Republicans to focus on school vouchers, DEI, immigration as Idaho Legislature returns

Idaho lawmakers are preparing to head back to the Capitol for the upcoming legislative session next week, and this year, you can expect to see proposals reflecting a Legislature that has shifted even further to the right.

The Republican supermajority picked up three seats at the Statehouse after the November general election, ousting Democratic incumbents in two of Idaho’s purple districts. Several other more moderate Republicans lost to challengers who ran to the right of them in the GOP primary.

“I anticipate that you’ll see some very conservative proposals come forward this year,” Rep. Brent Crane, R-Nampa, said at an Idaho Statesman panel discussion in December.

From adding lessons on the Bible in public schools to cracking down on immigration, the coming months could spell some controversial changes to state law. Debates to anticipate include another big push to shell out some public dollars to families who send their children to private schools.

Gov. Brad Little, who told reporters Friday morning during a legislative preview event that his “top priority always is and always will be education,” focused on that topic. Little avoided the topic of school choice and pointed reporters instead to his State of the State address slated for Monday afternoon.

He championed the Idaho LAUNCH grant program that helps fund tuition at colleges and technical training programs, and backed the State Board of Education’s recent decision to limit diversity, equity and inclusion programs at Idaho colleges.

“We want all students to be successful,” Little said.

Here are six issues to watch.

School vouchers

Every legislative session for the past few years, GOP lawmakers have brought forward a proposal for school vouchers, also known as education savings accounts, which involve sending taxpayer money to those who attend private schools or are home-schooled. Proponents have never garnered enough votes for such a bill to pass.

But lawmakers expect more proposals this year, and more support in the Legislature after the election results.

Senate Majority Leader Den Hartog, R-Meridian, and Rep. Wendy Horman, R-Idaho Falls, last year co-sponsored a bill to provide up to $5,000 in tax rebates to students who don’t attend public schools for use on school expenses. They told the Statesman that a new proposal this year would include income limits and allow a portion of the voucher funds to go to lower-income families as grants, rather than as a tax credit.

Den Hartog said she expects the topic to be the No. 1 debate at the Legislature.

“Both Rep. Horman and I are committed to a cap,” Den Hartog said. “As we’ve learned from other states … (we) are both very cognizant of not having some kind of runaway program where we don’t know the total expense.”

Crane said he told House Speaker Mike Moyle, R-Star, that voters in the May primary chose Republicans who want school vouchers to happen. Crane also met with educators, he said, and relayed to them to prepare for “school choice” to soon be a reality.

“I’m just telling you, school choice is coming, whether you like it or not,” he said during the Statesman’s legislative preview.

Moyle told reporters during Friday’s legislative preview that Idaho has the resources to carry out a voucher program, which he thinks will create healthy competition among schools. But Senate Minority Leader Melissa Wintrow, D-Boise, said there is “no negotiation” for her when it comes to such a program.

Private schools in Idaho are concentrated in urban areas, which could potentially make it difficult for rural students to take advantage of the credits. Of the state’s roughly 120 registered private schools, a majority are in four counties: Ada, Canyon, Kootenai and Twin Falls, according to the Idaho State Department of Education. Tuition can also cost tens of thousands of dollars, which leaves private schools out of reach for many families, even with some of the costs written off.

Opponents of vouchers argue that they inevitably siphon money away from public schools, and that programs in other states have gone hundreds of millions of dollars over budget.

“I think it’s an extremely dangerous proposal that has backfired just about everywhere it’s been tried,” House Minority Leader Ilana Rubel, D-Boise, said during the Statesman’s preview. “I think this is a can of worms we do not want to open right now.”

Abortion

Idaho has some of the strictest restrictions on abortion, after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the federal right to the procedure in 2022 and triggered the state’s laws.

The only exceptions that allow for the procedure are in cases of rape or incest that were reported to police, or when the pregnant patient faces death. The state’s abortion ban prompted several lawsuits, including from doctors and women who said the ban put pregnant patients who had serious health complications at risk.

Idaho Democrats and some Republicans have supported expanding the exceptions to let pregnant patients whose health is at risk to access abortion care. Sen. Dave Lent, R-Idaho Falls, said he wants to see an exception added to the law for mothers with nonviable pregnancies whose health is endangered. He’s heard many stories from hospital leaders about OBGYNs leaving the state over the laws, he said during the Statesman’s legislative preview.

“I think we need to bring some sense of reality back to this issue,” he said. “I realize it’s a very emotionally charged issue, but there are certain scientific things that we need to consider in making this decision.”

Den Hartog in an interview said there’s disagreement on how to define “health.” Lawmakers could discuss making changes to the definitions in the law, which doctors have said lack medical terminology.

“I think there’s room for clarity in some of the definitions and terms to make sure that we’re not creating confusion in our medical community, and I think that’s where we’ve had physicians, hospitals and health systems maybe be overly cautious about how they’re interpreting what we have put in the state code,” Den Hartog told the Statesman.

Crane said he thinks hospitals “are not being accurate and honest” with their doctors about the law. Several doctors have testified in court that the laws prevent them from following national standards of medical care, and have led them to send patients to other states.

Moyle also said he “may disagree” with doctors who are concerned about the law. The House majority leader and Little punted on the issue and said litigation over Idaho’s abortion restrictions should resolve before the Legislature moves to clarify any terminology.

There are multiple challenges to Idaho abortion laws in courts on the federal and state level. It’s unclear whether the most prominent – a Department of Justice case over whether abortion is protected as emergency care under federal law – will continue when President-elect Donald Trump takes office later this month.

After years of attempts to reform the laws, Rubel said during the Statesman’s legislative preview that she’s skeptical any changes could happen. She said the only avenue to protect abortion rights is through a ballot measure.

“Something does need to be done, but if history is any indicator, I don’t know that it can or will be done legislatively,” Rubel said. “I think this might be a case where the only path to safety for women in Idaho is through a ballot initiative.”

Medicaid expansion repeal

Republicans will likely consider proposals to repeal Medicaid expansion, lawmakers said at the Statesman panel. Voters in 2018 overwhelmingly approved the expansion in a ballot initiative that provided government health insurance to a broader swath of low-income residents.

While Democrats oppose repeal, different factions within the Republican supermajority disagree on whether to change the program, which they said has become too expensive.

Little told reporters he hopes to work with lawmakers to make the program “more efficient” and anticipates a complex solution.

“The spending thing has to be under control, but I think digging a little deeper and understanding what’s there and the effects it will have on people is very important,” Lent said. Bonneville County, which is in his legislative district, overwhelmingly voted in favor of the Medicaid expansion in 2018, he said.

Crane said lawmakers must examine the costs of Medicaid to the state.

“Will it totally get repealed? I have no idea,” he said.

A proposal to impose strict requirements on Medicaid expansion, which would have likely resulted in the program’s repeal, failed in 2024.

Den Hartog said lawmakers expect Trump’s incoming administration to be friendlier toward Idaho’s requests for modifications, such as adding work requirements. Changes to state Medicaid plans must be approved by the federal government.

She also said the Trump administration could decide to pay less of the costs of Medicaid, which might make lawmakers balk even more at its costs. The federal government currently pays 90% of the expansion program’s costs.

Before the Medicaid expansion, Idahoans who earned more than the federal poverty threshold – $15,060 a year for one person in 2024 – did not qualify for Medicaid but earned too little to qualify for subsidies on the health exchange, which made it difficult for them to procure insurance. As of December 2023, around 95,000 Idahoans have insurance through the expansion, according to the Idaho Department of Health and Welfare.

Den Hartog said changes to Medicaid expansion could be followed up with a decrease in the income qualifications for health exchange subsidies, which would allow more residents to receive them.

Grocery tax

Den Hartog said lawmakers will likely take up a proposal on the grocery tax, an issue that never seems to go away.

Most states don’t tax food, but Idaho is one of 13 that do, according to AARP. That means the state earns revenue from tourists visiting Idaho, but it also increases the cost of food for Idaho residents. Residents can get a tax rebate that covers $166 worth of monthly groceries per person, but the rebate is not indexed to inflation and likely doesn’t cover grocery bills amid the high cost of food.

Prominent conservative groups have opposed the tax, but cutting it would also decrease state revenues. Others, like the Mountain States Policy Center, have endorsed indexing it to inflation.

“We recognize how much families are really hurting with the increased cost of groceries,” Den Hartog said.

Little said Friday that he’s open to the idea of repealing the grocery tax, but said doing so will require discussion about what items qualify as “food.”

Diversity, Equity and Inclusion

Another perennial debate at the Legislature is over whether to abandon efforts at achieving more demographic diversity in universities – initiatives broadly referred to as “diversity, equity and inclusion,” or DEI.

“In 2025, we’ll ramp up our campaign, leveraging the Legislature’s hard shift to the right to completely eradicate these toxic policies,” Sen. Brian Lenney, R-Nampa, previously told the Statesman by email.

Ahead of the legislative session, Idaho’s universities restructured or abandoned school offices involved in DEI programming. Boise State University closed its equity centers in December, according to previous Statesman reporting. The State Board of Education banned all DEI initiatives at Idaho universities shortly after.

In the past, lawmakers have shot down universities’ budgets over concerns that they endorse “social justice ideology.” In 2021, former Lt. Gov. Janice McGeachin put together a task force to examine “indoctrination” in Idaho schools. Lawmakers in 2022 passed a resolution condemning “critical race theory.”

“I think the primary focus is to make sure that we’re considering fairness and merit, and not just someone’s outward characteristics,” Den Hartog told the Statesman. “The universities are also considering how to still support students who may need additional help, but maybe not have it through that DEI lens, which I think is still an important consideration. … What’s sponsored by the institution versus what is naturally occurring within student groups or that kind of thing – I think those are two different things.”

Lawmakers in recent years have also focused on library materials that many Republicans believe are inappropriate for children, either because they depict sexual activity or, in some cases, LGBTQ+ relationships. Gov. Brad Little signed into law this year a bill that allows lawsuits against libraries that reject a request to relocate a book. The public library in Donnelly, south of McCall, transitioned to a largely adults-only library after the law went into effect.

Crane said that the library bill’s sponsor, his brother Rep. Jaron Crane, R-Nampa, may attempt to tweak the law to remove its application to private libraries. In July, a coalition of private schools and privately funded libraries sued the state over the law.

Immigration

Republican lawmakers in the past year have made it clear they support the incoming Trump administration’s promise to ramp up deportations. More proposals to make that statement could be coming.

Rep. Tony Wisniewski, R-Post Falls, last year introduced a bill that would have created a formal compact with any other states interested in sharing intelligence from law enforcement. Wisniewski at the time called immigration an “invasion” that’s “affecting cities throughout the country that are overwhelmed by this influx.”

The bill died in a Senate committee, though lawmakers did pass a resolution that called on the president and Congress to prohibit amnesty for undocumented immigrants.

Little has made a show of sending state troopers over a thousand miles to the U.S.-Mexico border four times, and made a trip himself, as part of his pledge to help secure the border and stand with Texas’ efforts to object to the federal government’s management. Texas officials last year put up razor wire along the border that federal officials argued made it difficult for border agents to patrol or provide immigrants with medical care.

The Texas Legislature last year also crafted a law that provided local police with jurisdiction to enforce federal immigration policies by arresting immigrants and ordering them to leave the country.

Little said Friday that concerns about Idaho’s agriculture industry losing undocumented workers under Trump immigration policies can be solved by having them qualify for the federal H-2A program for temporary workers.

The Idaho governor last month signed onto a joint statement with Republican governors in support of Trump’s proposal to “deport dangerous criminals, gang members, and terrorists.” Deporting criminals has long been a part of immigration enforcement, under both Democratic and Republican administrations.

Moyle said Idaho residents can expect to see more bills this year that address immigration, including strict consequences for undocumented people driving without vehicle insurance.

Lent during the Statesman’s preview cautioned against stereotyping people entering the country and said immigration remains an integral part of the U.S. economy.

“The picture gets painted in the media about the rapists, and the killers, and all this stuff. … There’s also the widowed mother with her two little kids just trying to get out of a very terrible situation,” Lent said. “Most of us aren’t aware of just how dire the situation is in some of these countries right now. I think we need to have a little measure of compassion as we go about this.”