What the Idaho Legislature Did to You in 2026

The Signal March 28, 2026 ~25 min read

The 68th Idaho Legislature convened on January 12, 2026, with a 61-9 Republican supermajority in the House and a 29-6 supermajority in the Senate. They faced a revenue shortfall approaching $555 million, the direct consequence of $400 million in tax cuts passed the previous year and a $50 million private school voucher program signed into law in 2025. Their solution was not to reverse the decisions that caused the shortfall. Their solution was to cut the services you depend on to pay for the tax breaks they already gave away.

This is what they did. Bill numbers attached. Names attached. Vote counts attached.

The Numbers

The session processed over 700 bills. Governor Little signed the Budget Rescissions Act early, applying a 4% reduction to nearly all state agencies. JFAC then voted 14-6 to approve an additional 1% cut to the current fiscal year, a $131 million reduction to the general fund. They followed that with a 13-7 vote for a permanent 2% cut to most agencies starting in fiscal year 2027, another $143 million. Added to Little's initial 3%, most state agencies now face a permanent 5% budget reduction.

K-12 education, Medicaid, prisons, and Idaho State Police were exempted from the across-the-board cuts. This sounds like protection. It is not. Medicaid got its own targeted cuts. Education got a different kind of punishment.

The Budget: $555 Million Short

The $555 million shortfall did not come from nowhere. In 2024 and 2025, the Legislature cut income taxes, lowering the rate to 5.3%. They created a $50 million annual private school tax credit. They made structural decisions that permanently reduced revenue, then arrived at the 2026 session and told every state agency to cut spending because there wasn't enough money.

The 4% rescission was the first bill signed into law. At Little's request, the additional 1% exempted public schools, Medicaid, Corrections, and State Police. The remaining agencies absorbed it all. The consequences are distributed across every function of state government that is not politically dangerous to cut in an election year.

Idaho State University is laying off dozens of employees and merging colleges. Boise State University is combining two schools and closing a college. The University of Idaho paused its engineering program buildout. This is what a $555 million shortfall looks like when the Legislature refuses to admit it was caused by their own tax policy.

Medicaid: They Killed People

The Idaho Legislature cut Medicaid mental health services in 2025 to comply with Governor Little's budget directives. Specifically, they cut the Assertive Community Treatment program, which provides mobile mental health care to people with severe mental illness. The sickest, most vulnerable people in the state. People who cannot function in traditional treatment settings. People who needed help coming to them.

Four patients died in under four months. In the eighteen months before the cut, one patient had died. Four in four months versus one in eighteen. Crisis center visits in eastern Idaho spiked 34% in December and 43% in January.

Rep. Ben Fuhriman, R-Shelley, said it on the House floor: "The fallout of the cuts is people dying. And I don't mean to use that as a hyperbole or even a radical statement. But it's just the reality." A Republican said that. On the record. In the statehouse.

The Legislature voted to restore the funding on March 24, 2026. After the fourth body. You do not get credit for putting out a fire you started.

It gets worse. Governor Little's fiscal year 2027 budget called for $45 million in total Medicaid cuts. The state already slashed $23 million by cutting provider reimbursement rates 4% in September 2025. Little's budget made that cut permanent and directed the Legislature to find another $22 million.

The options Little put on the table included ending dental coverage for Medicaid recipients and cutting residential habilitation services, the in-home support that allows people with disabilities to live outside of institutions. Rep. John Vander Woude, chair of the House Health and Welfare Committee, told JFAC he had a bill drafted to cut $21 million from residential habilitation alone. HB 863 passed the Senate on March 23, slashing $22 million from Medicaid disability provider payments.

Vander Woude also said he was working on a bill to repeal Medicaid expansion entirely, replacing it with a capped enrollment program with work requirements. Idaho voters approved Medicaid expansion by ballot initiative in 2018 with 60.6% of the vote. The Legislature has spent every session since trying to undo what voters told them to do.

Here is the math the Legislature does not want you to see. For every dollar Idaho spends on Medicaid, the federal government matches at least two. Little's $45 million in state Medicaid cuts forfeit approximately $106.8 million in federal matching funds. The state saves $45 million. Idahoans lose $151.8 million in healthcare services.

Education: Defunding the Public System

The Legislature did not pass a school voucher bill in 2026. They did not need to. They passed one in 2025. House Bill 93 created a refundable tax credit giving private school and homeschool families up to $5,000 per student, or $7,500 for students with special needs, funded by a $50 million annual cap. The governor's office received 37,457 phone calls and emails about the bill. 86% were opposed. Governor Little signed it anyway.

In 2026, the Legislature moved to expand the program. House Bill 731 directs Idaho to participate in the federal school voucher program created by the One Big Beautiful Bill Act. House Bill 934 would update the tax credit rules so that homeschoolers can use the credit to pay for Idaho Digital Learning Alliance courses, blurring the line between the public and private systems further.

Meanwhile, GOP leadership introduced a bill cutting $13.4 million from the Idaho Digital Learning Alliance itself. IDLA provides online courses to rural districts that cannot afford to hire teachers for every subject. Rep. Monica Church, D-Boise, said it plainly: "It's a terrible idea to take any money from IDLA as it has become such a lifeblood for schools, for our rural districts, for our families." Leadership bypassed the House Education Committee, which had already rejected a nearly identical version of the bill, and brought it directly to the floor.

The pattern is consistent. Defund the public system. Redirect money to private alternatives. When the public system deteriorates because you defunded it, use that deterioration as evidence that the public system doesn't work.

Tax Conformity: $155 Million Less Revenue

House Bill 559 conformed Idaho's tax code to the federal One Big Beautiful Bill Act. Governor Little signed it in February. The bill provides enhanced deductions for seniors, deductions for tips, car loan interest, and overtime compensation. These are real benefits for individual taxpayers.

The cost: $155 million in reduced state revenue for the current fiscal year. $175 million in fiscal year 2027. In a year when the state was already $555 million short, the Legislature voluntarily reduced revenue by another $155 million. The individual tax cuts in the federal bill expire in four years. The revenue loss to Idaho is permanent.

21 out of 24 people who testified at the committee hearing opposed the bill. The committee chair received over 200 emails in opposition. They advanced it on a party-line vote. The overall budget passed the Senate 18-17. One vote. The governor's own budget chief, Lori Wolff, warned them on the record: "I'm certain that if we cut too deep we would have long term impacts, and those long term impacts mean economic growth gets stalled out." They heard her. They cut deeper.

During debate, testimony warned that income tax cuts would shift the burden to property taxes. When state school funding drops, districts ask voters for supplemental levies. The tax cut does not disappear. It moves from the income tax line to the property tax line. For homeowners in fast-growing districts, the net effect is higher total taxation, not lower.

HB 752: The Bathroom Bill

House Bill 752, sponsored by Rep. Cornel Rasor, R-Sagle, makes it a criminal offense for a person to use a public restroom or changing facility that does not match their biological sex. First offense: misdemeanor, up to one year in jail. Second offense within five years: felony, up to five years in prison.

The bill passed the House 54-15, with six Republicans joining the nine Democrats in opposition. It passed the Senate 28-7. Sen. Ben Toews, R-Coeur d'Alene, sponsored it in the Senate. Sen. Jim Guthrie, R-McCammon, was the sole Republican to publicly argue against the bill, calling it "harmful."

The bill applies to government buildings and places of public accommodation, meaning private businesses. Exceptions exist for medical emergencies, law enforcement, and, notably, for anyone "in dire need of urinating or defecating" when no other facility is available. The Legislature wrote that into the statute.

Sen. Melissa Wintrow noted that HB 752 is the 30th bill targeting Idaho's transgender community since 2020. The bill does not address sexual assault or voyeurism, which are already crimes under existing Idaho law. It creates a new crime category for using a bathroom.

This is the 30th bill. Not the 30th bill proposed. The 30th bill targeting a specific group of Idahoans in six years. That is not governance. That is a legislative body using its power to make the lives of a small number of people measurably worse, session after session, while the state's budget collapses and its healthcare system is gutted.

HB 557: Stripping Civil Rights From Your City

House Bill 557 was not written by a legislator. It was written by the Idaho Family Policy Center, a conservative Christian lobbying group. Sponsored by Rep. Bruce Skaug, R-Nampa. A man who does not live in Boise, does not represent Boise, and has never represented a single person in Boise. He carried a lobbying group's bill into the statehouse and used it to strip protections from Boise's residents.

HB 557 guts LGBTQ anti-discrimination protections from twelve Idaho cities and two counties. Boise has had these protections since 2012. Fourteen years. In those fourteen years, the city received zero business complaints. Zero prosecutions. Zero market departures. Kathy Griesmyer, Boise's director of government affairs, testified to this directly. The ordinance worked. It protected people. It cost nothing. It harmed no one.

720,000 Idahoans live in cities with these protections. That is 36% of the state. Before Boise passed its ordinance, LGBTQ residents were afraid to report crimes to police because public records could out them to their employers and landlords. After the ordinance passed, crime reporting from LGBTQ individuals went up. The ordinance did not just protect dignity. It helped police do their jobs. It made the city safer.

Passed the House 53-16. Rep. Steve Berch, D-Boise, said it on the floor: "It is not a special right to not be fired from your job. It is not a special right to not be evicted from your apartment. It is not a special right to not be asked to leave a restaurant because of who you are."

HB 896: The Power to Remove Your Elected Officials

House Bill 896. Sponsored by House Speaker Mike Moyle and Majority Leader Jason Monks. The two most powerful Republicans in the Idaho House.

This bill gives Attorney General Raúl Labrador the power to sue local elected officials, issue 14-day compliance warnings, and seek court orders to remove them from public office for up to five years. Your mayor. Your city council. The people you voted for, in your city, to represent your interests. Gone. Because the attorney general decided they broke a state law.

The trigger: Boise declared the pride flag an official city flag last year to work around the legislature's flag ban. A flag. The city made a decision about a piece of fabric and the state's response was to write a law that lets the state remove the city's elected leaders from office. The first draft would have let the state freeze funding to disobedient cities. They backed off that. Went with removal from office instead. As if that is the compromise.

State legislators and judges are exempt from HB 896. The law does not apply to them. Only to local officials. Only to the people who represent cities that do not fall in line.

Passed 60-9. Straight party line. Every Republican voted yes. Rep. John Gannon, D-Boise, called it "injecting politics into law enforcement."

A separate bill imposes fines of $2,000 per day on cities for flying flags the state has not approved. Two thousand dollars. Every day. In America. In Idaho. The state whose brand is "freedom." Unless you fly the wrong piece of cloth.

Immigration: Hospitals as Checkpoints

The Legislature introduced a bill requiring hospitals that accept Medicaid to collect the immigration status of patients and report it to the Idaho Department of Health and Welfare. Hospitals. The place you take your child when they cannot breathe. The place your grandmother goes when she falls. The intake desk asking for documentation while people are scared, hurting, bleeding.

They proposed a statewide 287(g) agreement forcing every city and county in Idaho into a formal partnership with ICE. Not optional. Not local discretion. Every city. Every county. Whether your community wants it or not.

They advanced a bill requiring immigration status and nationality to be recorded on every arrest. Not conviction. Arrest. Before you have been found guilty of anything.

SB 1422: Rewriting Campaign Finance Law

Senate Bill 1422, sponsored by Senate Assistant Majority Leader Mark Harris, R-Soda Springs, and backed by Secretary of State Phil McGrane, would repeal Idaho Code Chapter 66, Title 67, and replace it entirely with Chapter 3, Title 74. This is a full rewrite of Idaho's campaign finance law.

The headline changes: contribution limits for statewide candidates increase from $5,000 to $6,000 per election. Legislative and local candidates go from $1,000 to $1,500. McGrane called these "modest" adjustments. The statewide increase is 20%. The legislative increase is 50%. Whether those are modest depends on which side of the contribution you are on.

The bill also introduces a new restriction: candidates can no longer accept contributions for the general election until they win the primary. As McGrane put it, "You can't collect money for the general election until you win the primary election." It requires separate bank accounts for campaign funds, creates an ad library for independent expenditures, and restructures fines from a flat $250/$2,500 maximum to $50 plus 5% of the unreported value.

The bill has been through six iterations across the 2025 and 2026 sessions. As of the session's final days, SB 1422 was retained on the House calendar. Contributions to PACs remain unlimited. That has not changed.

Firearms Preemption: SB 1430

Senate Bill 1430 creates civil penalties and permanent injunctions against any county, city, or locality that violates Idaho's statewide firearms preemption law. Idaho Code §18-3302J already prohibits local governments from enacting firearms restrictions more strict than state law. SB 1430 adds enforcement teeth: if a local government passes a gun ordinance, residents can sue and the court can impose fines and permanent injunctions.

This bill is part of a broader pattern of state preemption, where the Legislature strips local governments of the ability to make decisions for their own communities. Idaho already prohibits local firearms registries, has no red flag law, and has no extreme risk protection order statute. SB 1430 ensures that cities cannot even attempt to address gun violence with local ordinances tailored to their specific circumstances.

The Collateral Damage

SB 1331, the Budget Rescissions Act, was signed by Governor Little on March 17. $131.3 million in general fund cuts. 110 full-time state positions eliminated. Here is what those cuts look like at ground level.

National Guard tuition assistance was defunded. The people willing to serve this state can no longer afford school because of it.

The Idaho School for the Deaf and Blind built a brand new dormitory. The Legislature refused to fund five staff positions to open it. Five positions. For deaf and blind children. Senator Janie Ward-Engelking: "Can you imagine having a brand new school in your community and leaving it empty?"

State parks warned that additional cuts could lead to closures and reduced hours this summer. Idaho Parks and Recreation has been clawing back from an 80% general fund reduction since 2011. They had 14% of their operating budget remaining as of January.

The public defender's office warned the cuts create operational challenges and legal risks to citizens' constitutional right to representation in court. The Sixth Amendment right to an attorney. On the chopping block so someone's capital gains tax goes down.

Graduate medical education might not survive the cuts. The state is actively making it harder to train doctors in a state that already does not have enough of them.

Senator Ward-Engelking called it "death by a thousand cuts." She added: "I don't know that this leaves the lights on."

Bills That Died

House Bill 633 would have repealed Idaho's 6% sales tax on groceries, replaced the grocery tax credit, and increased sales tax distribution to local governments. It was introduced on February 11 and went nowhere. Idaho remains one of only a handful of states that taxes groceries at the full sales tax rate. A separate ballot initiative to repeal the grocery tax is gathering signatures for the November 2026 ballot.

The grocery tax repeal has failed legislatively for years. Idaho collects the tax. Idaho offsets it with a credit. The credit is $155 per resident. For a family of four, that is $620, which does not cover the 6% tax on a year's worth of groceries for anyone spending more than $10,333 annually on food. The net effect is a regressive tax that hits lower-income families hardest, offset by a credit that does not fully compensate.

The Architecture Problem

85.7% of the Idaho Legislature is Republican. 90 out of 105 seats. Nine Democrats in the entire House. Six in the Senate. This session was not an aberration. It was the system working as designed. A supermajority does not negotiate. It does not compromise. It does not need to consider the interests of the 270,000 unaffiliated voters who had no say in which candidates advanced through the closed Republican primary. It passes what it wants and the governor signs it.

The solution is not better Republicans. The solution is not louder Democrats. The solution is a system where the people who govern you are structurally accountable to you, where every vote is verifiable, where every dollar is traceable, and where a supermajority cannot use its power to dismantle the services its constituents depend on while cutting taxes for the people who fund its campaigns.

That system is what The Future Party is building. The platform specifies every mechanism. The math is public. The architecture is verifiable. If you want to replace the people who did this to you, start at thefutureparty.org/join.