Boise Democratic Rep. Brian Cronin, retiring from the Idaho Legislature after serving four years in the House, said he’s taking the senior vice president title at the Strategies 360 office downtown.

“We talked about it for several weeks before I was ready to pull the trigger and make a decision,” said Cronin.

Strategies 360 is the Seattle-based firm that is tangled in a lawsuit (and countersuit) with its former Boise operatives, John Foster and Kate Haas. The pair was fired from Strategies 30 following Foster’s announcement that he would be assisting Gov. C.L. “Butch” Otter in supporting Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Luna’s “Students Come First” laws. Strategies 360 said it began losing critical Idaho clients because of the Foster-Otter alignment. Foster and Haas claimed they were improperly dismissed. The lawsuits filed left Strategies 360 with an empty Boise office until Wednesday’s announcement involving Cronin.

Boise Weekly caught up with Cronin in the waning days of the session before he had chosen his next venture. While working at the Legislature, he headed the marketing and communications firm Cronin and Associates.   

“I’m going to continue what I’ve done for the past 15 years, which is work in the field of marketing and communications,” he said. “I’m now working for a larger company with larger clients.”

Cronin didn’t want to be compared in any way to Foster.

“I’m not one of the bad guys,” he said. "I didn’t do this to get rich. The inverse has happened. The idea that all this was designed to get me a job? I didn’t go after them."

Cronin said that while Strategies 360 does some lobbying on a state level, he has no plans in the near future to register as a lobbyist. He hopes to draw some of his current clients to his new employer.

The Idaho Capitol was silent, save for the echo of heels clicking across the marble floor somewhere on a lower level. The heels and their owner ducked into a Garden Level office, where she mingled with her fellow staff, each pulling from a pile of envelopes and letters, stuffing one inside the other and sealing them before dropping them into a separate bin.

“The clerical staff are getting ready for the end-of-session letters,” explained LaVerne Wieczorek.

She grasped the handles of a large wooden cart she used to move the boxes of letters, each printed on Idaho State letterhead. They are constituent letters from the building’s lawmakers, some personal, some explaining the session’s legislation. “I haven’t read them,” Wieczorek cautioned.

“We’re sending out about 30,000 letters,” she said, “but right after the lawmakers leave, our workload drops off a cliff.”

While the mail center of the Legislative Services Office was abuzz with correspondence to and from Idaho’s politicians during the session, after the members pack their bags, the room grows quiet. Wieczorek seemed excited to spend more time at home.

“Everybody in this office is retired; this is just seasonal employment for us,” she said. “This year, I’m going on a trip to the Oregon coast for a week with my husband, and on a trip to Michigan, where we’ll pop over to Canada.”

A U.S. District Court Judge has cleared the way for federal prosecutors to proceed with their case against Athol Republican Rep. Phil Hart for failing to pay income taxes.

Justice Edward Lodge handed down three orders today, all in favor the U.S. Government and against Hart. The north Idaho lawmaker had argued that feds should have been barred for serving him with a notice of deficiency while the Idaho Legislature was in session. Additionally, Hart had sought to have tax assessments reduced and foreclosure stalled on a parcel of his property in Kootenai County.

Lodge ordered that there be no more delays in the matter and presented Hart with a firm schedule:

-Final discovery should be completed by June 4.
-Pre-trial motions, responses and reply briefs must be filed by Aug. 6.
-The trial date has been set for 9:30 a.m. on Tuesday Nov. 6 - Election Day - in Coeur d'Alene federal court.

Moving day at the Idaho Legislature is a mixed bag of emotions - some emotion, some frustration and plenty or relief.

When the Idaho Senate adjourned Thursday at 7 p.m. (four hours after the House gaveled for the final time), it closed a session that included tax breaks for Idaho's wealthiest individuals and corporations, some restoration of public school teachers' salaries, a couple of anti-Occupy bills, and a package of new rules to govern the state's burgeoning oil and gas industry.

But the Legislature also had some significant shortfalls - refusal to hold a hearing on the Add the Words measure, yet another House stall on an anti-bullying bill, and despite pleas from the Legislature's only physicians, a refusal to restrict indoor tanning for minors in an attempt to rein in some of the highest levels of melanoma in the nation.

Ultimately, the final day of business also included more than a few farewells. Nearly 40 legislators said goodbye, choosing to step away from the Statehouse after this session. Several of their colleagues may join them once all the dust has settled in the May primary and November general election.

The Senate has approved three resolutions related to the legacy of the ethics allegations against New Plymouth Republican Sen. Monty Pearce, who disclosed a possible conflict of interest only after committee hearings on bills related to oil and gas drilling, .

Pearce negotiated personal agreements with an oil and gas exploration company before shepherding oil and gas-related legislation through his Senate Resources and Environment Committee. Senate Democrats lodged an ethics complaint, saying Pearce should have disclosed a conflict of interest in committee long before considering the legislation.

Early today, the Senate unveiled resolutions 105, 106 and 107 related to ethics investigations, the removal of Senate employees, and the resulting investigation after an ethics complaint is filed.

"I really regret that I'm one of the last people between you and sine die," said Boise Democrat Sen. Les Bock. "But I do have some debate, and it's important debate. These are weighty matters. I think we need to stop and pause in the rush to head out the door, and think about what we're doing."

With the specter of an imminent sine die looming over the proceedings, the Senate sped through the first two resolutions quickly; however, they slowed when the body took up a measure that would establish a closed-door committee to establish probable cause of ethics allegations.

"This would require probable cause if misconduct has occurred, and whether or not some action should be taken by the committee or by the Senate," said Idaho Falls Republican Sen. Bart Davis.

Yet opponents of Senate Resolution 107 said that the provision allowing a tie vote in the partisan six-member ethics committee to result in the dropping of charges disenfranchises allegations brought by a rival political party.

"In the dark, on a party-line vote, a party can squash any ethics complaint," said Boise Democrat Sen. Nicole LeFavour. "The party can ensure any party is not capable of filing an ethics complaint."

Critics also asked why a rule related to the body would be crafted at the last minute, and without minority party input. One senator received a copy of the resolution just the morning before it was taken up by the Senate.

"There was no intent to leave the minority party out of the process. We did try to include you; maybe we could have tried longer and harder," said Hill.

All three resolutions passed along party lines, 28-7.

Coeur d'Alene Republican Sen. Jim Hammond summed it up:

"Let's genuinely make these improvement. And we'll come back next year, those of us who do, and we can look at it again, said Hammond. "It's a good step forward."

Just before 3 p.m. today, the Idaho House voted to adjourn sine die, which means "without a day," for the 2012 session. Speaker Lawerence Denney banged the gavel and the body applauded the end of work for the House.

The adjournment came after the body moved through nine outstanding bills, including three new JFAC bills, the teacher salary bill, as well as Coeur d'Alene Republican Rep. Bob Nonini's youth challenge bill, which eventually failed.

Across the rotunda, the Senate picked up a suite of resolutions related to ethics. Among them, Senate Resolution 106 would deal with removal of Senate employees and the handling of future ethics complaints in the wake of an ethics allegation lodged against New Plymouth Republican Sen. Monty Pearce.

The Senate today passed another measure aimed at ousting the Occupiers in front of the Old Ada County Courthouse. House Bill 693 passed 28-7, with all Senate Democrats and some Republicans voting against the bill.

Consideration of the bill was short, the reading dispensed with by Nampa Republican Sen. Curt McKenzie. He said that while the law would give the Department of Administration the power to make rules governing state property, and the ability to sue individuals who continually violate those rules, it isn't aimed at Occupy Boise.

"You cannot do by rule what you can’t do by statute," said Sen. McKenzie. "If there is a constitutional limitation on what we could do, with regard to any type of speech or assembly, or petition to the Legislature, they couldn’t make a rule that would affect that."

However, Ketchum Democrat Sen. Michelle Stennett questioned giving Teresa Luna and the Department of Admininstration final say on Capitol Mall lands.

"It’s putting a lot of power in one director over the entire complex," said Sen. Stennett. "They could sue not just on a threat, but on the perception of a threat. There is no authority [for the Legislature] to undo that."

The Legislature may adjourn sine die by this afternoon.

Republican Majority Leader Idaho Falls Republican Sen. Bart Davis stood before his colleagues this morning and optimistically predicted that the Senate could be sine die later today.

Presenting his so-called road map of what's ahead for lawmakers, Davis said that the full Senate should be considering, among a half-dozen other measures, House Bill 693, the latest anti-Occupy Boise bill, which would immediately grant greater authority to the director of the Department of Administration over activities and behavior on state property around the Capitol Mall.

Later today, Davis said senators should be taking up House Bill 563, approved earlier this morning by the Senate Local Government and Taxation Committee, which would cut $35.7 million in state income taxes for Idaho's top earners.

Davis also said that lawmakers should soon have before them the three Senate ethics bills, passed this morning by the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Following a robust morning debate before the Senate Local Government and Taxation Committee, lawmakers voted 6-3 to approve House Bill 563, a $35.7 million income tax cut for Idaho's top earners - including single individuals who make more than $36,000 a year. For a married couple with no dependents, it would be $72,520. Approximately 17 percent of those who file income tax returns could benefit.

David Hensley, Gov. C.L. "Butch" Otter's chief of staff, told the committee that Otter supported cutting taxes on Idaho's top tier to stimulate job growth.

"Tax relief is a first step," said Hensley.

But Boise Democratic Sen. Elliot Werk wasn't so certain.

"I haven't seen anything that indicates there would be a single job created," said Werk.

Ultimately, one Republican, Mountain Home Sen. Tim Corder, the chairman of the committee, joined Democratic Sens. Werk and Diane Bilyeu in voting "no." All of Corder's GOP colleagues supported the measure and sent it to the full Senate for consideration. The bill has already passed through the House.

As Idaho lawmakers craft an exit plan from the Statehouse, members of the Senate Judiciary Committee took up three last-minute bills this morning involving the hottest topic of this year's session: ethics.

One, clearly the result of this month's ethics investigation into New Plymouth Republican Sen. Monty Pearce, would require full conflict-of-interest disclosures in committee hearings, as well as on the Senate floor. Pearce was accused of not disclosing his personal lease agreement with an oil and gas exploration company while, at the same time shepherding oil and gas legislation through the Senate Resources and Environment Committee, where he serves as chairman. The ethics complaint was dismissed, but Pearce admitted later he should have disclosed in committee.

A second ethics-related measure introduced this morning removes a requirement of a two-thirds majority vote by the full Senate to dismiss a Senate employee.

A third bill would filter all Senate ethics complaints through a Senate Ethics Committee before deciding on a full investigation. The committee would meet in closed-door executive session without any public access.

All three measures passed through committee and are heading to the full Senate for consideration.