BOISE, Idaho (CBS2) — There could be a major change in the way JFAC -- the powerful budget committee -- conducts business.
JFAC is a joint committee made up of 10 senators and 10 representatives.
Speaker Mike Moyle wants the committee to be split when voting - so both the Senate Finance Committee and the House Appropriations Committee would need a simple majority to pass a budget out of committee.
Democrats worry it could make it easier for a small number of lawmakers to kill a budget item, and it could end up keeping lawmakers in session longer. They can't go home until there's a balanced budget.
The Joint Finance-Appropriations Committee writes the state budget and is responsible for appropriating funds for every state agency - from public schools and universities to libraries, Idaho State Police, Health and Welfare, and much more.
Right now, a budget can move through the joint committee of 20 with 11 votes -- a simple majority.
But if Speaker Moyle gets his way, there would be two separate votes - with at least six yes votes needed from each side for approval.
"If you go to the old rules, one House member with all the Senate can force the House to vote on a bill that did not have a majority of those members of that committee support it. That is not good government," said Moyle.
Under the split plan, even if all the members from one chamber said yes to a budget item, five members from the other chamber could kill it. The committee would have to go back to the drawing board.
"You could have five people dictating, the minority in this case of the committee, deciding what should go through and what shouldn't," said Democratic Sen. Janie Ward-Engelking. "If a budget was continually voted down, we would have to make cuts that might be impactful to Idahoans."
"If you're on the House side, and that budget comes out with just one House member, it's going to get on the floor and it's going to die, and they're going to go back and fix it anyway, so why not do it on the front end in the committee versus have the fight on the floor" Speaker Moyle said. "They have to go back and figure out how to make them happy."
Ward-Engelking been on JFAC for five years. She thinks the way things are now work well.
"If you look at surrounding states, they're not in as good of a place as we are financially, and I think it's because of the good work on that JFAC committee," Ward-Engelking said.
She worries the rule change could make the committee about politics.
"Let's say that leadership in one of the bodies wanted a particular bill, and it wasn't popular in the other house or chamber, they could say well we're going to vote no, we're going to have our people vote no on the budgets until we get this through," Ward-Engelking said. "Right now, when we do work in JFAC we don't set policy. We just fund the agencies and the programs that are necessary and we do it to the best of our ability."
By this time in the session, she says JFAC would normally have already voted on a revenue projection for the next fiscal year and begun voting on supplemental budgets.
But with a potential rule change, there haven't been any votes.
"Supplementals are usually a need that Idahoans have right now, and we need to take care of it. We can't wait until July 1 when the new fiscal year starts, and so that's why we sometimes open budgets and put some additional money in if we see that there's a need," Ward-Engelking said.
In order for the committee to look at a supplemental request, they need to open the previous budget. In order to do that, they currently need two thirds of the whole committee to say yes. If the rules changed, it would mean two thirds of the house side would have to say yes and two thirds of the senate side as well.
"The budgets are very important. I do not think it is wise to make it easy to pass budgets out of a committee then they know they will have problems on the house or senate floor," Speaker Moyle said.
Moyle says he has support from his House members on the committee.
He tells CBS2 he's still in talks with senate leadership on this potential change.
