Written Testimony, Contacting Legislators and Commenting on Rules

Most of what reaches an Idaho legislator never happens at a podium. It arrives as email, as a letter in a committee file, as a phone message taken by session staff, or as a comment on a rule that will not come before a committee for another year. This lesson covers those quieter channels. Lesson 3 covers signing up and speaking at a committee hearing, and the basic testimony structure is in Testimony and Comments in the Laws and Rules course.

Written testimony to a legislative committee

The Legislature's page on testifying before legislative committees says it plainly: "Written testimony is not required." You may send it anyway, as an addition to speaking or instead of it. The page treats it as one of three ways to be heard, along with in-person and remote testimony, and tells you to email it to the committee secretary, whose address is on each committee's web page.

For remote testifiers the page goes further. Because technical problems can keep a caller or a Zoom participant from getting through, it recommends sending written testimony at the time you register. The chair may cut the testimony list short, meetings get delayed or rescheduled, and registering "does not constitute a guarantee" that you will be permitted to testify. Written testimony is the one form that cannot be squeezed out by the clock. The Legislature's remote testimony guide adds that people testifying remotely must be Idaho residents with a physical address in Idaho, the same rule described in lesson 3.

Where it goes

The testimony page does not say whether written testimony becomes part of the minutes. The committees' own paperwork answers part of the question. Every set of 2026 Senate State Affairs Committee minutes from January 19 on carries the same footer: "The sign-in sheet, testimonies and other related materials will be retained with the minutes." The materials stay in the committee office until the end of the session and then go on file with the minutes in the Legislative Services Library. The committee's agendas for the same weeks added a line: "If you have written testimony, please provide a copy to the committee secretary." You can read both in the committee's 2026 agenda and minutes file.

Two practical points follow. First, your written testimony is kept, which makes it part of the committee's record of the bill for anyone who looks later. Second, the minutes themselves usually record who spoke and on which side, not what the written submissions said. A member who never opens the email will not see your argument summarized anywhere. If you want members to read it, send the same document to each member of the committee, not only to the secretary. Committee membership is listed on each committee's page.

Practice varies by committee and chair, so if it matters whether your document is distributed to members before the hearing, ask the committee secretary. The secretary is the person who knows how that chair handles it.

What is public

When you register to testify, the Legislature says the information you submit may be public, except your email and physical address. Treat the testimony itself differently. A document you send to a public body about pending legislation is a record that others may ask to see, and the Senate committee files it with the minutes. Write nothing in it you would not say at the podium, and leave out anything private about other people.

Way to be heard	What you do	Weight and limits	Best use
In person at the Capitol	Register through the agenda link, then wait to be called	Chair sets the time and may limit the list	A short, personal case members can question
Remote	Register for remote testimony (phone or Zoom); phone callers give the number they will call from. Remote testifiers must be Idaho residents with a physical Idaho address	The Legislature says remote testimony gets "the same weight" as in-person, with reasonable efforts at equal time	When you cannot travel to Boise
Written	Email the committee secretary; copy members if you want it read	Kept with the minutes; never cut off by the clock	Numbers, documents, amendment language, anything longer than three minutes
Email or call to your own legislators	Write to members directly or through the Legislative Information Center	No formal record; read by the member or staff	Before the hearing, after the committee vote, before floor votes

Finding and contacting your legislators

Idaho has 35 senators and 70 representatives; the vote tallies on any bill page add up that way, and each district elects one senator and two representatives. Your own three matter most, because a legislator's job is to represent the people who elect them. The Legislature's Who's My Legislator page lets you type a street address and ZIP code or click a map to see the senator and representatives for that spot. The page notes that the county clerk has the official district information, which matters if you live near a district line.

The Contacting Legislators page lists the Legislative Information Center's email, idleginfo@lso.idaho.gov, which it says is for use during sessions, roughly January to March. Its instruction is short: email "must contain the sender's name and address," and naming your legislator or district helps route it. The center's local number is 208-332-1000 and toll free is 800-626-0471. Mail goes to P.O. Box 83720 in Boise with a different ZIP+4 for the Senate (83720-0081) and the House (83720-0038).

Each member also has a page on the House or Senate membership list. Use the member's own contact information for anything more than a quick position message, and use it year round. Between sessions, legislators are at home, and the Legislature's interim page says they "will be meeting with constituents" while preparing for the next session. A coffee in October is often worth more than ten emails in February.

What a legislator's office can use

During session a legislator may get hundreds of messages a day on a contested bill. Offices sort them. What survives the sorting is a message that is clearly from a constituent, names the bill, states a position, and contains one fact or story the member did not have. Form messages still get counted, so if a group sends them, each sender should at least add a sentence of their own. Rude messages get counted too, and then remembered for the wrong reason.

When advocacy becomes lobbying

People hold back from contacting legislators because they have heard that talking about bills makes you a lobbyist. For most residents it does not. The rules changed recently, so it is worth knowing them exactly.

House Bill 398, sponsored by the House State Affairs Committee, signed April 3, 2025 and effective July 1, 2025, moved Idaho's lobbying law out of the Sunshine Law in Title 67, Chapter 66 and into a new Title 74, Chapter 7, Lobbying Disclosure. The Secretary of State's Lobbyist Reporting Manual notes the move. The bill repealed the old lobbying sections (formerly 67-6617 through 67-6622, including 67-6619A), and those old section pages may still show up in a search; the current law is 74-701 to 74-716. Older guides, including some lessons on this site written before the change, may cite the old numbers.

What counts as lobbying

Under 74-702(7), lobbying means attempting through contacts with members of the Legislature, or causing others to make contact with them, to influence the approval, modification or rejection of legislation by the Legislature, any committee or the governor. It also covers building relationships with or entertaining legislators or executive officials for that purpose, and communicating with an executive official to influence a rule or rulemaking, ratemaking, procurement, contracts or bond issues, which matters for the agency and utility comments described in this course. "Executive official" in 74-702(4) is a long list: statewide elected officers, agency directors, deputy directors, division administrators and bureau chiefs, and the members and chief officers of rulemaking boards and commissions, among others.

The 2025 law added indirect lobbying to the definition (74-702(6)): trying to shape public opinion about legislation, legislators or executive officials and "encouraging the members of the public to take action," through email, social media, broadcasts, door-to-door solicitation and similar methods. A campaign urging people to call their legislators is indirect lobbying under that definition. Whether anyone must register or report is a separate question, answered by the exemptions.

Who is exempt

Idaho Code 74-704 exempts these people from registering and reporting, among others:

• Testifiers. Persons "who limit their lobbying activities to appearances before public sessions of committees of the legislature," and appearances at public meetings, hearings and proceedings held by executive officials (74-704(1)).
• Unpaid people and small amounts. Persons "who do not receive any compensation for lobbying," and persons whose lobbying pay does not exceed $250 in a calendar quarter, which also covers an employee whose lobbying for the employer is worth less than $250 of their time per quarter at their hourly rate (74-704(3)).
• Trade association members acting at the association's request, if the association is registered and reports (74-704(4)).
• Elected officials acting in their official capacity, state and local, and Senate-confirmed gubernatorial appointees (74-704(5)).
• News media employees gathering and publishing news (74-704(2)), a church member representing the church to protect free exercise of religion (74-704(6)), and employees of a corporate entity that has registered and named a designated lobbyist (74-704(7)).

The Secretary of State's manual puts the citizen case in one line: lobbying does not include "Members of the public who contact legislators and executive officials that are not being paid to lobby."

Who	Must register?	Why
A resident who emails, calls and testifies on her own time	No	No compensation (74-704(3)); committee testimony is also exempt (74-704(1))
A volunteer for a group who delivers petitions and meets legislators, unpaid	No	No compensation for lobbying
A nonprofit's director, paid a salary, who spends a few hours a quarter meeting legislators	Depends on the value of that time	Exempt only if her lobbying time is worth $250 or less per calendar quarter at her hourly rate
A contract lobbyist hired for the session	Yes	Paid to lobby; register before lobbying or within 30 days of being hired (74-703)
A city council member asking legislators to oppose a bill on behalf of the city	No	Local elected officials acting officially (74-704(5))
A paid staffer who only testifies at public committee hearings	No	Appearances before public committee sessions (74-704(1))

What registered lobbyists must do

For those who are not exempt, 74-703 requires registration with the Secretary of State before lobbying or within 30 days of being employed, designated or contracted, whichever comes first, with a $10 fee and a separate $10 notice for each additional client. Registration must be renewed on or before January 10 each year or it ends. Under 74-705, registered lobbyists file monthly reports, due within 15 days of the first day of each month, listing spending by category, itemizing single-occasion spending over $135 per person on a legislator or executive official (a threshold the Secretary of State adjusts every two years), and naming the bills they supported or opposed. Any indirect lobbying expenditure of $100 or more must be reported within 48 hours.

The gift, ethics and public resource rules that go with lobbying are covered in course 46's Lobbying, Gifts and Officials.

Interim committees

The Legislature does not stop between sessions. Interim committees study subjects and prepare legislation, and their meetings are where many bills are shaped before anyone files them. The 2026 interim list includes, among others, the Child Protection Legislative Oversight Committee, the Committee on Federalism, the Natural Resources Interim Committee, the Medicaid Review Panel, the Occupational and Professional Licensure Review Committee, the Rural Health Transformation Committee, a study committee on sextortion and an ad hoc committee on legislative technology, each with its own page on the interim committees page. The 2027 session convenes January 11, according to the same page.

Interim committees post agendas, materials and minutes on their pages. The public may attend. Whether you may speak is up to the committee: under Idaho Code 74-207, any person may attend a meeting of a standing, special or select committee "but may participate in the committee only with the approval of the committee itself." Some interim agendas include a public testimony item; many do not. If one does not, ask the committee's staff contact whether written comments will be shared with members, and send them.

Interim work is the cheapest moment to be heard on a subject. Nothing is drafted yet, members are not yet committed, and staff are collecting information. A two-page letter with real numbers sent to an interim committee in September may end up in the background memo every member reads in January.

The budget committee

The Joint Finance-Appropriations Committee has 20 members, 10 from the Senate Finance Committee and 10 from House Appropriations. Its page says it meets to "analyze available revenue and state agency budget requests in order to set a balanced state budget each year." It writes the appropriation bills. Its 2026 schedule ran from January 13 to a target date of March 12 for finishing budget setting, with presentations, agency budget hearings and budget-setting sessions. It listed no public testimony slot. An agency "budget hearing" at JFAC is the agency presenting to the committee, not the public speaking.

The Idaho Capital Sun reported on January 19, 2026 that a senator on the committee asked how members could hear from Idahoans affected by possible Medicaid cuts. The article said JFAC does not hold public hearings where people can testify; the House co-chair said the committee would hear instead from the chairs of the House and Senate Health and Welfare committees, whose committees do hold public hearings on bills, and another member suggested reaching out to constituents and reading their emails.

JFAC has heard the public before. In December 2010 the Spokesman-Review reported that the committee, which had never taken public testimony, would hold hearings: the first on January 21, 2011, on the public schools budget, with three minutes per speaker. The then Senate co-chair said the budget challenge "requires that we look for ways to involve more people." StateImpact Idaho reported in February 2012 that more than 1,000 Idahoans had filled the Capitol for the 2011 hearing and that a second hearing was set, which the Idaho Statesman called only the second of its kind in 92 years. StateImpact summarized the co-chair's view of the process as "painful at times, but worthwhile." The practice did not become permanent.

Commenting on state agency rules

Much of what Idaho law does day to day is in administrative rules: licensing standards, health and safety codes, fishing seasons, fees. Rules are written by agencies under the Administrative Procedure Act, Idaho Code Title 67, Chapter 52, and they come with their own public participation rights. The basics are in the Laws and Rules course's lesson on Idaho administrative rules; here is the process from a commenter's side.

Stage one: negotiated rulemaking

Before an agency proposes a rule, 67-5220 requires it to decide whether negotiated rulemaking is feasible. If so, it publishes a notice of intent in the bulletin describing the subject, purpose, authority and main issues, and invites people to take part. The agency must give a reasonable time to respond, tell participants about meetings, provide non-exempt information they ask for, consider their recommendations, and write a summary of the unresolved issues. The statute describes the aim as consensus among interested persons and the agency. This is the stage where a resident's comment can change the draft's wording before it hardens.

Stage two: the proposed rule

Under 67-5221, the notice of proposed rulemaking must include the authority for the rule, a plain-language summary including any fee imposed or increased, the full text in legislative format (new words underlined, deleted words struck), the location and time of any hearings, how to submit written comments with an agency contact's name and address, how to request an oral presentation, the comment deadline, and the reason if negotiated rulemaking was skipped. A short legal notice runs in the largest paid-circulation newspaper in each county with each bulletin issue.

67-5222 sets the participation rights:

• The agency must accept written comment for at least 21 days after the notice is published in the bulletin.
• It must hold an oral presentation on a substantive rule if 25 persons, a political subdivision or an agency asks in writing within 14 days after the bulletin publication or within 14 days before the comment period ends, whichever is later. There is no right to one when the agency has no discretion over the substance, as when a rule implements a court order or a changed statute.
• Oral presentations must be open to participation by video conference or telephone.
• Since July 1, 2026, the agency must post a video or audio recording of any oral presentation or public hearing on a rule within 15 days and keep it for at least three years.

Stage three: legislative review

An adopted rule is not finished. Under 67-5291, the germane standing committee reviews it to see whether it is consistent with the legislative intent of the statute. The Legislature may approve or reject a rule, in whole or in part, by concurrent resolution, and a rejection must include findings explaining the inconsistency. A pending fee rule or non-fee rule not approved by concurrent resolution expires at sine die adjournment of that session unless 67-5226 or 67-5228 applies. Approved pending rules take effect July 1 of the year approved, unless the resolution says otherwise. Committee meetings on rules are posted on the committee agendas like bill hearings, so a commenter who lost at the agency can register and testify again before the committee.

Stage	Where it appears	Your move	Statute
Notice of intent	Bulletin; agency home page	Join negotiated rulemaking meetings, send detailed suggestions	67-5220
Proposed rule	Bulletin; newspaper legal notice; agency home page	Written comment within at least 21 days; request oral presentation with 24 others	67-5221, 67-5222
Oral presentation or hearing	Notice; Townhall Idaho	Speak in person, by video or by phone; recording posted within 15 days	67-5222(2), (3)
Pending rule before the Legislature	Germane committee agendas during session	Register to testify or write committee members	67-5291

Where to find rules open for comment

The Office of the Administrative Rules Coordinator at adminrules.idaho.gov publishes the Idaho Administrative Bulletin, which it describes as "a monthly publication consisting of all administrative rulemaking documents," along with a publication schedule, legal notice summaries of proposed rules, an index of active rulemaking and an email sign-up for each new bulletin. Townhall Idaho lists scheduled public meetings posted by participating agencies, including rulemaking meetings and hearings, with email subscriptions by agency.