Gov. Brad Little and Lt. Gov. Scott Bedke were among the speakers during the 77th annual Associated Taxpayers of Idaho conference Wednesday in downtown Boise.

Speaking to a politically savvy, influential audience, Little and Bedke highlighted the Idaho Legislature’s efforts to cut property taxes, reduce income taxes, bolster the state’s rainy day savings accounts and spend down a record state surplus through investments in public education, state parks, roads and infrastructure projects.

“We have in recent years offered more tax relief per capita than any other state,” Little said.

Governor touts Idaho Launch program as way to meet the needs of in-demand careers

During his almost 20-minute speech, Little highlighted his Idaho Launch grant program. Idaho Launch provides Idaho high school seniors with up to $8,000 they can use for career-technical education, workforce training programs, two-year colleges or four-year colleges for in-demand careers. The Idaho Legislature expanded the Idaho Launch program during the 2023 legislative session by passing House Bill 24.

“The one limitation on the workforce that I hear is … that we have got to have more skilled workers,” Little said.

“For every single Idaho kid who walks across the podium in May and gets their (high school) diploma, there’s going to be resources for them to go on to become a welder, to become an electrician, to become a lineman, plus all the traditional jobs,” Little added.

Officials highlight Idaho past budget surpluses

During his speech, Bedke highlighted how the Idaho Legislature used the state’s record $2 billion surplus from 2022.

“So what did we do with all that money?” Bedke asked. “We invested back in Idaho. We returned money back to our taxpayers back-to-back-to-back times. We paid off every callable bond that we could. We filled up every savings account that we could. We changed the law to make the savings accounts larger to accommodate more money. We invested back into our roads and bridges and our water systems – all the vital, strategic infrastructure that the state needs going into the future. We invested back into our schools, our kids. And we’ve done that in what I think is a very responsible way.”

Neither Little nor Bedke unveiled any specific new policy proposals for the 2024 legislative session on Wednesday.

Little did say Idaho’s days of record, billion-dollar surpluses are likely in the past because of multiple rounds of tax cuts that reduce state revenue collections.

Associated Taxpayers of Idaho is a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization that represents taxpayers’ perspectives to policymakers through research and education.

First held in 1946, the conference attracts a who’s who among Idaho’s business and political leaders. For decades the conference has had a reputation for serving as the unofficial kickoff to Idaho’s annual legislative session, which begins next year on Jan. 8.

Other speakers and panelists at Wednesday’s conference included Little, Bedke, Idaho Secretary of State Phil McGrane, State Controller Brandon Woolf, Ada County Assessor Rebecca Arnold and Speaker of the Idaho House Mike Moyle, R-Star.

Little’s father, David Little, was one of the founding members of Associated Taxpayers of Idaho.

During his presentation, McGrane discussed several new data visualization reports available on the Idaho Secretary of State’s website, including a new report showing Idaho is becoming more conservative based on the party affiliation of voters moving here from other states.

Aside from elected officials, economics and tax experts also spoke during Wednesday’s daylong conference. Several presenters said they were studying mixed economic signals and were unsure whether to expect a mild recession, a significant recession or continued economic growth without any kind of recession in the short-term future.

Idaho Capital Sun is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Idaho Capital Sun maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Christina Lords for questions: info@idahocapitalsun.com. Follow Idaho Capital Sun on Facebook and Twitter.

The report, published late Friday afternoon on the Division of Financial Management’s website, showed state revenues have come in $38.8 million below the predictions year-to-date. The report covered the state’s three largest revenue sources – the individual income tax, corporate income tax and sales tax. The report did not include miscellaneous revenues, which are still being calculated as a work in progress, Division of Financial Management Administrator Alex Adams said.

“Individual income taxes are stronger than expected while both corporate income taxes and sales taxes are weaker than expected,” state budget officials wrote in the report.

“These three (revenue sources) are pushing the general fund to a 3.3% deficit compared to our prediction,” the report continued.

State revenues also lagged behind predictions at this point a year ago, so it is too early to tell how things will ultimately end up when the fiscal year ends June 30. State officials have previously told the Idaho Capital Sun that April is the most important budget month of the year because of Tax Day and the deadline to file tax returns.

Normally, state officials release a monthly budget monitor report that details the state’s revenue receipts and offers comparisons against forecasted revenue projections and previous years’ revenue collections.

The budget monitor report allows Idaho legislators to track revenue that the state budget is built around and gives the public insight into the state’s economy and budget.

But due to data entry errors and difficulties that some state agencies and employees had transitioning to Luma, the state had not been able to publish a budget monitor report for the 2024 fiscal year until Friday.

During a normal year, the first monthly Budget Monitor report would have been released in the middle of August and covered the month of July.

Idaho’s state government runs on a fiscal year calendar that begins July 1 and ends June 30 each year.

Idaho officials say state should be able to release monthly budget reports come November

To produce the new report the state released Friday, officials with the State Controller’s Office worked with officials from the Idaho State Tax Commission, Legislative Services Office and Division of Financial Management. One of the challenges was officials had to manually input the historic revenue data for the report.

With the work the agencies put in to generate the most recent report, the state should be on track to resume the monthly release of budget monitor reports in November, Chief Deputy State Controller Joshua Whitworth said in a telephone interview Friday.

“Going forward, I believe we are at that monthly cadence with them again,” Whitworth said. “All of this work was to help them run on that consistent cadence.”

The state’s goal is for the next budget monitor report to come out in November and cover revenue activity from October, Whitworth said.

Because of a commitment to accuracy, Whitworth said the Idaho State Tax Commission did not want to release the revenue report before it had verified everything.

Whitworth said the raw revenue data was always in the Luma system, but one of the challenges with the transition to Luma has been representing the data the right way and generating the reports the way they had before.

“I give (the state) tax (commission) a lot of credit; they are very adamant about accuracy,” Whitworth said.

What does Idaho’s Luma system do?

The Luma system is a cloud-based enterprise resource planning system that standardizes all of the state’s budget, procurement, payroll, human capital management and financial management systems for all 86 state agencies. As part of the transition, state employees have had to learn the new system and learn new business processes changes, Whitworth said.

The rollout of training for the new system has varied among different state agencies, which has added to the difficulty of the transition and meant that some state employees are learning the system on the job as reports and projects are due.

Whitworth demonstrated aspects of the Luma system to the Idaho Capital Sun last month and showed that the state was able to verify revenues on an unofficial basis and confirm the revenues had been received.

The revenue report wasn’t the only challenge with the transition to Luma. In a Spet. 13 email to legislators, Legislative Services Office budget and policy manager Keith Bybee wrote that the changes have affected all of state government, the Idaho Capital Sun previously reported.

For instance, the Idaho Commission on the Arts website features a note at the top of its homepage explaining that the state is transitioning to a new enterprise system to modernize and standardize financial, operational and human capital management for all state agencies.

“Over the next several months, payments, reports, communications and other business processes may be temporarily interrupted or delayed,” the note states. “We appreciate your patience as we navigate this transition.”

Employee training continues for new Luma financial system

As of last month, about 100 state employees per pay period were experiencing payroll issues or delays under Luma. Whitworth said about 100 state employees per week also experienced payroll issues under the old system that Luma replaced.

The rollout of Luma training has also continued to vary from agency to agency, Whitworth said.

“There is still a large learning curve agencies are dealing with, and we are not in the clear yet,” Whitworth said Friday.

“Over the next two months, our office is dedicated to specialized training in areas where agencies are struggling,” Whitworth added. “In the reporting area, we need to do a lot more training and support for agencies.”

The delay in releasing the budget monitor reports made some legislators uneasy. The state is now nearly four months into the fiscal year and preparations for the 2024 legislative session and budget-setting are already underway.

In an interview with the Idaho Capital Sun last month, Rep. Wendy Horman, R-Idaho Falls, said it was disconcerting to be this far into the new fiscal year and not have the official revenue reports available. Horman is the co-chair of the Idaho Legislature’s Joint Finance-Appropriations Committee, which is scheduled to hold a series of meetings in early November to gear up for the 2024 legislative session.

Despite the early setback with the revenue report transition, Horman said the Luma will benefit the state in the long run by increasing transparency and security and standardizing business systems from one state agency to the next.

What is Idaho’s Luma system?

Luma replaces the state’s old employee information system and the statewide accounting and reporting system, which were acquired in 1987 and 1988. The state’s old systems had reached the end of their lifespan, were vulnerable to security threats, could not be updated and were inconsistent, Whitworth said. The new cloud-based system features security enhancements and protects the state from emergencies such as floods, earthquakes, fires or other disasters that could cause a physical data center to fail or go offline, state officials said.

Because all 86 state agencies and roughly 17,000 state employees are tied into Luma, it is designed to be more efficient and standardized and provide greater transparency in state government, Whitworth said. For instance, when it comes to state expenditures, the new Luma system electronically links transactions from contracts to the purchase orders to expenditures. The system is designed to give more public insight into the total number and value of state contracts across the different agencies, and it allows state employees to manage their time cards and apply for any job in the state under one system.

The state has been gearing up for the Luma transition since at least 2018, when the Idaho Legislature passed House Bill 493, which provided a funding source for the Luma project. The fiscal note attached to House Bill 493 estimated the cost to modernize the state’s business information infrastructure to be $102 million spread over five years.

Idaho Capital Sun is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Idaho Capital Sun maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Christina Lords for questions: info@idahocapitalsun.com. Follow Idaho Capital Sun on Facebook and Twitter.

The savings will be calculated for each individual taxpayer and appear on their property tax notice, which counties send to homeowners by the fourth Monday in November.

That number will change because levy rates will have gone up or down in many of the state’s 1,000 plus taxing districts. But Dornfest’s estimated percentage is similar to estimated cuts of 10% to 20% that legislators and Gov. Brad Little shared as they promoted House Bill 292, the property tax the Idaho Legislature passed earlier this year.

“There is real money there,” Dornfest said in an interview Wednesday. “I think that is what people need to know – yes, it can be done and we are not dragging our feet. We are making every possible effort, and we are going to get there.”

Between now and November, city and county officials are crunching numbers preparing a series of reports necessary to calculate reductions that eligible homeowners will see.

State tax experts don’t know the savings Idaho homeowners will see in November because local taxing district budgets were still being submitted to counties last week. Once counties receive the local budgets, counties will then set levy rates needed to fund those budgets and then submit that information to the state.

Here’s what homeowners can expect when it comes to the largest share of the property tax cut reduction package, the homeowner’ s tax relief program.

To be eligible for the homeowner’s property tax reduction, homeowners must have received the homeowner’s exemption by the second Monday in July each year. Rental properties, second homes and vacation homes are not eligible. Homeowners who receive the homeowner’s exemption by the deadline don’t have to do anything else or submit any additional paperwork to receive the property tax cuts. The property tax reduction for each eligible homeowner will appear as a credit on their property tax notice, which will reduce the amount of taxes they owe. The combined property tax savings will be calculated for each taxpayer and labeled on their bill as “tax relief appropriated by the Legislature,” according to House Bill 292. The state will pay the counties, which will distribute the money to local taxing districts such as cities, sewer districts, fire districts or library districts. Certain property taxes, including bonds, school district levies, plant facility levies and any voter-approved temporary levies are not included in House Bill 292’s definition of eligible property taxes.

“The money does not go to the taxpayer directly, what happens is we pay the counties,” Dornfest said. “Then they distribute that, not to the taxpayers but to the taxing districts.”

Dornest estimated there is $192 million in state funding available for the homeowner’s tax relief program. There is an additional $24.5 million in additional tax relief for all property taxpayers. On top of that, Dornfest estimated there could be $106 million in tax reductions for school district facilities. Dornfest said the estimate for school district facilities could change based on the result of local school district elections held across the state in late August.

County and state officials worked together to prepare for tax cuts in Idaho

Ada County Treasurer Elizabeth Mahn said county officials have spent months working with tax commission experts and other officials to prepare to implement the new tax cuts. While Mahn said it is too early to tell how big the reductions will be for each homeowner, she said homeowners will see cuts.

“Everyone is working hard, and there will be savings there in 2023,” Mahn said in an interview. “The homeowner doesn’t have to do anything.”

“From what I can tell, the Tax Commission has been very receptive to our feedback; they have been working very closely with the counties,” Mahn added.

The state of Idaho has 44 counties, more than 1,000 taxing districts and an estimated 480,000 or so homeowners who will be eligible for the tax cuts. All of that data has to be accounted for, and the Tax Commission cannot move forward with calculating the tax reductions until each of the local tax levies and that data is submitted to the state. After the Tax Commission reviews the property tax levy totals and the funding available for the homeowner’s tax relief, the commission will develop a factor to calculate the savings each taxpayer will receive.

The state will then send the money to counties in two chunks, with the first half sent out by Dec. 20 and the second half sent out by June 20, according to House Bill 292.

Idaho beginning to send funding to school districts

As part of the property tax law, the state is beginning to send out funding to school districts for the school facilities component of the law.

In a news release issued Thursday, Little said the state is sending an estimated $106 million to school districts through the law.

“Idaho already has the third lowest property taxes in the country, and we took steps this year to lower them further,” Little said in a written statement. “Idaho has delivered more tax relief per capita than any other state, and we’re proud to turn money back to the hardworking people of our state while making critical investments in schools and infrastructure to keep up with growth.”

The money for school facilities is distributed based on average daily attendance, which means the state’s two largest districts – West Ada and Boise – are receiving the largest chunks of funding. According to the state’s downloadable spreadsheet, the West Ada School District is receiving $14.5 million, while Boise is due to get $8.4 million.

Idaho Capital Sun is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Idaho Capital Sun maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Christina Lords for questions: info@idahocapitalsun.com. Follow Idaho Capital Sun on Facebook and Twitter.

The Idaho Legislature adjourned for the year April 6 but has the new power to call itself back into session upon a written petition signed by at least 60% of the members of the Idaho House of Representatives and Idaho Senate, thanks to Idaho voters passing Senate Joint Resolution 102 in November.

Herndon said he began circulating a petition Sunday to call the Idaho Legislature back in for a special session “for the purpose of considering legislation that pertains to Idaho’s presidential primary election.”

A day later, Senate President Pro Tem Chuck Winder, R-Boise, began circulating a different petition to call the Idaho Legislature back in session to consider a single draft bill that would create a presidential primary election in May, Herndon said.

If one of the petitions receives support from at least 60% of both of the Idaho Legislature’s two chambers, a special session would begin no later than 15 days after House Speaker Mike Moyle, R-Star, and Winder receive the petition.

“I would come to a session and bring a bill reinstating the March presidential primary election we just got rid of in House Bill 138, which is what the Republican Party wants,” Herndon said in a telephone interview. “(Winder) would put in place a May primary which won’t fix the problem for Idaho voters in 2024.”

Efforts to reach Winder and Moyle were unsuccessful Tuesday morning.

House Minority Leader Ilana Rubel, D-Boise, said she supports a special session to restore a primary election.

“I encourage Idahoans to put pressure on their local officials to ensure this gets resolved and we get a primary back,” Rubel said in a telephone interview. “This is unacceptable. The people of Idaho have been stripped of easy access to voting in a primary election that only happens once every four years.”

Rubel called the elimination of the presidential primary a grave, unforced error by the Idaho Legislature.

What happened to Idaho’s presidential primary election?

The Idaho Legislature seemingly unintentionally eliminated the presidential primary election altogether with House Bill 138, which Gov. Brad Little signed into law March 30.

The bill’s sponsors said the bill was intended to save the state $2.7 million every four years by moving the presidential primary election back from March to the May election date when the rest of the state’s primary elections take place. But the bill actually just eliminated the presidential primary election and didn’t move it to May. State officials and legislators identified the problem after the Idaho House passed House Bill 138, and they introduced a so-called “trailer bill” in Senate Bill 1186, which was designed to fix the problem by moving the presidential primary election to May.

But the trailer bill died in the House State Affairs Committee March 30 after Idaho Republican Party Chairwoman Dorothy Moon came out in opposition to it, and the bill didn’t get out of committee. The Idaho Legislature then adjourned for the year April 6 without addressing the presidential primary election issue.

The Idaho Republican Party responded to the lack of a presidential primary election by voting in June to create a presidential nominating caucus that will be held on the first Saturday in March — unless the Idaho Legislature reconvenes in special session before Oct. 1 to restore the March primary election.

Some members of the Republican Party worry a caucus will divide the party and result in significantly lower voter turnout because of the caucus’s requirements to attend in-person at a set date and time for a caucus that could last several hours.

But Republicans don’t all agree on the solution. Herndon and Moon support the March date for a presidential primary election, like the state has held since 2012. They say that earlier date gives Idaho more influence in the GOP presidential nominating process. They worry moving the primary election back to May will give Idaho voters less influence and may result in the primary being moved back so late that a Republican has already clinched the nomination before Idaho Republicans can vote.

On the other hand, most of the Idaho Legislature voted to pass House Bill 138, which legislators thought was moving the primary back to May and saving the state money by consolidating elections. That has been a major goal of Republican legislators including Moyle and House State Affairs Committee Chairman Brent Crane, R-Nampa. Crane told the Sun last month he doesn’t like the caucus personally and supports a May primary and opposes a March primary.

Herndon, the Republican senator who is circulating one of the petitions for a special session, voted against House Bill 138.

What is the difference between the two special session proposals?

Herndon’s petition is written more generally to call for “considering legislation that pertains to Idaho’s presidential primary election.” Herndon said that allows Idaho legislators to consider and debate more than one bill or solution.

Winder’s petition would limit the session to considering a single draft bill to create a May presidential primary election, according to copies of the petition the State Freedom Caucus Network shared Tuesday along with other documents and a press release announcing Herndon’s petition.

In a statement issued Tuesday, Moon said she opposes a May presidential primary election. Moon said the Idaho Republican Party would still conduct a caucus in March if the Idaho Legislature passes a May primary election, which she said would make the later primary election duplicative and a waste of money.

Moon does support restoring the earlier March primary election, which would supersede the GOP caucus.

“The Idaho GOP’s position remains resolute: the only conceivable scenario in which a presidential primary could take place is through the repeal of House Bill 138, thereby reinstating the presidential primary to March of 2024,” Moon said in the statement. “This perspective is firmly embedded in the will of our party members as expressed through the (Idaho Republican Party’s State Central Committee’s) decision-making process. Any other outcome will result in an unnecessary expenditure of taxpayer resources…”

Will the Idaho Legislature call a special session before Oct. 1?

Herndon said he has received some support for his petition over the past two days but is unsure if he will be able to reach the 60% threshold for each legislative chamber.

“I’d say it is too early to tell, but I am a little doubtful,” Herndon said.

Herndon, who is also a member of the Idaho Republican Party State Central Committee, said he would not sign Winder’s petition and is reluctant overall to return for a special session. Herdon noted that as a general estimate it costs $30,000 a day to conduct a special session, and he said legislators could have fixed the problem before adjourning for the year in April.

“I don’t see a strong desire in the Legislature at this moment to come back for a special session for this,” Herndon said. “It’s possible, but maybe not probable.”

Herndon said he is pursuing the special session and has a draft bill to restore the March primary election because it will allow more Republican voters to participate and retain Idaho’s influence by voting early in March.

“The thing that I believe is the Idaho Republican Party has a strong desire to see that Idaho’s Republican voters matter when it comes to choosing a nominee for president and I want to see that happen,” Herndon said.

Rubel said the issue of whether a primary election is held in May or March is secondary to the overall importance of restoring a primary election in some form or fashion. However, Rubel does support limiting the special session to a single draft bill.

“I think it would be pandemonium if we go back in without a concrete idea of what it is we’re voting on in,” Rubel said. “I don’t think it would be productive if we just went in with a general notion of arguing about primaries.”

The Idaho Legislature meets every year in a regular session that begins on the second Monday in January. Regular legislative sessions generally run for about 80 days, although there is no time limit.

Before Idaho voters approved Senate Joint Resolution 102, which amended the Idaho Constitution, only Idaho’s governor had the authority to call a special session of the Idaho Legislature.

Efforts to reach Little on Tuesday were unsuccessful. In April, Little said he did not anticipate calling a special session on the presidential primary issue. At the time, Little encouraged legislators to put forward one bill and have general agreement on it prior to a special session beginning.

Since 2000, there have been five special sessions of the Idaho Legislature — in 2000, 2006, 2015, 2020 and 2022.

Special sessions of the Idaho Legislature are officially called extraordinary sessions.

Idaho Capital Sun is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Idaho Capital Sun maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Christina Lords for questions: info@idahocapitalsun.com. Follow Idaho Capital Sun on Facebook and Twitter.

Gov. Brad Little; House Speaker Mike Moyle, R-Star; Rep. Jason Monks, R-Meridian; and Sen. Doug Ricks, R-Rexburg, announced the surplus during a press conference at a family friend’s home Wednesday in Nampa.

“Common kitchen table economics,” Little said during the press conference. “We don’t spend what we don’t have. We rein in government spending and the impacts of our investments are starting to show up. Our rainy day funds are very robust.”

The $99.1 million surplus will be combined with $205 million in funding already earmarked for property tax reductions through House Bill 292 to total about $300 million in property tax reductions, Little said.

Idaho homeowners will see their property tax credit when they receive their property tax bill this November, Little said.

The amount of property tax reductions Idahoans will receive will vary based on the county and taxing districts their home is located in and the home’s assessed valuation.

Idaho runs on a fiscal year calendar that runs from July 1 to June 30, meaning the 2023 fiscal year just ended and the 2024 fiscal year just started.

Why does Idaho have a budget surplus?

Idaho legislators planned to end the 2023 fiscal year with a balance of about $416 million. That money came through and is being carried forward into the new fiscal year 2024 budget.

The $99.1 million surplus is money that came in above that forecasted ending balance.

Idaho has a surplus because state revenues came in $80.1 million ahead of projections for the year and because state agencies spent $19 million less than budgeted, said Alex Adams, administrator of the Idaho Division of Financial Management.

During the 2023 session, the Idaho Legislature passed House Bill 292, the property tax reduction bill that called for transferring state budget surpluses into property tax reductions.

The new $99.1 million surplus will be broken down in three ways, Adams said.

$50 million will go directly to the homeowner’s property tax relief fund.
$24.5 million will go to school districts facilities, which are paid for with property tax dollars.
$24.5 million will be distributed to counties based on the proportion of property tax each county levies to offset property taxes.

During the press conference Moyle said the amount Idahoans pay for property taxes will be shaped by local budgets, which are being set during city, county, school district and taxing district budget hearings this summer.

The value of the home also affects each homeowner’s property tax bill.

“The state of Idaho collects no property taxes, and the state of Idaho spends no property taxes. That’s all done at the local level,” Moyle said.

Didn’t Idaho’s governor veto the property tax bill?

In March, Little vetoed the property tax bill, but the Idaho Legislature had the votes to override the veto and pass the bill into law anyway. When he vetoed House Bill 292, Little said he had concerns that the bill jeopardized funding for transportation projects and hurt school districts by removing the March election date they use for bond and levy elections.

In response, the Idaho Legislature advanced a “trailer bill” to address the Little’s concerns over transportation funding bonds, but it did not change plans to eliminate the school election date.

Little said the trailer bill improved the property tax bill, and he put out a statement March 29 championing the property tax bill as “property tax relief done right.”

Overall, House Bill 292 does several things, including:

Sets up the homeowner’s property tax relief account to create a credit that reduces the property tax bill for owner-occupied homes that receive the homestead property tax exemption. Rental properties, second homes and vacation homes do not qualify.
Sends a portion of state funding to school districts to pay down their bonds and levies. That portion of the money will be divided up based on a school district’s average daily attendance. If the district has paid off its bonds and levies, the district can save the money for future school construction needs.
Eliminates the March election date that school districts used for bond and levy elections.
Increases the income limit for participating in the circuit breaker program from $31,900 to $37,000 per household. It also increases the cap on a home’s valuation from $300,000 or 15% of the county median to $400,000 or 20% of the county median.

The 2023 property tax package was the third major tax cut legislators and Little approved in the past couple years.

During the 2022 session, the Idaho Legislature passed a $600 million income tax cut.

During the 2022 special session, the Idaho Legislature passed a $1 billion package that included a tax rebate, an income tax rate reduction and education funding increases.

“We are always going to try to reduce the tax burden for Idahoans every year, regardless of what the numbers look like,” Monks said at Tuesday’s press conference.

Before this year’s surplus, the state of Idaho posted back-to-back years of record budget surpluses. At the end of the 2021 fiscal year, the state posted an $890 million budget surplus. At the end of the 2022 fiscal year, Idaho posted a $1.4 billion surplus.

Idaho Capital Sun is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Idaho Capital Sun maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Christina Lords for questions: info@idahocapitalsun.com. Follow Idaho Capital Sun on Facebook and Twitter.

The initiative would also change Idaho general elections by creating a new instant runoff — also known as ranked choice — voting system. 

The new coalition, called Idahoans for Open Primaries, represents a collaboration between the Idaho Task Force of Veterans for Political Innovation, North Idaho Women, Represent US Idaho, the Hope Coalition and Reclaim Idaho. Members of the Idahoans for Open Primaries coalition filed the initiative Tuesday morning at the Idaho State Capitol in Boise. 

Supporters of the open primary initiative oppose the Idaho Republican Party’s closed primary election, which is only open to Idaho voters who file paperwork affiliating with the Idaho Republican Party. 

“This is a simple, common-sense reform that will give us better elections and better leadership,” former Republican Speaker of the Idaho House Bruce Newcomb said in a written statement provided to the Idaho Capital Sun. Newcomb was one of the first 20 people to sign the open primary initiative petition. 

In 2011, the Idaho Legislature passed a law, House Bill 351, closing Idaho’s primary elections. Even though the law closed primary elections, it also gave the leaders of political parties the ability to choose to keep their primaries open, and the Idaho Democratic Party opened its primary elections to all registered voters. 

Karole Honas, a longtime eastern Idaho television anchor who retired in 2020 after 30 years with Local News 8, is supporting the signature gathering drive and serving as a spokesperson for the effort. 

Honas, who is a Bingham County voter, said the closed primary law backs voters in a corner. Bingham County is a conservative community and agriculture hotspot that has consistently elected Republicans for decades. The closed primary is the election that essentially decides who will represent Bingham County voters and their neighbors in government. 

As a journalist, Honas wanted to remain neutral and independent. But the closed primary forced her to choose between remaining neutral and affiliating with a political party in order to vote in the primary. Honas said several of her friends and neighbors felt the same pressure; they wanted to remain independent for one reason or another but did not want to miss out on crucial primary elections that shape the future of their communities. 

“In Bingham County, if I wanted to vote, I had to vote in the Republican primary because that was the only game in town,” Honas told the Idaho Capital Sun in a telephone interview. “It didn’t feel right.” 

Honas believes opening up the primary will force candidates to consider the perspectives of a broader group of voters in order to win an election. She also said the change will bring independents into the primary process. Under the proposed initiative, the top four voter-getters would advance to the general election, regardless of party affiliation. 

“I think it will bring more voters to the table, and I like the idea of the top four going on to the general election,” Honas said. “I think there is a good chance we will get better leaders.”

Hyrum Erickson, a Republican precinct committeeman from Rexburg, has committed to collecting signatures for the open primary initiative, according to a press release issued by Idahoans for Open Primaries leaders.

Precinct committee positions in Idaho are elected by party from each voting precinct in the state. The precinct committeemen help the party with voter registration and get out the vote efforts, are involved with party leadership at the county level and help elect candidates. (Precinct committeemen and precinct committeeman are the terms used in Idaho law to describe the positions, but the positions can be held by anybody, not just men.) 

“Our current primary system incentivizes candidates to demonize people who disagree with them rather than focus on solving problems,” Erickson said in a written statement.

The new open primary initiative is designed to fundamentally change elections in Idaho.

If it qualifies for the ballot and is approved by a majority of voters, the open primary initiative would do away with the closed primary system. In its place, the initiative would create a “top four” primary election where all candidates run against each other in the same primary election, and the top four vote-getters would advance to the general election in November. 

Procedures for the general election would also change to include a new instant runoff process, which is also commonly referred to as ranked choice voting. 

Here’s how that would work:

During the general election, Idaho voters would vote for their first choice of candidate. Voters would also have the ability to rank the other candidates in order of preference. If no candidate won more than 50% of the first-choice votes, a process of elimination based on voters’ ballot rankings would begin. The candidate who finished last would be eliminated, and their share of the votes would instead go to the candidate whom the voter had ranked second-choice on the ballot. The process would repeat until one candidate received more than 50% of the votes. That candidate would be declared the winner. 

The new open primary initiative in Idaho is similar to a successful Alaska ballot initiative that Alaska voters approved during the 2020 election. 

If the ballot initiative passes, Idaho would join Maine and Alaska as the third state to offer instant runoff or ranked choice voting. 

A supermajority in the Idaho Legislature already passed a law, House Bill 179, during the 2023 legislative session that prohibits ranked choice voting or instant runoff voting in local, statewide and federal elections. 

If the ballot initiative is approved, it would repeal House Bill 179. That could set off a showdown with the Republican-controlled Idaho Legislature in the courts or in the Idaho Statehouse. 

Idahoans for Open Primaries coalition members submitted the first 20 signatures and the full text of the proposed ballot initiative to the Idaho Secretary of State’s Office on Tuesday morning.

Next, officials from the Idaho Secretary of State’s Office and Idaho Attorney General’s Office will review the initiative, and the Idaho Attorney General’s Office may recommend revisions or alterations, which Idahoans For Open Primaries organizers can either accept or reject.

Once the review process is complete and the Idaho Secretary of State’s Office presents official ballot titles for the initiative, members of Idahoans for Open Primaries can begin gathering signatures for the initiative. Organizers backing the open primary initiative said they expect that to happen in June, and are beginning to plan signature gathering kickoff events in every region of the state for this summer. 

A ballot initiative is a form of direct democracy where the people propose a new law independently from the Idaho Legislature. In a 2021 ruling, the Idaho Supreme Court ruled that the initiative and referendum process are “fundamental rights, reserved to the people of Idaho.”

Before an initiative can appear on the ballot for the voters of Idaho to decide on, it first must qualify for the election. In order to qualify, organizers of a ballot initiative must gather the signatures of at least 6% of registered voters statewide, and the signatures of at least 6% of voters in at least 18 of Idaho’s 35 legislative districts. 

That means Idahoans for Open Primaries organizers will need to gather signatures from at least 62,895 voters statewide by May 1, 2024, and will need to meet the 6% requirement in at least 18 legislative districts, in order to qualify for the November 2024 election, which is also the presidential election. 

If the open primary ballot initiative receives enough signatures to qualify for the November 2024 election, it would take a simple majority — more than 50% — of voters to approve a change to Idaho’s law. 

Organizers with Reclaim Idaho will help with the signature gathering effort. The nonpartisan, nonprofit organization has mobilized more than 1,000 volunteers across the state to gather signatures and push for approval of two recent Idaho ballot initiatives: the successful 2018 Medicaid expansion, which 60.6% of Idaho voters approved, and the Quality Education Act in 2022, which Reclaim Idaho pulled from the ballot after the Idaho Legislature took action that would have repealed and replaced the Quality Education Act. Some political observers and Democratic legislators have credited that campaign by Reclaim Idaho with pushing the Idaho Legislature to increase education funding by an amount nearly identical to what was proposed for the ballot initiative.

The open primary ballot initiative is designed to repeal the 2023 law that bans instant runoff or ranked choice voting. But, the Idaho Legislature could turn around and pass another law that immediately repeals the open primary initiative — going against the will of voters. 

It’s almost certain some Republican lawmakers will try to push back.

The 2023 law prohibiting ranked choice voting or instant runoff elections passed nearly along party lines (56-12 in the Idaho House and 28-7 in the Idaho Senate). Only three Republicans — Reps. Dustin Manwaring, R-Pocatello, Rick Cheatum, R-Pocatello, and Jack Nelsen, R-Jerome — joined the Democrats in opposing the law. 

When he presented House Bill 179 to the Idaho Legislature’s House State Affairs Committee on March 2, Rep. Dale Hawkins, R-Fernwood, said his bill was designed to prevent bringing ranked choice voting into Idaho and to preserve the existing system in Idaho.

“This is a voting system that is being spread around the country I would say a little like a virus,” Hawkins told legislators. “It’s destabilizing people’s normal voting abilities and it’s, according to the people in some of these states, very harmful. But everywhere it goes, it seems to do a little bit of confusion to the voter,” Hawkins said. 

“I still think that our system of election here in Idaho is one vote, one man and I am seeking to preserve that,” Hawkins added. 

Idaho Capital Sun is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Idaho Capital Sun maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Christina Lords for questions: info@idahocapitalsun.com. Follow Idaho Capital Sun on Facebook and Twitter.

Critchfield, a Republican from Oakley, kicks off the post-legislative tour at 9 a.m. Tuesday in Idaho Falls, with other stops scheduled in Pocatello, Twin Falls, Nampa, Moscow and Coeur d’Alene over the next two weeks.

The events are designed so Critchfield and State Department of Education officials can meet with local school district and charter school leaders in their communities about how changes approved during the legislative session will affect their schools, students, teachers and employees. Education initiatives, particularly historic increases in K-12 public school spending and state funding for teacher pay, were among the changes legislators approved when they passed the fiscal year 2024 public school budgets. Based on total dollars, the fiscal year 2024 public school budgets are the largest public school budgets in state history.

Gov. Brad Little’s “Idaho Launch” initiative, a career-technical education workforce training program that provides Idaho high school graduates with up to $8,000 to put toward career training, was also among the education policy changes legislators.

“The annual Post-Legislative Roadshow is an important function for the department because it connects local school trustees, superintendents, business managers and other key personnel with the State Department of Education staff who understand the changes made to Idaho education policy in the last several months,” Critchfield said in a written statement. “This is an opportunity for local schools and charters to learn how these changes will affect their operations so they can be prepared once the new policies take effect.”

Each event is scheduled to run from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m., local time, with Critchfield speaking at about 9:30 a.m. at each event. The six events are:

Tuesday, Idaho Falls, Center for Advanced Energy Studies Building, 955 MK Simpson Blvd.
Wednesday, Pocatello, Idaho State University, Pond Student Union, Little Wood Room, 921, S. Eighth Ave.
Thursday, Nampa, Northwest Nazarene University, Conrad Student Commons, Walden Hall, 623 S. University Blvd.
April 17, Twin Falls, College of Southern Idaho, Taylor Building, Room 277, 315 Falls Ave.
April 19, Moscow, University of Idaho, WWAMI Medical Education Building, 121 W. Sweet Ave.
April 20, Coeur d’Alene, North Idaho College, Edminster Student Union, 495 N. College Drive.

Idaho Capital Sun is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Idaho Capital Sun maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Christina Lords for questions: info@idahocapitalsun.com. Follow Idaho Capital Sun on Facebook and Twitter.

Through the first 47 days in session with a new-look Idaho Legislature that experienced significant turnover after 2022, Little said he has only signed five bills and there weren’t any more waiting for him as of Thursday night.

That’s a little bit of a slow start, although it is expected with so many new legislators and committee chairpersons.

For instance, after six weeks in session in 2019, Little had signed 16 bills into law, according to the Legislative Services Office. Through the first six weeks of the 2020 session, Little had signed 10 bills.

Friday marked the end of the seventh week of the 2023 legislative session, and Little had only signed five bills.

“The big things that are pending right now are all education, particularly our Launch proposal,” Little said during a breakfast with the press corps Friday morning. “We’re cautiously optimistic, but we are having robust discussions with our Senate friends about what’s going to take place there.”

Little proposed the $80 million Idaho Launch grant program in his Jan. 8 State of the State address. Little called for providing one-time grants in the amount of $8,500 for graduates of Idaho high schools (or the home school equivalent) to put toward an Idaho-based college or a career training program recognized by the Idaho Workforce Development Fund. The $80 million in funding for the grants would come from the Sept. 1 special session bill that created the in-demand careers fund paid for with sales tax collections.

House Bill 24, which would enact the Idaho Launch proposal, narrowly passed the Idaho House of Representatives 36-34 on Feb. 6 and is awaiting consideration in the Idaho Senate.

Little and Lt. Gov. Scott Bedke have been touring the state to build support for the Idaho Launch proposal. This month, Little met with students in Meridian, Rigby and Twin Falls to discuss the program, which could provide funding for college or for career-technical education programs like welding, auto repair, plumbing, lineman’s college.

When asked if there was horse-trading going on in relation to his Idaho Launch program and an education savings account proposal that would allow Idaho families with students outside of the public school system to spend state tax dollars for a variety of educational purposes — including tuition for private, religious schools, tutoring, counseling and more — Little said “there is always horse-trading going on.”

Little was also asked whether he would consider vetoing the education savings account bill, Senate Bill 1038, which calls for spending $45 million to establish the education savings accounts.

“I have said consistently anything that is significantly detrimental to the long term funding of public schools, I am going to have an issue with,” Little told reporters.

Little also used his State of the State address to call for spending $145 million to increase starting teacher pay to $47,477 per year, which would put Idaho in the top 10 states for starting teacher pay nationally based on National Education Association data from the 2020-21 school year. Little told reporters Friday the Joint Finance-Appropriations Committee will set the K-12 public school budgets last this year.

“So it is going to be awhile before we get to that point,” Little said.

March 24 — one month away — is the Idaho Legislature’s nonbinding target date to adjourn the session for the year. But with JFAC and the rest of the Idaho Legislature getting off to a slow start, legislators may need additional time to finish setting each of the 108 different state budgets this year.

Most issues from Idaho’s 2023 legislative session are still unresolved

During the hour-long meeting with reporters, Little weighed in on several proposals that are under consideration by the Idaho Legislature.

When it comes to a new bill introduced Thursday that would greatly limit who could request an absentee ballot, Little pointed out that some Idaho precincts only offer absentee voting due to the rural nature of where some residents live. According to the Idaho Secretary of State’s Office, 129,210 Idahoans voted using an absentee ballot during the 2022 general election. Absentee ballots and early voting combined to represent 31.7% of all ballots cast during the 2022 election, the Secretary of State’s Office reported.

“I think absentee voting, particularly in rural Idaho, is so important. I’m not all that excited about it,” Little said when asked whether he would support the new bill.

Little also addressed property tax reductions, which were a major theme from his State of the State address. Little called for earmarking $120 million to offset property taxes. The House Revenue and Taxation Committee introduced three property tax bills on Feb. 2. But so far, major property tax legislation hasn’t cleared the Idaho Legislature and advanced to Little’s desk. Little said Friday there is a lot of talk going on around the Idaho State Capitol about those bills, but he noted major property tax legislation often isn’t settled until the end of a legislative session.
Little was also asked about bills that would remove student IDs as an acceptable form of identification for voting in Idaho elections. On Feb. 20, the Idaho House voted along party lines, 59-11, to pass House Bill 124, which would prohibit the use of student IDs for voting.

If the Idaho Legislature is going to prohibit student IDs, the state needs to come up with an easy alternative to provide young people or anyone else who doesn’t have a driver’s license, Little said.

“It ought to be easy to vote but hard to cheat,” Little said, quoting former Idaho Secretary of State Ben Ysursa.

Idaho Capital Sun is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Idaho Capital Sun maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Christina Lords for questions: info@idahocapitalsun.com. Follow Idaho Capital Sun on Facebook and Twitter.

The Joint Finance-Appropriations Committee, or JFAC, is the powerful committee that writes each element of the state’s budget. Unlike most committees, JFAC includes 10 members each from the Idaho House of Representatives and the Idaho Senate. For years, the committee has voted together, and it took a simple majority of 11 votes to advance a budget bill when everyone was present.

But on Jan. 13, House Speaker Mike Moyle, R-Star, told the Idaho Capital Sun he favors splitting JFAC’s votes in two so that the members of the Idaho House and Idaho Senate would vote separately and any budget bill would need to get a simple majority in both votes to advance.

As the debate between House and Senate Republican leaders continued behind the scenes at the Idaho State Capitol in Boise, JFAC did not vote on any supplemental budget requests or deficiency warrants. That’s unusual, by the end of the fourth week of each of the previous four legislative sessions, JFAC had scheduled action on at least 15 such supplemental budget requests or deficiency warrants, which are issued when the cost of a program or service exceeds the amount available in the budget.

Meanwhile, officials from the Idaho Children Are Primary organization say a $15.5 million request to authorize emergency rental assistance has been put on hold.

Under the new agreement, JFAC will continue to vote jointly, but the votes of House and Senate committee members will be announced separately, as well. The statement was signed by JFAC’s two co-chairs, Rep. Wendy Horman, R-Idaho Falls, and Sen. C. Scott Grow, R-Eagle.

“House and Senate Majority leadership have determined to utilize the joint voting procedure used in the past while also announcing the votes of House and Senate committees separately,” an announcement from Republican leadership states. “If a bill receives majority support from the joint committee and does not receive majority support from the House or Senate committee, the bill will be sent to the house from which the majority of members did not vote in the affirmative. This process acknowledges that the authority of the joint committee is derived from members of the Senate finance committee and members of the House appropriations committee. The joint committee will then reassess the situation in the interim.”

The GOP statement also alluded to some of the discussions behind the scenes.

JFAC is just over a week away from a key shift in its workload and the direction of the legislative session. Feb 17 is the target date for JFAC to finish its budget hearings for the year. The following week, JFAC is scheduled to move into budget setting, which would require the committee to vote in order to keep the legislative session moving and budget bills circulating.

Idaho Capital Sun is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Idaho Capital Sun maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Christina Lords for questions: info@idahocapitalsun.com. Follow Idaho Capital Sun on Facebook and Twitter.

About the time the Idaho Legislature’s 2022 regular session adjourned last March, Rep. Wendy Horman was weighing whether to run again for speaker of the Idaho House or strive to become the next co-chair of the powerful Joint Finance-Appropriations Committee.

As many Idaho legislators and political observers braced for significant turnover in the Idaho Legislature heading into the 2023 session, Horman, R-Idaho Falls, had experience and options on her side.

With five legislative terms under her belt, Horman was the most experienced member of the Republican majority on JFAC who was running for re-election. JFAC’s top two House Republicans, former co-chair Rick Youngblood, R-Nampa, and Vice Chair Caroline Troy, R-Genesee, had already announced their intentions to not seek another term. Additionally, former Speaker of the House Scott Bedke, R-Oakley, was vacating his leadership spot to run for lieutenant governor, a position he won. Horman had previously run against Bedke for speaker of the House in 2020 and lost.

On top of that, Horman ran uncontested for re-election to the Idaho Legislature without a primary or general election opponent in 2022, giving her a clear path forward to returning to the Idaho State Capitol in 2023.

Based on her previous run for speaker, Horman knew she would have to spend the summer and fall networking and building alliances with legislators to have a shot at being elected speaker. Partially because of the time involved and partially because of the number of new legislators, Horman decided not to run for speaker. Eventually, new Speaker of the House Mike Moyle, R-Star, was elected to the top leadership spot in the House after defeating Rep. Jason Monks, R-Meridian.

“In terms of seniority (on JFAC) the next closest person of the currently serving members on the majority side had two years of experience, I think,” said Horman, who has served on JFAC for eight years. “So I think I was a natural choice,  and I had a lot of support from members for me to move into this role. I have tried to be very transparent in the work I have done on the budget committee.”

Rep. Wendy Horman helped incoming Idaho legislators gear up for the budget setting process

Instead of running for speaker, Horman dedicated her time and energy to preparing herself and new legislators for the daunting task of writing and passing the 2024 fiscal year budget, which could include as many as 108 different budgets and nearly $5 billion in general fund spending.

Acting on a suggestion by Reps. Julianne Young, R-Blackfoot, and Bruce Skaug, R-Nampa, Horman organized an informal JFAC 101 Zoom training program in the fall for any interested legislative colleagues. To Horman’s surprise, 17 or 18 legislators participated in her JFAC 101 program and then showed an interest in serving on the committee.

“Due to some of the recent challenges we had faced in getting support for some budgets (on the House floor), I gave a lot of thought to how we could help our new freshman class on the House side get to know the budget process,” Horman told the Idaho Capital Sun during a lengthy interview this week.

In the past two years, budgets for the Idaho Commission for Libraries, the public school budget for teacher salaries and the Idaho Department of Health and Welfare’s Division of Welfare budget have all been killed on the House floor and later rewritten.

“I really spent a lot of time thinking about why that was and what could I do if I was named to the position (as JFAC co-chair) to help them feel more comfortable with the process in JFAC,” Horman said.

After he was elected speaker in December’s organizational session, Moyle named Horman as the co-chair of JFAC. Horman had served on JFAC for the previous eight years. During one session, Horman said she carried 47 different budgets on the House floor.

“Her experience was a big factor,” Moyle told the Sun. “But the fact (is) that she’s always been good at those issues. The floor respects her, the caucus does. She can carry bills that nobody else can get through.”

Moyle believes Horman will be effective at getting things done in a new-look Idaho House where Republicans increased their supermajority by one seat this year. Republicans now control 59 of the 70 seats in the Idaho House.

“If you’ve watched the House the last few years, we’re getting a little more — a lot more — conservative, and we’re making sure that the budgets are what they should be,” Moyle said. “(There is) a lot of pushback. You saw a lot of budgets last year that barely passed or we killed. We killed several. I wanted a chairman that could make sure the budgets came out on the low end of things and to where they were going to slide through a lot easier so we don’t have the fight on the floor, and I think she can accomplish that. She knows the politics of the floor. She knows the politics of the committee, and she’ll be able to maneuver and do a good job there.”

Idaho’s new budget co-chair is a former school board member from Idaho Falls

Before she was elected to the Idaho Legislature, Horman served for about 11 years as a school board member for the Bonneville Joint School District 93, which serves students in the Idaho Falls area. While she was on her local school board, Horman also served as president of the Idaho School Boards Association for a stint. Horman previously told Idaho Education News the two experiences helped prepare her to serve in the Idaho Legislature.

During her first legislative session in 2013, Horman served on the House Education Committee. Two years later, she joined the Joint Finance-Appropriations committee.

Horman worked her way up the ranks to serve as JFAC vice chair in 2019, but the vice chair’s position was taken away from her after she challenged Bedke for the speaker’s position in late 2020 and lost, although Horman remained on JFAC.

“In my eight years of service on JFAC, I think I’ve become more well known for working the education budgets, but one year I carried 47 budgets when I was serving as vice chair and picking up supplementals,” Horman said. “I do have a broad base of experience. I do understand education deeply, but I have had a good base to work with from a lot of other budgets as well.”

Horman said her approach to passing budgets and helping lead JFAC includes putting in work with legislators before the budgets ever go for a vote and respecting the differences between policy committees such as the House Education Committee and JFAC, which is responsible for budgeting.

“I never ask a legislator to vote ‘yes’ if I can’t justify it,” Horman said. “I think that’s led to a situation where I have a high degree of trust with current members, who know I’m not offended by being questioned and know I want to be transparent.”

JFAC is among the most powerful and hard working committees in the Idaho Legislature, meeting daily at 8 a.m. for three-hour budget hearings, whereas many committees meet every other day or twice a week. JFAC controls the pursestrings for the Idaho Legislature, and there is a lot of influence and scrutiny that come along with the work.

The new assignment comes with an increased workload and responsibilities for Horman.

On a typical day, she arrives at the Idaho State Capitol between 6 a.m. and 6:30 a.m. On Monday, she said she arrived before the doors were unlocked. Each morning Horman gears up for JFAC, helps lead the morning budget hearing and participates in whatever morning floor session the House has. In the afternoons, she conducts meetings with state officials, legislators, lobbyists and other groups and juggles her work with two afternoon committees, the House Commerce and Human Resources Committee and the House Environment, Energy and Technology Committee.

She often doesn’t  leave the Statehouse until after 5 p.m., and if there is a reception or dinner with a professional organization or business group who works on legislative issues Horman is engaged in, she may not be back to her room until after 8 p.m.

“The meeting load is very heavy so last week, my first week here, I really prioritized my schedule around time with committee members,” Horman said. “We have a lot of new members, and I want them to feel first and foremost that they have access to me as chairman, to get their questions answered, for them to feel comfortable to come in and ask questions.”

Once JFAC transitions from budget hearings to budget setting in late February, Horman expects to start carrying budgets on the House floor when they are up for votes.

Horman supports changes to Idaho’s public school funding formula

Horman said she is working on and nearly finished with a draft of a bill to revamp Idaho’s public school funding formula. She didn’t give exact details and stressed the legislation isn’t finished yet, but she said she wants to push more control to local school districts and charter schools. One example of this, she said, could be treating a much larger portion of a school district or charter school’s share of funding as discretionary money for school districts and charters.

“We want to push decision making down to the local level,” Horman said. “Let them put those funds where they need to be. If there is a problem in math scores, shift the funds in that direction. If there is a border town that has to compete with higher wages, pay whatever you need to to have the workforce you need. I’ve never believed the state should be the one to make decisions.”

This isn’t a new issue for Horman. In 2016 she was named co-chair of a committee that reviewed Idaho’s public school funding formula. In 2018, that committee recommended overhauling the state’s public school funding formula.

The existing funding formula dates to 1994, before the adoption of online and hybrid courses and the expansion of charter schools in Idaho.

“That’s something that has been a concern of mine from the time I was a school board member, to the time I first came in the Legislature to now,” Horman said. “That funding formula is celebrating its 29th birthday this year. It was great for the ‘90s, but not so great for 2023.”

Horman said she supports making a change so that funding could follow the student to their school of choice and parents could decide where to spend their share of school funding, including putting that money toward tuition at private schools or religious schools through education savings accounts or a similar program.

“I have voted to support those types of programs since I came here,” Horman said. “That is in part because of my personal experience of having a child in a school setting that just was not working for that child. This was before charter schools. This was when I was not working at the time and not in a position to pay private school tuition, and a public school setting just did not work for my child.”

A school funding formula rewrite or education savings account bill could lead to one of the biggest debates of the 2023 session. House Minority Leader Illana Rubel, D-Boise, said she fundamentally opposes any program that would allow state tax dollars to be put toward a private or religious school.

“We have spent decades erecting a system of accountability for public schools in exchange for receiving taxpayer dollars,” Rubel said in a telephone interview. “We demand accountability for our tax dollars, and I am not at all comfortable handing over a pile of the taxpayers’ money to private organizations that have not one metric by which we can measure or hold them accountable in any way.”

“We have a constitutional obligation to fund public schools,” Rubel added. “Until we’ve done that properly, we should not be taking on new obligations we have no constitutional obligation to undertake.”

Idaho has not allowed public school funding to be used at private religious schools because of a clause in the Idaho Constitution prohibiting it.

Horman points to the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2020 ruling in the case of Espinoza vs. Montana Department of Revenue as opening the door to using scholarships or public school funding sources at private and religious schools. Horman also said the practice already happens, whether it is food stamps or opportunity scholarships going to students who attend private schools.

“I will always go to bat for students who need a different setting in which to learn and their parents can’t afford to obtain that for them,” Horman said.

Horman said she can support parents choosing where to spend school funding at the same time as supporting public schools, saying she has a track record of thousands of hours of time spent volunteering for a public school board and fighting for public school funding as a legislator.

“I want to support parents in helping their kids get in the best setting for their individual child,” Horman said. “For me, it’s about the students’ needs, and I don’t care what setting they learn in.”

The Idaho Legislature’s budget committee is in for changes in 2023

In addition to new leadership, there are other changes taking place in JFAC this year. During December’s organizational session of the Idaho Legislature, Moyle reduced the number of Democratic seats on JFAC from two to one after Republicans increased their supermajority by one seat in November’s general election. Moyle said he did so because he thought Democrats would have been overrepresented on the committee. Rubel and Idaho Democrats said the change makes it so representation is not proportional.

Additionally, Moyle told the Sun last week he supports changing how JFAC votes on budget bills. Moyle supports splitting the committee in two, so JFAC’s 10 House members and 10 Senate members vote separately. If that change moves forward, a budget would need to clear two separate votes with a simple majority to advance out of JFAC to the floor for a vote.

Moyle said making the change would help avoid big floor fights and reduce the chances of budgets being killed on the House floor. Rubel opposes the idea, saying it would fundamentally change how JFAC operates and make it much easier to block or kill budgets for things like public schools, libraries or Idaho Department of Health and Welfare programs.

Idaho Capital Sun is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Idaho Capital Sun maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Christina Lords for questions: info@idahocapitalsun.com. Follow Idaho Capital Sun on Facebook and Twitter.

Moyle, R-Star, said the change would split the committee votes in two so the House Appropriations Committee members vote separately from the Senate Finance Committee members. He said doing so would build more support for the budgets before they reach the floor for a vote – proactively heading off big floor fights when votes are taken.

“It will make it easier, I believe, to get the votes for budgets to pass on the House floor,” Moyle told the Idaho Capital Sun on Friday. “And, quite frankly, it may make them be a little more careful with their budgets.”

While many of the 108 state budgets pass without issue, sometimes they can be held up on the House or Senate floor. For example, in 2022, the Idaho House killed the 2023 budget for the Idaho Commission for Libraries twice after House Republicans claimed that Idaho libraries contain obscene material that is harmful to minors.

House Minority Leader Ilana Rubel, D-Boise, called the potential JFAC voting change a terrible idea. She said splitting the votes would create an additional barrier for budgets to pass.

“That makes it an awful lot easier to obstruct the passage of a budget,” Rubel told the Sun. “It could result in dramatic effect in terms of whether we really get the kinds of investments in education and other priorities that were outlined in the governor’s State of the State address.”

JFAC is different from many of the Idaho Legislature’s committees because it includes 10 members each from the Idaho House and Idaho Senate. Most committees are separated by legislative chamber — for example, there is both a House Education Committee and a Senate Education Committee.

How does the Idaho Legislature’s budget committee vote now?

The current, yearslong practice is for all of the members of JFAC to vote as one committee on a budget, with budgets requiring a simple majority vote to advance out of JFAC to the floor of either the Idaho House or Idaho Senate. If all 20 members were present and voting, that means a budget could pass out of JFAC with 11 votes, regardless of the breakdown between senators and representatives.

“If your House side or Senate side votes against it, but because of the combined votes it has the votes to pass (out of JFAC) that’s a problem because it’s going to have issues when it reaches the floor,” Moyle said.

Moyle said the change hasn’t been finalized, but he said he has met with Senate leadership, JFAC’s co-chairs and staff. Moyle said he believes JFAC should have voted separately all along, and said other joint committees vote separately by chamber. Rubel said she hasn’t been included in any of the discussions but has heard rumors of a potential change for months.

Moyle said it would not require a formal change to the Legislature’s rules to enact the voting change. JFAC has already met four times during the first week of the 2023 legislative session. But JFAC won’t have to vote on any budgets until it moves into budget setting mode during the third week of February.

What would change if JFAC changes how it votes on budgets?

Under the new voting procedures, a budget would have to pass twice to advance to the floor. A majority of House Appropriations Committee members present would have to vote to advance a budget, and a majority of the Senate Finance Committee members would have to vote to advance it. If a budget passed one vote but failed in another, the budget would fail and JFAC would have to write a new budget and put it forward to pass with the two votes.

Rubel pointed out that would instantly raise the threshold it takes to advance a budget out of JFAC from 11 votes to 12. Rather than a simple majority, or 11 votes, a budget would need a minimum of 12 votes (six per chamber) to advance. Rubel said that makes it easier to kill budgets overall. In the past, one member who opposed a budget would need to get nine other JFAC members to oppose it so a budget would fail on a 10-10 vote. Under these voting procedures, a JFAC member who opposes a budget would need to find four other members on the committee from their same legislative chamber to oppose a budget and then the whole budget would fail on a 5-5 vote.

“It may seem like a wonky little change, but if it does happen, I think it will result in a dramatic reduction in the extent to which the governor’s proposed budget becomes reality,” Rubel said.

Rep. Wendy Horman, the Idaho Falls Republican who serves as the House co-chair of JFAC, said she has heard discussions of changing JFAC’s voting procedures.

“It will mean that once a budget comes to your chamber, either the House or the Senate, it means a majority of your committee — either appropriations or finance — has voted to support that budget,” Horman told the Sun. “I think that gives it more strength on the floor of those chambers to know a majority of your committee has supported it as well as a majority of JFAC.”

JFAC meets daily and is facing a heavy workload of setting 108 state budgets while undergoing leadership and personnel changes. Horman and Sen. C. Scott Grow, R-Eagle, are leading the committee for the first time this year. Additionally 12 of JFAC’s 20 committee members weren’t on the committee last year.

This would be the second significant change to JFAC since Moyle was elected speaker during the December organizational session. During that session, Moyle reduced the number of seats for House Democrats from two to one after Democrats lost one seat in the Idaho House during the Nov. 8 election. At the time, Moyle said he made the move because he thought Democrats were overrepresented. Rubel and other Democrats called Moyle’s move a breakdown in civility, saying representation is not proportional.

Idaho Capital Sun is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Idaho Capital Sun maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Christina Lords for questions: info@idahocapitalsun.com. Follow Idaho Capital Sun on Facebook and Twitter.

A rancher and a Republican from Emmett, Little took a public oath of office and was ceremonially sworn in in front of a crowd of state officials and a couple hundred onlookers Friday.

“What we do here is far more important than any one of us,” Little said. “The work we do here will outlive us. With that in mind, I want to sincerely thank the people of Idaho, to know that in my second term I will lead with integrity, civility, humility, always putting Idaho first.”

During the 6-and-a-half minute inaugural address, Little spoke of his love for Idaho and his belief in the goodness of its people. He thanked Idaho’s four most recent previous governors —  Phil Batt, Dirk Kempthorne, U.S. Sen. Jim Risch and Butch Otter — saying his job is to learn from them and to put the state first. Kempthorne, Risch and Otter attended the inauguration ceremony in person.

Although he gave a shout-out to Idaho’s four living previous governors and spoke of the importance of public education, Little’s speech was generally light on politics and heavy on state pride and gratitude. Little is expected to deliver a more political and policy laden speech at 1 p.m. Monday with his State of the State address, which will highlight the first day of the 2023 legislative session.

Little is Idaho’s 33rd governor, having been first elected governor in 2018. Previously, Little was appointed to fill vacancy in the Idaho Senate in 2001, and was elected lieutenant governor in 2009.

As part of the ceremony, Little and first lady Teresa Little delivered speeches. The Littles were accompanied to the ceremony  by their two adult sons.

In her speech, Teresa Little held up a candle, which she said represents the light present in everyone.

“The miracle is, our own light is never diminished by sharing,” Teresa Little said, before acknowledging Idaho’s “Capitol of Light.”

In addition, each of Idaho’s statewide constitutional officers also participated in a public swearing in ceremony Friday. Those officials include:

• Lt. Gov. Scott Bedke
• Attorney General Raúl Labrador
• Secretary of State Phil McGrane
• Treasurer Julie Ellsworth
• Controller Brandon Woolf
• Superintendent of Public Instruction Debbie Critchfield

The oaths of office each of the officials took Friday was ceremonial. Under the Idaho Constitution, the term of office for statewide executive officers begins on the first Monday of January following an election. Each of the officers had officially been sworn in previously in private. For instance, Critchfield was sworn in at her Cassia County home on Monday, according to the State Department of Education. 

Friday’s inauguration included musical performances by the 25th Army Band-Idaho National Guard, singing by Rebecca Pearce and Idaho Army National Guard 2nd Lt. Rodrigo Cortes and a 19-cannon salute, which echoed throughout downtown Boise and is commonly used during inaugural ceremonies and to recognize dignitaries or elected officials.

Each of Idaho’s statewide elected officials serves a four-year term, and the next election for those positions will occur in 2026. The 2023 legislative session begins Monday at noon at the Idaho State Capitol.

Little’s State of the State address will be streamed live online and broadcast live on Idaho Public Television at 1 p.m. Monday.

Idaho Capital Sun is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Idaho Capital Sun maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Christina Lords for questions: info@idahocapitalsun.com. Follow Idaho Capital Sun on Facebook and Twitter.

Although Idaho’s 2023 legislative session doesn’t begin until Jan. 9, action will begin picking up at the Idaho State Capitol this week with the inauguration, inaugural ball and a couple of committee meetings setting the stage.

Decisions made during the new year will help shape Idaho government, policies and politics for years to come, with four new statewide officials being sworn in and historical turnover and leadership changes at the Idaho Legislature. About one in three legislators will be rookies in 2023.

Here’s a look ahead at some of the key events associated with the start of new terms of office for elected officials and the process of opening a new legislative session.

Key dates leading up to the beginning of Idaho’s 2023 legislative session

Jan. 4: The Idaho Legislature’s Change in Employee Compensation Committee meets at 9 a.m. in Room EW20. The committee makes recommendations about pay and salary increases for state employees. The Idaho in Session streaming service provides free live streaming coverage of this meeting, as well as legislative committee meetings and floor sessions, events from the governor’s office and Idaho Supreme Court hearings throughout the year.

Jan. 5: The Idaho Legislature’s Economic Outlook and Revenue Assessment Committee will meet at the Idaho State Capitol. The time and place have yet to be announced.

Jan. 6: The inauguration of Brad Little for his second term of governor and the swearing in ceremonies for statewide constitutional officers begins at noon on the south steps of the Idaho State Capitol. The ceremony also includes Little’s inaugural address. Idaho Public Television will broadcast the inauguration live.

Jan. 6: The Idaho Legislature’s Economic Outlook and Revenue Assessment Committee will meet at the Idaho State Capitol. The time and place have yet to be announced.

Jan. 7: Idaho’s 49th Inaugural Procession and Ball begins at 7 p.m. inside the Idaho State Capitol. The ball is open to the public and tickets are $35.

Jan. 9: The Idaho Legislature convenes at noon in the Idaho State Capitol. Gov. Brad Little will deliver the State of the State address at 1 p.m. to a joint session of the Idaho Legislature on the floor of the Idaho House of Representatives. The address will be streamed live on Idaho in Session and broadcast by Idaho Public Television.

Jan. 10: (Tentatively) The rest of the Idaho Legislatire’s committees, including the powerful Joint Finance-Appropriations Committee, will begin conducting their first meetings of the year at the Idaho State Capitol.

The Idaho Capital Sun is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Idaho Capital Sun maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Christina Lords for questions: info@idahocapitalsun.com. Follow Idaho Capital Sun on Facebook and Twitter.

Betsy Russell, the longtime president of the Idaho Press Club and a dogged and influential political journalist who covered seven Idaho governors, is retiring Jan. 1.

Russell started her reporting career early, joining her high school paper and covering her own graduation.

She earned a political science degree from the University of California-Berkeley and a master’s degree in journalism from Columbia University.

“Journalism became my career for really idealistic reasons because I believed really strongly, and I still believe, that we cannot have representative democracy and live in a free country unless the people know what their government is doing so they can freely engage in self government,” Russell told the Idaho Capital Sun.

Russell moved to Idaho in 1986 to cover Boise City Hall for the Idaho Statesman. Over the next 36 years she covered the Idaho Legislature, government and politics for the Statesman, the Spokesman-Review and Idaho Press newspapers. Along the way, she was a part of a team of Spokesman-Review journalists that was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in 1993 for their coverage of Randy Weaver and the Ruby Ridge standoff in Boundary County, Idaho.

Her coverage exposed false claims made by Republican and Democratic elected officials from the campaign trail to the floor of the Idaho House of Representatives. Russell’s stories led to prison reform and changes in state policy, while her work with the Idaho Press Club and Idahoans for Openness in Government sought to increase transparency in halls of power across the state.

When Russell first arrived at the Idaho Statesman, she covered then-Mayor Dirk Kempthorne and the debate about downtown Boise’s redevelopment and an ill-fated proposal to build an indoor shopping mall. Gov. John Evans was nearing the end of his last term in office and Russell got her first taste of covering the Idaho Legislature and the governor’s office when Kempthorne would testify at the Statehouse. Russell went on to cover six other Idaho governors closely — Cecil Andrus, Phil Batt, Kempthorne, Jim Risch, Butch Otter and Brad Little.

Russell’s career included several highlights.

Russell created and wrote the Eye on Boise blog, first for the Spokesman-Review and later for the Idaho Press, that was a must-read for anyone interested in the Idaho Legislature and state government — including many of the most highest ranking and influential elected leaders in the Gem State. In 2004, Russell and Dean Miller, a veteran Idaho and Washington newspaper editor, created Idahoans for Open Government, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization dedicated to openness and compliance with the Idaho Public Records Act and Idaho Open Meetings Law. Russell’s 1997 series investigating Idaho prisons revealed the fact that nearly a quarter of Idaho’s prison population was incarcerated for four crimes that are not even considered felonies — simple drug possession, drunk driving, driving without a license and writing bad checks — in a majority of states. The series led to a gubernatorial investigation launched by then- Gov. Phil Batt and led to several reforms. In a telephone interview, Russell called her prison series “probably the most significant story I have covered in my career.”

“You’d walk on the floor, particularly towards the end of the session when things are happening, and a third to half of the laptops (would be reading Russell’s blog),” Idaho Gov. Brad Little said.

Although Russell is regularly praised even by elected officials she scrutinized in her coverage, she does have a critic in Idaho Freedom Foundation President Wayne Hoffman — who Russell administered a rare public rebuke of earlier this year.

Russell stepped outside her traditional role to write a July 23 opinion column in her Eye on Boise blog, writing that Hoffman was wrong to use his position to undermine public trust in  public schools, health care and Idaho journalists. In an interview with the Sun, Russell listed the column among her most memorable of her career.

Russell and Hoffman previously worked together at the Idaho Statesman and both served on the Idaho Press Club board of directors. Russell spoke out after Hoffman used his video podcast to refer to Idaho journalists as biased, leftists and socialists.

“Hoffman’s continued agitation against real journalists is encouraging his followers to engage in actual harassment against the hard-working reporters who work to bring you the news every day,” Russell wrote. “It needs to stop.”

Hoffman believes the column was one example of Russell stepping outside of journalistic ethics. Hoffman declined to be interviewed for this article, and submitted a written statement instead.

“Betsy is not a reporter,” Hoffman wrote, in part. “She’s a propagandist, much like most of the rest of the Idaho media. Having spent nearly 20 years in the journalism profession and 17 years connected to it (as an agency spokesman, a spokesman for conservative candidates and politicians, and at the head of the Idaho Freedom Foundation for nearly 15 years) I can safely say that Betsy abandoned long-established standards for ethics in journalism about 20 years ago. She should have left the profession then.”

Russell said she made a unique exception to call Hoffman out, based on her career experience and role as the president of the Idaho Press Club, to appeal to Idahoans to support local journalists who provide unbiased coverage and are transparent about their reporting and funding sources.

“Over the years, my blog has always been a news blog, not an opinion blog,” Russell said. “I’ve always taken care to keep it that way. I am a news reporter, I am not an opinionator.”

Russell is the longest serving and most prominent of three Idaho journalists who are retiring this year, joining Bill Spence from the Lewiston Tribune and Keith Ridler from the Associated Press. Russell is also stepping down as president of the Idaho Capitol Correspondents Association. The association’s vice president, Idaho Education News reporter Kevin Richert, will take over as president during the 2023 legislative session.

Idaho Press city editor Laura Guido will take over for Russell as the newspaper’s Statehouse reporter, the Idaho Press reported.

“It is time to hand over the reins to a new generation of Idaho journalists,” Russell said. “That is why I am also stepping down as president of the Idaho Press Club when my term ends in April. I’m really excited about the talented wave of younger journalists that is coming up in our state. It is their turn now.”

In her retirement, Russell plans to devote her winter weekdays to skiing at Bogus Basin, something she has been unable to do because of the Idaho Legislature’s schedule.

Here’s what some of Idaho’s veteran elected officials and journalists had to say about Betsy Russell

Idaho Capital Sun is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Idaho Capital Sun maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Christina Lords for questions: info@idahocapitalsun.com. Follow Idaho Capital Sun on Facebook and Twitter.

Democrat Tom Arkoosh opened the debate alleging his Republican opponent Raúl Labrador would turn the attorney general’s office into a political office that would deny women health care, defund the education system and ban books.

“I want to run a law office, and I think my opponent wants to run a cultural war room,” Arkoosh said.

Labrador denied the accusation, saying he would never put politics above the rule of law. Labrador did say he would aggressively defend policies and laws the Idaho Legislature passes and hopes to partner with legislators in drafting bills and laws so that they are not thrown out in court.

“It’s pretty clear that the people of Idaho are looking for a strong, aggressive, conservative attorney general that will defend the people of Idaho,” Labrador said.

The live, hourlong attorney general’s debate took place at Idaho Public Television’s Boise studio and marked the second of four Idaho Debates, which will all be broadcast across the state in the lead up to the Nov. 8 general election.

Labrador is an attorney who served four terms in the United States House of Representatives after serving in the Idaho Legislature. Born in Puerto Rico, Labrador was the first Hispanic member of Idaho’s congressional delegation.

Arkoosh is a partner at Arkoosh Law Office who has more than 44 years of legal experience. He has worked in civil, criminal, commercial and water resources law. Arkoosh has also worked as a county prosecutor and in the Washington Attorney General’s Office.

Labrador defeated incumbent Attorney General Lawrence Wasden in the May 17 primary election, while Arkoosh entered the race after original Democratic nominee Steven Scanlin withdrew his candidacy on July 18.

Under Idaho law, the Idaho attorney general’s duties include performing legal services for the state, representing the state in court, advising agencies and public officials on questions or the law and, upon request, issuing free legal opinions in writing for the Idaho Legislature or statewide elected officials. The attorney general also has a seat on the Idaho Board of Land Commissioners, which advises the Idaho Department of Lands on how to manage about 2.5 million acres of state endowment trust lands.

Idaho AG candidates discuss abortion policy

The two candidates also spent a good deal of Monday’s debate discussing abortion policy and law following the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade.

Labrador pledged to defend Idaho’s near total abortion ban. When asked about exceptions to the abortion ban, Labrador said “the reality is that our law is really clear; our law says that if if woman’s life is in jeopardy that the abortion can be provided.”

“(Arkoosh) needs to understand that we need to defend the law of Idaho instead of saying that we are going to cave to the federal government,” Labrador said.

Meanwhile, Arkoosh said he is worried about conservative Idaho legislators doubling down on additional restrictions to block access to abortion.

“I am afraid we are going to have a statue that comes up and tells us that a pregnant woman can’t travel (to obtain an abortion out of state),” Arkoosh said.

For anyone who missed the attorney general’s debate, it is available to watch on YouTube and will be posted and archived on Idaho Public Television’s website.

Idaho Capital Sun reporter Kelcie Moseley-Morris served as one the reporters on the panel asking questions during Monday’s attorney general debate.

Idaho Debates broadcasts continue Tuesday with a U.S. Senate debate

There are three remaining Idaho Debates that will be broadcast this month on Idaho Public Television and posted online at Idaho Public Television’s website.

Next up is the U.S. Senate debate between incumbent U.S. Sen. Mike Crapo, R-Idaho, Independent candidate Scott “Oh” Cleveland and Democratic nominee David Roth. That 90-minute debate will be broadcast at 8 p.m. local time Tuesday. The Senate debate took place Monday and is already available to watch on Idaho Public Television’s YouTube page.

Two other debates are also scheduled.

• At 8 p.m. Mountain Time / 7 p.m. Pacific Time on Oct. 24, the Idaho superintendent of public instruction debate featuring Republican Debbie Critchfield and Democrat Terry Gilbert will be broadcast live on Idaho Public Television and streamed on YouTube.
• At 8 p.m. Mountain Time / 7 p.m. Pacific Time on Oct. 28, the Idaho lieutenant governor’s debate featuring Republican Scott Bedke and Democrat Terri Pickens Manweiler will be broadcast live on Idaho Public Television and streamed on YouTube.

The debates will be archived on Idaho Public Television’s website for viewers who cannot watch live, and Spanish language closed captioning will be added after the initial live broadcasts are complete.

Last month, three Idaho Republican incumbent elected officials announced that they would not participate in statewide televised debates leading up to Election Day. Gov. Brad Little and U.S. Reps. Mike Simpson and Russ Fulcher, both R-Idaho, declined to debate their opponents, as did Democratic candidate for state treasurer Deborah Silver. Little and Simpson also declined to debate their opponents heading into the May 17 primary elections.

The general election takes place Nov. 8, and Idahoans can already request an absentee ballot. To find out if you are registered to vote, register to vote online, to request a ballot or double-check your polling location, visit www.voteidaho.gov.

Idaho Capital Sun is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Idaho Capital Sun maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Christina Lords for questions: info@idahocapitalsun.com. Follow Idaho Capital Sun on Facebook and Twitter.

The Joint Finance-Appropriations Committee sets the state budget each year and is one of the largest, hardest working committees in the Idaho Legislature.

Although the Idaho Legislature is not in session now, JFAC’s fall meetings held outside of the Idaho State Capitol in Boise have become a tradition and one of the warmups for a new legislative session that starts in January. 

During this year’s road show in the Magic Valley, JFAC members will receive briefings on the state general fund and begin reviewing each of the agency budget requests for fiscal year 2024 — from K-12 public schools to the Idaho Department of Health and Welfare, Medicaid, corrections and across the spectrum of state government. Committee members will also receive tours of the College of Southern Idaho, the Idaho State Department of Agriculture’s quality lab and a new juvenile court building.

Rep. Wendy Horman, an Idaho Falls Republican and JFAC member who often helps set the public school budgets, said the fall trainings and budget briefings are important enough that she’s making plans to secure a ride to participate in the first two days of meetings as she recovers from shoulder surgery.

“These meetings help the legislative session go more smoothly, so when we come in January, we won’t be coming in the dark. We will have had a strong review of what the (budget) requests are,” Horman said in a telephone interview.

This year’s fall training and budget review meetings may prove especially important in light of the turnover in the Idaho Legislature and on JFAC. At least 11 of JFAC’s 20 members will be new in the 2023 legislative session due to retirements and primary election losses in May.

Horman said several incumbent legislators and incoming legislators have expressed an interest in serving on JFAC given the openings. Horman said she held a sort of JFAC 101 training and 18 likely incoming legislators attended. Horman is also encouraging any incumbent legislators and legislative candidates to follow this week’s JFAC meetings to get up to speed.

Monday and Tuesday’s meetings begin at 8 a.m. at College of Southern Idaho in Twin Falls. Wednesday’s meeting begins at 10 a.m. at Bruneau Dunes State Park and continues with a tour of Anderson Ranch reservoir at 2 p.m. The public can also attend the meetings and agendas are available on the Idaho Legislature’s website.

The 2023 legislative session is scheduled to begin Jan. 9 at the Idaho State Capitol in Boise with the governor’s annual state of the state address.

Idaho Capital Sun is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Idaho Capital Sun maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Christina Lords for questions: info@idahocapitalsun.com. Follow Idaho Capital Sun on Facebook and Twitter.

Reclaim Idaho co-founder Luke Mayville told the Idaho Capital Sun on Wednesday afternoon that sponsors of the education funding initiative decided to pull the initiative because the law legislators passed during the special session would repeal the Quality Education Act, which may have doomed the initiative’s chance at passage.

The Quality Education Act was also referred to as Proposition 1, which is how it would have appeared on the ballots.

“We analyzed it very carefully and talked with local volunteer leaders and supporters all around the state and had a whole lot of discussions, and it became clear that given the circumstance of the special session, it is highly unlikely that Proposition 1 will receive over 50 percent of the vote,” Mayville said.

Chief Deputy Secretary of State Chad Houck confirmed to the Sun that the Quality Education Act is being pulled from the ballot.

Initiative pulled after special session bill was passed last week

The move comes following last week’s one-day special session of the Idaho Legislature, where legislators passed a surplus reduction law that included tax cuts and rebates and increases in education funding. The law legislators passed included $500 million in tax rebates, lowered the income tax rate to 5.8%, established a flat tax rate for all filers and exempted the first $2,500 of income. The law also directs $330 million a year to K-12 public schools and $80 million a year to career training from sales tax revenue collections, although it will be up to the 2023 Idaho Legislature to sign off on spending the money.

The special session bill was written so that it would repeal and replace the Quality Education Act. While the Quality Education Act was written so it would take effect Jan. 1, the special session bill was written so it would take effect two days later on Jan. 3.

“The most important fact is the special session law would repeal our initiative just two days after it goes into effect, so voters going to the ballot box on Election Day would know that even if they vote ‘yes’ their vote won’t have an effect,” Mayville said.

Republican Gov. Brad Little said the special session bill, which he promoted and then signed into law, wasn’t a response to the Quality Education Act. Little said he called for the special session after he learned the latest budget projections showed the record-breaking state surplus increasing to $2 billion. Little said he was motivated by the cost of inflation, gasoline and housing to use the surplus to return tax rebates to Idahoans and approve a funding increase for schools.

Democrats point to Reclaim Idaho’s success as reason for special session bill

But several Democratic legislators said Little and the Idaho Legislature would not have acted so quickly to pursue a multimillion dollar increase in education funding without the Quality Education Act looming. They pointed out the funding increases for K-12 education were similar — the Quality Education Act would have generated $323 million per year for a new fund for K-12 education while the special session bill sets aside $330 million per year for K-12 education and another $80 million for careers.

“I cited Reclaim Idaho as being part of the reason this is happening,” Sen. Janie Ward-Engelking, D-Boise, told the Sun the week before the special session. “They got this message out to the people and they got the support of Idahoans to get it on the ballot.”

Mayville agreed.

“There is some disappointment for a lot of us in bringing an end to the Proposition 1 campaign, but when we step back and look at the bigger picture, it’s clear that we have won,” Mayville said. “Because there are two ways to win. The traditional way is to go all the way to the ballot box and get a majority of the vote. But it is also possible to win by forcing the Legislature to do something good that they would never have otherwise done.”

To originally qualify the Quality Education Act initiative for the ballot, Reclaim Idaho organizers and volunteers spent more than a year gathering voters’ signatures across the state. They surpassed the ballot initiative certification requirements, which included gathering signatures from 6% of registered voters statewide and gathering signatures from 6% of registered voters in at least 18 of Idaho’s 35 legislative districts.

Mayville said Reclaim Idaho organizers worked with their attorney to submit a letter to the Idaho Secretary of State’s Office on Tuesday outlining their desire as sponsors to pull the initiative. Mayville said Reclaim Idaho organizers chose to pull it now because of the outcome from the special session and the deadline to print absentee ballots for the upcoming Nov. 8 general election.

In the weeks ahead, Reclaim Idaho organizers are planning a series of celebratory events to commemorate the Legislature’s funding increase from the special session and outline a strategy to make sure Little and the 2023 Legislature follow through on budgeting the new funding increases. Reclaim Idaho organizers and volunteers will also meet over the coming weeks to discuss the next chapter of Reclaim Idaho, a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization that was also behind the successful 2018 Medicaid expansion ballot initiative, which passed with 60.6% of the vote.

“Those of us who are watching this closely all across the state are going to expect the governor and Legislature to follow through and do a lot more to make sure our schools are competing for qualified teachers and support staff,” Mayville said.

A record-setting state budget surplus of nearly $2 billion is fueling talks about a potential special session of the Idaho Legislature.

The state officially ended the 2022 fiscal year on June 30 with a projected $1.4 billion state budget surplus, marking the second consecutive year Idaho has amassed a record ending cash balance. On Friday, Little said the surplus could reach $2 billion. He also appeared to lay the groundwork for taking action on the surplus.

“The Legislature and I are committed to more education investments and tax relief on top of the historic steps we’ve taken to support schools and cut taxes,” Little wrote in a Friday newsletter.

On Tuesday, Little’s press secretary Madison Hardy said the governor has not ruled out calling a special session. The 2022 legislative session has already adjourned for the year, and the 2023 legislative session is scheduled to convene Jan. 9. Legislators will also participate in an organizational session in early December, following the Nov. 8 general election – when all 105 legislative seats are on the ballot.

“The strength of Idaho’s economy and years of fiscal conservatism have led to another record budget surplus for Idaho, and Gov. Little has been very clear about his plans to propose additional investments in education and more tax relief for Idahoans,” Hardy said in a written statement. “Gov. Little has not ruled out a special session to help Idahoans grappling with crushing inflation and, as always, continues to actively discuss options with his legislative partners.”

Betsy Russell of the Idaho Press reported Monday that Little has not ruled out a special session.

Idaho legislators say they would work to provide relief to taxpayers

Speaker of the House Scott Bedke, R-Oakley, said he is working with Little to take “immediate” action on the record surplus.

“Idaho has another record surplus due to strong conservative leadership,” Bedke wrote in a statement released to the Idaho Capital Sun on Tuesday. “Biden’s inflation, however, is hurting everyday Idahoans. I am working with Gov. Little and my fellow members of the Legislature on ways to provide immediate tax relief for Idaho families and small businesses while also strengthening investments for future generations.”

Rep. Wendy Horman, an Idaho Falls Republican who sits on the Joint Finance-Appropriations Committee, said she would return to the Idaho State Capital for a special session if Little makes the call.

“I was glad to see that statement (from Gov. Little). Clearly revenues have far exceeded even our best estimates, and that is the people’s money,” Horman told the Idaho Capital Sun on Tuesday. “I am interested in acting to return some of that money to them at a time when it can be hard to put food on the table and gas in the car. Conceptually, I am in support of that general idea.”

“That is why we are elected,” Horman added. “It is our duty, and if that happens, I will go back and see what is on the table.”

A recent history of special sessions in Idaho

Under the Idaho Constitution, only the governor has the power to call a special session of the Idaho Legislature, which is officially called an extraordinary session.

Since 2000, Idaho governors have called special sessions in 2000, 2006, 2015 and, most recently, in August 2020, when Little called a special session to address election security and civil liability protection during a state of declared emergency.

If Little calls a special session, there could be multiple interesting political implications or tie-ins to the upcoming Nov. 8 general election.

Assuming he calls a special session before Election Day, the same legislators who are all coming to the very end of their terms would be called back to the Idaho capital in Boise, even though 19 of those legislators already lost primary elections this year and more than 20 other legislators retired or ran for a different office. All 105 seats in the Idaho Legislature are up for election in November, even though dozens of the races are not contested.

The issue of special sessions will also go before Idaho voters on Nov. 8. Voters will be asked whether or not to approve Senate Joint Resolution 102, a proposed amendment to the Idaho Constitution that would allow the Idaho Legislature to call itself back into session without the governor’s approval. It would take a simple majority of voters to pass Senate Joint Resolution 102.

Furthermore, voters will also be asked to vote on Proposition 1, the Quality Education Act ballot initiative. The initiative seeks to raise about $323 million per year for a new fund for public schools by raising the corporate income tax from 6% to 8% and creating a new top tax bracket at 10.925% for individuals making more than $250,000 per year and families making more than $500,000 per year.

In Hardy’s statement about a potential special legislative session, she made clear that Little said he plans to direct some of the surplus toward education funding and tax cuts — a potentially different approach that covers a lot of common ground with the Quality Education Act ballot initiative.

The Idaho Legislature could have several opportunities to push a different proposal than, or intervene in, the Quality Education Act, including during any potential special session or by trying to amend or repeal the Quality Education Act if voters pass it in November.

Idaho Capital Sun is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Idaho Capital Sun maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Christina Lords for questions: info@idahocapitalsun.com. Follow Idaho Capital Sun on Facebook and Twitter.

State budget analysts are projecting that the state ended fiscal year 2022 on Thursday with a surplus of about $1.3 billion, Idaho Division of Financial Management Director Alex Adams told the Idaho Capital Sun on Wednesday. State budget officials will likely know the exact figure on about July 20, after the state closes the books and completes year end transfers and bookkeeping work.

Assuming projections hold, a 2022 surplus of $1.3 billion would break the record for the largest state budget surplus in Idaho history, which was set just one year ago when the state ended fiscal year 2021 with a then-record surplus of about $890 million.

“What is important to think about with the $1.3 billion is that is after all the action this year with record tax relief and record investments in transportation and public schools,” Adams said. “After all of that is accounted for, we are still projected to end the year with an approximately $1.3 billion surplus.”

Idaho runs on a fiscal year calendar that runs from July 1 to June 30 every year. That means the 2023 fiscal year starts today, with new 2023 budgets also kicking in for state departments and agencies.

The simple explanation for the record surplus is that state revenues beat projections, Adams said. 

The spike in Idaho’s revenue growth over the past couple of years has been breathtaking. 

• For fiscal year 2020, the state brought in $4 billion in revenue. 
• In fiscal year 2021, revenues surpassed $5 billion for the first time in state history. 
• For fiscal year 2022, the budget year that ended Thursday, revenues were projected to surpass $6 billion for the first time in state history, Adams said. 

Earlier this year, Gov. Brad Little and the Idaho Legislature spent fiscal year 2021’s previous record surplus on several programs and initiatives during the 2022 legislative session, as Adams alluded to. They spent $600 million on a tax cut package that reduced individual income and corporate tax rates and provided tax rebate checks to Idahoans. They increased funding for public schools by more than $258 million, increased money for raises for teachers, increased funding for Little’s kindergarten through third grade literacy initiative and set aside money to move school employees onto the state’s insurance plan. They paid down state building debt, invested in infrastructure projects and increased the balance of rainy day savings accounts, such as the budget stabilization fund.

Although most of the decisions on what to do with the surplus will be made by the Idaho Legislature and Idaho’s governor when the 2023 legislative session begins in January, Adams said Gov. Brad Little is already developing priorities and state agency directors are beginning to piece together fiscal year 2024 budget requests, which are due Sept. 1. (Little has a November general election opponent.)

“(Gov. Little) is already saying he anticipates additional tax relief and additional investments in education and infrastructure,” Adams said.

Even with a record surplus at hand, Idaho officials call for restraint and cautious budgeting

Even though Adams said the state budget is in great shape with another record budget surplus at hand, Adams and an experienced legislator serving on the budget committee are urging caution. The surplus comes, they warned, as Idahoans are struggling to make ends meet as they face record gas prices, inflation that drives up prices, increases in rent and property tax rates and higher interest rates approved by the feds.

“Notwithstanding that large of a year-end surplus, I think we need to be very aware that families are struggling and that is their money,” Rep. Wendy Horman, R-Idaho Falls, said in a telephone interview. 

Horman, who does not face an opponent in this year’s general election, will return to Boise for her sixth legislative session in 2023. She is a veteran member of the Joint Finance-Appropriations Committee that sets the state budgets. 

When it comes to budgeting, Horman said she has concerns about how much of the budget surplus will be one-time in nature, versus how much may be ongoing. Horman is also monitoring different financial experts and economic forecasts that predict a new economic recession could begin within two years. 

“The question is how do we balance the needs of the state against the needs of Idaho families to retain their own dollars to use during these inflationary times?” Horman said.  “I think we need to certainly restrain spending at the state level and do everything we can to keep costs down, starting with the cost of a college education and going on to food and fuel and all expenses that families experience.”

For his part, Adams believes a lot of the $1.3 billion surplus will be one-time in nature as opposed to ongoing money available year after year to sustain funding increases. 

 “It’s still driven, to a large extent, by a lot of one-time factors I know we have talked about before,” Adams said. “There has been a huge infusion of federal funds into the economy that helped boost consumer spending. Inflation is driving prices higher, and with states that have a sales tax (like Idaho), that drives higher sales tax collections.”

“The big question is how much is sustainable?” Adams said.

State of Idaho withholds most of McGeachin’s final paycheck so her budget will balance

While the state is sitting on an unprecedented pile of cash, not every state office ended the year on such a positive note.

As previously reported by the Sun, the state of Idaho withheld most of Lt. Gov. Janice McGeachin’s final paycheck this week to ensure her office did not run a budget deficit. McGeachin has been working without a paid staff, the state is delaying her pay and paused vendor payments for McGeachin’s office. That’s because McGeachin was ordered by a district judge to pay the Idaho Press Club’s legal fees after a judge found that McGeachin illegally withheld public records related to her 2021 education task force, which the Idaho Press Club filed a lawsuit to obtain. A district judge ordered McGeachin to release the public records and pay the Idaho Press Club $28,973.84, which was going to cause McGeachin to run a budget deficit unless she cut expenses and the state stepped in. McGeachin originally wanted Idaho taxpayers to pick up the tab for the $28,973.84, but the Joint Finance-Appropriations Committee never acted on McGeachin’s $29,000 supplemental funding request.  

State records obtained by the Sun earlier this month show that McGeachin’s net pay for her final paycheck of fiscal year 2022 was $20.20 on June 24. The state withheld $1,713.26 from her June 24 check to avoid a budget deficit, according to a June 13 email sent to McGeachin by Chief Deputy State Controller Joshua Whitworth. Even though her paycheck was light last week, state officials plan to make McGeachin whole by paying the withheld portion of her paycheck on Aug. 5, when the fiscal year 2023 budget will be in effect, Whitworth wrote to McGeachin. Deferring a portion of her pay to Aug. 5 will result in a larger than normal gross paycheck of $3,575.02 on Aug. 5, Whitworth wrote.

State public records and Whitworth’s emails show McGeachin’s office was projected to end fiscal year 2022 on Thursday with an ending balance of 72 cents. It is illegal for any state agency or officer to spend money beyond funding that is approved by the Idaho Legislature, which is why the state delayed McGeachin’s pay and she worked without a paid staff for months this year. 

McGeachin has not responded to more than a dozen requests for comment the Sun has left over the phone and email for McGeachin since April 4.

The 2023 legislative session is scheduled to begin Jan. 9 at the Idaho State Capitol in Boise.

Idaho Capital Sun is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Idaho Capital Sun maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Christina Lords for questions: info@idahocapitalsun.com. Follow Idaho Capital Sun on Facebook and Twitter.

The Idaho State Board of Land Commissioners voted unanimously on June 21 to sell off Cougar Island, which is located on Payette Lake, to the highest bidder at auction. The island is located in the resort and recreation community of McCall, where thousands of people enjoy Payette Lake in the summer and every winter and snowboarders and skiers descend Brundage Mountain. 

Idaho Department of Lands officials told Land Board members Cougar Island is an underperforming asset that is currently divided into five leased sites, four of which are unleased. The Land Board is made up of Idaho’s governor, attorney general, superintendent of public instruction, secretary of state and state controller. The Land Board advises the Idaho Department of Lands on how to manage more than two million acres of state endowment lands.

Idaho Department of Lands real estate bureau chief Josh Purkiss recommended selling the island while the real estate market is still hot to generate financial returns that will benefit public schools and other state programs.

He said last year Cougar Island generated $32,400, while it has been appraised in the past at $4.8 million.

Cougar Island “is a very unique island that is an underperforming asset for the endowment, returning only .6%,” Purkiss told Land Board members. “So we would like to see this sold here in early September.” 

On May 9, Valley County commissioners wrote a letter to Idaho Department of Lands officials opposing auctioning off Cougar Island, which is a source of drinking water for the community.

“Cougar Island exists as one of the most iconic features of Payette Lake and Valley County Commissioners do not view its private sale as a benefit to residents and visitors of Valley County and the City of McCall,” commissioners wrote.

“Selling such beloved lands — enjoyed by generations of Idahoans — would be a permanent and irreversible black mark in our state’s decorate history of conserving special places so that future generations can share those same places and experiences. The weight of losing the island will not just be carried by those lucky enough to be elected leaders, but by all future generations of Idahoans,” commissioners added in the letter.

Valley County Commissioner Sherry Maupin followed up on the letter and asked Land Board members to delay or cancel the auction. Instead, she asked Land Board members to consider entering into a long-term agreement that would allow Valley County or another public entity to buy the land over a period of 20 years, as opposed to all at once at auction, or consider a land exchange. 

“The need to allocate public funding for an undetermined purchase price makes it extremely difficult for public entities to participate in the auction process,” Maupin told Land Board members. 

“This is historical to Payette Lake,” Maupin added. “Having housing out there would be a huge change so we are just asking for some time to try and find mitigating, something to do that we can do together for the future.”

Why did Idaho officials vote to auction off an island in the mountains?

During the Land Board meeting last week, Idaho Attorney General Lawrence Wasden told Maupin he was interested in her ideas and wanted to see if Valley County officials had made a formal application or had an estimate for the returns any of her deals would generate.

Maupin said she didn’t and reiterated that it is difficult for government entities to participate in auctions because the price is unknown until a winning bidder is selected.

“​​We are trying to raise funds as fast as we can,” Maupin said.  

Wasden said several times during the meeting his responsibility is to do whatever it is that will generate the most money from the island.

​​”I am interested in the market,” Wasden said. “That is actually what our decision making basis is, and that our objective is to obtain the maximum long-term financial return.”

When Idaho became a state, the federal government granted, or endowed, land to the state under the condition that the endowment lands be held in a trust to produce maximum long-term benefits to a series of beneficiaries, the largest of which is public schools. The state now has over 2 million acres of endowment lands, including the land on Cougar Island. 

Wasden asked Purkiss for his advice on how to get the most money out of it.

Purkiss recommended selling this fall, while the market is still active and before interest rate increases and other factors slow things down.

“Now is the right time; I don’t think waiting for the next cycle is prudent,” Purkiss said. “This, again, is not generating very much revenue and getting it sold is in the best interest of the endowment.”

Hasn’t the state wanted to sell Cougar Island for years?

This isn’t the first time that the Land Board has voted to sell off Cougar Island or other cottage sites around Payette Lake. 

In 2010, the Idaho Land board directed the Idaho Department of Lands to “unify” 523 cottage sites on state endowment lands, according to state records provided in connection with the June 21 meeting. As part of the process, the state created five parcels of land on Cougar Island and set up a process to allow interested leaseholders of the land to participate in voluntary auctions for ownership.

On July 17, 2018, the Land Board voted to approve the voluntary auction for ownership for leased sites at Payette Lake, including Cougar Island. Then, in 2020, the Idaho Department of Lands staff created the Payette Endowment Land Strategy, or PELS, plan, which identified Cougar Island as a “tier one” property that should be sold within one to five years, Purkiss said. 

Because of the potential windfall from a sale and four of the five sites on Cougar Island being unleased, Purkiss and officials advise selling. 

Boise Dev reported in April that the state was again looking to move forward with an auction of Cougar Island. 

Jim Laski, an attorney who resides in Bellevue, has held the lease for the one leased site for the past 10 summers. He’s said he is interested in buying his leased site and urged Land Board members to move ahead with auction in July, a date he said state officials previously agreed to before recently calling him and telling him the auction would be delayed to allow for more marketing of the island and inspections of whether septic systems could be put in on any of the other unleased sites.

Laski said he has an appraisal and financing commitments in hand that would likely expire if the auction is delayed past July.

“It is not fair to me nor the interest of maximizing return to the endowment to allow a controversy over whether or not the newly created lots should be developed to remove me or delay me from my ability to participate in the auction,” Laski told the Land Board. 

After about 45 minutes worth of testimony and discussion, Land Board members voted unanimously to reaffirm the 2018 decision to sell Cougar Island at auction. Purkiss said a bidder would be able to buy the entire island, but it could also be divided up for auction.

“We will offer it in various ways, and whichever one generates the most revenue at auction will be the winner,” Purkiss told the Land Board. 

On Thursday, Idaho Department of Lands spokesperson Sharla Arledge told the Idaho Capital Sun the auction is tentatively for Sept. 8. The island is being marketed by the real estate marketing firm Corbett Bottles.

Idaho Capital Sun is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Idaho Capital Sun maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Christina Lords for questions: info@idahocapitalsun.com. Follow Idaho Capital Sun on Facebook and Twitter.

Altogether, 40 students received the scholarships — 25 of whom will be attending an academic program at an Idaho college or university and 15 who are participating in a career technical education program. The scholarships are for $3,000 per year and are renewable for four years for a college or university program and renewable for three years in career technical programs. 

The 40 recipients were selected from a pool of more than 3,500 applicants, Little said. 

“Everybody in this room epitomizes what it really means to get a higher education here and beyond,” Little told the students and their parents. “I want to congratulate all of you for your hard work, what you have done and also congratulate your parents.”

Money for the scholarships is raised through the Idaho Governor’s Cup, an annual event that attracts business leaders, lobbyists, elected officials and politically connected donors for a golf tournament, fly fishing, shooting and social events in Sun Valley. 

Former Gov. Cecil Andrus created the nonprofit Idaho Governor’s Cup in 1974. 

Scholarships are need- and merit-based and open to students graduating from an Idaho high school or home school or participating in the first year of a career technical education program. Students must have a cumulative GPA of 2.8 or better.  

Idaho Governor’s Cup Scholarship Recipients

Idaho Capital Sun is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Idaho Capital Sun maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Christina Lords for questions: info@idahocapitalsun.com. Follow Idaho Capital Sun on Facebook and Twitter.

Timberline High School student Annie Birch Wright felt a connection to her school’s mascot because it wasn’t just another generic animal.

The mascot is the wolf, which led to a real pack of wolves living in the nearby Boise National Forest being named for, symbolically adopted by and studied at the high school.

“It is just a really cool thing to have,” said Birch Wright, who is a member of the school’s TREE Club, which stands for Teens Restoring Earth’s Environment. “It was a way for students to connect with the environment and wild species, especially because it is a wolf, which is our mascot, and because of how big of a role wolves play in our ecosystem.” 

Before Birch Wright and her friends attended Timberline, some previous students even got to go on field trips with their teacher and a wolf tracker near Lowman, where they looked for wolves, listened for their calls, analyzed their scat and urine and followed their prints in the snow.

“TREE Club is something that means everything to me,” said retired teacher Dick Jordan, who sponsored the first student TREE Club in Jerome in 1990 and brought the club to Boise High School and then Timberline in recent years. 

“We live in a world where kids are disconnected, and you can’t begin to protect anything that you don’t have a relationship with,” he said. “Extracurricular activities like TREE Club give you the opportunity to get involved and active when you’re not stuck in the classroom.”

Because of COVID-19 precautions and this year’s usually cold and snowy spring, Birch Wright hasn’t yet had the chance to go out tracking wolves from the Timberline pack in the Boise National Forest. 

Now, she’s worried she will never get the chance to track her school’s pack. Based on information from a wolf tracker, Jordan told the TREE Club members that pups from the Timberline pack were killed in 2021, in the wake of the Idaho Legislature’s passage of Senate Bill 1211. 

The 2021 law allows Idaho hunters to obtain an unlimited number of wolf tags, and it also allows the Idaho Department of Fish and Game to use taxpayer dollars to pay private contractors to kill wolves, including on public lands. Also in 2021, the Idaho Fish and Game Commission expanded the wolf hunting season and hunting and trapping methods.  

“When our pack was killed, nobody knew about it at first, but when we were told by Mr. Jordan, it took all of our breath away. It hit hard,” Birch Wright said. 

In an October 2021 letter to the International Wildlife Coexistence Network, U.S. Department of  Agriculture Undersecretary for Marketing and Regulatory Programs Jenny Lester Moffit confirmed Wildlife Services biologists killed eight young wolves (four in Idaho County and four in Boise County) as a means to protect livestock and control the wolf population.

“When possible, (Wildlife Services) prefers to use nonlethal methods,” Lester Moffit wrote in the letter. “However, in some situations — such as that in Idaho — it is necessary to use lethal control methods. While we understand your objections, it is important that our management professionals have access to all available tools to effectively respond to wildlife depredation. As such, we cannot stop using any legal, humane management options, including the lethal removal of juvenile wolves.”

Lester Moffit said Wildlife Services investigations found that, in 2021, wolves killed 108 livestock in Idaho, and Wildlife Services killed the young wolves as part of an effort to push the adult wolves to relocate.

Since learning their pack’s wolves were killed, several Timberline TREE Club leadership officers, including Birch Wright, Michel Liao, Cindy Su and Sasha Truax, have started speaking out, raising awareness of about the role wolves play in the ecosystem as apex predators and calling for additional protections for wolves, including relisting them as an endangered species. 

“We need to have people realize the negative effects that come with unregulated killing of such an important species,” said Su, one of the student members of Timberline’s TREE Club. 

The students testified at an Idaho Fish and Game Commission meeting last month, wrote letters to President Joe Biden, and Su started a nonprofit called System Green. Liao has testified before the White House Council on Environmental Quality and is tracking data about the location where wolves are killed in Idaho. 

Their efforts have led to articles in the Washington Post, the Idaho Statesman and the New Yorker magazine. 

Their teachers say a documentary filmmaker is working on a movie about them.

“I couldn’t be more proud of them. They are incredible kids,” Timberline AP environmental science and geology teacher Erin Stutzman said. “As an educator, this is what you want for kids. These are the opportunities that set them apart from their peers. These are the opportunities that are going to catapult them to greatness in the future.”

Wolves are a controversial topic in Idaho, and the debate isn’t going away

Wolves, wolf management issues and conflicts between wolves, livestock and humans are hot button issues in Idaho and across the West, and have been for decades. 

“This is an extremely complicated and controversial animal, and if there were easy answers, they would have been found a long time ago,” Idaho Department of Fish and Game spokesman Roger Phillips said. 

“As wildlife managers, we are trying to move toward managing the wolf population to be in balance with other wildlife and livestock,” Phillips added.  

One of the Idaho legislators who co-sponsored Senate Bill 1211, the 2021 wolf bill, says the state needs to protect livestock such as sheep and cattle, and game animals such as elk, from wolves. 

“It is not a matter of we are trying to wipe out all of the wolves,” Sen. Van Burtenshaw, R-Terreton, told the Idaho Capital Sun. “We are managing them and taking care of the problems. That is our design and that is the design of Senate Bill 1211.”

The students disagree with killing wolves, and say that education and awareness are important as they push for wildlife officers to use nonlethal methods of controlling wolves and intervening in conflicts between wolves and livestock or humans. 

Liao, one of the student leaders of Timberline’s TREE Club, worries hunters and wildlife services officers will use Senate Bill 1211 and taxpayer dollars to legally kill up to 90% of the wolves in Idaho. 

“I used to think wolves were bad because of everything that I had been raised on, but the 90% was shocking,” Liao said. 

Opponents of Senate Bill 1211 came up with the 90% figure based on the difference between a wolf population estimate of 1,500 and public statements from the Idaho Department of Fish and Game saying the state is committed to maintaining a wolf population of at least 150 animals. Senate Bill 1211 allows federal and state agencies and private contractors to dispose of wolves when wolf population exceeds recovery goals. 

Liao said learning about the wolves led him to TREE Club as a way to get involved and take action. Liao learned from Stutzman and Jordan about the roles apex predators like wolves have in an ecosystem.

Burtenshaw said the SB 1211’s drafters and supporters have never said they wanted to kill 90% of wolves and the bill doesn’t include that language. Burtenshaw said they aren’t out to kill all the wolves, they just want to protect livestock and game animals.

“The effect we’re seeing, honestly, is a (wolf) population that seems to be growing regardless of what we do,” Burtenshaw said. 

How Idaho’s Timberline High ended up with its own wolf pack

Prior to reintroduction, it is believed the last wolf in Idaho was killed in the 1930s after Congress approved funding to pay for wolves to be removed from public lands across the West, according to an Idaho Department of Fish and Game timeline. 

In 1994, the Idaho Fish and Game Commission adopted a policy in support of reintroducing an “experimental, nonessential” wolf population in central Idaho. In January 1995, four gray wolves from Canada were released on the edge of the Frank Church-River of No Return Wilderness in Idaho, and 11 wolves were released at Indian Creek and Thompson Creek on the Middle Fork of the Salmon River. In 1996, another 20 wolves were released near the Frank Church-River of No Return Wilderness. 

A few years later, Timberline High School opened in 1998. Jordan said he played a role in the wolf becoming the school mascot.

In 2002, Carter Niemeyer, who was then the U.S. Fish and Wildlife’s wolf recovery coordinator for Idaho, caught and collared a female wolf and her pup in the Boise National Forest near Idaho City, Niemeyer told the Idaho Capital Sun. Jordan and Niemeyer discussed the school adopting the pack.

In 2003, the Timberline pack’s adoption was recognized, Jordan said. Students decorated collars for the first wolves from the new pack and began studying them.

Niemeyer continued to study and track the pack, sometimes accompanying Jordan and students on field trips. Niemeyer learned about the pack and knew where a den was located. 

Reviewing his notes from the field, Niemeyer told the Sun the pack’s numbers fluctuated over the years, from 11 in 2010 to three in 2013. Starting in 2014, he documented evidence of pack activity, saying the number grew to six wolves in 2016, and eight wolves in 2017 and 2018.

Although the wolves’ territory is large, Niemeyer said the Timberline wolves’ dens and rendezvous sites were on public lands, not private lands. He also said the pups were killed on public lands, where sheep were brought to legally graze. The public lands were also the wolves’ home.

“I don’t know how many (members of the Timberline pack) are left, or if there are any left with the hunting and trapping season and the liberal take of wolves there,” Niemeyer told the Sun. 

In January, Idaho Department of Fish and Game officials estimated there were 1,543 wolves in all of Idaho during the summer of 2021. That number stayed pretty consistent over the previous two years, when the wolf population estimates were 1,556 and 1,566 wolves. The Idaho Department of Fish and Game population estimate also tallied 300 documented wolves killed between July 1 and Dec. 31, 2021, a figure that includes the Timberline wolves. 

Most wolves are killed by hunters and trappers. But the number of dead wolves also includes wolves that died naturally, wolves killed while they are attacking prey or after killing prey, and wolves killed by Idaho Department of Fish Game or wildlife services agents to limit pressure on elk herds, the Idaho Department of Fish and Game says. 

A closer look at the Idaho Legislature’s 2021 wolf bill

During the 2021 session, Burtenshaw carried the wolf bill in committee and on the Senate floor. In addition to legislators, Burtenshaw said four or five groups worked on writing the bill, including the Idaho Farm Bureau, the Idaho Cattlemen’s Association and hunting and trapping groups. 

Burtenshaw said he got involved with wolf management and co-sponsored the bill for several reasons. He had worked on the Idaho Department of Fish and Game budget in the Joint Finance-Appropriations Committee and was working closely with that agency. Burtenshaw is also a rancher, and his constituents and Idahoans living outside of his district alike had called him to ask for help after their sheep or livestock were killed by wolves. For example, Burtenshaw said he met a sheep rancher who uses Great Pyrenees dogs to guard his sheep. Over the past 10 years, Burtenshaw said wolves killed 39 of the dogs and $400,000 worth of sheep. In other examples, Burtenshaw said a rancher in the Boise valley lost 135 or more sheep after wolves got into the flock, while in the Birch Creek area last spring, wolves killed 28 of a rancher’s cattle. 

“Just like with the grizzly bear, when we have bad players, there is only so much you can do with that bear in order to cause it to not be a problem bear,” Burtenshaw said. “With wolves, we have the same issue. When a pack gets too large it takes ‘x’ amount to feed that pack, and they have to move, and wolves have large hunting areas. Sheep are susceptible to coyotes, wolves, bears and cougars. All we are trying to do is gain control of the population.” 

Wolves are among Idaho’s apex predators

On Thursday, the Idaho Rangeland Resources Commission issued a press release saying two wolves attacked a herd of sheep in the Shaw Mountain area of the Boise River Wildlife Management Area. According to the press release, charging wolves scared the sheep into running off a steep gully, which resulted in the sheep piling up and 143 of them dying. 

Shaw Mountain is the southernmost peak in the Boise Mountains and plainly visible from many spots in the city of Boise when looking east at the Boise foothills.

The release pointed out the wolves did not eat any of the sheep, which piled up and suffocated. 

Shaw Mountain is part of the Boise River Wildlife Management Area and situated on public lands, where the sheep were grazing legally. The sheep were among 2,500 sheep that crossed Idaho Highway 55 in March to spend the summer grazing throughout the Boise Foothills, the press release said.

It is possible to encounter wolves and other animals, including black bears, anywhere north of the Boise River and throughout the Boise Foothills, Phillips said.

The incident on Shaw Mountain occurred May 11, Phillips said, and USDA Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service Wildlife Services officers investigated the following day. Phillips said the investigation is complete: Wildlife Services investigators found two sets of wolf tracks in the area and met with eyewitnesses who reported seeing wolves in the area that charged at the flock.

The owner of the sheep, Wilder sheep rancher Frank Shirts, is applying for compensation for the sheep, the press release said. 

Idaho Department of Fish and Game officials ordered a control action to Wildlife Services on May 13, which authorized agents to find and kill the wolves responsible, said Phillips.

Wildlife Services officers were not able to find or kill any wolves by the time the order expired at the end of May.

“Wildlife Services on several different occasions tried to locate those wolves and did not,” Phillips said. 

Predators or not, TREE Club members are opposed to killing the wolves. Jordan, the retired teacher who first sponsored TREE Club, has questions and concerns about the killing of the Timberline pack in 2021 and about reports of wolf attacks on livestock. 

“What we are seeing is not wildlife management, what we are seeing is extermination,” Jordan said. “People would be shocked at the millions of dollars we pay publicly to eliminate these amazing apex predators, and not just wolves, but cougars and bears too.”

Idaho Capital Sun is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Idaho Capital Sun maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Christina Lords for questions: info@idahocapitalsun.com. Follow Idaho Capital Sun on Facebook and Twitter.

The canvass can be thought of as a reconciliation of all the votes in all the races, and it is different from a recount. The findings of the canvass did not show the outcome from any of the races would be affected or changed, Secretary of State Lawerence Denney said.

“At the end of the day, all of those numbers add up,” Denney said. 

Although Idahoans saw election results and the news media widely reported on initial, unofficial election results released by the state and counties after polls closed, the election results did not actually become official until they were certified Wednesday at the Idaho State Capitol. 

That’s not a new or different process for this year’s election.

“There is a process, but in our fast-moving society, we are just used to that instant gratification, so it’s done and it’s over,” Chief Deputy Secretary of State Chad Houck told the Idaho Capital Sun. 

“It’s one more step in a very well thought through, longstanding and consistently applied election process that Idaho has altered very little since the 1970s,” Houck added. “It’s established, it’s trusted, and you can rely on it.” 

State law outlines the process, which gives county commissioners seven days after a primary election to canvass results. The law then calls for the State Board of Canvassers to certify the election results within 15 days of the primary election. 

The State Board of Canvassers includes Denney, State Controller Brandon Woolf and State Treasurer Julie Ellsworth. Before certifying election results Wednesday, the three officials reviewed election data from the canvasses of all 44 counties and received a briefing by the staff from the Idaho Secretary of State’s Office. The data included election results down to the county and precinct level. It also included voter turnout data by county and absentee and early voting totals by county.

“We literally go through, down to the single vote, and reconcile out any discrepancies,” Houck said.

The State Board of Canvassers voted unanimously to certify the election results after staff from the Idaho Secretary of State’s office told them there were no problems with the results. During the briefing, Deputy Secretary of State Jason Hancock told the State Board of Canvassers the staff pulled all of the data from the counties’ canvasses and cross-checked the data with live election night results reported to the state May 17. Hancock said the process uncovered a small number of variances, the largest of which were three or four variances in races that Hancock said were not close. Hancock said the staff then went through to determine if the error was made in the canvass or in reporting the live election results May 17. Hancock said reasons for the variances included typographical errors or data entry errors, such as transposing two different numbers. 

“We got it all resolved and ironed out,” Hancock told the Sun. “This is why we do the canvass. It forces us to look at these things, and we didn’t find anything in any close races (that would change the outcome).”

“That is the reason why there are seven days between the election night and the canvass itself and another seven days before the state certifies,” Houck added. “It is like any good accounting process where you go back and double check and have another set of eyes look at it and go back through.” 

With Idaho election results certified, candidates may now request a recount

Now that election results are officially certified, candidates have 20 days to formally request a recount with the Idaho Attorney General’s Office. 

Rep. Scott Syme, R-Caldwell, told the Idaho Capital Sun he will seek a recount after losing the closest primary election in the state by six votes to fellow incumbent Rep. Judy Boyle R-Midvale. In that race, Boyle defeated Syme by a margin of 4,636 votes to 4,630 votes. 

Under Idaho law, the state will pay for Syme’s recount because the difference between the two vote totals was less than .1%. Any other legislative candidate may also request a recount with the Idaho Attorney General’s Office within 20 days, though they would have to pay $100 per precinct for the recount since no other legislative or statewide races were within a .1% margin. 

Even though this can be confusing, the canvass and certification and recounts are different. The certification involved comparing and reconciling the data reported on the night of the election with the data from the county canvasses and reconciling any differences between the two. 

“We’ve done all the math, and there is not a math error in there,” Houck said. “It doesn’t address whether there is a counting error.” 

Houck has previously told the Sun he heard that a recount will also be requested in Madison County, where former Rep. Britt Raybould, R-Rexburg, defeated incumbent Rep. Ron Nate, also R-Rexburg, by 36 votes. However, Nate would have to pay for the recount if he wants one because the difference was not within .1%. Nate could not be reached for comment. 

Once a request for a recount is filed, Idaho Attorney General Lawrence Wasden will issue an order for a recount to take place within 10 days, and order the relevant county sheriff to sequester the ballots.

Idaho Capital Sun is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Idaho Capital Sun maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Christina Lords for questions: info@idahocapitalsun.com. Follow Idaho Capital Sun on Facebook and Twitter.

Rep. Scott Syme, R-Caldwell, will submit a letter to the Idaho Attorney General’s Office formally requesting the recount after the State Board of Canvassers certify election results by Wednesday’s deadline, Syme told the Idaho Capital Sun. 

Syme said he is requesting the recount because the results were so close, but he will accept the results of the recount no matter what the outcome is.

“I am good with it either way,” Syme said. “Really and truly if it does come out the same, then that is just — I don’t know if bellwether is the right word — but that is proof our elections are sound, they are secure and we need to stop this big lie that is going around that our elections aren’t secure.”

Syme said he has already requested a recount with the Attorney General’s Office, but was advised to resubmit it after election results are certified to ensure his request complies with a section of state law that allows a recount to be requested “within 20 days of the canvass of such election.”

“What I can tell you is the request for the recount has to go through the Attorney General’s Office, then they will contact the county sheriffs and have them sequester all the ballots,” Syme said.  

Complete but unofficial election results released by the state show that Rep. Judy Boyle, R-Midvale, defeated Syme by 4,636 to 4,630, a difference of six votes. The unofficial election results will become official following this week’s canvass and certification, after which Syme will submit his recount request. That race, a Republican primary election for District 9’s Seat B in the Idaho House, was the closest legislative primary election result in the state this year.

Boyle and Syme are incumbent legislators who used to represent separate, neighboring legislative districts. But due to the 2021 redistricting process that involved redrawing Idaho’s political boundaries based on population, Syme and Boyle were drafted into the same district and decided to run against each other rather than retire. 

Chief Deputy Secretary of State Chad Houck said the recount will be free for Syme, since the margin between the two candidates was less than .1%. State election results showed Boyle won 50.03% of the votes cast, while Syme won 49.97%. Under Idaho law, the state will pay for the recount because the margin was so small. 

No other Idaho legislative or statewide primary election result was within the .1% margin or five vote difference that qualifies for a free recount in Idaho law. 

However, candidates who lose by a larger margin than that may still request a recount if they are willing to pay for it, Houck said. The cost for such a recount is $100 per precinct, Houck said. 

In the District 34 Republican primary election for District 34’s House Seat B, former Rep. Britt Raybould, R-Rexburg, defeated incumbent Rep. Ron Nate, also R-Rexburg, by 36 votes, 2,641 to 2,605. Nate could not be reached for comment. Houck said he has heard a recount will also be requested in that District 34 race. 

If Nate does request a recount, he could choose whether to pay to have one, some or all of the precincts’ results recounted. 

What happens with a recount of Idaho legislative primary election results?

After Syme requests the recount, Attorney General Lawrence Wasden will order the county sheriffs to sequester the ballots, and issue an order for the recount. The order will specify the time and place for the recount, which must be conducted no more than 10 days after the order for the recount was issued, according to Idaho law. Both candidates, or their representatives, as well as the public will be allowed to witness the recount. State law stipulates that the attorney general will be the final authority on any questions raised during the recount.

As for the recount itself, under Idaho law, a random selection of ballots will be tallied by hand and the same ballots will also be tabulated using an electronic ballot tabulating system. If the margin of difference between the two counts is .25% or less, then all of the remaining ballots in the recount will be tabulated using the electronic ballot tabulation system. If the difference is more than .25%, all of the ballots will be counted by hand. 

Under state law, a candidate would have 24 hours to appeal the results of a recall. 

District 9, where Boyle and Syme’s race took place, covers three counties — a portion of Canyon County and all of Washington and Payette counties. Syme wants to observe the recount and would like the recounts in the three counties to take place at separate times.

“I want to be there for it,” Syme said.

Idaho Capital Sun is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Idaho Capital Sun maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Christina Lords for questions: info@idahocapitalsun.com. Follow Idaho Capital Sun on Facebook and Twitter.

Idaho’s governor’s race has all the makings of a national spectacle and has Republican Party officials in Idaho sitting on pins and needles.

“I say this is a primary like no other,” Idaho Republican Party chairman Tom Luna told the Idaho Capital Sun. “When I go to my national Republican meetings, the party chairs always have the opportunity to stand up and talk a little bit about their state, and every state has a story. But when I get up there and say I’ve got my sitting lieutenant governor running against my sitting governor they’re like, ‘OK, you win.’”

In Idaho, the governor and lieutenant governor don’t run for office as part of a joint ticket the way a U.S. president and vice president would. 

It isn’t just that incumbent Republican Gov. Brad Little and incumbent Lt. Gov. Janice McGeachin are running against each other. They are now bitter political rivals who have publicly feuded and criticized each other throughout most of the past two years. 

Twice when Little left the state and McGeachin served as acting governor in his absence, McGeachin used that temporary authority to issue executive orders that banned mask mandates and, on another occasion, COVID-19 testing and vaccination requirements. Little immediately overturned those executive orders and accused McGeachin of abusing her power. Now, Little doesn’t always tell McGeachin when he’s away. He points to a legal opinion from the Idaho Attorney General’s Office stating it is “reasonable” that the governor’s absence from the state doesn’t prevent him from discharging his duties. There is a trigger clause in the Idaho Constitution that says the lieutenant governor is to serve as acting governor under a number of scenarios, including the governor’s “death, removal from office, resignation, absence from the state or inability to discharge the powers and duties of his office …” 

Little said McGeachin’s use of executive orders while serving as acting governor was “an irresponsible, self-serving political stunt.”

McGeachin refers to the incumbent governor as “Little Brad,” or a RINO (Republican in name only) and says he is beholden to big corporations and the establishment. 

Little and McGeachin aren’t the only two Republicans running in the GOP gubernatorial primary. A total of eight candidates are on the ballot, also including Ed Humphreys, Ashley Jackson, Lisa Marie, Steven Bradshaw, Ben Cannady and Cody Usabel. On the Democratic side, only little known candidate Stephen Heidt is on the primary ballot, while Sandpoint Mayor Shelby Rognstad will run a write-in campaign for the Democratic primary. 

The winner of the May 17 primaries advances to the Nov. 8 general election, which will also feature independent and third party candidates. 

Where Idaho’s Republican gubernatorial candidates stand on the issues

During a March 17 press conference on the steps of the Idaho State Capitol, McGeachin laid out her top priorities should she be elected. 

Her “conservative vision for a free and prosperous Idaho” includes the prohibition of medical mandates and vaccine requirements, support for a 50-state audit of the 2020 election that President Joe Biden won, eliminating Idaho’s corporate income and grocery tax, cutting property taxes and making Idaho a “Second Amendment sanctuary state,” defending against so-called “cancel culture.” McGeachin also called for reducing what she called Idaho’s dependence on federal funding, as well as for supporting school choice, eliminating Common Core curriculum in public schools and pushing for the overturn of the U.S. Supreme Court decisions Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey. 

“As I have traveled across our beautiful state I have listened to our people, and I hear you loud and clear,” McGeachin said March 17. “On the very first day of my administration, Idaho will have a governing agenda that is crafted by the people of Idaho.”

McGeachin said her first priority is to “restore health freedom and end the threat of medical tyranny.”

Humphreys’ top priorities include promoting more school options and overhauling Idaho’s public school funding formula so that money follows the student to a family’s school of choice, even to private and religious schools that do not now receive taxpayer funds. 

“Education has to be No. 1,” Humphreys said. “We have a broken education system. My opponent, the current administration, feels that throwing more money at education is the only solution. I believe Idaho can lead America with an innovative approach to education.”

Humphreys also supports eliminating Idaho’s income tax, which he said would force the state to focus only on essential and reasonable programs and, he estimates, give back $3,000 per year to the average working Idahoan, which Humphreys said will spur the economy. 

Removing the income tax would kill the largest source of revenue for the state’s general fund. Collected income tax makes up about $2.45 billion of the state’s general fund, which had a total of $5 billion in revenue for fiscal year 2021. 

Humphreys also supports vocational training and career-technical education, which he says can help prepare young Idahoans to work immediately after high school and confront the state’s rising housing costs. Humphreys also backs criminal justice and reentry reforms, including a proposal to issue documents necessary for employment – like a state-issued ID, a copy of a birth certificate and a Social Security card – to everyone who completes incarceration to help them reenter the workforce. 

As for the incumbent, Little said the three areas he has focused on during his first four-year term continue to set his agenda for the next four years if voters re-elect him. This year, Little and the Republican-controlled Idaho Legislature used a projected $2 billion budget surplus to help pass the largest income tax cut in state history, pass investments in transportation and infrastructure, and approve one of the largest funding increases for K-12 public schools in state history. That proposal included a 12.5% increase in state funding with $47 million in additional funding for kindergarten through third grade reading and literacy. Little says most Idaho school districts will use that money to launch or support all-day kindergarten, but they are free to use the money how they see fit at the local level. Previously, Idaho has only provided state funding for half-day kindergarten, which is optional for families. 

“We are not telling districts what to do. We’re telling them the results we want — that our kids are reading — and then let the superintendent, the trustees and the teachers in the classroom figure out how to get there,” Little said. “The Legislature and governors tend to want to put a bunch of code on the books and intent language and appropriation bills. I want to say, ‘Here are the general results we want, we trust your good judgment and your knowledge of your local school district and your kids to get there.’”

Although Little did not debate his Republican challengers this year, he said he is running on his record.

“If the good people of Idaho support me in my goal to win this nomination, what has happened in the past is going to happen in the future,” Little said. 

Idahoans never got to see Republican candidates for governor debate before primary

From the Republican field of eight candidates, three gubernatorial candidates (Little, McGeachin and Humphreys) met the qualifications to participate in the televised Idaho Debates, including providing proof of an active campaign and fundraising. 

However, Little refused to participate in a pending televised Idaho Debates gubernatorial debate and then McGeachin backed out, prompting organizers to cancel the only planned statewide televised gubernatorial debate. 

Little was the first sitting governor seeking re-election in more than 30 years to decline to participate in the Idaho Debates, according to the Idaho Press Club. 

Little said he isn’t debating because his record is undebatable. 

“My record, I believe is, undisputable,” Little told the Sun. “The people of Idaho know what we have got done. Not that everybody doesn’t always stay on message during debates, but I feel like my record is so strong. The fact that the promises I made four years ago, I have fulfilled. I have spent enough time out all over Idaho that I am quite confident that Idahoans, knowing my record, will know that I did what I said I was going to do, and you can’t argue about the trajectory and the prosperity that is taking place in Idaho at this point in time.”

“Whether it be media interviews, town halls, Capital for Day, fill in the blank, I have done all of those and I stand by my comments, my actions, my reactions, my responses to questions at all of those, from one end of the state to the other,” Little added. 

Humphreys, who is challenging Little and the rest of the Republican gubernatorial candidates, criticized Little for not debating. 

“If you are an incumbent who is truly acting in Idahoans best interest, you should be proud to answer questions and stand by both your administration and your accomplishments,” Humphreys told the Sun. “You have no honor if you are not willing to participate in debates and participate in the electoral process.”

During a March 17, press conference McGeachin said debating her opponents is part of the job, but she also backed out of the gubernatorial debate once Little backed out, said Idaho Press Club president Betsy Russell, one of the debate’s organizers. 

Could feuds and controversies hurt any of the GOP candidates?

McGeachin did not respond to multiple interview requests from the Sun over the past two weeks.

Although McGeachin’s profile has been elevated considerably since being elected lieutenant governor in 2018 and announcing her gubernatorial campaign in 2021, she is not a political newcomer. 

A business owner from Idaho Falls, McGeachin was elected to five terms in the Idaho House of Representatives, where she served from 2002 to 2012. She served as chairwoman of the Idaho House Health and Welfare Committee in 2011 and 2012, where she supported recession-era cuts to Medicaid programs and opposed the state health insurance exchange. 

In 2018, McGeachin became the first woman elected lieutenant governor in Idaho state history.  

McGeachin announced her campaign for governor in May 2021 and was subsequently endorsed by former President Donald J. Trump last November. 

But aside from her use of her power while serving as acting governor, McGeachin has faced other controversies as she campaigns for the position of the state’s top elected official. 

In March, McGeachin delivered videotaped remarks to the America First Political Action Conference, which is hosted and attended by white nationalists and Holocaust deniers. 

Last week, McGeachin promoted and participated in a campaign event that featured former Fox News contributor Michelle Malkin, who the Southern Poverty Law Center and the Anti Defamation League says has ties to, and has shared stages with, white nationalists and far right extremists. 

Since spring, McGeachin has repeatedly been warned by state officials and budget administrators that she faces a projected budget deficit for her office, most recently estimated at $2,067.83, when the 2022 fiscal year ends June 30. McGeachin has been working without a paid staff since the April 15 pay period and told state officials they may withhold her salary and benefits to help avoid a budget shortfall. McGeachin’s budget problems arose after a district judge ordered her to pay almost $29,000 in legal fees and costs to the Idaho Press Club after McGeachin lost a lawsuit over her withholding public records related to her 2021 education task force. The task force itself, which McGeachin said she created to root out so-called “indoctrination” in public schools, was also controversial. The overwhelming majority of public comments Idahoans made were in opposition to McGeachin and the task force or supportive of schools. 

Last week, an Idaho taxpayer who is active in Republican politics filed a complaint asking the state to investigate whether McGeachin’s posted office hours of 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Tuesdays and Thursdays violate a section of state law requires Idaho’s public officers to keep their offices open from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. on weekdays.  

“Attention is focused on the gubernatorial election because of the great significance to the state and its future,” said political scientist David Adler, who has studied and taught Idaho politics and constitutional law for decades. “I don’t anticipate it to be a particularly close election. I think the lieutenant governor has engaged in so many missteps that it hurt her chance to make it a competitive race. I think the governor enjoys pretty significant support among Republicans and even, indeed, among independents.” 

In addition to McGeachin, Rognstad’s campaign team did not respond to an interview request this week from the Idaho Capital Sun and Jackson did not respond until Friday evening, after this article was submitted for publication. Little and Humphreys participated in lengthy, on-the-record interviews with the Sun.

Early voting locations in  Ada and Canyon counties

• Boise City Hall, 150 N. Capitol Blvd
• Meridian City Hall, 33 E. Broadway Ave
• Ada County Elections Office, 400 Benjamin Lane in Boise
• Nampa Celebration Church, 2121 Caldwell Blvd.
• Caldwell Elections Office, 1102 E. Chicago St.

Each location offers early voting from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday, through May 13. Polls will be open from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. local time on May 17 for in-person voting on the day of the primary location. Visit www.voteidaho.gov to double check your polling place and find out if you are registered.

Idaho Capital Sun is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Idaho Capital Sun maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Christina Lords for questions: info@idahocapitalsun.com. Follow Idaho Capital Sun on Facebook and Twitter.

Overall, Reclaim Idaho organizers and volunteers collected more than 95,269 signatures and qualified 20 different legislative districts, Reclaim Idaho co-founder Luke Mayville told the Idaho Capital Sun on Thursday.

If those signatures are verified and accepted at the county and state level, that would be enough to get it on the ballot in November.

To qualify for the ballot, Reclaim Idaho needed to collect signatures from 6% of registered voters statewide (about 65,000 voters) and 6% of registered voters in at least 18 different legislative districts. 

Reclaim Idaho organizers set a higher goal than the minimum numbers necessary to qualify because they know that up to 25% or 30% of signatures could be rejected because the person who signed is not a registered voter, didn’t write down their correct address or signed illegibly. 

“We think of it as an insurance policy in case something goes wrong,” Mayville said “Similarly to how we overshoot the total number of signatures needed, we also wanted to overshoot the number of (legislative) districts needed.” 

Organizers had until May 1 to collect enough signatures to qualify the Quality Education Act. 

The Idaho Secretary of State’s Office gave Reclaim Idaho until Monday to turn in their final signatures, because May 1 fell on Sunday, Mayville said. 

“Just to avoid any potential problems with that, we are making sure as many of the signatures as possible were turned in by Friday, but we will be turning in the ultimate, final signatures on May 2,” Mayville said.

“Probably over 95% of the signatures we will be turning in have already been turned into the counties,” Mayville added. 

Reclaim Idaho volunteers, often wearing a green shirt and cap, collected most of the signatures by knocking on doors across the state.

What would Reclaim Idaho’s Quality Education Act do?

If it makes the ballot and is approved by a simple majority of voters, the Quality Education Act would raise more than $300 million per year for education and public schools. The money would come from increasing the corporate income tax from 6% to 8% and by creating a new income tax bracket at 10.925% for individuals making more than $250,000 per year and families making more than $500,000 per year.

“The new funds proposed will go directly toward priorities like better pay for teachers and staff and support for programs that are currently underfunded,” Mayville said. “We want people to understand this initiative is not funded by property taxes.”

Some Republicans in the Idaho Legislature, including the chairs of the House and Senate education committees, have come out in opposition to the education initiative.

“My reaction is that it is a huge tax increase,” House Education Committee Chairman Lance Clow, R-Twin Falls, told the Idaho Capital Sun last year. 

Senate Education Committee Chairman Steven Thayn, R-Emmett, said he opposes the initiative because he doesn’t believe increasing funding for education will solve the state’s problems. Instead, Thayn favors more school choice options and overhauling Idaho’s public school funding formula. 

Reclaim Idaho is the same nonpartisan, nonprofit organization that led the successful push for Medicaid expansion in Idaho, which 60.6% of voters approved in 2018. 

Reclaim Idaho leaders and volunteers are turning in the final signatures to county clerks on Monday. From there, the counties have 60 days to verify the signatures. County clerks will be looking for things like making sure voters’ addresses on the initiative exactly match the registered voters’ addresses on file, ensuring the signers are all registered voters and making sure the signatures, names and addresses are all legible. 

After that process is complete around the end of June, Reclaim Idaho organizers will submit the verified signatures to the Idaho Secretary of State’s Office for another round of verification.

If the signatures are verified and meet the requirements for number of legislative districts and overall signatures, then the initiative will be approved to appear on the November ballot and assigned a name, such as Proposition One. 

Even if the initiative makes the ballot, Mayville knows Reclaim Idaho’s hundreds of volunteers can’t rest yet. They will spend the summer and fall getting the word out and encouraging Idahoans to get out and vote. 

“We are well aware that the next phase of the campaign begins right away,” Mayville said. “We know more people will start paying attention and will be curious about this initiative. So we are determined to do all that we can to inform the public about what is in this initiative.”

Idaho Capital Sun is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Idaho Capital Sun maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Christina Lords for questions: info@idahocapitalsun.com. Follow Idaho Capital Sun on Facebook and Twitter.

Tuesday’s lawsuit, filed by Todd Banducci and Gregory McKenzie in Kootenai County’s First Judicial District, represents the latest development in a turbulent year for the Coeur d’Alene-based community college. 

In September, Banducci, McKenzie and former North Idaho College trustee Michael Barnes voted without warning or cause to fire former North Idaho College president Rick MacLennan, the Spokesman-Review and Idaho Education News reported. Weeks earlier, Banducci, McKenzie and Barnes had united to rescind a new mask mandate that MacLennan had implemented, the Inlander reported. 

In January, Barnes resigned from North Idaho College’s board of trustees. 

Then, on April 8, North Idaho College trustees Christie Wood and Ken Howard announced their resignation from the college’s board of trustees, effective May 3. 

The resignations of Barnes, Wood and Howard would leave three of the five seats on the North Idaho College board of trustees vacant, and short of a majority quorum necessary to conduct business.

Idaho State Board of Education announced it would fill trustee vacancies

Meanwhile, the State Board of Education announced in an April 8 press release it would initiate a process to fill the vacant trustees seats until November’s next trustee election.

“Idaho Code provides that the State Board of Education shall fill vacancies if there are two or fewer trustees remaining on a community college board,” State Board of Education Executive Director Matt Freeman said in an April 8 written statement. “The State Board will soon release an announcement seeking applications from residents of each of the soon-to-be vacant community college trustee zones at North Idaho College.”

On April 12, State Board of Education officials put out a call for applications for the vacant board seats and set a deadline of April 25. 

The State Board received 37 applications for those vacant seats on North Idaho College’s board of trustees, Idaho Education News reported Tuesday. Three former legislators, including previous Senate Education Committee Chairman John Goedde, former House Education Chairman Bob Nonini and former Rep. Dean Haagenson were among the 37 applicants, Idaho EdNews reported. 

Also on Tuesday, Banducci and McKenzie, the two remaining North Idaho College trustees who have not announced their resignation, filed suit attempting to block the State Board of Education from filling those vacancies.

NIC trustees’ lawsuit argues state board should only be able to fill one position

In the suit, Banducci and McKenzie argue the State Board of Education should only be allowed to fill one of the three vacancies.

“It is the clear intent of the statute that the State Board of Education only appoint trustees needed to constitute a majority of members of the board,” Banducci and McKenzie’s attorney wrote in the lawsuit. 

Deputy Attorney General Dayton P. Reed responded on behalf of the State Board of Education on Wednesday, court records indicate. He wrote the State Board of Education is required to fill the vacancies when the board of trustees lacks a quorum and is unable to conduct its own business. Reed said Banducci and McKenzie have known about the vacancy created by Barnes’ departure since January and the North Idaho College board of trustees has been unable to fill the vacancy in that time period. 

Reed argued on the state board’s behalf that if Banducci and McKenzie wanted to stop the State Board of Education from filling the vacancies, all they had to do is work with Wood and Howard before they resigned to fill the vacancies on their own. 

Court records indicate a hearing was held Wednesday afternoon on Banducci and McKenzie’s request for a temporary restraining order to block the State Board of Education from filling the trustee vacancies. 

An email from Freeman obtained by the Idaho Capital Sun on Thursday indicated the judge denied the temporary restraining order. In his response on Wednesday, Reed said the State Board of Education will move forward with a full motion to dismiss. 

The State Board of Education is scheduled to meet on May 6 to deliberate and appoint three new trustees for North Idaho College, the State Board of Education said in its April 12 statement calling for trustee applications.

Idaho Capital Sun is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Idaho Capital Sun maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Christina Lords for questions: info@idahocapitalsun.com. Follow Idaho Capital Sun on Facebook and Twitter.

Because they have long held a supermajority and dominated Idaho politics, next month’s Republican primary elections are expected to be among the most competitive and influential races in a vital election year for Idaho. 

Based on decades of political dominance in Idaho and Democrats not running candidates in most races, the May 17 Republican primary elections will answer the question of who controls the Republican Party and, therefore, sets the policy and political agenda for years to come. 

“With the closed primary, that has become basically the general election because Idaho is such a strong red state,” said former Republican Speaker of the Idaho House Bruce Newcomb. 

The 2022 elections are the most important elections in years. All 105 seats in the Idaho Legislature are up for election, and all statewide offices, including governor, lieutenant governor, attorney general, secretary of state and superintendent of public instruction are up as well. 

History and electoral dynamics are certainly on the Republicans’ side. Although the Idaho Senate was split 21-21 in 1991 and 1992, the Republicans have controlled a majority in the Idaho Legislature since 1959, with the exception of those two years. 

Republicans have also won every statewide office since 2002, when Democrat Marilyn Howard was re-elected superintendent of public instruction. 

And even before a single vote in the 2022 elections is counted, Republicans know they will continue to enjoy a supermajority in 2023. Of the 105 legislative seats up for election this year, there are no Democrats running for 60 of the seats.

For the 2022 elections, the goals are clear, Idaho Republican Party Chairman Tom Luna told the Idaho Capital Sun. Republicans want to retain every statewide office and expand their supermajority in the Legislature. They’re also looking to expand their political empire beyond the Statehouse.  

“Most recently we have been involved with what traditionally have been nonpartisan offices to get more conservative voices at the school board and city and county level,” Luna said. “That is the nature of success, keep what we have and expand what we have.”

Idaho Republicans face division with the party

Supermajorities have interesting and complicated effects on elections and politics, said Jaclyn Kettler, associate professor of political science at Boise State University. 

“Republicans holding such a large majority in the state, whether you look at all the statewide offices or a supermajority in Legislature, actually provide some challenges to both parties,” Kettler said. “Republicans have internal division and Democrats face a few struggles, and one is perhaps even being able to recruit candidates to run.”

Luna said the primaries are when Republicans hammer out their differences and decide which direction the party will head. 

“As I travel around the state, it’s still very clear to me Republicans agree on 80% of policy and 80% of values, but it is during the primary we debate the 20% we don’t agree on.”

“It’s pretty clear we have legislative candidates that represent different wings of the party,” Luna added. “As a state party, we don’t get involved with supporting candidates in the primary. We let the voters decide.” 

But Idaho Democratic Party chair Rep. Lauren Necochea, D-Boise, said division within the Republican Party isn’t merely about debating policies about how to cut taxes and reduce government regulation. She said the Republican Party and the Idaho House have moved farther to the right and pushed divisive and extremism. 

“Idahoans in all walks of life are seeing extremism play out in the Idaho Legislature and are deeply concerned about the future of our state,” Necochea said. Examples she gave included reducing funding for higher education and the library commission, GOP efforts to remove a statute that protects librarians from imprisonment, passing a Texas-style abortion law and the Republicans’ focus on so-called indoctrination and critical race theory in school. 

Did the closed Republican primary election push the party to the far right?

Newcomb, a Republican who held the House’s top leadership position from 1999 through 2006, said he is worried about how the closed Republican primary election, which is only open to voters affiliated with the Republican Party, politicizes the party. 

“The big thing is we have become much more partisan, particularly the Republican Party and factions in dissent within the party,” Newcomb said. “If you look at Take Back Idaho, which includes (former state Republican officials) Ben Ysursa, Jim Jones, myself and Bob Geddes, we are concerned about the state Legislature in terms of addressing policy rather than conspiracy theories. There are factions (in the GOP) where we have CRT, critical race theory and those people buying into those stuff. Basically, in the beginning, hardly anybody could define it and no matter how much you shoot at it, it just keeps rising up. Now it is present in a lot of people’s campaigns and it shouldn’t be.”

Since helping launch the Take Back Idaho PAC and saying he wants to push for the removal of extremists from the Legislature, Newcomb has been called a RINO, or Republican in Name Only. 

Newcomb said the name-calling and meanness is illustrative of the party’s shift and problems.

“The other thing is campaigns have become so ugly and dissident that good people are reluctant to get involved.”

Newcomb said Republicans deserve the blame for the division and extremism that has crept into the party and for underestimating the sophistication of divisive social media content. 

“A lot of it is people, like myself, were kind of asleep at the switch and thinking this will correct itself but it just keeps gaining momentum,” Newcomb said. 

Political scientist David Adler, the president of the nonprofit Alturas Institute in Idaho Falls, said the party has shifted so far to the right he doesn’t see much distinction between Idaho Republicans, particularly in the Idaho House of Representatives. If there are differences, Adler said they should be measurable — such as differences in voting records or by elected officials who stand up and denounce policies such as cutting funding for libraries and education or pursuing a bill that critics worried could lead to jailing libraries for material “harmful to minors.”

Adler points to two bills over the past two years that he says are illustrative of the state of the Republican Party in Idaho. One is this year’s abortion law, Senate Bill 1309. Every Republican but Rep. Fred Wood, R-Burley, voted for it and GOP Gov. Brad Little signed it into law. (Wood is retiring and will not return to the Idaho Legislature next year).

The other is the so-called anti indoctrination, anti critical race theory bill from 2021. The only Republican to vote against House Bill 377 was Sen. Dan Johnson, R-Lewiston.

“It’s one thing to say you represent a more moderate wing of the Republican Party and offer a distinctive voice than that offered by the far right,” Adler said. “But if in fact your voting record mirrors the far right, then essentially there is no moderate conservative wing in the Republican Party.”

Adler thinks the move to the right could eventually be damaging to the Idaho Republican Party, but it will take Idahoans deciding GOP policies don’t work for regular Idaho families and launching a sustained move to attract independent and moderate voters to reshape the Democratic Party. 

“It would marginalize the far right in Idaho; it would place them on an island,” Adler said. 

For his part, Luna disagreed with Adler, Newcomb and Necochea.

“We have a physiological difference on the proper role of government,” Luna said. “You have one side that really believes the answer is bigger government and more programs, right, more government programs. On the other side, Republicans insist on less government and know you need strong families. So everything we do should be building strong families, whatever your definition of families. We don’t need big government where families are weak and not able to function as a unit and rely more and more on government programs. It is a different approach, where we want to strengthen families and strengthen the support system.”

Luna said Republicans resisted extremism and anti-government activist Ammon Bundy, an independent candidate who originally announced he would run for governor as a Republican before going independent. 

“You saw that play out in its natural course,” Luna said. “He was not a Republican, he had never voted as a Republican and he realized he didn’t have a place in the Republican Party and became the poster child of a RINO.”

Luna said Republicans get criticized for their beliefs and infighting and but don’t get enough credit for their accomplishments. 

“When I talk to the national press, I remind them we are the least regulated state and have one of the best economies in the country with two years in a row of massive tax cuts and rebates,” Luna said. “It’s not an accident. It’s the result of a robust and engaged Republican Party. When you write ‘what’s wrong with the Republican Party?’ or ‘what’s the future of the Republican Party?’ remind people it is that same Republican Party that created one of the fastest growing states, a state that is so attractive to others because of low regulations, reduced taxes and what I believe is a good education system for the money we spend.”

Idaho Capital Sun is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Idaho Capital Sun maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Christina Lords for questions: info@idahocapitalsun.com. Follow Idaho Capital Sun on Facebook and Twitter.

Between Republican-led moves to reduce funding for higher education, cut money for the library commission, attempt to eliminate protections that keep librarians from being jailed, pass a Texas-style abortion law and a barrage of GOP-sponsored bills to make last-minute changes to voting and registration laws that critics say would make it more difficult to vote, Idahoans are showing an appetite for something different, said Rep. Lauren Necochea, D-Boise. 

“I think we have more momentum in our party since the days of Cecil Andrus and Frank Church,” said Necochea, who was elected party chair in March. “Idahoans in all walks of life are seeing extremism play out in the Idaho Legislature and are deeply concerned about the future of our state.”

But gaining major ground looks more like a long term goal for the Democrats. Major changes in the short term will be difficult given churn with the Democrats’ leadership ranks and a lack of candidates Democrats are running in this year’s legislative races.

Necochea referenced two of the Idaho Democratic Party’s most beloved officials — Andrus, who served as governor for a total of 14 years over two stints and Church, the former U.S. senator who was instrumental in creating the Frank Church-River of No Return Wilderness, which was renamed in his honor. 

But those leaders were from a different generation, and a new group of Democrats will need to overcome a set of current and historic challenges if they are to gain ground.

Church left the U.S. Senate in 1981, and Andrus left office in 1995. Since those days, it’s been largely downhill for Idaho Democrats, who have been on the wrong end of a supermajority for years now. Heading into this year’s elections, Republicans control the Idaho Senate 28-7 and hold a 58-12 advantage in the Idaho House of Representatives.

Necochea, who also serves in Democratic leadership as the House assistant minority leader, believes that can change.

“We want to flip at least five legislative seats this year, and we want to do that by focusing on a few areas where we are reaching out to voters,” Necochea said. 

It seems like a cliché, but the 2022 elections in Idaho are the most important in years. All 105 seats are up for election this year, as is every statewide office — including governor, lieutenant governor, attorney general, secretary of state and superintendent of public instruction. On top of that, all of the state’s legislative and congressional districts were redrawn in 2021 during the redistricting process, and some officials are predicting the potential for record turnover in the Idaho House of Representatives or Idaho Senate in 2023.

For those reasons, the decisions Idahoans make at the polls during the May 17 primary elections and Nov. 8 general election will shape state government and Idaho politics for years to come. 

Idaho Democrats have so few candidates the Republican majority will continue no matter what

Even with pushback to extremism that Necochea cites, Democrats struggled to recruit candidates and are not fielding candidates in most Idaho races this year. 

There is not a single contested legislative Democratic primary election this May. 

Of the 105 seats up for election in the Idaho Legislature, Democrats aren’t running for 60 of the seats, ensuring the Republican majority will continue into 2023 before even a single vote is counted this year. 

On top of that, Sandpoint Mayor Shelby Rognstad failed to qualify to appear on the Democratic Party’s primary ballot because he was still registered as a Republican, the Idaho Secretary of State’s Office said. 

“Democrats face a few struggles, and one is perhaps even being able to recruit candidates to run,” said Jaclyn Kettler, associate professor of political science at Boise State University. “That seems to be a major challenge for legislative races where democratic candidates aren’t on the ballot.”

David Adler, a political scientist who is president of the nonprofit Alturas Institute in Idaho Falls and has studied Idaho politics for decades, said a pattern of Republican dominance works against the Democrats.

“A pattern of one-party dominance in this state depresses participation in Democratic primaries and races for the simple reason that potential candidates see the prospects for winning are dim,” Adler said. “So it takes a real commitment, perseverance and courage from Democratic candidates willing to enter a race.”

Idaho Democrats haven’t won a statewide election since 2002, when Marilyn Howard was re-elected to the position of superintendent of public instruction. 

Democrats haven’t controlled the majority in the Idaho Legislature since 1959, when President Dwight D. Eisenhower was in the White House — although the Idaho Senate was split 21/21 in 1991, the last year that there were 42 seats in the Idaho Senate. 

Necochea acknowledged recruiting legislative candidates was a challenge this year. 

“That is priority for us, and we are building a bench of candidates, starting at the local level, starting with the county commission on up,” Necochea said. “A challenge we’ve seen in the last few years has been a rise in extremism and threats against elected officials across the county, and that is true in Idaho, too. A majority of Idahoans don’t want or support this vitriol. We understand we might disagree … but it  is unacceptable to go to private homes of elected officials and that is what we are up against. It does make it a little bit harder to recruit candidates in this tense environment.”

Tom Luna, state party chair for the Idaho Republican Party, said there are major differences between Republicans and Democrats and the GOP has a message that Idahoans have embraced.

“We have a physiological difference on the proper role of government,” Luna said. “You have one side that really believes the answer is bigger government and more programs, right, more government programs. On the other side, Republicans insist on less government and know you need strong families. So everything we do should be building strong families, whatever your definition of families. We don’t need big government where families are weak and not able to function as a unit and rely more and more on government programs.” 

Despite challenges, Democrats hope to pick up legislative seats this year

Despite their challenges, Democrats aren’t giving up. 

Nechochea said Democrats support several policies that would benefit Idahoans and are popular politically. Democrats support re-indexing the homeowner’s exemption to control property tax rates and repealing the sales tax on groceries.

“We continue to push a suite of policy solutions that lift up working families that stand in stark contrast to the policies Republicans keep passing that benefit profitable corporations and the people at the top of the income spectrum,” Necochea said. 

Democrats are also working to build relationships with Latino and Hispanic voters. Last year, Democrats hired their first outreach coordinator to build those bridges and work on concerns that Latinos have.

“We are focusing very intensely on reaching out to Hispanic voters” Necochea said. “Idaho Democrats and the Latino community have many shared values.”

Adler said it is possible for political power structures in the state to change, but it will take hard work and it won’t happen in one or two election cycles. Adler said for change to happen, Idahoans would need to decide that the policy platforms and laws don’t represent the immediate or long term interests of ordinary working Idahoans. He said an example of this is the Republican-controlled Legislature focusing its efforts on a major income tax cut in 2022 rather than focusing on policies that would help more middle class Idahoans and improve the quality of life for more people. Adler said it is the Democrats’ job to educate the public about those areas where policy doesn’t align with public interest. Then, Adler said Democrats should focus on attracting independent voters and moderate Republicans to the Democratic Party, instead of allowing independents or Democrats to affiliate as Republicans in an attempt to block the far right from within the Republican Party. 

Adler said the key, instead, is to attract people to cross over and reshape the Democratic Party to reflect the interests of more and more everyday Idahoans.

“It would marginalize the far right in Idaho; it would place them on an island,” Adler said. “If they truly want to marginalize the far right and truly want to create better policy programs and laws that don’t reflect extremism, this is the way to accomplish that mission.”

Idaho Capital Sun is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Idaho Capital Sun maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Christina Lords for questions: info@idahocapitalsun.com. Follow Idaho Capital Sun on Facebook and Twitter.

In an email to Idaho Division of Financial Management administrator Alex Adams on Thursday, McGeachin called Adams’ request for her plan to avoid a budget shortfall “a rather pointless formality” after suggesting that the state withhold her salary at the end of the year to avoid a deficit. 

But withholding McGeachin’s salary alone may not be enough to avoid a shortfall and there are still unanswered questions about her plan to avoid a budget deficit, state records obtained by the Idaho Capital Sun show. 

Since at least March 11, state officials have been warning McGeachin in writing that her office faces a projected budget shortfall at the end of the 2022 fiscal year that ends June 30 if she does not cut expenses.

McGeachin is running for governor in the May 17 Republican primary election, challenging incumbent Gov. Brad Little and a field of six other GOP hopefuls.

On April 7, Adams sent McGeachin an email asking her to provide a written plan to avoid a budget deficit in her office. Adams estimated that paying McGeachin’s salary and health insurance benefits through the end of the fiscal year would result in a $2,283 deficit, a figure that has evolved as McGeachin has lost staff. 

The Idaho Constitution has a balanced budget requirement, and Idaho law prohibits state agencies or officials from spending more than the amount of money that is provided by the Idaho Legislature through the appropriations process.

State law also requires McGeachin to respond to Adams, the administrator of the Division of Financial Management. She did not respond to Adams with plans to avoid a budget shortfall by Wednesday’s deadline, the Sun previously reported. 

McGeachin did send a response Thursday morning just before 11:45 a.m, according to records obtained by the Sun.

McGeachin’s complete response is below:

Adams wrote back to McGeachin later Thursday, public records obtained by the Sun show. Adams wrote that the Division of Financial Management still needs McGeachin to make several budget decisions, including whether to pause all vendor payments through July 1 when the 2023 budget kicks in or pay them now, and whether she wants to pay her employer and employee share of the premiums herself, apply for a waiver to transfer the cost for premiums to the 2023 budget year or lose coverage. 

If McGeachin doesn’t resolve this matter with the Office of Group Insurance, Adams told McGeachin there would likely be a gap in her health insurance coverage. 

“I can’t stress enough the urgency of you finalizing these decision points,” Adams wrote. “Please let us know your direction by Monday.”

Reached Thursday for comment, Adams referred the Sun to his email response to McGeachin where he requested additional decisions from McGeachin on making vendor payments and handling her health insurance benefits. 

Chief Deputy State Controller Joshua Whitworth has previously warned McGeachin that state law and the Idaho State Controller’s Office’s constitutional duties prohibit them from spending money beyond the budget that was set by the Legislature for McGeachin’s office, the Sun previously reported.

McGeachin’s budget shortfall is coming after a district judge in 2021 ordered McGeachin to pay the Idaho Press Club nearly $29,000 in court costs and fees after McGeachin lost a lawsuit over public records. In 2021, McGeachin declined to release records related to her education task force, and the Idaho Press Club filed suit to secure the release of the records and won. 

Last year, McGeachin said she couldn’t afford to pay the legal fees out of her budget and asked the Idaho Legislature’s Joint Finance-Appropriations Committee to approve a supplemental funding request to cover the legal fees. JFAC never acted on McGeachin’s supplemental funding request. 

McGeachin has not returned numerous telephone and email messages the Sun has left since April 4. 

The winner of the May 17 primary election advances to the Nov. 8 general election.

Idaho Capital Sun is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Idaho Capital Sun maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Christina Lords for questions: info@idahocapitalsun.com. Follow Idaho Capital Sun on Facebook and Twitter.

On April 7, Idaho Division of Financial Management administrator Alex Adams sent McGeachin an email warning her that paying her salary and benefits will lead to a deficit of $2,283 at the end of the current 2022 fiscal year, according to public records obtained by the Idaho Capital Sun. The amount of the projected deficit has evolved over time as McGeachin has lost staff and the state has paused her vendor payments. 

In the same email, Adams asked McGeachin to provide a written plan to avoid a budget deficit. 

“Consistent with 67-3504(1), Idaho Code, I am requesting that you provide a written plan to your DFM analyst no later than close of business on April 13, 2022 on how you will ensure that expenditures do not exceed appropriation for your office,” Adams wrote in the email.

Adams also cited a section of Idaho law that empowers the Division of Financial Management administrator (who is essentially the state’s budget chief) to request and investigate reports of state budgets and expenditures.

The law requires McGeachin to respond.

“It is hereby made the duty of every department, officer, board, commission, or institution receiving appropriations from the legislature to furnish upon demand any and all information so requested by the administrator of the division,” the law states. 

Adams sent McGeachin a follow-up email Wednesday morning reminding her the report was due at 5 p.m., but McGeachin did not respond before 5 p.m., Adams told the Sun. 

McGeachin is running for governor in the May 17 Republican primary election, challenging incumbent Gov. Brad Little and a field of six other GOP hopefuls. The winner of the May 17 primary elections advances to the Nov. 8 general election.

McGeachin is now working without a staff and may lose her salary and benefits

News of McGeachin’s projected budget shortfall is not new.

The shortfall is coming after a district court judge ordered McGeachin to pay almost $29,000 to the Idaho Press Club in 2021 for legal fees following a public records lawsuit McGeachin lost. McGeachin declined to release records related to her 2021 education task force, and the Idaho Press Club filed suit to obtain the records and won. 

McGeachin said she could not afford to pay the legal fees out of her budget and asked the Idaho Legislature’s Joint Finance-Appropriations Committee to approve a supplemental funding request to cover the legal fees. JFAC never took up McGeachin’s supplemental funding request. 

In a statement issued Oct. 14, the Idaho Attorney General’s Office said McGeachin’s decision to stop working with the Idaho Attorney General’s Office and hire her own private attorney are the reasons why her actions cost the taxpayers money. State records show the state paid the Idaho Press Club $28,973.84 via a check on Oct. 29, the Sun previously reported. 

State officials have now been warning McGeachin about the shortfall since at least March 11, the Sun has previously reported. But the projected deficit may now cost her some of her salary and require her to pay for her health insurance benefits at the end of the fiscal year, which is June 30. 

In a March 11 email to McGeachin and her former chief of staff, Idaho Division of Financial Management deputy administrator David Fulkerson warned that McGeachin was facing a budget shortfall that he calculated at about $22,000 at the time, the Sun previously reported. 

At that time, McGeachin had two employees, including her former full-time chief of staff Jordan Watters, who offered to resign at the end of the 2022 legislative session, which would reduce payroll expenses, the Sun previously reported. However, Idaho Division of Human Resources records show Watters was terminated March 22, before the session adjourned on March 31. 

McGeachin now does not have any staff working during the April 15 pay period, according to an April 7 email from Chief Deputy State Controller Joshua Whitworth to McGeachin. But even without having a staff to pay and the state pausing all vendor payments from McGeachin’s office until the 2023 budget kicks in July 1, McGeachin is still facing a deficit, Whitworth wrote.

“Additionally, please note that to continue your health insurance coverage, you may need to arrange payment for the employee and employer portions of the premium for any pay period where there are not sufficient funds for covering the premium,” Whitworth wrote to McGeachin in the April 7 email, which the Sun obtained. 

McGeachin did not respond to a phone message the Sun left at her office on Wednesday, and she did not respond to multiple email and telephone messages seeking comment about her projected budget shortfall that the Sun has left since April 4. 

On March 22, Whitworth emailed McGeachin telling her state law and the State Controller’s Office’s constitutional duties prevent them from spending money beyond what is budgeted for her office, the Sun previously reported. That’s when Whitworth first mentioned that McGeachin’s salary may be withheld by the state. 

Idaho Capital Sun is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Idaho Capital Sun maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Christina Lords for questions: info@idahocapitalsun.com. Follow Idaho Capital Sun on Facebook and Twitter.

This year, all 105 seats in the Idaho Legislature are up for election, as is every statewide office, including governor, lieutenant governor and attorney general. 

Due to the once-a-decade redistricting process that redrew the state’s political boundaries, retirements, elected officials seeking higher office, some crowded primary races and Idaho’s explosive population growth, this year’s elections may be a little unpredictable.

Statewide, there are no contested Democratic legislative district primary elections. Democrats are not fielding candidates in most legislative races this year. 

To get ready for Idaho’s primary election season, here are 12 races to watch in Republican primaries.

The winners of the May 17 Republican primaries advance to the Nov. 8 general election, where Republicans and Democrats who were unopposed in the primaries and independent and third party candidates will also appear on the ballot. 

Voting tips and important deadlines

Race: Republican primary election for governor

Who is running: Incumbent Gov. Brad Little, Lt. Gov. Janice McGeachin, Bonner County Commissioner Steven R. Bradshaw, Ben Cannady, Edward R. Humphreys, Ashley Jackson, Lisa Marie and Cody Usabel.

Who can vote: Any voter in Idaho affiliated with the Republican Party, which runs closed primary elections. 

Why it matters: It’s the top of the ticket. As the Idaho Constitution states, “The supreme executive power of the state is vested in the governor, who shall see that the laws are faithfully executed.”

Even though Little, the incumbent, is running for re-election, seven challengers are taking him on this primary season, including his political rival, Lt. Gov. Janice McGeachin.

“When it’s a two-person race versus adding more active candidates, there is the potential to split votes in more different ways,” Boise State University Associate Professor of Political Science Jaclyn Kettler said. “Little and McGeachin are treated as the front runners, but Humprheys is running an active campaign as well, it’s not just the two of them in the race. As it develops, it will be interesting to see if any other candidates have active campaigns.”

Race: Republican primary election for lieutenant governor

Who is running: Speaker of the House Scott Bedke, state Rep. Priscilla Giddings and Daniel J. Gasiorowski.

Who can vote: Any voter in Idaho affiliated with the Republican Party. 

Why it matters: Idaho’s lieutenant governor position is a part-time job that basically entails presiding over the Idaho Senate for about 90 days each year and being prepared to cast a rare tie-breaking vote if the Senate has an even number of members on the floor and gridlocks. But more than that, the position is a springboard for higher office. Little and former Govs. Butch Otter, Jim Risch (who went on to become a U.S. senator), Phil Batt and John Evans all served as lieutenant governor before ascending to higher office. 

“It’s an important race to (Bedke) given the fact the lieutenant governor is seen as a traditional stepping stone to becoming governor,” said David Adler, president of the Idaho Falls-based nonprofit Alturas Institute, which promotes the Constitution.  “Enough people are repulsed by Giddings’ extreme positions, that she likely won’t win much support from so-called moderate Republicans.”

In 2021, the Idaho House voted 49-19 to censure and remove Giddings from one committee assignment for conduct unbecoming of a legislator after Giddings published and promoted a blog that identified the name and included the photo of an alleged teenage rape victim. 

Race: Republican primary election for secretary of state

Who is running: Sen. Mary Souza, Rep. Dorothy Moon and Ada County Clerk Phil McGrane

Who can vote: Any voter in Idaho affiliated with the Republican Party. 

Why it matters: The secretary of state is responsible for overseeing elections on a statewide basis in Idaho. All three GOP candidates are currently elected officials, with Souza and Moon serving in the Legislature and McGrane serving as clerk and overseeing elections in Ada County.

“Given how elections have been such a hot topic issue over the last couple of years, the Secretary of State’s race may get a lot more attention this year,” Kettler said. 

Race: Republican primary election for attorney general

Who is running: Incumbent Attorney General Lawrence Wasden, former U.S. Rep. Raul R. Labrador and Arthur “Art” Macomber.

Who can vote: Any voter in Idaho affiliated with the Republican Party.

Why it matters: Of all the races this year, Adler says the attorney general’s race fascinates him the most because he thinks the stakes are high and it features the clearest distinctions between candidates of any race on the ballot. 

“On the one hand, Lawrence Wasden is a strong incumbent, veteran who is widely viewed as a moderate to conservative Republican and his view on how the office should be run is very different than the view offered by Raul Labrador,” Adler said. “If Labrador were to win and he converted the attorney general’s office into an attorneyship for the Legislature, much in the way an organization would hire a private attorney to represent their interests, then the question arises, where is the check on the Legislature, which the Constitution of Idaho clearly expected by make the attorney general a separate constitutional entity?”

Race: Republican primary election for superintendent of public instruction

Who is running: Incumbent Superintendent of Public Instruction Sherri Ybarra, former State Board of Education president Debbie Critchfield and former state Sen. Branden J. Durst.

Who can vote: Any voter in Idaho affiliated with the Republican Party. 

Why it matters: Education is consistently the top issue for Idahoans, according to annual Boise State University public policy surveys. This year there are three experienced candidates in the race — Ybarra, the incumbent; Critchfield the veteran former Idaho State Board of Education member; and Durst, a former legislator who served in the Idaho House and Senate as a Democrat but is now a Republican.

Critchfield has the fundraising edge, and Kettler points out the race is already active, with candidate forums already taking place. One thing Kettler will watch is whether and how the heavily politicized debate over critical race theory will play a role in the race. 

“Education is an issue that is really salient,” Kettler said. “There may not be as much (campaign) money in this race, but I think it will still really be an interesting one.”

Race: Republican primary election for Idaho House of Representatives, District 9, Seat B 

Who is running: Rep. Scott Syme, R-Caldwell, and Rep. Judy Boyle, R-Midvale.

Who can vote: Voters affiliated with the Republican Party who live in District 9, which includes all of Payette and Washington counties and a portion of Canyon County. 

Why it matters: Due to redistricting, this race pits two legislative incumbents against each other. Boyle is in her seventh term and has assignments on the Agricultural Affairs, Education and Resource and Conservation committees. Syme, in his third term, is the vice chairman of the House Commerce and Human Resources Committee and serves on the Joint Finance-Appropriations Committee. 

Race: Republican primary election for Idaho House of Representatives, District 22, Seat A

Who is running: Rep. John Vander Woude, R-Nampa, and Rep. Greg Ferch, R-Boise.

Who can vote: Voters affiliated with the Republican Party in District 22, which starts at the Ada/Canyon county line and includes portions of Ada County. 

Why it matters: Thanks to redistricting, this is another race with two incumbents pitted against each other where only one will advance. Vander Woude has served six terms in the Idaho House. He is the vice chairman of the House Health and Welfare Committee, whose chairman Rep. Fred Wood, R-Burley, is retiring and not seeking re-election. Ferch, a chiropractor by trade, is in his first term in the Idaho Legislature and also serves on the House Health and Welfare Committee. 

Race: Republican primary election for Idaho House of Representatives, District 34, Seat B

Who is running: Rep. Ron Nate, R-Rexburg, and former Rep. Britt Raybould, R-Rexburg. 

Who can vote: Voters affiliated with the Republican Party in Madison County. 

Why it matters: Nate is a member of JFAC and one of the most conservative members of the Idaho House, with a 97% freedom score from the Idaho Freedom Foundation. Raybould is an establishment Republican who served in the Idaho House from 2018-2020 and was the first woman president of the National Potato Council. District 34 was reconfigured during the 2021 redistricting process to remove a slice of Bonneville County, where Nate previously performed well with voters. 

Race: Republican primary election for Idaho Senate, District 1

Who is running: Sen. Jim Woodward, R-Sagle, and GOP challenger Scott Herndon, also of Sagle. 

Who can vote: Voters affiliated with the Republican Party living in District 1, which includes all of Boundary County and parts of Bonner County.

Why it matters: Woodward is an establishment Republican serving on JFAC who is, once again, being challenged from the right by Herndon. There is a ton of campaign money in the race so far. Herndon has reported hauling in more than $83,000 in total campaign fundraising. Woodward reported having $45,000 cash on hand and raising a little more than $17,000. Four years ago, Woodward won a three-way Republican primary after winning 52% of the votes cast versus Herndon 22.4% and challenger Danielle Ahrens, who won 25.6% of the vote in 2018 but is not in the race this year. 

Race: Republican primary election for Idaho Senate, District 9

Who is running: Sen. Abby Lee, R-Fruitland, Sen. Jim Rice, R-Caldwell, and challenger Jordan Marques. 

Who can vote: Voters affiliated with the Republican Party who live in District 9, which includes all of Payette and Washington counties and a portion of Canyon County. 

Why it matters: Thanks to redistricting, this race includes two prominent senators, with at least one of whom will not be returning to the Idaho Legislature next year. Lee is a member of Republican leadership, serving as assistant majority leader. Rice is the chairman of the Senate Local Government and Taxation Committee. Marques has little name recognition compared to the two veteran senators, and he appears to be positioning himself on social media among the so-called liberty legislators that make up the far-right wing of the Idaho Legislature. 

Race: Republican primary election for Idaho Senate, District 14

Who is running: Sen. Steven Thayn, R-Emmett, and Sen. C. Scott Grow, R-Eagle.

Who can vote: Voters affiliated with the Republican Party who live in District 14, which includes all of Gem County and a portion of Ada County beginning at the Ada/Gem County line. 

Why it matters: Thanks to redistricting, this is another race that pits two Senate incumbents against each other. Thayn serves as chairman of the Senate Education Committee, while Grow serves on JFAC and as the vice chairman of the Senate Local Government and Taxation Committee. Only one of them will advance beyond the primary. 

Race: Republican primary election for Idaho Senate, District 15

Who is running: Sen. Fred Martin, R-Boise, and Rep. Codi Galloway, R-Boise

Who can vote: Voters affiliated with the Republican Party who live in District 15, which includes a portion of Ada County beginning at the intersection of South Eagle Road and Interstate 84. 

Why it matters: This race features a current member of the House in Galloway, who is trying to knock off a Senate incumbent from her own party and her own legislative district. This is another race with lots of campaign money involved. Martin has reported raising more than $88,000, with more than $103,000 cash on hand. Galloway has reported raising almost $28,000 of her own to challenge Martin, who is the chair of the Senate Health and Welfare Committee. 

Idaho Capital Sun is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Idaho Capital Sun maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Christina Lords for questions: info@idahocapitalsun.com. Follow Idaho Capital Sun on Facebook and Twitter.

And depending how the 2022 elections shake out, the Joint Finance-Appropriations Committee could look almost completely different next year.

The two top ranking Idaho House members serving on the Joint Finance-Appropriations Committee are retiring this year. Both JFAC co-chairman Rick Youngblood, R-Nampa, and co-vice chairwoman Caroline Nilsson Troy, R-Genesee, decided not to seek reelection this year. 

“They’ll have their challenges, but I believe that they will get through it,” Youngblood said, pointing out that when he was elected 10 years ago, he was part of a large freshman class in the Idaho House after 26 incumbents did not seek re-election in 2012.

Youngblood said he would have strongly considered switching to run for the Idaho Senate if there was an open seat in his district, but he did not want to run against his friend and neighbor Sen. Todd Lakey, who decided to seek re-election. Youngblood initially did file for re-election in the Idaho House, but withdrew his name and is supporting GOP candidate Shaun Laughlin. 

Troy said redistricting played a role in her retirement decision. The new legislative map placed her among five legislative incumbents that would have been vying for three legislative seats.

“When you have people that you work with that you like that could run for your spot, that makes it a little easier,” Troy said. 

JFAC meets every morning to conduct budget hearings and write the state’s $4.5 billion general fund budget. Troy said the assignment is tough and experience is important. 

“These budgets are complicated, and it takes awhile to learn them,” Troy said. “I’ve been working Health and Welfare budgets now for four years and I was on the Health and Welfare Committee my first two years in office, so there is a learning curve and I am kind of concerned about how that might sort itself out the next go around. So I hope we get some really bright new faces in here.”

The list of JFAC committee leaders leaving is just the tip of the iceberg. Rep. Priscilla Giddings, R-White Bird, is another JFAC member who is leaving the Legislature, in this case, to run for higher office in 2022. Sen. Mark Nye, D-Pocatello, is retiring. 

Rep. Scott Syme, R-Caldwell, another JFAC member, faces a contested primary against incumbent Rep. Judy Boyle, R-Midvale, thanks to redistricting. 

Another JFAC member, Rep. Ron Nate, R-Rexburg, faces contested GOP primary election on May 17 against former Rep. Britt Raybould, who is also a Republican from Rexburg.

On the Idaho Senate side of JFAC, Sen. C. Scott Grow, R-Eagle, faces a contested GOP primary against Sen. Steven Thayn, R-Emmett. Two incumbents are vying for a single seat in the District 14 Senate race thanks to redistricting. A third Republican candidate, Katie Donahue of Emmett, is also in the race. Although they don’t face off against incumbents, JFAC co-chairman Jeff Agenbroad, R-Nampa, co-vice chairman Carl Crabtree, R-Grangeville, and Sens. Jim Woodward, R-Sagle; Dave Lent, R-Idaho Falls; Peter Riggs, R-Post Falls; Kevin Cook, R-Idaho Falls; and Reps. Paul Amador, R-Coeur d’Alene, and Matthew Bundy, R-Mountain Home, all face contested primaries. 

At a minimum, four of JFAC’s 20 current members will be out next year. Depending on primary election results, as many as 15 of the committee’s 20 members could all be new next year. 

Staffing changes have also affected JFAC. Troy said five or six of JFAC’s nonpartisan budget analysts were new this year. 

Changes could come to JFAC leadership positions

One experienced JFAC member who doesn’t have an election opponent in 2022 is Rep. Wendy Horman, R-Idaho Falls. Horman has previously served as a co-vice chairwoman on JFAC and could be in line to climb JFAC’s ranks in 2023, depending on House leadership elections following the Nov. 8 general election. 

Over the past 10 years, some of the most powerful former members of the Legislature served as co-chairs of JFAC, including retired Rep. Maxine Bell, R-Jerome, retired Sen. Dean Cameron, a Rupert Republican who is now director of the Idaho Department of Insurance, and retired Sen. Shawn Keough, a Sandpoint Republican who now serves on the State Board of Education.

Drastic changes in 2023 won’t be limited to JFAC. Speaker of the House Scott Bedke, R-Oakley, is leaving the Legislature to run for lieutenant governor, ensuring there will be a new speaker for the first time in 10 years. Rep. Greg Chaney, who is one of several House members leaving to run for the Idaho Senate, predicted there could be the largest turnover in state history after 2022, beating the 2012 record. 

Chaney thinks there is a lot at stake with so many changes coming. 

“There is an opportunity to set a tone in a really big way as far as how we conduct ourselves in 2023,” Chaney said. “And that can either be a very positive shift or a very negative shift, and it remains to be seen which one it is.”

Chaney said some of the responsibility for setting the tone will be returning elected members of the House and Senate, including those serving in their first terms this year by demonstrating a respect for the institution of the Legislature and modeling integrity and decorum. 

If not, Chaney fears the integrity of the institution could be lost.

“2021, I think, was the low water mark for the Idaho House of Representatives, and I think it would be really hard to make a serious case that there was a worse block between maybe summer 2020 and special session November 2021 with the second ethics hearing, there has not been a darker time than that,” Chaney added. “So do we act more like before and set the tone for a new generation of legislators, or do we kind of return to the low-water mark in our tone and our behavior?”

Idaho Legislature to reconvene Thursday

The Idaho Legislature is scheduled to return from recess on Thursday. Both the Idaho House and Idaho Senate finished their business late Friday but chose to go at recess instead of adjourning, in part to see if Gov. Brad Little vetoed any bills. On Monday, Little vetoed Senate Bill 1381, which would pause COVID-19 vaccine requirements for a year. Little called it an overreach of government power. If legislators attempt to override the veto on Thursday, it would take a two-thirds vote of the members present in the House and the Senate to override. If all House members are present, it would take 47 votes to override Little’s veto. Senate Bill 1381 originally passed 45-23, with two House members absent. 

The primary elections are set for May 17, with the winners advancing to the Nov. 8 general election. 

Idaho Capital Sun is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Idaho Capital Sun maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Christina Lords for questions: info@idahocapitalsun.com. Follow Idaho Capital Sun on Facebook and Twitter.

Starting April 15, all state public agencies will post meeting notices, agendas and minutes at the new Townhall.Idaho.gov site, Little and Woolf said during a press conference at the Idaho State Capitol. 

The two elected officials said the website will make it easier for the public to follow state government and its agencies. Instead of visiting multiple websites to track down agendas or meetings for the State Board of Education, the Idaho Department of Fish and Game, the State Board of Land Commissioners or, say, the Board of Examiners, meeting records will be available through a single website. 

“Townhall.Idaho.gov is a new online one stop shop for citizens to access public meeting information for all state of Idaho executive branch agencies and state commissions,” Little said. 

Woolf said the website will help Idahoans who want to become engaged and involved in state government and policy decisions. 

“It helps build trust in our government while also creating a culture of openness,” Woolf said. 

Little signed a proclamation Tuesday instructing agencies to post notices, agendas and minutes starting on April 15. The new website will not affect the state’s existing laws requiring public meeting notices and agendas to be physically, publicly posted. 

The Legislature is also considering a $2 million funding request that would allow the state to stream the meetings live via the new Townhall Idaho website. The Joint Finance-Appropriations Committee introduced a supplemental budget bill for the Department of Administration’s permanent building fund that includes the $2 million funding on Monday.

The supplemental budget bill did not have a bill number and was not available online Tuesday afternoon at the time of this article’s publication. It is expected to be online by Wednesday.

Idaho Capital Sun is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Idaho Capital Sun maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Christina Lords for questions: info@idahocapitalsun.com. Follow Idaho Capital Sun on Facebook and Twitter.

Idaho Lt. Gov. Janice’s McGeachin’s chief of staff has informed McGeachin and a state budget administrator that he will resign when the Idaho Legislature adjourns for the year.

Jordan Watters, McGeachin’s chief of staff, gave McGeachin notice of his resignation on Thursday, according to an email from Watters obtained by the Idaho Capital Sun. 

“My agreed upon last day of work in this office will be the end of the 2022 legislative session,” Watters wrote in an email he sent Monday morning to David Fulkerson, deputy administrator with the Idaho Division of Financial Management. 

The resignation comes as McGeachin is facing a projected budget shortfall if she doesn’t cut expenses. But even Watters’ resignation won’t be enough to cover the projected shortfall. On Wednesday, Fulkerson told McGeachin and Watters that McGeachin’s office would still face a projected shortfall of about $6,000 even if both of McGeachin’s employees stopped working on March 30. 

Boise State Public Radio reporter James Dawson tweeted about Watters’ upcoming resignation earlier on Monday.

The state budget year ends on June 30. Legislative leaders are working to wrap up the legislative session by Friday. 

McGeachin is one of eight candidates running for governor in the 2022 Republican primary on May 17.

Idaho Capital Sun is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Idaho Capital Sun maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Christina Lords for questions: info@idahocapitalsun.com. Follow Idaho Capital Sun on Facebook and Twitter.

With very little discussion, JFAC voted 18-0 to approve $202,200 in state general fund money for McGeachin’s 2023 budget. 

McGeachin has requested $29,000 in supplemental funding to cover legal costs that District Judge Steven Hippler ordered her to pay to the Idaho Press Club after she lost a public records lawsuit. 

After Friday’s JFAC meeting, Sen. Peter Riggs, R-Post Falls, said there are still discussions about how to handle the $29,000 supplemental request, but there was agreement to move forward with the 2023 budget, which does not include the supplemental.

“No matter what happens with the supplemental request, it is separate from the agency request we set for the execution of the office itself,” Riggs told the Idaho Capital Sun. “While there is still ongoing discussion about the best way to handle a potential supplemental appropriation, we wanted to make sure that we could finish our traditional budget setting calendar, which included this.”

“We’ve got the lieutenant governor’s budget taken care of, now we just need to finish figuring out what, if anything, to do on the supplemental request,” Riggs added. 

The fees stem from a 2021 lawsuit the Idaho Press Club filed after McGeachin refused to release public records related to her education task force. Journalists from several news organizations, including the Idaho Capital Sun and Idaho Education News, requested the records. 

McGeachin lost the suit and was ordered to release the records and pay the Idaho Press Club’s attorney fees of $28,973.84. 

The records in question were public comments about McGeachin’s education task force that she solicited on her website. When McGeachin released the records per Hippler’s order, they showed the overwhelming majority of 3,602 comments pushed back against McGeachin’s claims of indoctrination in public schools or voiced support for public schools and teachers.  

The legal fees and $29,000 supplemental funding request were not on Friday’s agenda and did not come up during JFAC’s meeting. State records from the Division of Financial Management show the state issued a check on Oct. 29 for the Idaho Press Club’s $28,973.84 attorney fees, the Idaho Capital Sun previously reported. 

McGeachin has previously said she would not be able to cover the $29,000 out of her office’s budget and might have to furlough her staff if she didn’t have enough funding. The state’s budget year runs until June 30. 

The Sun requested comment from McGeachin’s office about the supplemental funding request and status of her budget on Friday morning and did not immediately receive a response. 

JFAC finished writing state budgets on Friday and adjourned subject to the call of chairmen Rep. Rick Youngblood, R-Nampa, and Sen. Jeff Agenboard, R-Nampa.

“We have now set all of the scheduled appropriations budgets, that’s the good news,” Agenbroad said at the end of Friday’s meeting. “The bad news is our work isn’t over. We still have a few things under consideration.” 

Rep. Colin Nash, D-Boise, told the Sun that JFAC cannot act on the $29,000 supplemental funding request unless the committee chairmen call another meeting and place the $29,000 supplemental request on an agenda. Legislators are not required to act on the request, but they may.

Idaho Capital Sun is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Idaho Capital Sun maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Christine Lords for questions: info@idahocapitalsun.com. Follow Idaho Capital Sun on Facebook and Twitter.

The $16,847.60 total was from two invoices from the Sandpoint-based law firm Boyles Law, according to records McGeachin’s office released to the Idaho Capital Sun over the past two weeks. 

The invoices were heavily redacted, with everything but the dollar amounts, law firm name and McGeachin’s name obscured by black boxes.

These invoices are separate from the legal fees and costs that Idaho District Judge Steven Hippler ordered McGeachin to pay to the Idaho Press Club after McGeachin lost the public records case in 2021. Those fees and costs totaled $28,973.84, and McGeachin submitted a supplemental budget request asking for those fees to be covered by the state.

Taxpayers are not on the hook for the latest invoices for McGeachin’s own legal representation, McGeachin wrote in a letter to a budget analyst from the Legislative Services Office on Monday, according to documents obtained by the Sun.

“No taxpayer dollars have been spent on this invoice, or the invoice previously shared with your office regarding legal fees to Boyles Law,” McGeachin wrote. “This invoice, like the other invoice, was not submitted to the office of the Lt. Governor in the time necessary to do budget requests or supplemental budget requests.”

McGeachin’s staff also told the Sun taxpayer dollars were not used to pay for her legal fees.

“Neither invoice from Boyles Law was included in the supplemental request, and no taxpayer dollars have been spent,” Jordan Watters, McGeachin’s chief of staff, wrote in an email to the Sun.

A closer look at McGeachin’s invoices and where they came from

The legal fees and invoices all relate to a July 2021 lawsuit the Idaho Press Club filed after McGeachin declined to release records of public comments about her task force to several news organizations, including the Idaho Capital Sun and Idaho Education News. 

McGeachin lost the case and released the public comments after Hippler ordered her to do so. The vast majority of the 3,602 comments that were ultimately released were either critical of McGeachin or her task force or supportive of Idaho public schools. 

The Idaho Attorney General’s Office issued a statement in October saying it advised McGeachin on the matter before the lawsuit was filed and before McGeachin made an independent decision to seek her own outside representation. The Attorney General’s Office statement also said “the subsequent financial burden Idaho taxpayers now face” is a result of McGeachin seeking independent counsel.

The Idaho Capital Sun filed multiple public records requests for McGeachin’s own legal invoices since June 15, 2021.

On Oct. 7, Watters emailed the Sun in response to one records request, writing, in part: “After a diligent search, we are unable to find any invoices.”

However, when McGeachin’s office provided the first of two invoices to the Sun on Jan. 24, the invoice from Boyles Law was dated July 20, 2021, and listed a due date of Aug. 19, 2021. The date on the second invoice from Boyle Law was blacked out. 

It was not immediately clear why McGeachin’s office was “unable to find any invoices” in October if they had been billed months earlier in July. In an email to the Sun, Watters wrote, “Two invoices were received in our office on November 9, 2021.”

The first invoice, the one dated July 20, 2021, was for $2,525. The second invoice, with the redacted date, totaled $14,322.60.

The Idaho Legislature’s Joint Finance-Appropriations Committee heard McGeachin’s $28,973.84 request for supplemental funding on Jan. 19, and did not make a decision or vote on the request that day. Instead, Rep. Colin Nash, D-Boise, asked for additional documentation of her own legal bills and any opinions on the public records requests issued by the Idaho Attorney General’s Office. 

Even though the $28,973.84 McGeachin requested supplemental funding for represents an extremely small portion of the state’s proposed $4.5 billion budget, it is coming under scrutiny with McGeachin running for governor in 2022.

Idaho Capital Sun is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Idaho Capital Sun maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Christine Lords for questions: info@idahocapitalsun.com. Follow Idaho Capital Sun on Facebook and Twitter.

Whether it’s tax cuts, a proposal to increase state funding for teacher pay, investing in early literacy or paying for road and bridge maintenance, the surplus looms large.

“We must be even more vigilant in perceived times of plenty to make decisions that are prudent and will withstand the test of time. We did not spend our way to a surplus, and budget surpluses must never become an excuse for wasteful spending,” Gov. Brad Little said during his State of the State address on the first day of the legislative session.  

Given that the surplus is such a factor this year, it makes sense to step back and look at where it came from and where the state gets its money. 

There are two big forces fueling the projected $1.9 billion surplus.

• A little more than half of it is due to increased state revenues that are beating projections and beating last year’s actual collections.
• The remainder, $889.5 million, was carried over from last year’s then-record surplus into this year’s budget. 

Over the last year, state revenues grew significantly while spending remained low. 

Last year, revenues grew by 23% while spending grew by 4%, said Alex Adams, Division of Financial Management administrator, during a Jan. 10 budget briefing with reporters.

Revenues blew past the $4 billion mark and eclipsed $5 billion for the first time in state history.

The state has so much cash on its hands that Keith Bybee, a budget and policy manager with the Legislative Services Office, took to calling it a “boat-load of money” during a recent budget briefing with legislative leaders.

However, House Minority Leader Illana Rubel, D-Boise, said it’s misleading to call it a budget surplus. 

Rubel said the huge pile of cash the state is sitting on is a result of years worth of underfunding things like public schools and transportation infrastructure.

“I get frustrated by the use of the word because I think it’s a function of severe and irresponsible underfunding of vital needs,” Rubel said in a telephone interview last month. “If you haven’t paid your mortgage and haven’t paid your bills, it might look like you have a lot of money in the checking account. But it’s false to characterize it as a surplus because we haven’t been funding our schools, we haven’t been funding our infrastructure, and I think those should all be first in line.”

Idaho gets most of its money through the “three-legged stool”

It’s common to hear Idaho politico and budget wonks talk about the “three-legged stool” when they are discussing budgets or tax policy. The stool represents the state’s three largest revenue sources — each representing one leg of the symbolic stool. 

For the 2021 fiscal year, the state collected a record $5.01 billion in revenue, according to the Division of Financial Management. 

• The state’s largest revenue source is income tax. In 2021, the state brought in $2.446 billion in income tax collections, about 49% of all state revenue for the year. That’s up compared to $1.905 billion compared to the year before in 2020. 
• The second largest revenue source is sales tax. In 2021, the state collected $2.004 billion in sales taxes. That’s about 41% of revenue. That’s up from $1.689 billion in 2020.
• The third largest source of revenue is the corporate income tax. In 2021, the state collected $349 million through corporate income taxes. That’s almost 7% of the revenue. That’s up from $243 million in 2020. 

There are several other sources of revenue, including product taxes, fees and other miscellaneous revenue.

The state does not collect or spend property taxes, which go to local governments and schools. 

For the 2022 fiscal year, all three major revenue sources are up compared to last year. Through December, individual income tax, corporate income tax and sales tax collections have generated $450.6 million more than last year’s collections. 

Here’s how much revenue the state collected over the past four years:

• 2021: $5.01 billion. 
• 2020: $4.03 billion.
• 2019: $3.73 billion.
• 2018: $3.73 billion.

Idaho operates on a fiscal year calendar that runs from July 1 to June 30 every year, so there are still six months left in the 2022 fiscal year. 

The next monthly revenue report is expected to be released by mid February.

Idaho Capital Sun is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Idaho Capital Sun maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Christine Lords for questions: info@idahocapitalsun.com. Follow Idaho Capital Sun on Facebook and Twitter.

The newest member of the Idaho Senate is an experienced legislative committee chairwoman who is relying on her experience in the Idaho House as she jumps back into representing the same district that first elected her nearly 10 years ago. 

Sen. Julie VanOrden, R-Pingree, is a former chairwoman of the House Education Committee who served three terms in the Idaho House of Representatives, until she was defeated in the 2018 Republican primary election.

Sen. Steve Bair, R-Blackfoot, asked VanOrden in the fall to serve as a substitute in his place while he takes a leave of absence to care for his wife and oldest son as they battle illness. 

Bair has known VanOrden’s husband, Garth, since high school and known Julie VanOrden for decades. Their families live about a mile from each other. 

For six years, Bair and VanOrden represented District 31, which covers all of Bingham County, together — Bair in the Senate and VanOrden in the House. 

“I can tell you she is unequivocally honest and filled with integrity and she is very, very hard- working,” Bair said in a telephone interview. “She reads the bills and then applies her common sense and then makes a decision, and she is not beholden to any outside parties.”

This isn’t the first time Bair has trusted VanOrden with his seat in the Senate. 

During the 2021 session when Bair tested positive for COVID-19, he had VanOrden come to Bosie and substitute for him while he was sick. 

This will be a longer appointment. VanOrden said she talked with Bair and is prepared to finish the legislative session and is seriously considering running for the seat in the upcoming 2022 Republican primary election, which is scheduled for May 17. She and Bair speak regularly by phone throughout the season, and Bair keeps VanOrden in the loop about constituents’ concerns that are brought to him. 

“I kept track of her, and she’s always had a desire to serve,” Bair said. “I thought, ‘What better person could there be?’ She has experience and is able to step right in, and she loves Idaho.” 

VanOrden isn’t the only new member of the Idaho Senate for 2022. On Nov. 24, Gov. Brad Little appointed Carrie Semmelroth to fill a vacancy created when former Sen. Ali Rabe, D-Boise, moved out of her legislative district. 

VanOrden brings experience and personal relationships to office 

Before she was first elected to the Idaho House in 2012, VanOrden served on her local school board in Bingham County and was active with the Parent Teacher Association, or PTA.

VanOrden is a co-owner of her family’s farm and agribusiness, where they grow potatoes and wheat and post beautiful photos to Instagram under the handle @gvofarms. VanOrden is also a member of the Idaho Potato Commission and serves on the Idaho Charter School Commission, which authorizes charter schools, oversees operating charter schools and considers charter renewals. In addition to that, VanOrden is a board member of the Idaho Youth Ranch, and is working on a capital campaign to build a residential treatment center. 

“Relationships are one of her great strengths,” said Rep. Wendy Horman, an Idaho Falls Republican who was elected to the Idaho House in 2012, the same year as VanOrden. 

VanOrden and Horman sat next to each other and had offices across from each other in their earlier days and became close friends. 

Horman said VanOrden helped her when they were both legislative rookies. Horman didn’t know anybody in government and political circles and felt nervous attending some of the social and industry events that legislators are invited to many evenings when they are in session in Boise. VanOrden, on the other hand, seemed to know everybody and (with former Rep. Kelley Packer’s help) they attended events with Horman and showed her the events can become a constructive time to get to know other legislators outside the stress of committee hearings and floor debates.

“One of Julie’s strengths is that she is great with people, she cares a lot about people and she has broad experience in different sectors,” Horman said. 

Substitute Idaho senator looks to get back to work 

Being back doesn’t feel that strange to VanOrden, though she said there are a few differences between the House and Senate she’s observed serving and watching last year and returning this year. One involved how the two chambers handle debate and testimony in committee hearings. 

​​”It was a little different, I felt like the testimony in the Senate committees was considered more in the decisions the the senators were making,” VanOrden said. 

Another difference is in how the two chambers vote. House members vote silently and electronically from their desks on the floor and their votes are displayed on large monitors near the public seating gallery. Senators, on the other hand, are called on one-by-one and vote aloud — no electronics involved.

“The Senate is a little bit more formal, but there are so many similarities,” she said. 

This year, there are a handful of policy issues VanOrden is excited to get involved with this session. Serving on the Joint Finance-Appropriations Committee will allow VanOrden to work on the education budgets and Little’s call to invest a record amount of money in recent years in public schools. VanOrden said she is particularly interested in Little’s $104 million request to expand the career ladder salary allocation system to raise pay for teachers by 10% and Little’s proposal to increase spending on his kindergarten through third grade literacy program by $47 million to provide money for schools to pursue optional, full-day kindergarten. 

“I think those are pretty vital to what’s going on in education right now, to be able to pay teachers now and getting our K-third grade students up to speed on their reading skills,” VanOrden said.  “I’m pretty passionate about early learning, and I feel like starting with the optional full-day kindergarten is a really good start.”

VanOrden worked on the career ladder and voted for it in House Bill 296 in 2015, and then worked to implement and build out the career ladder when she was named chairwoman of the House Educaiton Committee before the 2017 legislative session, Idaho Education News reported. 

Expanding the career ladder, raising teacher pay and increasing funding for early literacy are three of the major issues early in the 2022 session, and serving on JFAC will allow VanOrden to get reinvolved with each after a few years away from the Statehouse. 

“It almost feels like there were things I kind of left undone, meaning the literacy pierce for K-3 students and also making sure the career ladder built out like we had planned on,” VanOrden told the Sun. “It was a lot of work.”

Idaho Capital Sun is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Idaho Capital Sun maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Christine Lords for questions: info@idahocapitalsun.com. Follow Idaho Capital Sun on Facebook and Twitter.

If signed into law, House Bill 436 would provide $350 million in income tax rebates to Idaho income taxpayers this year and spend $251 million annually to reduce individual and corporate income tax rates beginning in 2023. 

Republicans who guided the bill through its committee hearing said the state has a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to use the projected $1.9 billion surplus to cut taxes and provide some of the largest investments in education and transportation funding in Idaho history. 

“It’s helpful to all Idahoans,” said House Majority Leader Mike Moyle, R-Star, who is one of the bill’s sponsors. “Every Idahoan benefits from this bill. I want to emphasize that.“

Moyle said the state has enough revenue and surplus to cut taxes and invest in education and transportation.

“You will hear if this bill passes there’s no money for education — that’s not true,” Moyle said. “In fact, the ongoing costs of this bill are going to be less than the ongoing increases to the K-12 budget. We are going to take care of education.”

During a 75-minute public hearing Tuesday at the Idaho State Capitol in Boise, several influential organizations and advocacy groups came out in support of the bill, including Associated Taxpayers of Idaho, the Idaho Chamber Alliance (a small business federation), the Idaho Association of Commerce and Industry and the Idaho Freedom Foundation. 

On the other hand, individual Idaho residents who testified on the bill opposed it, saying legislators should focus on investing even more of the surplus and increased revenue in education and transportation while reducing property tax rates or repealing the sales tax on groceries. 

Kathy Dawes, a Latah County resident and retired teacher, testified remotely over Zoom, where she said the surplus is a result of underfunding education. She also said cutting income tax rates for people and corporations would benefit the people who need it least. 

“Instead of tax cuts, please use our taxes to ‘establish and maintain a general uniform and thorough system of free public schools,’” Dawes said, quoting the Idaho Constitution. 

Two Democrats and one hard-line conservative serving on the committee suggested the Legislature would do more to help regular working Idahoans if they focused on addressing property tax rates or even the sales tax on groceries. 

“As we heard from the constituents who testified today, this is not what they want to see us do with the dollars we have sitting on the bottom line,” Rep. Lauren Necochea, D-Boise, said. “There is much more interest in repealing the sales tax on groceries or allocating those dollars and using them to buy-down the impact on property taxes in some way. This is not the priority of Idahoans, and it is just too lopsided.”

The bill includes both one-time and ongoing costs. 

• The $350 million in one-time rebates would be sent out in 2022 and paid for out of the state’s budget surplus. 
• Reducing the top income tax rates to 6% and reducing the number of individual income tax brackets from five to four would cost $251 million per year, beginning in fiscal year 2023. Of that $251 million, $94 million would come from the tax relief fund, which is made up of money collected from sales tax paid on online purchases. The remaining $157 million would come out of the state general fund. 

Miguel Legarreta, president of Associated Taxpayers of Idaho, testified that the bill’s passage would reduce the taxes of a hypothetical married couple in Idaho with two children who are making $110,676 with a taxable income of $84,976 by about $962. Legarreta said that breaks down as $582 via the one-time rebate and $384 ongoing. 

House Bill 436 heads next to the House floor with a recommendation it passes. The Idaho House of Representatives could call the bill up for a floor vote as early as this week. If the bill passes on the House floor, it would head to the Idaho Senate and be routed to a committee to repeat the process that started in the Idaho House. 

If signed into law by Idaho Gov. Brad Little, the new tax rates to the bill would be retroactive to Jan. 1, 2022. 

Idaho Capital Sun is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Idaho Capital Sun maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Christine Lords for questions: info@idahocapitalsun.com. Follow Idaho Capital Sun on Facebook and Twitter.

On Wednesday morning, the House Revenue and Taxation Committee voted to introduce a new tax bill pushed by Rep. Steven Harris, R-Meridian.

The bill would do several things if passed into law:

• Reduce the number of individual income tax brackets from five to four. 
• Reduce the top individual income and corporate income tax rates from 6.5% to 6%. Individual Idahoans who make at least $7,939 in taxable income are in the top tax bracket. 
• Provide $350 million in income tax rebates for Idahoans, with the money providing rebates of $75 per taxpayer and dependent or 12% of the taxpayer’s 2020 tax return, whichever amount is greater. 

“The bill does just a few simple things, but it has dramatic fiscal impact, both for our taxpayers and I suppose also for the state government,” Harris said during the bill’s introductory hearing. 

The money for rebates would come from spending down some of the state’s record $1.9 billion surplus, while Little said reducing income tax rates would cost $251 million. On Wednesday, Harris said $94 million of that cost would come from the tax relief fund, which is collected from online sales taxes paid. 

On Monday, Little said the proposal would be the largest tax cut in state history.

Rep. Lauren Necochea, D-Boise, voted against introducing the bill. During a new conference Monday, Democratic leaders criticized Little for calling for income tax cuts instead of reducing property taxes.

“This is just not the tax relief that I think Idahoans want, so I will not be able to support the motion to print,” Necochea said. 

Harris said local governments, not the state government, collect property taxes so he said it is harder and less fair for the Legislature to modify property taxes. 

Harris serves as the committee’s chairman and Little outlined the bill in Monday’s speech, which both signal that the bill has clout behind it right out of the gate. 

Harris’ bill will be formally assigned a bill number and posted online on the Legislature’s website for the public to view once it is read across the desk on the House floor, which could happen later Wednesday morning or on Thursday morning. 

Wednesday morning’s introduction is only the first step in a bill’s journey, but it clears the way for the bill to return to the House Revenue and Taxation Committee for a full public hearing. In order for the bill to become law, it would need to be passed out of committee, pass with a simple majority of votes on the House floor, then repeat that entire process in the Senate and then be signed by Little. 

More information about how a bill becomes law is available on the Idaho Legislature’s website. 

Idaho Legislature tackles big bills early in 2022 session

Introducing the new tax cut proposal early in the session signals that — at least initially — legislators are interested in moving things along before the 2022 primary elections, which are scheduled for May 17. 

Speaker of the House Scott Bedke, R-Oakley, told reporters Monday a significant tax bill would likely be introduced during this first week of the session. 

The budget-setting Joint Finance-Appropriations Committee plans to hit the ground running hearing one of the state’s largest and most complicated budgets, the public school budget, with its first budget hearing of the year coming up on Monday. 

During the outset of Wednesday’s committee hearing, Harris briefed legislators on several legislative deadlines that are designed to get the session moving and then wrap things up. 

“Obviously these, even now, feel early and they are but we want to keep things moving along, because we have a target sine die (adjournment) date of March 25 or sooner,” Harris said. 

The 2021 session was the longest in state history, at 311 days, included a lengthy, open-ended recess and didn’t adjourn for the year until Nov. 17.

Little started the 2022 legislative session Monday by delivering the annual State of the State address. In his speech and 2023 budget proposal, Little called for historic investments in education, transportation and tax cuts.

Idaho Capital Sun is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Idaho Capital Sun maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Christine Lords for questions: info@idahocapitalsun.com. Follow Idaho Capital Sun on Facebook and Twitter.

Five months into the current budget year, the state is projecting to end the fiscal year on June 30, 2022, with a surplus of about $1.6 billion.

If a record-breaking budget surplus in Idaho is starting to sound familiar, there is a good reason. The state ended the 2021 budget year June 30 with a surplus of $889 million, which was a record at the time. 

During a Nov. 30 briefing with legislative leaders, Legislative Services Office budget and policy analyst Keith Bybee decided to deviate from traditional budget lingo and jargon to describe just how much money is building up in state coffers. 

“There is a boat load, would be, probably, the correct description of the kind of cash we have on hand right now,” Bybee said. 

“I think historic is underselling how much money that is in context of what our budget has normally looked like,” he added a minute later.

A big chunk of this year’s projected budget surplus was built by carrying over the $889 million ending balance from last year. Legislators describe this portion of the surplus as “one-time” in nature. But aside from the balance carry over, the state’s three largest revenue sources are also up considerably compared to 2021. 

Through November, sales tax collections are up $105.5 million compared to a year ago, according to the Legislative Services Office’s monthly General Fund Budget Monitor Report. 

Individual income taxes are up $175.5 million versus a year ago. 

And corporate income tax is up $36.4 million above last year. 

“The budget will be one of 2022’s big topics because revenues are much greater than anticipated. To me, that’s the starting point,” said Sen. Jim Woodward, R-Sagle.  “Every month of the fiscal year, revenues have exceeded what we predicted. I think by the time we hit the session, we’ll be looking at projections of close to $1.6 billion in excess of what we anticipated.”

What are Idaho legislators going to do with the surplus?

The exact details and plans for the surplus funds will be hammered out during the session ahead. 

Jaclyn Kettler, an assistant professor of political science at Boise State University whose research has an emphasis in state politics, expects there will be efforts to cut taxes and spend some of the surplus on education and infrastructure investments.

“The state has a large surplus, so one of the key questions is: What do we do with that?” Kettler said. “Taxes will be one of the areas where there will be some attention, including property taxes. Education is going to be a big issue again in 2022 and some would like to see some of that surplus invested in early childhood education.”

Legislators and Gov. Brad Little have also hinted that cutting taxes and investing in education and infrastructure are on the table this year. 

When it comes to what to do with the surplus, Woodward said he applies several tests.

“We have to assess where the excess revenue is coming from,” Woodward said. “If more tax revenue is coming in because we have more people in the state, we should be looking at infrastructure. If we’re taxing at a higher rate than necessary, we should be looking at lowering the rate.”

House Minority Leader Ilana Rubel, D-Boise, said the surplus isn’t the good news that it appears. 

“There is going to be a big fight over how to allocate the quote un quote ‘surplus,’” Rubel said in a telephone interview. “I get frustrated by the use of the word because I think it’s a function of severe and irresponsible underfunding of vital needs. If you haven’t paid your mortgage and haven’t paid your bills, it might look like you have a lot of money in the checking account. But it’s false to characterize it as a surplus because we haven’t been funding our schools, we haven’t been funding our infrastructure, and I think those should all be first in line.”

Rep. Wendy Horman, an Idaho Falls Republican who sits on the budget-setting Joint Finance Appropriations Committee, said the surplus can make things tricky.   

“Certainly the surplus and tax relief are going to be conversations this session,” Horman said. “I heard it said it’s harder to legislate in budget years of abundance than in years of scarcity because everybody thinks they want their piece of the pie. Honestly, as with every year, everybody has good ideas but it’s the job of JFAC and the Legislature to evaluate those to see what has got a good return on investment, what is sustainable and what brings value to the taxpayers of Idaho.”

During a speech at the Associated Taxpayers of Idaho conference Dec. 1, Little teased out details of his new Leading Idaho Plan, which he said would include tax cuts and investments in schools, roads and water. Little will unveil his new budget and policy proposals during the Jan. 10 State of the State address. 

What about federal funds?

The state’s projected surplus is separate from and does not include billions of dollars in federal COVID-19 related stimulus funding sent to Idaho and its cities and schools though the CARES Act and other federal stimulus law.

“We already have significant conversations around federal funds,” Horman said. “I think we will see even more pressure on federal funds.”

“As we move to a 45% federally funded state, there are a lot of strings that come with that money,” Horman said. For examples of “strings,” she pointed to the Biden administration’s COVID-19 mandates. She said she has also been talking with a constituent who wants to let Idahoans have first crack at reserving campgrounds in state parks. 

COVID-19 stimulus funds are one of many sources of federal funding. Last year, the Idaho House of Representatives voted to reject a $6 million federal grant for early childhood education. 

The Idaho House also voted to reject $40 million in federal funds for COVID-19 testing in schools.

One of Take Back Idaho PAC’s strategies is to support candidates who support schools and public education. 

Jennifer Ellis, a rancher and former president of the Idaho Cattle Association, is the chairwoman of the Take Back Idaho PAC. Other members of the political action committee include former Speaker of the Idaho House Bruce Newcomb, R-Burley; former Idaho Senate President Pro Tem Bob Geddes, R-Soda Springs; former Idaho Secretary of State Ben Ysursa and former Idaho attorney general and retired Idaho Supreme Court Justice Jim Jones, and former Weiser School District Superintendent Wil Overgaard.

The committee plans to support and try to help elect candidates in legislative races starting in 2022, particularly candidates who will support education. The committee also plans to oppose incumbent legislators who attack education and who Take Back Idaho PAC members view as extremist in their views and policy positions. 

The Take Back Idaho Committee does plan to raise and spend campaign money, Newcomb said. 

“First and foremost, we want to groom candidates and make sure they are financed and supported and help them in every way we can to get elected,” Newcomb said in a telephone interview. “That’s the goal here, to get people that really are concerned and support our schools and our communities.” 

Other new groups oppose extremism in Idaho as well

Take Back Idaho PAC isn’t the only group created to push back against the far right and the nonprofit Idaho Freedom Foundation. 

Boiseans Nathaniel Hoffman and Emily Walton formed the Idaho 97 Project LLC to oppose extremism, hold legislators accountable, engage Idahoans and support education. 

The nonpartisan group Reclaim Idaho led the effort behind the successful 2018 Medicaid expansion ballot initiative and is now working to qualify an education ballot initiative for the 2022 general election. 

And this fall, the Idaho Association of Commerce and Industry, a business lobbying group that represents some 300 Idaho businesses, pushed back against the Legislature’s efforts to pass bills placing restrictions or liabilities on businesses regarding vaccines. 

Take Back Idaho leaders formed the PAC out of concern for the influence the conservative Idaho Freedom Foundation was having on the Idaho Legislature, particularly the Idaho House of Representatives, Newcomb said. During the 2021 session, far right members of the Idaho House aligned with the freedom foundation led the effort to cut $2.5 million from the higher education budget and sidetrack the public school budget for teacher salaries after legislators alleged public school students were being indoctrinated with social justice programs and rejected $6 million in federal funding for preschool.

“That is just not acceptable,” Newcomb said. “It never was and it’s definitely not now, especially after going through a pandemic and people trying to catch up and make up for lost time.”

Several Take Back Idaho PAC members said the pushback against education was the last straw for them.

“The recent disruptive legislative sessions have pointed to the desperate need to replace dangerous extremists in the Legislature,” Ellis said in a written statement. “Instead of putting forward positive ideas to improve the everyday lives of Idahoans, these politicians waste valuable time and taxpayer money. This vocal minority has replaced civility and common sense with conspiracy theories, fringe views, and cheap political theater.”

The primary election for statewide and legislative races will be held in May if Idaho’s redistricting maps, which created new legislative and congressional districts after the 2020 census information became available, aren’t delayed by several legal challenges. The general election will be held in November.

More information about the Take Back Idaho Committee and the issues its members will highlight is available on its website.

Gov. Brad Little teased plans to return some of the state’s historic projected budget surplus to Idahoans next year during a speech Wednesday at the Associated Taxpayers of Idaho conference in Boise. 

As is tradition for Idaho governors speaking at the tax conference, Little offered a brief preview of his agenda heading into January’s new legislative session but did not spoil his own State of the State address, which is scheduled for Jan. 10, the first day of the 2022 legislative session. 

“This upcoming session, I will reveal my plans on how to give back to the people of Idaho yet another record budget surplus,” Little said during the 13-minute speech. ”I always have to look at this twice. It’s closing in on $1.6 billion — about 40% of our total budget.”

Idaho ended the 2021 budget year on June 30 with a record surplus of $889 million.

Although it’s early in the 2022 budget year, state budget analysts told the Legislative Council on Tuesday that the state is projecting to end the 2022 budget year with a balance of $1.59 billion. 

“My Leading Idaho Plan gives back more hard-earned money to the people of Idaho in the form of additional tax relief and continued investments in areas that impacts our lives most — schools, roads and water,” Little said.

Throughout his speech, Little thanked business leaders and vowed to work together with legislators and organizations such as the Associated Taxpayers of Idaho during the upcoming session to provide property tax relief. 

Little did offer a few specifics from his 2022 agenda, however. He said he is pursuing legislation that will freeze the base for Idaho employers calculating unemployment taxes, which Little said would result in a tax savings of $64 million for businesses over two years. Businesses pay this tax and it is collected by the Idaho Department of Labor and placed in a trust fund to be used to pay out benefits for the unemployed, and for other purposes. 

During the speech, Little reiterated that literacy for young students is his top priority as governor and spoke about some of his highlights from the 2021 legislative session.

Little will be up for re-election in 2022. Although he has not officially announced his re-election campaign, he has raised nearly $825,000 in campaign contributions — more than any other gubernatorial candidate. Lt. Gov. Janice McGeachin, Ed Humprehys, Ammon Bundy, Lisa Marie, Cody Usabel and Jeff Cotton have all announced they will run for governor in 2022. 

Wednesday marked the 75th annual Associated Taxpayers of Idaho conference. For many years the conference has been billed as the unofficial kickoff to each upcoming legislative session. Associated Taxpayers Of Idaho’s board includes executives from J.R. Simplot Co., Micron Technology, Agri Beef Co., Idaho Power, Blue Cross and Albertsons.

The influential conference attracts a who’s who of Idaho powerbrokers from the worlds of business, government, politics, finance and education. In addition to Little, Idaho Senate President Pro Tem Chuck Winder, R-Boise, Sen. Patti Anne Lodge, R-Caldwell, Superintendent of Public Instruction Sherri Ybarra, state superintendent candidate Debbie Critchfield, Rep. Brooke Green, D-Boise, Sen. Jim Woodward, R-Sagle, and State Board of Education President Kurt Liebich all attended the conference.

Idaho Capital Sun is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Idaho Capital Sun maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Christine Lords for questions: info@idahocapitalsun.com. Follow Idaho Capital Sun on Facebook and Twitter.

Lt. Gov. Janice McGeachin has reduced her supplemental budget request for funding to pay for outside legal bills that arose from a lawsuit filed by the Idaho Press Club over access to public records.

State records obtained by the Idaho Capital Sun also indicate the state cut a check last week for almost $29,000 to pay the Idaho Press Club’s costs and attorney fees, which a judge ordered McGeachin to cover. 

McGeachin originally filed documents with the state seeking $50,000 to cover legal expenses she incurred over the suit, Boise State Public Radio reported Oct 1. 

Since then, McGeachin reduced the request to $28,973.84, according to documents obtained by the Idaho Capital Sun. In an Oct. 18 email to an Idaho Division of Financial Management deputy administrator, McGeachin’s chief of staff Jordan Watters explained the $28,973.84 was for covering the press club’s expenses.

“Now that the legal dispute has been resolved, the Office of the Lt. Governor is lowering its supplemental request for fiscal year 2023,” Watters wrote in the email. “The Office of the Lt. Governor was advised by the Attorney General’s Office regarding public records requests. Her Office responded and acted upon this advice. The Idaho Press Club sued the Office of the Lt. Governor and the judge ruled in favor of the Idaho Press Club. Judge (Steven Hippler) has ordered the Office of the Lt. Governor to pay the legal fees of the Idaho Press Club in the recent lawsuit. Now that this issue has been resolved, we are lowering our supplemental request to $28,973.84, which represents the legal fees of the Idaho Press Club.” 

Other records obtained by the Sun show the state sent a check for Stoel Rives LLP for $28,973.84 on Oct. 29 to pay for the “Idaho Press Club settlement,” according to a copy of the check and the stub attached to it. 

It is still not clear if McGeachin owes legal bills for the private attorney who represented her in the lawsuit. 

The Idaho Attorney General’s Office gave its final legal counsel to McGeachin on June 7, the Attorney General’s Office announced in a Oct. 14 statement. After that, McGeachin sought outside, private legal representation and the Idaho Press Club filed its suit in July. 

In response to a previous public records request, McGeachin’s office provided a heavily redacted copy of a legal agreement with Boyles Law. However, everything on the five-page agreement, including the page numbers, was blacked out aside from attorney Colton Boyles’ hourly rate of $250 and the $120 hourly rate for his paralegal. 

The Idaho Capital Sun sent Watters an email Wednesday afternoon and left a message Thursday at his office asking whether McGeachin now has invoices or records of bills for her outside legal services. Watters could not be reached for comment.

In response to another public records request, Watters told the Idaho Capital Sun in an Oct. 7 email “After a diligent search, we are unable to find any invoices.”

The Idaho Press Club filed the lawsuit after McGeachin declined to release more than 3,000 public comments and records related to her education task force, which met at the Idaho Statehouse this summer. McGeachin eventually released the records after a district judge ordered her to do so when she lost the lawsuit. The overwhelming majority of public comments opposed McGeachin’s task force or voiced support for Idaho public schools.

The Legislature’s Joint Finance-Appropriations Committee will consider McGeachin’s supplemental funding request after the Legislature convenes in January, Sen. Steve Bair, R-Blackfoot, said in October. If JFAC doesn’t approve the supplemental request, McGeachin could have to come up with the money elsewhere. In her original supplemental request, McGeachin said that could come at the expense of reducing staff hours.

Idaho Capital Sun is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Idaho Capital Sun maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Christine Lords for questions: info@idahocapitalsun.com. Follow Idaho Capital Sun on Facebook and Twitter.

The Idaho Capital Sun has filed two requests under the Idaho Public Records Act seeking the release of McGeachin’s invoices for legal expenses related to the Idaho Press Club’s successful lawsuit seeking the release of 3,602 public comments regarding her education indoctrination task force. 

McGeachin initially heavily redacted the public comments and then released the unredacted documents to the Idaho Capital Sun on Sept. 30 after District Judge Steven Hippler ordered McGeachin to do so.

On Aug. 31, McGeachin filed budget documents with the state’s Division of Financial Management requesting exactly $50,000 in supplemental funding to pay for “unforeseen legal bills that cannot be covered by the office’s current budget,” Boise State Public Radio reported. 

“The Office of the Lt. Governor is writing this request for $50,000 supplemental due to unforeseen legal bills related to a lawsuit from the Idaho Press Club after the Attorney General’s Office failed to properly represent the Office of the Lt. Governor,” McGeachin wrote in the supplemental funding request. “Office of the Lt. Governor was forced to find outside counsel following the abrupt termination of counsel and guidance from the Attorney General’s Office after almost two months. The Office of the Lt. Governor has one of the smallest budgets in the state.”

The Attorney General’s office said in a statement Thursday that it last counseled the lieutenant governor in June, and that “the subsequent financial burden Idaho taxpayers now face” is a result of her seeking independent counsel.

Idaho media first requested Lt. Gov. McGeachin’s legal invoices in June

The Idaho Capital Sun filed its first request for McGeachin’s legal invoices on June 15. 

After not receiving any invoices following the initial request, the Idaho Capital Sun filed another request on Oct. 4 for copies of the agreement between McGeachin’s office and attorney Colton Boyles or Boyles Law and for any invoices or copies of bills from Boyles or Boyles Law since April 20. 

McGeachin’s office did provide a heavily redacted copy of McGeachin agreement with Boyles law. On the document, everything in the agreement was blacked out except for Boyle’s hourly rate of $250 and the $120 per hour rate for his paralegal. 

Redacted Agreement with Boyles Law Offices

McGeachin’s office never provided any bills or invoices. 

“After a diligent search, we are unable to find any invoices,” McGeachin’s chief of staff Jordan Watters wrote to the Idaho Capital Sun on Oct. 7.

The Idaho Capital Sun sent Watters three other messages asking for copies of the invoices and asking how McGeachin came up with the $50,000 supplemental funding request if she doesn’t have invoices, bills or records of her legal expenses. 

Watters responded to the Idaho Capital Sun on Oct. 8, writing only “The Office of the Lt. Governor has responded to your request for public records.”

Watters did not respond to questions about how McGeachin came up with her $50,000 supplemental funding request. 

Without invoices or other records, it may be difficult or impossible for Idaho taxpayers and legislators who vote on budget requests to know how much McGeachin spent on outside counsel. 

Legislature’s budget committee will review supplemental funding requests next week

The Idaho Legislature’s Joint Finance-Appropriations Committee, which writes the state budget, is meeting Tuesday through Thursday next week at the Idaho Capitol. Tuesday’s agenda includes a review of state agencies’ 2023 budget requests and a review of 2022 supplemental funding requests, such as McGeachin’s.

The Joint Finance-Appropriations Committee doesn’t have the power to enact budget laws or approve funding requests on its own. That requires the full Legislature and likely won’t happen until after the 2022 legislative session convenes Jan. 10.  

In her supplemental budget request, McGeachin blamed the Attorney General’s Office for the problem.

Attorney General Lawrence Wasden and Attorney General’s Office spokesman Scott Graf responded on Thursday with a written statement saying the office did initially provide representation to McGeachin prior to the Idaho Press Club filing its lawsuit in July.

“The Office of the Attorney General offered its final legal counsel on this matter to the lieutenant governor on June 7, 2021,” the statement said. “Following that communication, the lieutenant governor made an independent decision to seek outside representation. Then — approximately six weeks after our final counsel — the Idaho Press Club filed its lawsuit.”

“Attorney-client privilege precludes us from discussing the specifics of our counsel at this point,” the statement continues. “However, the lawsuit, the lieutenant governor’s loss in court and the subsequent financial burden Idaho taxpayers now face all resulted from independent decisions made by the lieutenant governor in consultation with her chosen attorney after June 7.”

“This entire matter is an excellent demonstration of why government should seek legal counsel that it needs to hear instead of what it wants to hear,” the attorney general’s office’s statement concludes.

In an unusual public appearance Thursday at an eastern Idaho elementary school, McGeachin blamed the news media, which she said reported on the issue unfairly, Idaho Education News reported. During Thursday’s appearance, McGeachin did not accept any questions from reporters. McGeachin said she was trying to protect Idahoans who left comments from attacks by the media. 

The Idaho Press Club also released its own statement on Thursday, writing that there would be no court costs for taxpayers to shoulder if McGeachin had released the unredacted comments when they were originally requested. 

“The judge made it very clear why we won our public records lawsuit against Lt. Gov. McGeachin: She unlawfully refused to release public records requested by four different reporters, for months on end,” the Idaho Press Club wrote in its statement. 

Under Idaho law, government records are presumed to be open unless there is a specific and narrow exemption that would require them to be sealed. 

“If public officials were required to disclose public records only to those, including media, they believe will support the government’s actions, we will have shed the principles of our democracy and evolved into an autocratic state where criticism of public officials is not permitted,” Hippler wrote in his ruling ordering the release of McGeachin’s task force records.

Although McGeachin’s own legal expenses remain obscured, Idahoans now have a better understanding of some of the bills she is facing. Hippler fined McGeachin $750 and ordered her to pay the Idaho Press Club’s costs and expenses. Hippler approved the order this week, ordering her to pay $28,973.84 in fees and costs, plus the $750 civil penalty, the Idaho Press Club said.

It is not clear how much McGeachin’s own fees were or how she accounts for the difference between her $50,000 request and the $29,723.84 in fees, costs and penalties Hippler ordered her to cover. 

On his website Boyles, the attorney who represented McGeachin in the lawsuit, said he “uses a flexible billing approach that includes the traditional billable hour or contingency formats, or a hybrid value-based billing approach depending on client preferences.”

Idaho Capital Sun is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Idaho Capital Sun maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Christina Lords for questions: info@idahocapitalsun.com. Follow Idaho Capital Sun on Facebook and Twitter.

The overwhelming majority of the 3,602 comments Idaho Lt. Gov. Janice McGeachin received regarding her education task force were critical of the task force or pushed back against McGeachin’s allegations of indoctrination in schools. 

More than 2,500 of the comments either criticized the task force, opposed McGeachin personally or denied that schools and teachers are indoctrinating students, according to an Idaho Capital Sun analysis of the 3,602 comments McGeachin’s office released last week. 

On the other hand, more than 300 of the comments voiced support for the task force’s work, support for McGeachin herself or included suggestions for where her task force could look for examples of critical race theory, Marxism or social justice teachings in Idaho schools or universities. 

“Please do NOT teach critical race theory to our children,” one parent wrote to McGeachin. “Critical race theory has roots in Marxism and would overturn the principles of the Declaration of Independence and destroy our Constitution, upon which America was built.”

The remainder of the comments, more than 700 of them, were either unclear, addressed a different topic or were duplicates.

The unredacted comments, which McGeachin released to the Idaho Capital Sun on Thursday night following a legal scrum with the Idaho Press Club, painted a picture of widespread pushback against McGeachin’s claims that educators are indoctrinating Idaho students with critical race theory, social justice, Communist, Marxist, socialist or leftist teachings.

“I am a lifelong member of the Republican Party,” a parent wrote to McGeachin on April 21. “This is an absolute waste of resources — something that seems to be a theme of your office. We are involved with our child’s education and have NEVER seen any kind of ‘indoctrination’ issues. They are teaching ABC’s and numbers and addition. I am tired of you using your office to score political points that have no merit. I look forward to working to get you out of office in the primaries. At this point I would rather vote for a rock than you.”

Other news organizations and groups have previously reported on the records. Idaho Education News received 100 of the 3,602 comments and reported on them July 28. 

In August, the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, an organization that opposes limits on academic freedom and First Amendment rights, obtained the partially redacted records and wrote about the comments.

Hundreds of comments accused McGeachin of using her political power to run a “witch hunt” in the same vein as former U.S. Sen. Joseph McCarthy’s accusations of widespread Communist infiltration in the 1950s. 

“There is absolutely zero evidence of indoctrination by either leftists or right-wingers in Idaho schools,” a self-described concerned citizen wrote. “Do not waste our tax dollars chasing an illusion. Our teachers, students, and professors deserve better than McCarthyism. Banning speech and books and curriculum on campus is bad — left or right.”

Many Idaho students, teachers and parents responded to McGeachin

“All my conversations with professors about politics have been very fair,” a Boise State University State student wrote. “They rarely let us know their own views. I have heard ‘I’m not telling you one way or the other’ or ‘Let’s be sure to stay respectful of all political views’ so many times. In my view, my experience in Idaho public education has been overwhelmingly positive. I’m not a liberal so I don’t believe in some of their ‘values’ but I certainly don’t think they are trying to take over our public schools. I just don’t see the issue you’re talking about. I have loved my college experience here.”

Teachers at all levels also wrote in. 

“The work my coworkers and I do day in, day out is not indoctrination,” an elementary school teacher wrote. “It’s hurtful to me personally to hear my own lieutenant governor use these words. I’d love to invite you to my school and show you how what we do for our kids is ANYTHING but ‘indoctrination.’ We teach HOW to think, not WHAT to think. We always have and we always will.”

Several of the commenters who identified themselves as conservative Republicans offered support for schools and strongly denied observing any indoctrination.

“Now I’m almost as conservative as it gets here and I can’t see what the heck you guys are talking about with this indoctrination,” a self-described concerned citizen wrote. “My kids went to Idaho public schools all the way through college and I’m proud of what they learned. They learned proper discourse. They learned how to learn. That’s important. Indoctrination? No. Reading, grammar, math? Yes.”

Several others made similar comments.

“My kids’ teachers work their (butts) off and spend their own money on school supplies,” one parent wrote. “They barely have time to teach what is on the curriculum, never mind this made up crap you’ve decided to latch onto. I’ve never voted Democrat in my life, but if Janice is the new face of the GOP then God help us all.”

A smaller number of comments favored the task force

Although McGeachin encountered widespread pushback and even hostility, she also received more than 300 supportive comments.

“I agree with Florida Governor Ron DeSantis who recently said, ‘There’s no room in our classrooms for things like Critical Race Theory. Teaching kids to hate their country and to hate each other is not worth one red cent of taxpayer money,’” one grandparent wrote to McGeachin. “I want my grandchildren to love their country and to love one another.”

Several said elected officials should cut funding to colleges or schools.

“Stop indoctrinating our children,” one parent wrote. “No more government funding for colleges.”

Others suggested schools influenced children’s politics but didn’t give an example of how. 

“During the election season around October I would here (sic) several students talk about how great Biden was and how terrible Trump was,” a commenter who identified himself as a school bus driver wrote. “No exceptions. It felt like they were being taught this in school.”

Dozens of other comments addressed other education topics outside of the task force’s mission of rooting out critical race theory and indoctrination. For instance, many voiced support for state-funded pre-school or increased funding for teacher pay.

Dozens of comments included profanity. 

Many appeared to be satirical, sarcastic or absurd. 

One person writing under a pseudonym took the time to leave McGeachin a 232-word comment made up almost entirely of lyrics from the 1999 hit Smash Mouth song “All Star.”

Where did the comments and records come from?

Shortly after unveiling her education task force in April, McGeachin urged Idahoans to visit her website and provide feedback about public education. 

McGeachin’s website states that her task force “exists to examine indoctrination in Idaho education and to protect our young people.” It called on people “to leave feedback on these and other matters you have encountered in Idaho’s education system.”

The Idaho Capital Sun filed a public records request April 21 with McGeachin’s office requesting records of the comments left at her website. McGeachin chief of staff Jordan Watters responded May 4 with a general summary of the comments, but said McGeachin’s office would need to redact the names, email addresses and personally identifying information from the written comment. Watters estimated the redactions would cost $560 if the Idaho Capital Sun wanted to obtain the incomplete records.

In June, McGeachin’s office sent the Idaho Capital Sun 238 pages of public records related to the task force, but most of the records were covered by black boxes bearing the word “REDACTED.”

The Idaho Capital Sun then reached out to the Idaho Press Club. In July, the Idaho Press Club sued McGeachin seeking release of the records on behalf of the Idaho Capital Sun, Idaho Education News and the Idaho Statesman.

A judge ordered McGeachin to release the records in August. However, McGeachin did not provide the unredacted records to the Idaho Capital Sun until Thursday evening. 

On Sept. 29, the Idaho Press Club’s attorney filed a motion asking McGeachin be held in contempt of court and detained until she followed the judge’s order and released the records. 

McGeachin then released the 3,602 unredacted comments the next day.

McGeachin is asking taxpayers to cover $50,000 worth of her legal costs, Boise State Public Radio reported.

The Idaho Capital Sun has filed a public record’s request with McGeachin’s office seeking records of her legal expenses and was awaiting a response as of this article’s publication. 

Idaho Capital Sun editor Christina Lords, senior reporter Audrey Dutton and reporter Kelcie Moseley-Morris contributed to this report.  

Idaho Capital Sun is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Idaho Capital Sun maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Christine Lords for questions: info@idahocapitalsun.com. Follow Idaho Capital Sun on Facebook and Twitter.

​​A popular online crowdfunding site known for helping people raise money for medical expenses, memorials and charities has become a campaign finance tool in the race for a school board seat in Idaho’s largest school district.

Two candidates who filed for November’s West Ada School District school board election — Lori Frasure and Mike Willits — have used the website GoFundMe to raise thousands of dollars. However, Willits sent the Idaho Capital Sun a statement Wednesday saying he has withdrawn his name as a candidate and is no longer running for the school board.

Officials from the Idaho Secretary of State’s Office and the Ada County Clerk’s Office told the Sun it is not illegal for local candidates in Idaho to use GoFundMe or other online crowdfunding sites to raise money for political campaigns.

GoFundMe also allows the practice. Raising money to support a school board and political fundraising is allowed within GoFundMe’s terms of service, a regional spokesperson for the company said.

However, they all stressed that it is still up to the candidate to record all of their campaign finance contributions and follow all of Idaho’s campaign finance disclosures requirements and laws.

“Political fundraising is allowed, it is the candidate’s responsibility to comply with local election laws,” GoFundMe spokesperson Jenny Perillo wrote in an email to the Idaho Capital Sun. “GoFundMe will help identify donors at candidates’ request.”

Campaign finance disclosure laws and transparency reports are important because they give the public insight into who is trying to influence elections or policies using money. This year, there are new campaign finance laws in effect for local candidates. Once local candidates raise $500, they must begin filing reports with the state disclosing the contributions. Campaign finance reports are available on the Idaho Secretary of State’s Office website and available to search by candidate’s name, by contributor’s name, by political action committee or by expenditure.

If GoFundMe or other sites allow anonymous contributions and a candidate accepts an anonymous contribution, that could create legal problems for the candidate.

“There are no anonymous contributions,” Chief Deputy Secretary of State Chad Houck said in a telephone interview. “It is there (in state law) in black and white. That should be clear enough.”

Perillo from GoFundMe said the company will help candidates identify contributors.

Houck said he isn’t sure the Secretary of State’s Office has ever been asked before about local candidates using GoFundMe.

Houck said he can’t really give candidates advice about GoFundMe because he isn’t sure exactly how the online fundraising platform works or what its current policies are. Houck said he has used the service to donate to a nonprofit organization in the past and knew GoFundMe accepted anonymous donations at that time.

He also said GoFundMe could change its practices or the data it provides at any time. That’s why he’s worried about making a definitive statement about GoFundMe; if he said either “yes” or “no” today, GoFundMe could make a change to the data it provides tomorrow that could change his answer.

“We cannot make a recommendation from the Secretary of State’s Office. I would be remiss to say whether or not a company like GoFundMe or any other vendor can or cannot be used,” Houck said.

“The smart choice is for the candidate to understand the requirements under statute and then find out if the platform can provide that,” Houck said.

Ada County Clerk Phil McGrane says the most important thing is for the candidate to collect the information they need for disclosure.

“How they raise it is not our business, as long as they comply with the law,” McGrane said in a telephone interview.

McGrane helped create a campaign finance pamphlet that is designed to help candidates meet disclosure laws.

The pamphlet tells candidates, “All money raised or spent in relation to a campaign must be accounted for and tracked. That includes the use of the candidate’s personal money.”

McGrane referenced former Idaho Secretary of State Ben Ysursa when he talked about his philosophy for transparency and campaign finance.

“The goal is sunshine and transparency, not trying to penalize people,” McGrane said. “The goal is to get information out there. We want to do everything we can in assisting people with complying.”

Houck and McGrane are running for secretary of state in 2022. Both of them told the Idaho Capital Sun they are not using GoFundMe in connection with their campaigns.

What are candidates required to report under Idaho law?

Campaign finance laws can be confusing and nuanced, especially for first-time candidates seeking unpaid offices such as a seat on a local school board.

That’s why McGrane, the Ada County clerk, wanted to create a simple pamphlet to help candidates for city, schools and local offices.

Here are some basic campaign finance requirements for city, school board and local office candidates that McGrane highlights in his pamphlet. Specific state laws are found in Title 67, Chapter 66 of Idaho Code, which covers election campaign contributions and expenditures and lobbyists.

• Candidates must account for all campaign money raised or spent.
• Once a candidate has raised $500, the candidate must appoint a political treasurer and begin reporting the campaign finances, including the sources and expenses of the first $500.
• The maximum contribution for individuals, businesses and political committees is $1,000 per election. Any single contribution of $1,000 must be reported and disclosed.
• No anonymous donations allowed, regardless of whether it’s an unmarked envelope full of cash left on a table at a campaign rally or an online contribution left through a crowdfunding site.
• If a candidate receives an anonymous donation of more than $50, the candidate can try to return it to the contributor. If the candidate cannot determine the contributor’s name, the money “shall be transmitted immediately” to the Idaho State Controller’s Office for deposit into the public school fund, according to Idaho law.
• Candidates must disclose and report the full name and address of everyone who contributes $50 or more. Candidates must still track the full name and address of everyone who contributes anything less because the $50 threshold is cumulative. That means if someone gives $25 in September, for instance, a candidate must record their name and address because if that person gives another $30 in October, it triggers the $50 threshold.
• All campaign materials, such as yard signs and flyers, must include a disclosure statement, such as “paid for by” and list the candidate’s name, the office sought and the name of the political treasurer.
• Candidates for office all now report campaign finance reports on the Secretary of State’s Office’s online campaign finance portal.
• In the year of the election, candidates must report campaign finance disclosures monthly, and the deadline falls on the 10th of every month. There is a $50 fine for each day a candidate is late filing the disclosure once the first 48 hours after the deadline passes.
• Annual reports in non-election years are due Jan. 10.

How much money did the West Ada candidates raise?

The two candidates who used GoFundMe in the West Ada school board race — Frasure and Willits, who said he is no longer running — have both filed campaign finance reports on time with the Secretary of State’s office. That includes the August 2021 report, the report that was due most recently.

Frasure’s landing page on GoFundMe indicated Friday that she had raised $12,920 via GoFundMe. Overall, she reported to the state she has raised more than $18,900 in total contributions.

Willit’s GoFundMe homepage indicates he raised $2,520 through the website as of Friday. He reported to the state he has raised more than $3,600 from all sources. There is no requirement for Willits or any candidate who drops out before Election Day to return the money.

Frasure did not respond to a text message and voice message the Idaho Capital Sun left Wednesday and Thursday at the phone number she listed on her campaign finance reports.

Idaho School Boards Association deputy director and government affairs liaison Quinn Perry said she is not aware of any candidates who have asked the association for guidance on GoFundMe. She said her first call would be to McGrane for more information if candidates asked for advice.

Idahoans will vote in local school board elections Nov. 2.

Idaho Capital Sun is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Idaho Capital Sun maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Christine Lords for questions: info@idahocapitalsun.com. Follow Idaho Capital Sun on Facebook and Twitter.

In a new ruling Monday, the Idaho Supreme Court blocked the implementation of a new ballot initiative law that opponents said would have made it nearly impossible to bring a ballot initiative or referendum forward.

Writing for a majority of the court, Idaho Supreme Court Justice Gregory W. Moeller wrote that the ballot initiative law requiring signatures from 6% of voters in all 35 legislative districts violates the Idaho Constitution “because the initiative and referendum powers are fundamental rights, reserved to the people of Idaho, to which strict scrutiny applies.”

“We conclude that the (Secretary of State) and the Legislature have failed to represent a compelling state interest for limiting that right,” Moeller wrote in the 55-page ruling.

The court blocked the new law, Senate Bill 1110, from taking effect. The court also restored the previous signature gathering requirement, which is for signatures from 6% of voters in at least 18 legislative districts, as well as signatures equal to or greater than 6% of the state’s over registered voters at the time of the last general election.

Idaho Supreme Court Justice Robyn M. Brody wrote she agreed with the court’s conclusion Senate Bill 1110 is unconstitutional. Brody offered a little bit of a different viewpoint than the majority of justices, writing that she found the law unconstitutional because it is not “reasonable and workable.”

“SB 1110 is not reasonable and workable,” Brody wrote. “I agree wholeheartedly with the court’s concussion that SB 1110 gives every legislative district in the state veto power and turns a perceived fear of ‘tyranny of the majority’ into an actual ‘tyranny of the minority.’ I would invalidate SB 1110 on that ground.”

The ruling represents a victory for Reclaim Idaho, the volunteer-driven political group behind the 2018 Medicaid expansion effort in Idaho.

Reclaim Idaho sued the state in May, saying the new ballot initiative law makes it near impossible to get an initiative or referendum on the ballot because of the requirement to gather signatures from the most rural and isolated corners of the state.

Reclaim Idaho issued a statement Monday welcoming the court’s decision.

“Thousands of Idahoans are breathing a sigh of relief today,” Reclaim Idaho co-founder Luke Mayville said in the statement. “In the face of an assault on the initiative process by the Idaho Legislature, our Supreme Court has fulfilled its obligation to protect the rights of every Idahoan.”

The Idaho Supreme Court heard oral arguments in the case on June 29.

“Whatever the legal test is, the heart of this case is the severe burden SB 1110 requires with no true purpose,” Deborah Ferguson, Reclaim Idaho’s attorney, argued in court. “The Legislature’s purpose is only pretext.”

In Monday’s ruling, the Idaho Supreme Court also awarded attorney’s fees to Reclaim Idaho and allowed it to recover its legal costs.

In a written statement Monday afternoon, Speaker of the Idaho House of Representatives Scott Bedke, R-Oakley, expressed disappointment with the ruling, writing that the ruling limits the voice of rural Idahoans.

“These changes to the voter referendum/initiative process would’ve served to increase voter involvement and inclusivity, especially in the corners of the state too often forgotten by some,” Bedke wrote. “We believe that all the 35 legislative districts, every part of Idaho, should be included in this important process, unfortunately, the Supreme Court apparently disagrees.”

With the ballot initiative case behind them, Reclaim Idaho organizers and volunteers are moving forward gathering signatures for a new education ballot initiative they hope to get on the November 2022 ballots. The Quality Education Act would raise more than $300 million annually for education by increasing the corporate income tax and raising income taxes on individuals making more than $250,000 per year.

Efforts to reach Ferguson were not immediately successful Monday afternoon.

Idaho Capital Sun is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Idaho Capital Sun maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Christine Lords for questions: info@idahocapitalsun.com. Follow Idaho Capital Sun on Facebook and Twitter.

One of the central questions in an Idaho Supreme Court hearing Tuesday morning was whether a new ballot initiative law places too severe a burden on Idahoans’ rights to bring a ballot initiative forward.

Idaho Supreme Court justices spent almost 90 minutes hearing oral arguments over Zoom in the case of Reclaim Idaho’s lawsuit against the state challenging Senate Bill 1110.

The new law, passed this year by the Legislature and signed by Gov. Brad Little on April 17, requires organizers of an initiative or a referendum to collect signatures from 6% of registered voters in all 35 Idaho legislative districts. That’s up from the previous requirement of 18 districts. 

Reclaim Idaho, the volunteer-driven group behind the successful 2018 Medicaid expansion ballot initiative, filed suit in May, saying the new law makes it practically impossible to get an initiative on the ballot because of the requirement to gather signatures in the most remote and isolated parts of the state. 

“Whatever the legal test is, the heart of this case is the severe burden Senate Bill 110 requires with no true purpose,” Reclaim Idaho attorney Deborah Ferguson argued. “The Legislature’s purpose is only a pretext.”

The Idaho Constitution creates the rights to an initiative.

“The people reserve to themselves the power to propose laws and enact the same at the polls independent of the Legislature,” the Idaho Constitution states. 

The same section of the Idaho Constitution also creates the referendum process, which is the people’s ability to approve or reject at the polls any measure passed by the Legislature.  

“If the Legislature impinges on citizens’ rights to propose legislation, is that unconstitutional?” Idaho Supreme Court Justice John R. Stegner asked about 45 minutes into the hearing. 

At the time they passed the law, legislators argued it ensured Idahoans from rural and remote parts of the state were included in the signature gathering process before an initiative could qualify for the ballots. 

On Tuesday, the state’s attorneys argued that the new law’s signature requirements don’t make it impossible to get an initiative on the ballot and that the Legislature has the powers to set the conditions and manner of the initiative and referendum process anyway.

Deputy Attorney General Megan Larrondo also argued that the case should instead be sent to District Court, arguing there are fact-intensive questions to sort out.

“The two petitions at issue before this court fail on jurisdictional grounds and on the merits,” Larrondo said.

Throughout the hearing, justices asked tough questions of both sides. 

“I’m having trouble understanding whether this court should strictly scrutinize a legislative act where the Constitution itself expressly allows the Legislature’s regulation of the right,” Idaho Supreme Court Justice Robyn M. Brody told Reclaim Idaho’s attorney. 

Ferguson, a partner of the law firm Ferguson Durham, handled the arguments for Reclaim Idaho. Ferguson was the lead attorney on the successful challenge to Idaho’s same sex marriage ban.

Larrondo handled most of the arguments for the state, while William Myers III, a partner at the law firm Holland and Hart, handled arguments for the Legislature. Myers is a former solicitor of the U.S. Department of the Interior. 

Reclaim Idaho organizers said in a statement Tuesday afternoon that if their lawsuit is successful, they would move ahead with collecting signatures for an education ballot initiative that would raise $323 million for Idaho public schools by increasing corporate incomes taxes and individual income taxes for people making more than $250,000. They hope to get that initiative on the ballot in 2022, where it would need a majority vote to pass. 

If Reclaim Idaho’s lawsuit fails and the new initiative law remains in place, Reclaim organizers said they would likely put the education initiative on hold and move forward a different initiative designed to remove the legislative district requirement for signature gathering entirely. That initiative would simply require the signature of 6% of voters statewide. 

Justices took the case under advisement Tuesday at the conclusion of arguments and did not issue a ruling. 

It wasn’t immediately clear when the Idaho Supreme Court would issue its ruling. In the 2020 case of Superintendent of Public Instruction Sherri Ybarra vs. the Idaho Legislature, the court heard arguments June 5 and issued its decision June 22. 

Idaho Capital Sun is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Idaho Capital Sun maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Christina Lords for questions: info@idahocapitalsun.com. Follow Idaho Capital Sun on Facebook and Twitter.