Stories I'm Following
There's a lot going on in Idaho right now
The 2026 legislative session begins seven weeks from today, and once it’s underway the action won’t stop. Candidate filing for the 2026 primary opens in March while lawmakers are still in Boise, so we’ll be going straight from the session into the election with no brakes.
That doesn’t mean things are quiet on the political front. There are several developing stories I’ve been watching but haven’t had time to fully cover here.
As I write this, Secretary of State Phil McGrane and his team are in Mountain Home, where election workers discovered roughly 300 extra ballots following tabulation. A press release from McGrane’s office confirmed that an audit of paper ballots showed vote totals were off by exactly the number of extra ballots.
The secretary’s team will conduct a hand count, joined by officials from the Elmore County Prosecutor’s Office and the Attorney General’s Office. McGrane said he believes the discrepancy is due to a “procedural error” rather than deliberate wrongdoing. Even so, several Elmore County races could flip based on those 300 uncounted ballots—an outcome that would bring, at minimum, hurt feelings and possibly allegations of foul play.
Last week, Sen. Christy Zito, who represents Elmore County, posted a statement of support for Clerk Shelly Essl on Facebook.
Idaho Education News is covering the recount throughout the day.
The Idaho Freedom Foundation released a blitz of articles on taxes and spending this month. New budget policy analyst Brett Farruggia laid it all out in a post last Saturday:
The Idaho Freedom Foundation’s plan to reduce spending is multifaceted, and this series will outline the major pillars of our plan. The IFF plans to reduce government spending by eliminating wasteful and unconstitutional spending, repealing Medicaid expansion, and preparing a budget that returns the state to pre-COVID spending adjusted for inflation and population growth:
1. Eliminating unconstitutional and wasteful programs. We have identified at least $380 million in savings for the state and, consequently, Idaho taxpayers.
Read more: “Ending Bureaucratic Excess in Idaho”
2. Repeal Medicaid expansion. This program was supposed to cost the state of Idaho $400 million, but has since ballooned to more than $1.3 billion.
Read more: “Repealing Medicaid Expansion Is the Right Move for Idaho”
3. Return government expenditures to pre-COVID levels. Nearly $2 billion in cuts and savings have been identified and will be highlighted in a comprehensive budget release.
Read more: “How to get Idaho’s State Spending Back on Track”
Tax revenues continue to fall short of forecasts, with total FY 2026 revenues now 5.8% under the projections used by the Joint Finance-Appropriations Committee (JFAC). Gov. Brad Little has already ordered state agencies—except for education—to hold back 3% of their FY 2026 budgets, but it looks like the Legislature will need to find far more cuts to balance the budget.
The problem is that agencies are already requesting major increases for FY 2027. The math simply doesn’t work. The days of increasing spending while cutting taxes appear to be over. Lawmakers will either have to make significant agency cuts or raise taxes. The latter is unlikely to gain traction in an election year.
Democrats and their moderate Republican allies have pointed to the $50 million Parental Choice Tax Credit as the culprit, despite the roughly $3 billion appropriated for public schools. Conservatives point to the Idaho Launch Grant, which costs about $85 million per year, as a prime target for cuts. This debate is sure to dominate the 2026 session.
Remember the Kootenai County GOP town hall earlier this year that ended with a leftist agitator being dragged out after attempting to disrupt the meeting? While the attorney general’s office cleared Sheriff Bob Norris of any wrongdoing, the City of Coeur d’Alene still wants to see the private security personnel who assisted him punished. Summer Bushnell is live-tweeting the preliminary hearing as I write. It appears the judge has rejected the motion to dismiss the charges and is now giving jury instructions.
This is an important case to watch. Democrats have used the tactic of disrupting meetings for years—think back to Berkeley in 2017, when protestors harassed Ann Coulter and Milo Yiannopoulos. They use the threat of disruption to pressure hosts into canceling conservative events, and when that fails, they shout and cause chaos to stop the event from proceeding.
Teresa Borrenpohl, the woman dragged out of the KCRCC meeting after refusing to stop interrupting speakers and a 2024 Democratic candidate for the Legislature, allegedly pulled a fire alarm at a North Idaho College Board of Trustees meeting in 2022. The question before us, and what this case ultimately represents, is whether we will allow the left to continue using these tactics to shut down free speech and civil discourse.
The United States has a proud tradition of free and open debate. These disruptive tactics recall the atmosphere in Weimar Germany, where both the Nazis and Communists used paramilitary thugs to violently shut down each other’s meetings. While the Nazi SA was destroyed long ago, Antifa is simply the latest iteration of Communist street militants. They’re not interested in free speech, and they mock the laws of civil society even as they weaponize them against law-abiding citizens.
I’m working on articles about JFAC and DOGE, and just this morning I received information about a supposedly nonpartisan organization that recently released a report criticizing Idaho’s tax cuts. Its connections are interesting, to say the least. Stay tuned.
There’s a lot happening in Idaho, and I’m just one person. If you want to see more comprehensive coverage, I invite you to support the platform with a paid subscription. If you have a business or organization you’d like to promote, consider becoming a sponsor. I appreciate every supporter—even those who subscribe just to leave comments about how wrong I am. Take a moment to visit my regular sponsors: Lynn Bradescu’s Keller Williams Realty, Money Metals, and New Saint Andrews College.
I’ll have one or two more posts out this week. In the meantime, let me wish you an early Happy Thanksgiving. Have a blessed week!