Idaho

Idaho GOP touts 2025 legislative wins as Democrats push back

Published

9 months ago

April 5, 2025

Idaho GOP touts 2025 legislative wins as Democrats push back

BOISE, Idaho — As Idaho’s 2025 legislative session wraps up, Republican leaders are declaring widespread success, pointing to movement on several key priorities.

“It was a good year for Idaho. It was a good year for the legislature,” said House Speaker Mike Moyle. “It was quite amazing.”

Moyle and other GOP lawmakers highlighted progress on tax relief, school choice, Medicaid reform, immigration enforcement and election security.

“We touched on every one of those, from school choice, Medicaid reform, issues with illegal immigration and election reform and security,” Moyle said. “We’ve moved the ball.. in a long ways in the direction in accomplishing each one of those goals.”

Among the legislation Republicans are most proud of is House Bill 83, which makes unlawful entry into Idaho a state crime. The bill is already facing a legal challenge from the ACLU, but GOP lawmakers remain confident in its constitutionality.

“We were anticipating the ACLU was going to file [a lawsuit], and they did within two hours,” one GOP lawmaker said. “So I think that means we’re right over the target.”
“It’s constitutional… We should be just fine.”

Democrats, however, offered a starkly different assessment of the session.

“You just heard leadership on the other side of the aisle boast the giant permament revenue reduction… while simultaneously opening the door to a voucher scheme,” said House Minority Leader Ilana Rubel. “$15 million eliminating from the affordable housing fund despite affordable housing being the top priority that was listed by Idahoans heading into this session.”

Sen. Melissa Wintrow said Democrats held their ground despite being outnumbered.

“We’re 15 Democrats in a 105-member legislature, and I think we do a pretty good job of standing up for Idaho values against extremism,” Wintrow said.

Democratic lawmakers also said they were proud to have helped block several controversial bills.

“We saw a bill introduced that would charge women with murder for abortion,” Wintrow said. “We defended the ballot initiative process. We kept guns out of school one more time. While Democrats fought for childcare, housing, food security for vulnerable populations, and a stable fiscal plan, the majority was busy interfering with business, local government, and personal choices.”

Tensions escalated near the end of the session when Moyle resumed the floor session while Democrats were still holding their press conference.

“I think it’s absolutely outrageous that our portion of this press conference is being cut short,” said Rep. Steve Berch. “This is an abuse of power. And quite frankly, it’s really inappropriate.”

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Idaho

Looking forward to another year of East Idaho Sports – East Idaho News

Published

8 hours ago

January 4, 2026

Press Room

Looking forward to another year of East Idaho Sports – East Idaho News

Note: As a bonus to our readers who have followed us into Year 2, the East Idaho Sports staff will post a special story on Sundays – Could be a column, opinion, feature, or just something fun and goofy. Hope you enjoy, and thanks again for coming along on this journey.

EASTERN IDAHO — Dec. 31 marked the end of the first full calendar year of East Idaho Sports. It has been a pleasure to bring our readers coverage of local youth, high school, college and semi-pro sports.

Over the last 12 months, we have covered state champions, national champions, junior hockey league champions, record-breaking performances and so much more. Those of you who have followed along since we launched in August 2024 have seen how we have expanded our coverage to include some interactive features like this Sunday Special series, Game Balls and the Photo of the Week voting.

We look forward to the completion of the winter sports seasons — including some Winter Olympics stories — spring sports, the summer sports schedule and returning next fall to start it all over again.

But we also hope to continue adding to our coverage, and shine spotlights on even more of the great athletes and sports programs in eastern Idaho.

In order to do that, we would like some help.

With just two full-time reporters and one freelance photographer we will regrettably miss things. And while we try to fill those gaps ourselves, we are always open to tips.

If there was a sporting event or sports story that deserved coverage it didn’t receive, please email us at sports@eastidahonews.com. If there is an upcoming event that should be spotlighted, please email us.

Also, our Photo of the Week stories will continue to be posted midday every Monday. If you have photos from a local sporting event that you want to enter in the running, email those to us by Sunday morning. For those who follow the voting — on our public Facebook group East Idaho News – Sports — a reader-contributed photo was recently selected our Photo of the YEAR, and we would love to continue adding those on the weekly ballot.

This photo of West Jefferson’s Justus Burtenshaw during the first round of the state tournament, taken by reader Julie Hall, was selected out East Idaho Sports Photo of the Year.

Finally, we recently added a regular feature we are calling the “Whip-around”: A quick rundown of local high school sports action. In order to expand these stories to include more teams, we would love for coaches, players or parents to send us photos of game scorebooks. If you are linked to a local team and would like your team to be added to these stories, please email us, and we can let you know how to do so.

It has been a pleasure to highlight the many local athletes for their successes and hard work, and we look forward to another year of precisely that.

We will see you at a field, court, course, pool, etc., near you in 2026.