Legislature’s biggest-spending lobbying groups in ’21 were groups with anonymous donors

A fight against vaccine mandates. Efforts to repeal the grocery tax. A push to increase education grants for families.

These efforts in the past year at the Idaho Legislature have one thing in common: The lobbyists who led these initiatives can all trace their funding back to the same network of donors that help fund conservative policy around the country.

Idaho’s three top-spending lobbying organizations in 2021 — Young Americans for Liberty ($110,064.08), Yes. Every Kid. ($109,563.87) and Idaho Freedom Action ($33,138.74) — all received funding or seed funding from Donors Trust, a donor-advised fund used by conservatives to shield their charitable giving from public disclosure requirements.

Organizations like Donors Trust use their charitable tax status to accept unlimited amounts of money from donors without disclosing their names. Some donations become known through other sources, such as the public tax returns of foundations making them.

Notable known donors to Donors Trust include the Kochs, DeVoses and Bradleys, who have used their money to advocate for policies that limit government and support free enterprise.

Charles Koch is a billionaire who with his late brother David expanded the family business, Koch Industries, across a wide range of businesses. The DeVos family includes billionaire Dick DeVos, heir to the multilevel-marketing company Amway, where he served as CEO from 1993 to 2002; and Betsy DeVos, the secretary of education under President Donald Trump and daughter of billionaire industrialist Edgar Prince. The Bradley Foundation was created by Harry Lynde Bradley, an industrialist and founding member of the anti-communist John Birch Society.

While many donors remain anonymous, all organizations that lobby are required to report what they spend lobbying Idaho elected officials. Records show that these three groups in 2021 outspent Idaho industry lobbyists, like the Idaho Dairymen’s Association and the Idaho Potato Commission, that typically have racked up the largest lobbying bills in the past.

2021 was an abnormal year, as the COVID-19 pandemic blocked much of the wining, dining and conferences that Idaho industries typically bankroll. But Young Americans for Liberty and Yes. Every Kid still rank among the top 15 spenders for the past three years combined. Idaho Freedom Action does not.

These groups’ activism in Idaho coincides with a shift in power within the state’s Republican Party. The old Legislature — ruled by an alliance of moderate Republicans and the powerful Idaho Association of Commerce — is at odds with an increasingly vocal and visible group of newer, more libertarian legislators, heavily influenced by the Idaho Freedom Foundation and with a tendency to call longtime leaders RINOs (Republicans in Name Only).

Some critics say these groups’ money has helped “extremist” Republicans gain influence.

“If you look over time, they used to be a very noisy minority, but now they’re approaching parity in the House on committees,” said Jennifer Ellis, a Blackfoot rancher and a Republican who chairs the Take Back Idaho PAC. The political action committee’s aim is to block out-of-state groups’ control of the Legislature.

“There is a real chance of them dominating policy discussions going forward,” Ellis said.

The PAC’s leaders include former House Speaker Bruce Newcomb, former Senate President Pro Tem Bob Geddes and former Secretary of State Ben Ysursa, all Republicans.

Young Americans for Liberty

The top spender in the Legislature last year, according to lobbyists’ filings, was Young Americans for Liberty, an Austin, Texas, organization that formed in the wake of Ron Paul’s 2008 presidential campaign.

Veteran lobbyists caution that the amounts disclosed by lobbyists in their reports filed with the Idaho Secretary of State’s Office may not fully reflect the top spending organizations. Expense-filing methodologies can vary among lobbyists, and some may not report the full amounts that they spend, some lobbyists told the Idaho Statesman.

Young Americans for Liberty shares many of the same policy goals as the Idaho Freedom Foundation, such as ending the state sales tax on groceries and stopping vaccine mandates.

Since 2014, Young Americans for Liberty has received at least $3.96 million nationwide from Donors Trust. It has also received $715,237 from the foundation of Charles Koch, the billionaire industrialist and major Republican donor, and at least $41,900 from the foundation of William Dunn, an investment manager who has donated millions to organizations promoting limited government.

Neither Young Americans for Liberty’s current Idaho lobbyist, Ted Patterson, nor their previous lobbyist, Barrett Young, responded to requests for comment via email and phone.

Beyond its lobbying, Young Americans for Liberty supports a network of “liberty legislators” called the Hazlitt Coalition, which includes members across 37 state legislatures who are trained to advocate for libertarian-based policies.

Idaho’s members are Reps. Ben Adams, R-Nampa; Chad Christensen, R-Ammon; Priscilla Giddings, R-White Bird; Karey Hanks, R-St. Anthony; Dorothy Moon, R-Stanley; Ronald Nate, R-Rexburg; Tammy Nichols, R-Middleton; Heather Scott, R-Blanchard; and Sen. Christy Zito, R-Hammett.

All nine were among the 31 legislators who came together just hours ahead of Gov. Brad Little’s State of the State address to announce the Idaho Conservative Agenda, outlining small-state libertarianism policy priorities for the legislative session.

In 2021, Young Americans for Liberty’s major lobbying expense was the $40,656 it paid for phone bankers it hired in March 2021 to call Idahoans, according to its annual filing with the Idaho Secretary of State’s Office.

Some legislators, including Christensen, attended Young Americans for Liberty conferences in 2021.

“Legislators go on these trips, they meet with a whole bunch of different people from different places — including these people that are creating the bills they want Idaho to be the test dummy for,” Ellis said. “We are the recipients of every bill mill in this country.”

Take a bill proposed last year by Rep. Priscilla Giddings, HB 62. It would have established education savings accounts providing up to $4,200 to every student who wants to go to a private school.

In the bill’s statement of purpose, Giddings said it would allow “dollars to follow students, so parents could choose the education opportunities that work best for their children” and “would be a gold standard in school choice.” Critics called it a school voucher plan that would have stripped money from Idaho’s public education system.

The plan was similar to the Koch and DeVos-backed law in Arizona. The bill never received a committee hearing.

Beyond proposing legislation, these legislators have also successfully shot down bills proposed by Republican colleagues.

In 2020, the House Environment, Energy and Technology Committee had proposed a “right-to-repair” bill meant to address business owners’ complaints that they had to go through expensive authorized dealers for repairs, rather than being able to fix their own equipment. But groups like the Freedom Foundation and its other partners in the State Policy Network, such as the American Legislative Exchange Council, came out against the legislation, as it would have added a government mandate on businesses.

Young Americans for Liberty has been active outside the statehouse, too. Its campaign arm, Make Liberty Win, in 2020 spent $153,000 on primaries and provided support to Reps. Moon, Nate, Nichols, Adams and Christensen, as well as Sen. Zito.

Already in 2022, Young Americans for Liberty has distributed flyers pushing back against so-called vaccine passports requiring proof of vaccination to receive services. Its website calls out Speaker Scott Bedke, R-Oakley, and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Winder, R-Boise, for “refusing to act on” vaccine mandates, although Little banned vaccine passports in state government, and Little, Bedke and Winder all have opposed President Joe Biden’s proposed mandates.

Ellis worries that those efforts might foreshadow a primary attack against the two longtime legislators.

“They’re going to make a big run on the Senate,” she predicts. “With 26 seats, it doesn’t take but six of these liberty legislators to create a real challenge for the Senate in holding some of their worst bills back.”

Yes. Every Kid.

Yes. Every Kid. is a group formed in 2019 that targets statehouses where it can influence school choice. The initiative is part of Charles Koch’s network of nonprofits and charitable groups called Stand Together, based in Arlington, Virginia, that advocate for pro-business, anti-regulation policies.

So why the focus on Idaho?

“The Idaho Legislature has several national leaders on education policy,” Executive Director Andrew Clark wrote in an email to the Statesman. “They are experienced, well-informed and share our vision of a great educational experience for every kid, regardless of where they attend school. So Idaho is a great place to explore interesting ideas and policy concepts.”

The bulk of Yes. Every Kid’s spending went toward an advertising campaign pushing for the Strong Families, Strong Students program, House Bill 294, which would have used state money to fund grants to families for education-related purchases. The $30 million program was effectively a school voucher program and the money would be better spent funding public education, critics said.

Though the top lobbying groups share ties to Donors Trust and other billionaire conservative philanthropists, that doesn’t mean they align in their views or work together. Sometimes, they clash.

Last year, the Idaho Freedom Foundation rated HB 294 negatively and advised lawmakers to vote against it. The Freedom Foundation argued that it would have created $35 million in new spending, didn’t provide enough money “to leave a public school for a private school or alternative school,” and would leave low-income students “trapped in the public education system.”

The Senate defeated the bill, with both Republicans and Democrats voting against it.

Clark said that Yes. Every Kid plans to push for the bill again this year.

“There are likely going to be several bipartisan, innovative bills we will support this session, and we look forward to seeing those emerge when the legislators writing them introduce those bills into the process,” Clark wrote.

Despite not getting HB 294 through last year, the group saw many of the other bills it lobbied for pass. Those include HB 172, which gives students credit for extracurricular activities such as organized sports, music lessons, internships or military service; and SB 1045, which allows private school and parochial school students to tap into a $750,000 fund that can pay for dual-credit college-level classes, Advanced Placement exams and other programs.

It also saw the passage of Senate Bill 1046, which allowed for the creation of “innovation classrooms in which an alternative curriculum would be taught” if enough parents group together and push for it. Critics say that it would create small charter schools within traditional public schools.

Idaho Freedom Foundation

The Idaho Freedom Foundation’s lobbying arm, Idaho Freedom Action, spent $33,138.74 last year, mostly for advertising.

The Idaho Freedom Foundation received much of its early funding from major conservative donors like Donors Trust and the related Donors Capital Fund. The Freedom Foundation declined to speak to the Idaho Statesman for this article, but it has said previously that in recent years, nearly 90% of its donations come from Idahoans.

Those include donations from the Smeed Memorial Foundation, which has contributed over $1.1 million since 2012, and the John H. and Orah I. Brandt Foundation, which has contributed at least $353,500, according to a review of those organizations’ tax forms.

The Idaho Freedom Foundation has maintained a presence in the Statehouse for years. The group is known for its Freedom Index that scores bills under consideration by their adherence to conservative values of limited government and free enterprise. It also creates a scorecard ranking legislators based on whether they have voted in accordance with IFF’s recommendations.

Winder has called the IFF “one of the biggest threats we have to our democracy in our state.” Former Attorney General Jim Jones, a Republican, has been a loud critic of IFF, blaming it for trying to “starve public education.” In a blog post, foundation President Wayne Hoffman called that claim unfounded.

Lobbyists have always played a role in Idaho politics. Over the last three years, the top spenders are Melaleuca, Inc. — the cleaning product and supplement company owned by Idaho’s richest man, Frank VanderSloot — and the Idaho Dairymen’s Association.

Not far behind is Altria, one of the world’s largest producers of cigarettes. And the Idaho Association of Commerce and Industry has long been considered one of the most powerful lobbying groups in the state.

So where’s the partisan concern over those groups?

Ellis said that these groups aren’t of as much concern, because their interests are transparent, compared with the opacity surrounding other lobbyists.

“We as normal Republican Idahoans have allowed ourselves not to take the time to really research who’s funding these people, what they’ve been voting for, or what their worldview is,” she said. “People don’t look underneath the hood to see what those policies will actually do if they’re implemented.”

This story was originally published February 6, 2022 at 4:00 AM with the headline "Legislature’s biggest-spending lobbying groups in ’21 were groups with anonymous donors."