Sunshine Reform

Do House Bills 308 and 309 go too far?

In 1974, Idaho voters overwhelmingly approved the state’s first Sunshine laws. These laws required candidates, PACs, and lobbyists to report contributions and expenditures, ensuring that citizens could see who was funding efforts to influence the political system.

Since then, Idaho’s campaign finance reporting and lobbyist disclosure system has expanded. Today, a wealth of information is available on the Sunshine website and the lobbyist portal, both hosted by the Idaho Secretary of State.

Last Friday, Secretary of State Phil McGrane joined House Speaker Mike Moyle, Senate President Pro Tempore Kelly Anthon, and House State Affairs Chairman Brent Crane to unveil four bills aimed at increasing political transparency. Watch the news conference here:

I read through all four bills live on last week’s Gem State Report.

The first two bills presented that morning, H306 and H307, focus on honesty in political discourse. H306 would make libel a criminal offense rather than a civil violation, carrying penalties of up to a $100,000 fine or five years in jail. H307 would establish a process allowing candidates to submit allegedly dishonest campaign material to the Secretary of State’s office, which would then require the sender to prove its accuracy.

I have some concerns about these bills and plan to address them in a future piece. Today, I want to focus on the other two bills, H308 and H309, which completely rewrite Idaho’s statutes on campaign finance reporting and lobbyist disclosures, respectively.

One of the biggest changes in H308 is an increase in contribution limits for candidates. Right now, donors can contribute up to $1,000 per election to legislative candidates, as well as candidates for local and judicial offices. This means I could donate $1,000 to a state Senate candidate for the primary and another $1,000 for the general election. The limit for statewide offices is $5,000 per election.

H308 would increase those limits to $5,000 for legislative, judicial, and local offices and $10,000 for statewide races. It also introduces a trigger mechanism: If a PAC or group of PACs spends more than $50,000 on a legislative, judicial, or local race, all contribution limits are lifted. The trigger for statewide office is $100,000, and for governor, it’s $250,000.

In 2024, PACs spent over $100,000 on independent expenditures against Sen. Brian Lenney. Under this bill, he would have been able to ask wealthy donors to give above and beyond the previous legal limits.

Is this too much? When the federal government imposed contribution limits through the McCain-Feingold Act of 2002, many conservatives saw it as an infringement on free speech. However, over time, most have accepted these restrictions as the status quo. This bill attempts to address the power imbalance between candidates and PACs.

For example, let’s say I’m a multimillionaire who wants to influence politics in Idaho, and I’m particularly unhappy with a legislator in my district. Let’s use Rep. Josh Tanner as an example (purely hypothetical, of course; I very much support his work in the Legislature!). Under current law, I’m limited to donating $1,000 to an opponent in the Republican primary. But if I really want to make an impact, I can dump unlimited money into an anti-Tanner PAC. There’s no cap — I could literally spend a million dollars on one legislative race if I wanted.

By raising the base limit and introducing a trigger for additional contributions, H308 appears to level the playing field between candidates and PACs.

Other components of the bill include increased reporting requirements for candidates, PACs, and independent expenditures. If a PAC spends money to support or attack a candidate within 16 days of an election, it must report the expenditure to the Sunshine website within 24 hours. The bill also raises fines for failing to report contributions or expenditures.

Currently, electioneering communications must be reported 30 days before a primary election and 60 days before a general election. The new bill standardizes this period to 60 days for both elections and clarifies the distinction between lobbying and electioneering. For example, an organization like the Idaho Freedom Foundation could continue its work of reporting on the Legislature and lobbying for specific measures in March 2026 without being classified as electioneering.

The bill rewrites and clarifies several aspects of campaign finance law, including distinguishing PACs from political parties. It also requires disclosure of donors who fund independent expenditures for or against candidates, while ensuring that organizations are not required to disclose regular donors whose contributions are not specifically earmarked for electioneering.

Overall, H308 appears to be a positive step in campaign finance reform. It won’t satisfy conservatives who oppose reporting requirements entirely, nor will it please PACs that benefit from the current system, but it seems like a reasonable compromise. I look forward to seeing it debated in a full hearing.

H309 does for lobbyists what H308 does for candidates and PACs. This bill extracts rules regarding lobbying from the section of law that deals with campaign finance, making it clear that these are separate issues.

H309 increases the reporting requirements for lobbyists from monthly to weekly while the Legislature is in session, and adds a 48 hour rule for any expenditure greater than $1,000. It also defines “indirect lobbying” which includes spending money to influence public opinion on legislation. This makes sense, as currently organizations must report expenditures involved with directly lobbying elected officials, but they aren’t required when they instead pay for social media ads urging citizens to contact lawmakers to support or oppose a certain measure.

Finally, the bill increases fines for lobbyists who fail to report their activities in a timely manner.

At last Friday’s press conference, Rep. Brent Crane said these bills were designed to address the "monetization of politics." We can’t stop the flow of money into politics or the growing influence of out-of-state interests, nor should we. We believe in free speech.

However, Idahoans deserve to know who is spending money to influence their government. These bills take reasonable steps toward greater transparency, which is something everyone should be able to support.