Bill Description: Senate Bill 1025 would replace marriage licenses with the recording of a marriage certificate with the county recorder. 

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NOTE: The amendments to Senate Bill 1025 do not change our rating or substantively change the analysis of the bill.

Does it transfer a function of the private sector to the government? Examples include government ownership or control of any providers of goods or services such as the Land Board’s purchase of a self-storage facility, mandatory emissions testing, or pre-kindergarten. Conversely, does it eliminate a function of government or return a function of government to the private sector?

Senate Bill 1025 would amend eleven sections of Idaho Code, repeal nine, and create one. The purpose of these numerous changes would be to remove marriage licenses from Idaho Code and to replace them with "the filing of a marriage certificate with the county recorder." 

The bill keeps all existing age limits related to marriage. It also keeps the same fees that are currently associated with a marriage license, so there should be no fiscal impact.

The degree to which Senate Bill 1025 would reduce the involvement of government in the process of marriage may depend largely on how an individual personally regards seeking a license to marry before solemnization versus simply filing paperwork after the fact stating that the marriage has already take place. 

The fees and limitations that apply to current marriage license but on who may marry apply, but moving the required government paperwork after the solemnization may provide a degree of comfort to some while doing little to appease those who regard any government involvement in marriage to be a sacrilege.

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Does it directly or indirectly create or increase penalties for victimless crimes or non-restorative penalties for nonviolent crimes? Conversely, does it eliminate or decrease penalties for victimless crimes or non-restorative penalties for non-violent crimes?

Among the Idaho Code sections which Senate Bill 1025 would repeal is Section 32-406 which criminalizes, as a misdemeanor, the solemnization of a marriage between parties without a marriage license.

Because the filing of a marriage certificate comes after the solemnization of a marriage, there would be no obligation for the person solemnizing the marriage to review a marriage license beforehand. 

Senate Bill 1025 amends Section 32-306, Idaho Code, to require the person solemnizing the marriage to give to each of the parties a certificate, in a form prescribed by law, and to file this certificate with "the office of the recorder of the county wherein the solemnization occurred within thirty (30) days from the date of solemnizing the marriage."

Senate Bill 1025 amends Section 32-415, Idaho Code, which makes violations of the act a misdemeanor, to add the same penalties of "a fine of not less than fifty dollars ($50.00) and not more than two hundred dollars ($200)" as those contained in the repealed Section 32-406.

[The amendments to Senate Bill 1025 removed the specified penalties.]

The overall effects of these changes appear to largely offset as the person solemnizing the marriage still bears some legal responsibilities, which carry criminal penalties for noncompliance. 

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