Today's headlines:
- In his visit to Coeur d'Alene, Gov. Brad Little says legislators are "seeing the wisdom" of his recommendations to avoid further cuts to public education.
- Washington's Senate passes restrictions on automated license plate readers as concerns rise over data access by federal immigration agents.
- A Washington House committee OKs a task force to reduce red tape and stressors on farmers.
- The Trump administration uses the same playbook to keep a western Washington prosecutor as it used for Pete Serrano in the Eastern District.
- WSU researchers say their new tool will help better monitor snowpack.
Washington allows direct democracy through its citizen initiative process. Some Democrats in Olympia want to make it harder to file one of those ballot measures. But does that amount to voter suppression as some Republicans claim? We hear from Gonzaga Law Prof. Michael Cecil, who studies constitutional law.
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SPR News Today is a production of Spokane Public Radio.
Reporting contributed by Eliza Billingham, Owen Henderson, Doug Nadvornick, Amy Radil and Steve Jackson.
The show is hosted and produced by Owen Henderson.
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TRANCRIPT
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OWEN HENDERSON: From Spokane Public Radio, it’s SPR News Today.
I’m Owen Henderson. It’s Thursday, February 5, 2026.
On today’s show, Idaho’s legislature is working through a budget crunch in Boise, but Governor Brad Little is promoting his priorities in a tour that stopped in Coeur d’Alene yesterday.
And an eastern Washington lawmaker is pushing to reduce stressors on the state’s farmers as the suicide rate rises among growers.
Plus, Washington allows direct democracy through its citizen initiative process. Some Democrats in Olympia want to make it harder to file one of those ballot measures. But does that amount to voter suppression as some Republicans claim? We’ll hear from a constitutional law scholar
Those stories and more, coming up on SPR News Today.
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Idaho lawmakers are stuck in Boise trying to decide what to do about an impending budget deficit. But Governor Brad Little is touring the state to promote his priorities.
As SPR’s Eliza Billingham reports, he stopped in Coeur d’Alene yesterday.
ELIZA BILLINGHAM: Little says the budget writing committee is “seeing the wisdom” in his recommendation—his words—not to cut public education further.
Idaho faces a budget deficit of unknown magnitude as it conforms to tax exemptions in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act.
Legislators put K-12 funding on the chopping block this week. But they quickly walked it back after outcry from educators.
They are still considering an additional 1 or 2 percent cut beyond the tightened budget that Little proposed.
But the governor and the committee agree on not dipping into Idaho’s rainy day fund.
BRAD LITTLE: “We're keeping money in the bank… that's what fiscal responsibility looks like. It's a very Idaho thing to do.”
EB: Little said despite the difficult budget season, it doesn’t constitute an emergency.
BL: “It is not raining now. My receipts for sales tax, my receipts for personal income tax are going up. It's not raining.”
EB: The budget committee is set to start voting on specific cuts Friday morning.
I’m Eliza Billingham, reporting.
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OH: Washington’s Senate has approved regulations for automated license plate readers—or ALPRs.
Many local police departments have adopted the technology in recent years, putting up the cameras on patrol cars and street poles.
But concerns have been mounting over outside access to the data ALPRs gather, especially by federal immigration agents.
A report this fall showed police departments across western and central Washington allowed U.S. Border Patrol to use their license plate databases. And in some cases, Border Patrol got backdoor access without specific permission.
Ten Republicans including Spokane’s Jeff Holy joined all 30 Democrats to pass the Senate bill.
It limits data sharing and requires departments to delete data within 21 days, unless it’s needed for police evidence.
The bill now moves to the House.
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A new task force to reduce red tape in the agriculture industry is a step closer to reality in Washington after a House committee OKed the idea.
An eastern Washington legislator says it’s one remedy to help reduce the stress on struggling farmers. SPR’s Doug Nadvornick reports.
DOUG NADVORNICK: Here’s why Colfax Republican Representative Joe Schmick thinks this is a big deal.
JOE SCHMICK: “Agriculture suicide is three times the rate than it is in the general populace. If you've been living in a small community for any length of time, you would be hard pressed not to know a grower or someone in the grower's family has not committed suicide.”
DN: Schmick is a member of a work group studying suicide in farm families. He says farmers struggle with rising costs and neverending government rules. They have to compete with corporate farms. And then there’s the generational pressure.
JS: “Hey, it's your turn to keep this alive. Your grandparents did, my parents did, I did, it's your turn.”
DN: Schmick proposes to expand W-S-U’s farmer-specific suicide hotline, making it available 24/7.
I’m Doug Nadvornick reporting.
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OH: The Trump administration is following the same playbook it used in eastern Washington to retain the top prosecutor west of the Cascades.
Charles Neil Floyd became Seattle’s interim U-S attorney in October, but now he’s the “First Assistant U-S Attorney.”
The Justice Department changed his title on Monday, the day before his interim appointment expired, allowing him to remain in his post without Senate confirmation.
Similarly, as Pete Serrano’s six-month appointment as interim attorney in Eastern Washington was ending, Attorney General Pam Bondi gave him two new titles: Special Attorney to the U.S. AG and the First Assistant U.S. Attorney for Washington’s Eastern District.
Federal judges in Seattle say they will appoint a new U.S. Attorney this spring. That person could function as Floyd’s superior if he stays with the office.
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Washington State University researchers have developed a new tool to more accurately determine the amount of snow and water in the mountains.
Current snowpack monitoring involves more than 800 stations in the western U-S. But they’re sparsely distributed.
Associate Professor Kirti Rajagopalan says the new system uses artificial intelligence to analyze data from previous years snow pack.
She says it gives more accurate readings, and even predicts future snow conditions.
KIRTI RAJAGOPALAN: “I think it is significant because most water availability forecasts right now predominantly use the current state of snow and not the forecast. So I think this is something that can play an important tool.”
SJ: The researchers are developing a dashboard water managers can use to get real-time forecasting on streamflows for a given date.
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OH: The Citizen Initiative is a well-established part of Washington's policymaking process. Right now, anyone who wants to can bring an initiative to the legislature in Olympia or to voters.
They just have to gather a certain number of signatures in support of their measure and bring those to the Secretary of State's office for verification.
If enough signatures are valid, the initiative is sent to state lawmakers who can either approve the measure or send it to the ballot for voters to decide.
But this legislative session, some Democrats are advancing a bill that would make filing an initiative at all harder.
With me now to talk through what changes that could bring and why some opponents are calling it a voter suppression bill is Michael Cecil, an assistant law professor at Gonzaga University, where he studies constitutional law.
Prof. Cecil, thank you so much for being here.
MICHAEL CECIL: My pleasure.
OH: So let's really quickly recap some of the major tenets of the bill, which has already been approved by a Senate committee.
MC: Sure. So the bill coming out of committee concerned two principal things.
The first thing was eliminating the kind of pay for play ballot initiative signature process.
This would shift from a pay for play based on signature to more of an hourly basis.
Now, in theory, the argument is this would disincentivize aggressive signature tactics from kind of your boots on the ground type of approach.
The second part concerns the 1,000 voter signature pre-step. And so what this does is require 1,000 voters in Washington before those ballots actually get produced to sign saying they affirm that they want this bill to be placed on a ballot initiative.
OH: This actually isn't the first time Washington has tried to ban the per signature payment. I think in 1993, the state legislature voted to ban per signature payments.
That was struck down the very next year in the courts. Tell us a little bit about first, why was that one struck down?
And then how, if at all, is this any different?
MC: So I think in the ’90s, there was a bill very similar in this kind of banning pay for play signature acquisition for the initiative process.
And that was struck down or enjoined on First Amendment grounds, right?
So there's a big question as to, can a state limit how you structure direct democracy initiatives and how you fund people who actually acquire signatures?
The question is, does that infringe upon political speech?
It's very likely you would have a First Amendment challenge raising very similar arguments that changing this pay structure does actually infringe upon political speech, money being considered speech in our current political climate and kind of legal climate.
So I would imagine it would face the same legal challenges as in the ’90s.
OH: If money is speech, but there's also an interest in people understanding properly what it is they're signing in support of, it seems like we might be entering a little bit of a First Amendment gray area here.
Tell me a little bit more about that tension.
MC: With this bill, there's a debate as to how does the First Amendment play a role in curtailing one's ability to explain what a bill does?
If you're standing outside a Fred Meyer or a Target and you're seeking signatures for a ballot initiative, the First Amendment would always allow or defend your ability to explain what a bill does to a voter.
Whether or not your truth over a bill's merits is different than mine is where the First Amendment would say, well, you can't regulate what someone thinks a bill does and what doesn't, right?
So this is where the problem comes in. And I think the bill's sponsor was raising the question of, is the initiative process being utilized as a tool to circumvent the common good?
OH: You know, we've talked a little bit generally about the policy and about the First Amendment, but this is all happening in a state where over the last several years, a conservative organization, Let's Go Washington, and its hedge fund manager founder, Brian Heywood, have successfully brought initiatives both to the legislature and to voters on issues like parental rights in schools or asking voters to repeal the Climate Commitment Act. He's bringing another two this year.
We don't need to talk about those specifically, but I think a very cynical read of the situation might be that the Left doesn't like this signature gathering machine this conservative activist has built.
And so they're trying to restrain the tool he's using—some may say unconstitutionally.
I believe the term used by former Secretary of State Sam Reed was that it's a “voter suppression bill.” I'm curious how that reads to you.
MC: There's always a tension with democracy and direct democracy efforts. I would suggest that the right move is not to curtail the speech of those who are pursuing ballot initiatives, but to organize and inform counter initiatives or provide greater information as to what those initiatives are attempting to do.
I do think there is merit to creating a fairer process into how the initiative process takes place.
Political views on questions, you know, span the spectrum, right? We're not always going to agree on the right political solution.
I don't think the answer is to create structures that, under the valence of combating fraud, curtail one's ability to speak or engage in the democratic process.
I would caution the claims of voter suppression with this bill. Every state has a legislature. Not every state has direct democracy avenues.
It's not voter suppression to create fairer processes or to structure the engagement of the direct democracy initiative.
It is voter suppression to prevent someone from voting, right?
So there's a very powerful but important distinction to make.
I'm not suggesting there aren't potential procedural hurdles to voting in the initiative process. That to me is a fair assessment.
But to suggest it's voter suppression, to me, takes it a bit too far.
OH: Professor Michael Cecil teaches constitutional law at Gonzaga University.
Thank you so much for coming by and sharing your thoughts.
MC: My pleasure. Thank you.
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OH: SPR News Today is a production of Spokane Public Radio.
Reporting today was contributed by Eliza Billingham, Doug Nadvornick, Amy Radil, Steve Jackson and me, Owen Henderson. I’m also the host and producer.
Thanks for listening.
It’s SPR.
