By Jim Jones
JJ Commontater
A lawsuit to prevent taxpayer money from being used to pay for private and religious education is now before the Idaho Supreme Court. A dedicated coalition of public school supporters filed the suit on September 17, asking the Court to declare Idaho’s voucher subsidy law unconstitutional. They are also asking the Court to prevent the Idaho State Tax Commission from implementing and administering the law.
The lawsuit is based upon Article IX, section 1 of the Idaho Constitution, which states:
“The stability of a republican form of government depending mainly upon the intelligence of the people, it shall be the duty of the legislature of Idaho, to establish and maintain a general, uniform and thorough system of public, free common schools.”
Private and religious schools are not a system, nor are they general, uniform, thorough, free or common. They are not open to every Idaho kid. And the voucher subsidy law dishes out public money with minimal accountability requirements.
The law passed in the 2025 legislative session is a step toward privatizing education in Idaho. It was heavily supported by out-of-state billionaires who targeted and defeated legislators who opposed using public funds for private education in the last several elections. Those same monied interests spent hundreds of thousands of dollars lobbying for the subsidy in the last couple of legislative sessions.
The law grants parents who send their children to private schools a “refundable” tax credit of up to $5,000 per child. The credit is $7,500 for special needs kids, although those kids could very well be denied admission to private schools. This is not an ordinary tax credit. If the parents’ tax liability is less than $5,000 and they claim the full credit, the parents would get a check from the state for the difference.
In 2024, Idaho’s median household income was reported to be $70,214. Using the 2024 tax rate, an Idaho family would have been obligated to pay an estimated $4,072 in state income tax. If the family claimed a full $5,000 credit for one child, they would be relieved of their $4,072 tax obligation and get a check from the state in the amount of $928. The more credits they claimed, the bigger the check. In effect, families receiving a credit exceeding their tax liability would not contribute anything to the wide range of governmental programs financed by the state income tax.
Predictably, the right-wing culture warriors at the Mountain States Policy Center (MSPC) came out with guns blazing against the lawsuit. Chris Cargill, the group’s CEO, circulated an opinion piece titled, “Idaho activists sue taxpayers and target children.” He failed to deliver on the title because the challengers are not activists, they aren’t suing taxpayers and they certainly are not targeting children. They are merely trying to protect the public school system that was established as Idaho’s official school system in 1890.
The framers of Idaho’s Constitution mandated that the Legislature provide adequate state funding for the public school system. The framers gave not the slightest hint that any public funds could ever be expended on private or religious education. In fact, the framers absolutely prohibited public money from ever being spent on religious teaching. Based on experience from other states with school vouchers, it is likely that about 90% of the $50 million earmarked for Idaho’s voucher subsidy will go to religious schooling.
It is not hard to understand where MSPC is coming from. Like the ill-named Idaho Freedom Foundation, MSPC is part of the billionaire-funded State Policy Network, which has been trying to privatize education throughout the nation for many years. It is well known that the Freedom Foundation has been trying to do away with the Idaho public school system. MSPC is also a member of the infamous Project 2025, which has advocated for eliminating the U.S. Department of Education and establishing universal school choice throughout the United States. Donald Trump is fully behind MSPC’s education agenda. The Idaho voucher subsidy law is central to that agenda.
MSPC claims the voucher subsidy is broadly supported by Idahoans, referring to a deceptively worded survey it claims to have conducted. The survey did not let respondents know that most families taking advantage of the subsidy would not pay a penny of income tax or that they might even get a check back from the state.
School vouchers, whatever they are called, are actually unpopular with Idahoans. The 32,336 pleas that Gov. Brad Little received from the public this year to veto the voucher subsidy legislation speaks volumes. Idahoans can take heart because the current lawsuit, if successful, will preserve the integrity of our public school system.