Boise legislator drops out just after the deadline to run in May’s primary. Why?
State Sen. Codi Galloway, one of just two Republicans representing Boise in the Legislature, has withdrawn from the May 2026 primary.
“Serving in both the House and the Senate has been an honor,” Galloway told the Statesman in an email Tuesday. “I love Idaho and representing Idaho families … I’ve done some good and am ready to pass the baton on to the next public servant.”
She is in her first two-year Senate term representing District 15, a competitive area that covers swaths of West Boise. Democratic state Sen. Rick Just held the seat before losing to Galloway in 2024.
It’s not clear why she filed for re-election before Friday’s deadline and then stepped down shortly afterward, when it was too late for anyone else to file to get on the May ballot. Galloway did not immediately respond Tuesday to additional Statesman questions.
Galloway might be best known for her efforts before she took office to make it easier to enforce noncompete clauses in employment contracts, which prevent employees from working for rivals. Her advocacy, after an employee left her business, led to a later-overturned bill that The New York Times wrote made Idaho “one of the hardest places in America for someone to quit a job for a better one.”
Galloway’s tenure hasn’t been without controversy. In 2025, she sponsored a bill that banned camping or sleeping on public grounds, an earlier version of which would have let people or businesses sue cities that didn’t enforce a ban on camping.
However, Galloway didn’t disclose that her husband could have been one of the people eligible to sue, though that provision didn’t make it into the final version of the bill, which passed and is now known as the Galloway Law.
Galloway represented District 15 for one term in the Idaho House in 2021 and 2022. She ran for the state Senate against Just in 2022 and lost. In a rematch two years later, she won.
Another candidate, Gary Alfred Butts, also dropped out of the race before the filing deadline. Voters will have a choice between Democratic candidate Nancy Gregory, a former Boise School Board member; and Republican candidate Desi Burbank.
This story was originally published March 3, 2026 at 4:06 PM with the headline "Boise legislator drops out just after the deadline to run in May’s primary. Why?."
