Adds to existing law to provide for an occupational and professional licensure review committee, to provide for universal licensure, to provide that a person with a criminal conviction may inquire about the potential to become licensed in a profession or occupation, and to provide for evaluation of criminal convictions and language regarding persons with criminal convictions.

This legislation comes from the work of the Occupational Licensing Reform Interim Committee. This legislation seeks to enhance competition and apply standards to evaluate new proposed regulation in the form of new licensure or registration of occupations. As a three year pilot, the legislation establishes a licensing review committee. Those proposing new regulation via licensure will be required to demonstrate the following to that committee: 1) Why new licensing is necessary for health, safety and welfare; 2) why the proposed licensure or regulation is the least restrictive means to protect health, safety and welfare; 3) why the public cannot be protected by other means; 4) whether the overall costs and economic impacts are outweighed by the benefits of the proposed regulation; and 5) whether the proposed regulation will have a negative impact on job creation, retention or wages or place an unreasonable restriction on the ability of an individual to practice their profession. The committee is compromised of legislators that will review all new proposed regulation/licensure and make a non-binding recommendation to the House and Senate. It provides for a universal licensure process to facilitate the efficient transfer of licenses between states to help fill needed positions in Idaho. The bill provides that a criminal conviction must be relevant to the occupation and license requested. This provides an individual with an opportunity to inquire in advance, based on current and accurate information, whether their criminal conviction may disqualify them from obtaining a license, registration etc. Finally the legislation removes blanket felony exclusions and old ambiguous terms regarding crimes of "moral character" or "moral turpitude" as disqualifiers for licensure and replaces those outdated terms with the criminal relevancy analysis under the Occupational Licensing Reform Act.