The Legislative Session Starts Monday. Here's What to Watch

The background: After years of near misses, anti-public education lawmakers finally succeeded in bringing a private school voucher program in Idaho: $50 million in taxpayer funds for private school tuition and expenses.  

• House Bill 93 created a tax credit voucher program to be administered through the Idaho Tax Commission. Parents of students who attend private school are now eligible to receive $5,000 per child in publicly funded tax credits, or up to $7,500 per child with a disability.  

• Parents may begin applying for vouchers on Jan. 15, 2026. We don’t yet know how many people will apply, but backlash against the bill was swift and vociferous — and has continued steadily throughout the year in the form of town halls and wave after wave of public opinion pieces.  

• HB 93 infamously includes no accountability, background checks for educators, curriculum standards, or true restrictions on “educational expenses.”  

• In September, IEA and other petitioners asked the Idaho Supreme Court to rule HB 93 unconstitutional because the scheme creates a parallel taxpayer-funded school system in direct violation to the Idaho Constitution. As of the publish date, IEA is waiting for a hearing to be set or the court’s ruling to be handed down.  

The hurdle: Forces inside the Legislature and beyond its walls may affect the fate of HB 93.  

• There is a lot of money riding on the success of private school vouchers — as evidenced by the swarms of out-of-state lobbyists that packed the halls of the Statehouse last year during the legislative session.  

• Just as IEA members warned during the last legislative session, the combination of deep tax cuts and a new voucher program has ravaged the state budget — just as it did in Arizona, which Idaho legislators used as a model for the state’s program.  

IEA’s position: Private school vouchers are bad for students, bad for schools, bad for communities and bad for budgets.  

What to watch: The Supreme Court’s ruling is expected in late January or early February, just as the Legislature is setting future budgets for public schools. “No matter what the court rules, IEA will continue to fight the advancement of any and all voucher legislation during this session,” said IEA Executive Director Paul Stark. “Every dollar earmarked for vouchers is a dollar that could be put to excellent use in the public schools that serve more than 90 percent of Idaho students.” 

• Voucher expansion — an idea some legislators have already floated — could be a difficult sell in a year with a state budget shortfall.  

• President Trump’s “one big, beautiful bill,” which passed earlier this year, contains a federal voucher program. It remains to be seen whether Idaho legislators will opt into the federal program — which could replace or supplement Idaho’s existing voucher program.   

The background: Another legislative session, another attempt to roll back the power of public-sector unions.  

• For years, anti-union lawmakers in Idaho have tried to deny workers’ rights to unionize and participate in collective bargaining: Idaho became a right-to-work state in 1985, followed by repeated attempts to end payroll deduction for union dues. 

• In 2025, Sen. Ben Toews (R-Coeur d’Alene) and Rep. Judy Boyle (R-Midvale) sponsored a bill that would have stripped public school districts’ ability to collect union dues on behalf of union members through payroll deduction — a tactic that has been used in other states to gut unions overnight.  

• IEA wasn’t the only one targeted in 2025. Rep. Rob Beiswenger (R-Horseshoe Bend) attempted to deny firefighters their right to negotiate their own workplace safety conditions.  

• Why do they hate unions? Boyle pointed — without evidence — to supposed “under the table” dealings between IEA and school districts. Beiswenger said firefighter safety should cut out firefighters entirely and leave such decisions to elected officials.  

The hurdle: Anti-union thinktanks churn out endless legislation to stamp out unions and disperse it via lobbyists to statehouses around the country. In 2025, Utah educators lost their ability to collectively bargain — along with police officers, firefighters, and other public employees.  

• Utah’s law was overturned just this week, but only after months of confusion and expense.  Others are still fighting the ramifications of legislation years after the fact.  

IEA’s position: Unionized employees enjoy better pay (12.8% more) and workplace safety protections — measures that are especially valuable to firefighters and educators who work with special needs populations.  

• "This isn’t the first time we’ve faced threats from Idaho legislators, and it likely won’t be the last,” said IEA Executive Director Paul Stark. “But every time we have faced an anti-union threat, IEA members have rallied in solidarity. Legislators try to target us because of our strength — and that strength is a muscle we will flex every time.” 

What to watch: Expect more of the same from Boyle, Beiswenger and Toews, and possibly Rep. Dale Hawkins (R-Fernwood). Idaho legislators aren’t exactly known for paying attention to lessons from other states, such as the politically expensive one Utah is currently learning.  

• It will be interesting to see whether lawmakers target public-sector unions beyond education. So far, the Fraternal Order of Police is the only public-sector union that has escaped lawmakers’ attention.