The Idaho Legislature is taking a historic 18-day recess after a rash of coronavirus cases in the Idaho House of Representatives.

3.19.21.- In a very brief floor session, the House voted at 10:45 a.m. Friday to recess until noon on April 6, then promptly adjourned. The move, approved by voice vote, was made in concurrence with the Senate, said House Majority Leader Mike Moyle, R-Star

Shortly before 11 a.m., the Senate convened, and Majority Leader Kelly Anthon said the Senate would recess “in concurrence with the request from the House of Representatives.”

The abrupt moves came after at least six House members tested positive for coronavirus within the past week. The recess also comes as lawmakers were trying to wrap up work for the year, aiming for a possible March 26 adjournment.

Democratic lawmakers and pages mill around on the Senate floor Friday morning, as the Legislature considers a two-week recess due to a coronavirus outbreak.

“This is a historic and kind of unusual request that’s been made of us,” said Senate President Pro Tem Chuck Winder, R-Boise, during the Senate’s perfunctory 20-minute floor session Friday.

But, as Winder noted, a joint legislative recess is not unprecedented. Senators requested a 10-day recess in 2000, when Senate President Pro Tem Jerry Twiggs died of a heart attack during a morning run, hours before the first day of the session was slated to begin.

For weeks, some lawmakers had already been talking about taking a recess and then reconvening in the spring. They had hoped to concentrate a spring session on the newly passed American Rescue Plan Act, and how the state should spend its multibillion-dollar infusion of federal stimulus dollars.

“We arrived there maybe just a little bit earlier than we thought we would,” said Anthon, R-Burley.

‘We still have work to do’

Anthon said he hoped lawmakers would work through the recess from their home districts, and return ready to resolve the important issues still on the Legislature’s docket, such as tax cuts and transportation funding.

“We need to emphasize that none of the things will be left undone, it just presses pause,” House Speaker Scott Bedke said in a news conference Friday morning. “Calendars, committee agendas … bills will be here when we get back. We still have work to do.”

Bedke, R-Oakley, said he’s directed House committee chairs to “finish what (they) have in the pipeline,” come April, but added new legislation will be considered on a case-by-case basis.

A highly anticipated proposal to fund all-day kindergarten was not introduced before the recess. Bedke said he’s receptive to that piece of legislation and expects it to be on the House Education Committee agenda the first day lawmakers are back to work.

‘We could have done so much better than this’

Over the past seven days, at least six House members have tested positive for coronavirus: House Education Committee Chairman Lance Clow, R-Twin Falls; House Education Vice Chairman Ryan Kerby, R-New Plymouth; Julie Yamamoto, a Caldwell Republican and House Education member; Bruce Skaug, R-Nampa; Greg Chaney, R-Caldwell; and James Ruchti, D-Pocatello. Bedke said Friday that at least one Statehouse staff member also tested positive for COVID-19.

“Once it got in the building, it spread through the building, basically in two committees,” Bedke said.

House Education was one area of spread, and the House Judiciary, Rules and Administration appears to be the other. Chaney chairs that committee; Kerby, Ruchti and Skaug are committee members.

Clow, Kerby, Skaug and Yamamoto all appointed interim lawmakers to take their place. But when the House gaveled into session at about 10:40 a.m., only 61 of its 70 members were on the floor.

“I’m glad we are taking a pause as the spread accelerates,” House Assistant Minority Leader Lauren Necochea, D-Boise, tweeted before the floor session. “We could have done so much better than this.”

Bedke said he wasn’t surprised at the outbreak, but that he had “no regrets” about Statehouse safety protocols. The Legislature did not mandate its members to wear face coverings, and lawmakers adhered to social distancing guidelines only sporadically.

“I will never tell my peers what to do with their lives,” Bedke said. “We could have been a little more careful. I’m not saying we did everything perfectly, but we did pretty well.”

But by noon Friday, the Statehouse hallways were ghostly. Capitol security sat alone in the hallways, passed now and then by a lone legislator taking a call or leaving the building. Statehouse staffers turned off lights and microphones in committee rooms and grabbed plants on their way out the door so the greenery wouldn’t die unattended over the recess.