Barbieri / Gardens / Hart (ID-ALEC) - Double Dipping???????

BOISE – Five Idaho lawmakers attended the American Legislative Exchange Council’s annual conference in Salt Lake City last week, but only two – Rep. Vito Barbieri, R-Dalton Gardens, and outgoing Rep. Phil Hart, R-Athol – went at state expense.

The others either traveled at their own expense or got scholarships from ALEC, a group that brings together business interests and state lawmakers to work on policy issues.

Considering that ALEC Exposed / PR Watch reported that PhRMA put over $350,000 worth of money into the Wisconsin scholarship fund – I have to really wonder how much money is in the Idaho scholarship fund - available for Idaho legislators to use for FREE trips to ALEC meetings.

If Idaho has a lucrative scholarship fund like Wisconsin – EVERYONE ONE OF THEM can be reimbursed for their expenses to and at the ALEC Annual meeting, from the scholarship fund.

So – Idaho – are Barbieri and Gardens and Hart – double-dipping?????????????
And why is the state paying for "out-going" Hart to attend an ALEC meeting??????????????

From the ALEC bylaws –

Taxpayers foot the bill for the ALEC Annual meeting??????

And then ALEC pays for

Travel

Room and tax and

Registration

also?????????????

And the scholarship reimbursement checks can be mailed to the legislators homes.