By Tim Oren
Outside of budgets and spending, illegal immigration will likely be the most contentious issue faced by the 2026 Idaho legislative session. A number of Idaho businesses openly proclaim that they employ – and intend to continue to use – known illegal border jumpers. We’re going to see whether our representatives come down on their side, or the side of citizens who are affected by the costs of hosting underpaid, low skilled immigrants.
The map of the House continued to evolve with a number of divided votes:
The Democrat cluster has now separated from the rest of the chamber, following Steve Berch into left field. The R’s are spread out in a spectrum from Dem-adjacent Nelsen and McCann to the Gang of 8 at the other end.
This is the background for the vote on H0704, requiring hiring businesses to use the Federal eVerify system to ensure their new employees are legitimately present (without exemptions for most of the employers that matter, as in S1247 last week):
There’s no clear border between the ‘ayes’ and ‘nays’, though the trend is noticeable. But when we get to H0700, putting very modest enforcement teeth behind prohibition of illegal employees, the difference is dramatic:
With one exception (Cannon) you can separate the ‘ayes’ and ‘nays’ with a simple line on the map. There’s something going on here. What might it be? As food for thought, here are the donations from the Idaho Dairy PAC as of the end of January, displayed on the same map:
(Blue is a supporting donation; red is a donation to a challenger.) The February campaign contribution report should have dropped by this time next week, so I’ll see what other relevant patterns might be seen there.
On the Other Side
The Senate remains the slow poke chamber. With only a few contested votes in the last week, the map is evolving slowly towards its typical form.
The D’s have largely split off into their own cluster, as have the Gof8 members. With a couple of exceptions (Lenney, Hart) all the remaining R’s are still in one big clump. I expect that to break up as spending bills start to hit the floor. For now, I’ll feature the divided vote on S1288, establishing a ‘High Needs Fund’ to support school districts by, well, funding ‘high needs’ kids’ expenses.
The initial $5 million to support this have been scratched up from already appropriated funds apparently found under the cushions of Idaho’s living room sofa, so not a ‘budget bill’ per se. But for those of us who’ve noticed that government programs never seem to go away once established, it may offer a preview of where the Senators will be coming down on the trades between “good causes” and “fiscal responsibility”.
Afterword
A reminder that the X and Y axes on these maps are automatically generated, and don’t necessarily have plain English descriptions. They also shift from one week to the next, as the session evolves.
About Tim Oren
Tim Oren retired to Idaho after a 30 year career in Silicon Valley. Here he gardens, home-brews, teaches kids to shoot, and has applied his well-aged statistics degree to subjects such as educational funding and results, Idaho legislative race targeting, and now legislators' voting patterns. He is a contributor to the Idaho Freedom Foundation and a number of Idaho candidates.
