Should Idaho fund religious schools? For the first time, proposal moves forward
It wasn’t the first time lawmakers proposed amending the Idaho Constitution to allow the state to spend public money on religious schools.
In recent years, they’ve repeatedly proposed joint resolutions to repeal a section of the constitution, called the Blaine Amendment, that bars state and local governments from using public money to financially help religious institutions.
But on Thursday, the proposal got further than it ever has before. The House State Affairs Committee voted to send the joint resolution to the House for a vote.
“I think it’s long overdue,” said Rep. Brent Crane, R-Nampa, the committee’s chairman.
The resolution, sponsored by Rep. Elaine Price, R-Coeur d’Alene, calls for putting the question on the ballot. Amending the state constitution requires support from a majority of voters, as well as two-thirds support in both chambers of the Legislature.
Blaine Amendments discriminate against religious institutions, Price argued. Thirty-seven states have Blaine Amendments in their constitutions. They’re named after an anti-immigrant Maine congressman in the 1800s who opposed giving public money to Catholic schools.
“There is no compelling interest that supports (the) blanket exclusion of religious institutions from neutral programs,” she told the committee on Thursday.
Committee members asked whether such a constitutional change would require the state to equally support all religions’ institutions, including “Satanic” schools or those teaching Islamic, or Sharia, law. Price didn’t directly answer those questions.
“This legislation is asking the people of Idaho if they want to repeal this,” she said. “It has nothing to do with funding.”
“Ultimately, all this legislation is doing is putting the question before the people,” she added.
In 2024, Price argued that the constitutional provision had been “nullified” by U.S. Supreme Court decisions, the Idaho Statesman previously reported. A 2022 decision by the court ruled against a Maine education program that prevented high school students from using the state’s funds to attend religious schools. The state had allowed students in rural districts without public high schools to use state funds for private schools, so long as they were not religious.
At the time, Colin Nash, a Boise City Council member who was serving as a Democratic representative, pushed back against Price’s argument.
“I only think this is null and void if you’re giving money to private schools,” he said. “And it’s not my understanding that we’re giving money to private schools right now.”
Now that’s changed. Jim Jones, Idaho’s former attorney general, has argued that the Legislature’s decision in 2025 to fund private-school education through tax credits would open a “back door” to using public funds for religious education.
Jones cited U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts, who wrote that “a state need not subsidize private education. But once a state decides to do so, it cannot disqualify some private schools solely because they are religious.”
On Thursday, Jones told the Statesman that despite his concerns about changing the state’s constitution, he welcomed Price’s proposal to put the question to voters.
“I think, ‘Have at it, send it out there to the people. That’s the way it should be handled, instead of using a back door given to them by the U.S. Supreme Court,” he said by phone. “I think, ‘Put it on the ballot and let’s get it shot down,’ because I think that’s exactly what’s going to happen.”
