. | -3 | Signed/Enacted/Adopted |
| S1353a | Twin Home, Duplex Regulations | coming | Strong Oppose | This legislation prohibits cities from requiring more than one (1) off-street parking space per dwelling unit, regardless of the number of bedrooms and/or occupants may live there. An example from Pocatello showed a duplex with 6 bedrooms per side, with 2 college-aged girls living in each bedroom. That created 24 drivers in those two units. This could have made parking impossible in that neighborhood, if they hadn't had the appropriate parking. We greatly appreciate how the bill sponsor has worked with on amendments, but the AIC board and our members still feel these bills are problematic and will be costly to try to implement and possibly cause costly litigation. | -3 | Dead |
| S1354a | ADU's by Right | coming | Strong Oppose | This bill ignores Idaho's current infrastructure realities. We have old, and in some cases, failing infrastructure all over the state that municipalities are already struggling to address due to the revenue constraints of H389 from 2021. This legislation will exacerbate the problem and create costly litigation if cities deny proposed ADU's. We greatly appreciate how the bill sponsor has worked with on amendments, but the AIC board and our members still feel these bills are problematic and will be costly to try to implement and possibly cause costly litigation. | -3 | Signed/Enacted/Adopted |
| SR113 | Political Violence | coming | Strong Support | Civilization does not and cannot exist without those first 5 letters of that word, "CIVIL". Each of us has a responsibility to engage respectfully and civilly with each other, and we can't continue to tolerate bad behavior | 5 | Signed/Enacted/Adopted |
Briefer opens AIC's Bill Briefer analysis of the bill in a new tab. Bill links open the Idaho Legislature's page for the bill.
Position scale: Strong Support +5 · Support +3 · Neutral 0 · Oppose −3 · Strong Oppose −5.