The Legislature moved quickly to pass a “medical freedom” law — in a last-day-of-the-session push to send a rewrite to Gov. Brad Little.
The House amended and passed Senate Bill 1210 to the floor Friday. The Senate passed the amended bill Friday afternoon, sending it to Little, who promptly signed it.
The flurry of legislative activity occurred on the 89th and final day of the 2025 session. At 3:46 p.m., the House adjourned for the year. The Senate followed suit at 4:40 p.m. Little signed SB 1210 at 4:42 p.m.
Both of the key changes in SB 1210 address health protocols in schools.
The main thrust, for K-12 schools and higher education, remained untouched. Schools would not be allowed to mandate a “medical intervention” in order to attend class, enter a campus or school building, or take a job at a campus or school.
But this section of the bill also refers back to several existing pieces of state law. One of those laws allows public schools to send home students “who are diagnosed or suspected as having a contagious or infectious disease,” and allows administrators to close a school during a disease outbreak.
One amendment extends these same rights to private and parochial schools.
A second amendment addresses unvaccinated students. “Notwithstanding any other provision of law to the contrary, under no circumstance may a healthy person be excluded in a disease outbreak due to such person’s vaccination status.” Existing state law does allow allows schools to exclude students “who are not immune and have been exposed to a contagious or infectious disease.”
When the House State Affairs Committee took up the bill Friday morning, the bill’s sponsor tried to draw a distinction between what the bill would allow — and what it wouldn’t allow. Schools and businesses would be allowed to turn away students, employees or customers who are sick, said Sen. Dan Foreman, R-Moscow. But they would not be allowed to require a medical treatment, such as a vaccination.
The committee’s two Democrats — Reps. Brooke Green and Todd Achilles, both of Boise — said the bill was vaguely worded. Green said she was worried that the bill would prevent private daycare centers from preventing the spread of communicable diseases.
Green, Achilles and Rep. Stephanie Mickelsen, R-Idaho Falls, supported a motion to derail the bill, but the committee’s other Republicans opposed the move. The committee then voted unanimously to send the bill to the floor for amendment.
The House amendment process was contentious. Mickelsen and other moderate Republicans pushed an amendment designed to shield businesses from liability. Rep. Brent Crane, R-Nampa, said the language would threaten a fragile truce between the House, the Senate, and Little, who had vetoed an earlier version of the “medical freedom” bill last week.
“We have an ironclad agreement,” said Crane, House State Affairs’ chairman. “This is a hostile amendment and it could potentially take down this bill.”
The amendment failed, and the House passed the bill soon after. Achilles was the only lawmaker to debate.
Despite the amendments, the bill remains “deeply flawed,” he said. “Look at the definition of ‘medical intervention.’ It’s still the same overly broad definition. You can’t diagnose, you can’t prevent, you can’t cure.”
The House passed the bill, 44-23. Within about an hour, the Senate agreed to the amendments and passed the bill, without debate, on a 27-6 vote.
The Legislature’s last-day rush on “medical freedom” came six days after Little pressed the issue with his only veto of the session, to date. Little said he believed the first bill, Senate Bill 1023, would handcuff school officials during a disease outbreak.
