BOISE - From new limits on abortion to rapid-fire salvos targeting Congress' health care reforms, Idaho's conservative Republican-led Legislature shifted further right during the 2011 session - just as voters mandated last November.

The GOP picked up five seats in the House and added conservatives to its Senate roster in an election that became a springboard to extending its legislative dominance.

One of the key players, second-term Rep. Judy Boyle, R-Midvale, didn't get everything she wanted. For example, her push to declare the federal health insurance overhaul null and void was watered down due to concerns by the state attorney general that it was illegal.

Still, Boyle got her way most of the time. She agreed that GOP lawmakers in Boise this year legislated more closely than at any time in recent history to the state Republican Party platform, which advocates giving government only the money necessary to provide what they deem appropriate functions - and no more.

"Those five seats did make a difference," Boyle said, after the House adjourned after 88 days, the seventh longest session in Idaho history. "The electorate said, 'This is what we want.'"

What struck observers and participants alike this session was an air of inevitability about many bills, like anti-union measures that included forbidding labor organizations from using membership dues to subsidize wages to help union contractors win projects.

Or restricting abortions at 20 weeks following fertilization, on grounds fetuses can feel pain.

Or closing the state's GOP primary elections to outside voters.

Or giving Gov. Butch Otter authority to declare an emergency over Idaho's wolves, a recipe for lethal actions against the roughly 800 predators that many rural Republicans see as the bane of their existence.

It wasn't if those measures would pass, it was when.

The same goes for Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Luna's education reforms for the state's 115 school districts and charter schools and 278,600 students. Flash back only three years to 2008. That's the year Luna failed at his first shot at education reform through the Senate, on a 16-19 vote.

What changed? The lawmakers.

Republican Sen. Mitch Toryanski replaced Democrat Kate Kelly in Boise; Lee Heider of Twin Falls jettisoned GOP centrist Charles Coiner; Chuck Winder of Boise knocked off Stan Bastian of Eagle; Bert Brackett replaced Tom Gannon; Melinda Smyser replaced Brad Little when he became lieutenant governor. The list goes on.

These new arrivals have turned the Senate into a conservative echo of the House.

Smyser, R-Parma, said keeping spending in check - lopping $35 million off the state's share of Medicaid, or $47 million from public education to help fill budget holes - is never easy, but it's needed if lawmakers are going to meet their constitutional obligation to balance the budget.

All this is a part of a pendulum swing, she said, with Republicans attempting to turn back a culture of entitlement where people - even in GOP-leaning Idaho - came to expect government to get them out of a jam.

"It's a change in our whole society," she said. "You have to learn to take care of yourself."

Downtrodden Democrats, numbering just 20 in the entire expanse of the Capitol where they're surrounded by 85 Republicans, called this the worst session in memory.

They lamented the education and Medicaid cuts, but could put up only token opposition as thousands of teachers marched in protest outside.

They failed to win a hearing on a measure to raise the cigarette tax meant to reduce youth smoking and raise $50 million to help plug budget holes - even though it was a Republican, Rep. Dennis Lake, R-Blackfoot, who had originally sponsored the bill. Lake finally concluded the measure didn't have the votes, so there was no reason to unveil it for an initial hearing.

That infuriated Democrats, who accused Republicans of stifling debate over sound ideas, even if they are destined to fail.

"It's about power. It's not about policy," said House Minority Leader John Rusche, D-Lewiston. "I'm glad it's over."

Democrats seem incredulous at the things Republicans feel are important to their constituents.

"Any party that sponsors legislation to put guns on college campuses, who essentially equates the affordable health care act to Adolf Hitler, that is a party that does not deserve to be in power," said Senate assistant Minority Leader Les Bock, D-Boise.

But Republicans - the conservative ones - are in power, and that's not likely to change.

Case in point: Just before the session adjourned on Thursday, House Majority Leader Lawerence Denney ousted GOP Reps. Leon Smith of Twin Falls and Tom Trail of Moscow from their leadership posts on the House Transportation and Agricultural Affairs committees. He installed instead Reps. Joe Palmer of Meridian and Ken Andrus of Lava Hot Springs.

The reason behind the purge: Smith and Trail broke ranks too often with party colleagues on procedural votes.

"Everybody gets a free pass or two," Denney said, adding multiple offenses carry "consequences."