Reference · Legislative Record
FS-2026-ID-0001
The legislative
record.
Three bills. Twelve recorded votes. Twenty-six months between authorizing the rifle as a backup and making it the default. This is the paper trail.
Firing squad authorized as alternative method
Passed after IDOC informed the legislature that pentobarbital could no longer be obtained. Framed as a backstop; sponsors publicly disclaimed any intent to make the firing squad the default.
Appropriation for F-Block retrofit ($1.28M)
Line-item appropriation to the Idaho Department of Correction for capital construction: gun ports, sandbag wall, restraint chair, blast shielding, and shooter compartment ventilation.
Firing squad as primary method of execution
Inverts the hierarchy: firing squad becomes Idaho's default; lethal injection is available only if the firing squad is impossible, unconstitutional, or otherwise unavailable. Applies retroactively to every prisoner on Idaho's death row at the effective date.
HB 37 · vote-by-vote
The path through the statehouse.
The floor debate
What was said, and what was not.
Sponsors framed the bill as a solution to a supply problem. Opponents pointed out that the supply problem was itself created by the moral objections of the pharmaceutical industry — that the state was legislating around the conscience of its suppliers rather than reconsidering the underlying act. Neither side seriously disputed what the room in Kuna would look like once built.
"We are not choosing a new method. We are choosing to be honest about what we have always been doing."— Rep. Bruce Skaug, floor statement, February 18, 2025
"The bullet does not solve the moral problem. It only relieves the pharmacist of it."— Sen. Melissa Wintrow, floor statement, March 5, 2025