To protect Idaho public lands, GOP lawmaker wants to change state constitution
In recent months, protection of public lands has emerged as a rare point of consensus among Idaho lawmakers across the political spectrum, as residents of all political stripes filled their mailboxes with outrage over a federal proposal to sell off millions of acres of public land, including in Idaho.
Now, a conservative lawmaker proposed a way to keep that land public for good.
State Sen. Ben Adams, R-Nampa, said he plans to introduce an amendment to the Idaho Constitution that would guard against such plans. At a ceremony near Pine, east of Boise near the Sawtooth National Forest, he unveiled the proposed legislation to prevent Idaho from selling off lands it acquired from the federal government. It would also create a fund to distribute revenues from land use — timber harvesting, grazing and recreation — to public schools in rural communities.
“All too often in our political climate today, we find ourselves pitted against one another on this issue or that issue,” he said in a statement shared with the Idaho Statesman. “But from time to time, we find ourselves, regardless of political party, standing shoulder to shoulder, not as partisans, but as citizens, to protect something that we all have a shared ownership in.”
Unlike a bill, which needs only a simple majority from both chambers, amending the Idaho Constitution requires the support of two-thirds of both the state House and Senate. If Adams’ amendment secures those votes, it would appear as a a ballot measure for voters on the November 2026 general election ballot.
Adams, a retired Marine Corps sergeant who works in construction, served in the House from 2020 to 2022 and has served one term in the Senate. In 2021, he gave a speech urging fellow lawmakers to resist using federal money and invoked the prospect of civil war. He also sponsored a bill to require Congress to formally declare war before Idaho National Guard troops could be deployed overseas.
House Minority Leader Rep. Ilana Rubel, D-Boise, told the Statesman that Adams’ proposal reflected a shift in public opinion after U.S. Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, pitched the idea of selling off federal land to private owners.
For years, Rubel said, she’d seen a subset of Republican lawmakers express support for selling off public land, but until the federal proposal came to a head, “I don’t think the proponents of that viewpoint really had an understanding of how unpopular their viewpoint was.”
“It had just been kind of percolating under the covers for a long time,” she said by phone. “Sometimes, things can get going pretty far in an ideological bubble without the public really knowing it’s happening. And then, once it comes to people’s attention, the full force of its unpopularity becomes clear.”
Rep. John Vander Woude, R-Nampa, unsuccessfully cosponsored a bill with Rubel to preserve public land this year. That bill passed in the House but never made it to the Senate floor for a vote.
The measure faced stiff opposition from the Idaho Farm Bureau, which argued that the state and federal governments already own too much land in Idaho, said Sean Ellis, a spokesperson for the bureau. Government ownership erodes the local tax base and restricts the state’s economy, he said. Ellis didn’t answer a question about whether the bureau would support or oppose Adams’ proposed amendment.
“We appreciate Sen. Adams sharing his proposal with us,” he told the Statesman by email. “Our members are reviewing his proposal and will be offering feedback.”
Jeffrey Lyons, a professor of political science at Boise State University, said he’s not surprised to see lawmakers from both sides of the aisle standing up for public land. State and national polling data show widespread, bipartisan support for such a move.
A 2025 poll by Conservation Voters for Idaho, for example, found that 96% of over 1,000 Idahoans believed that public lands should remain public. Nearly 90% opposed Lee’s proposal, the organization found. A nationwide April poll by the Trust for Public Land found that 71% of Americans opposed the sale of public lands.
“I think you would be really hard-pressed to find actual evidence that says the public supports the sale of public lands” in the way that Lee’s proposal envisioned, Lyons said. “I’ve seen nothing that would suggest that.”
This story was originally published August 19, 2025 at 4:00 AM.
