The 2025 Stateswoman of the Year

Honoring a selfless citizen legislator.

Starting in 2023, the Gem State Chronicle began awarding the Statesman and Stateswoman of the Year to two political figures who best exemplify the American tradition of selflessness and service. In selecting honorees, I look at the full picture—ideology, effectiveness, and, perhaps most importantly, a long-term vision for our state and our communities. In 2023, the Chronicle honored Eagle Mayor Jason Pierce and Sen. Glenneda Zuiderveld. Last year, I selected Health & Welfare Director Alex Adams and Idaho GOP Chairwoman Dorothy Moon.

Today I’d like to celebrate someone who has long been on the front lines defending freedom and protecting children in Idaho and across the nation. The Gem State Chronicle’s 2025 Stateswoman of the Year is Rep. Barbara Ehardt.

I first met Rep. Ehardt sometime in 2020, in the early days of my political involvement. Then-Rep. Gayann DeMordaunt invited her to speak to a group of conservatives in Eagle about a bill she was working on to keep boys off girls’ sports teams.

House Bill 500 was, paradoxically, both an absurdity and a triumph. Imagine telling our great-grandparents’ generation that in the Year of Our Lord 2020 we would need to put into law that boys cannot pretend to be girls and then compete in women’s sports. It’s crazy, but we live in crazy times.

Rep. Ehardt, a veteran Division I player and coach, has long spoken eloquently about how important athletics were in her life. The idea of a young woman losing a chance to compete because a man wanted to force the rest of the world to enable his delusions horrified her. H500 passed the Legislature and was signed by Gov. Brad Little on March 18, 2020.

The ACLU quickly sued on behalf of a male runner at BSU. Next January, six years after the bill was born, the Supreme Court will hear the case—and Barbara Ehardt will be there to witness it.

Ehardt’s journey from drafting H500 to watching its fate decided by the Supreme Court has taken her around the nation, connecting her with activists such as Riley Gaines. Last February, President Donald Trump signed an executive order essentially codifying Ehardt’s bill at any college or university that receives federal money.

Yet this is just one of the issues Rep. Ehardt has taken on. In 2025, she carried bills ensuring freedom of speech on college campuses, protecting women in homeless shelters, and giving parents more control over sexually explicit curricula in their children’s schools. In 2023, she sponsored legislation to criminalize trafficking minors across state lines for abortions.

As a member of the COVID-19 Response Study Committee, Ehardt gave an impassioned reminder of what our government did to us in the name of public health.

Despite all of these accomplishments, Barbara Ehardt is one of the most down-to-earth people you’ll meet in the Statehouse. She is cordial and approachable, willing to have conversations even about things she disagrees with. Even in the halls of the Legislature, she’s still the “coach” who cheers her team when they win and consoles them when they fall short.

Barbara Ehardt is a model for anyone who aspires to public office, embodying the selfless citizen-legislator ideal our Founding Fathers believed in. I’m proud to honor her as the Gem State Chronicle’s 2025 Stateswoman of the Year.