Sen. Jim Guthrie thinks he is a king. Despite 40, 50, or sometimes 60 members of the House voting in favor of bills, Guthrie has repeatedly used his position as chair of the Senate State Affairs Committee to unilaterally kill them. I heard from sources this morning that Guthrie has zero intention of giving immigration bills H700 and H704 hearings, no matter how many emails and phone calls he receives imploring him to do the right thing.
Sen. Guthrie has been serving as the gatekeeper for the most left-leaning Republicans in the Senate for nearly four years now, picking up the baton handed to him when Patti Anne Lodge retired in 2022. When Sen. Kelly Anthon was elected president pro tempore in 2024, he retained Guthrie as chairman of Senate State Affairs.
Was that a political necessity, or a convenient pressure valve to ensure senators won’t have to go on the record with votes against conservative legislation?
Guthrie himself is not shy about voting against conservative legislation, including last year’s bills to prohibit mask mandates, create the Parental Choice Tax Credit, ban mandatory DEI in higher education, not to mention the Idaho Medical Freedom Act.
Sen. Guthrie deserves all the criticism and condemnation in the world for the way he has taken it upon himself to block the will of the people and the will of a majority of legislators. The best way to make change in the Idaho Senate is to support David Worley, who is challenging Guthrie in District 28.
Yet there is another senator who believes that he alone gets to decide whether a bill that passed the House will even receive a Senate hearing. House Bill 745, prohibiting taxpayer subsidies for teachers’ unions, passed 45–23–2 earlier this week. However, sources tell me that Sen. Dan Foreman, chairman of the Senate Commerce & Human Resources Committee, has decided not to allow a hearing on this important bill.
Foreman has not explained why, not even to the closest stakeholders. This is not only baffling, but infuriating, as Foreman himself signed onto the bill as a co-sponsor, giving assurances that he would allow it to be heard in his committee.
What is good for the goose is good for the gander. If we’re going to call out Sen. Guthrie for acting like a tinpot dictator and gatekeeping good legislation, then Sen. Foreman deserves the same. Call Foreman’s office at (208) 332-1405 or email him and respectfully ask him to hear H745.
Dan Foreman has incredible conservative bona fides, but he seems to have a tendency to burn bridges with those who should be allies. I’ve heard from numerous people who have felt betrayed by Foreman over the years, which is not a good situation for someone in a such tenuous district. This year, Foreman is being challenged by Rep. Lori McCann, whose own bona fides are about as opposite from Foreman’s as possible. Yet who is going to ride to the rescue of a senator who pulled the rug out from under a good bill after spending months claiming to support it?
Health freedom advocates were outraged when Sen. Foreman worked with Gov. Brad Little last year to adjust the Medical Freedom Act following Little’s veto of the original bill. Yet Foreman ultimately proved to be right in that case, and he was able to get a strong bill signed into law on the last day of the session.
Is Foreman once again trying to play three-dimensional chess?
Last year, forty members of the House of Representatives voted in favor of H98, an earlier version of this bill prohibiting tax dollars from going to teachers’ unions. Sen. Guthrie threw it in the trash rather than allowing it to be heard in Senate State Affairs.
This year, forty-five members of the House of Representatives voted in favor of H745. I personally carried a resolution supporting this legislation to the Idaho GOP Winter Meeting in January, where it passed unanimously. Sponsors worked hard to ensure the bill would go to a committee with a chairman who wasn’t a tinpot dictator.
Yet here we are, in the same place we were last year, where a single senator is exercising a veto above not only his colleagues but the governor himself. At least the governor’s veto can be overridden.
Call Sen. Dan Foreman and ask him to hear this bill. Call Sen. Guthrie too. Tell them to stop playing political games and do the job they were sent to the Legislature to do.
Feature image made with Microsoft Copilot, from an original by the Associated Press.
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About Brian Almon
Brian Almon is the Editor of the Gem State Chronicle. He also serves as Chairman of the District 14 Republican Party and is a trustee of the Eagle Public Library Board. He lives with his wife and five children in Eagle.
