BOISE (Idaho Capital Sun) — Idaho is seeing more money, and more out-of-state money in lobbying than it likely ever has.
Secretary of State Phil McGrane told attendees at the Annual Associated Taxpayers of Idaho Conference Wednesday that more than $2.5 million was spent on lobbying in 2025.
McGrane highlighted new data visualization tools available online at voteidaho.gov, including to track lobbyist spending. (See data visualizations from Idaho Secretary of State’s Office below.)
During the 2025 session, lawmakers approved changes to lobbying reporting that now require “indirect lobbying” to be reported, which would capture activity like social media or texting campaigns during the legislative session to encourage residents to support or oppose certain bills. The new bill also requires monthly reporting year-round, instead of just during the three-month legislative session. Around $700,000 has been spent on lobbying since the 2025 legislative session ended in April, McGrane said.
There are 392 registered in-state organizations that lobby in Idaho, and there are 300 out-of-state organizations registered to lobby in Idaho.
The new data visualization runs through each month of 2025, as the lobbying money gets spent. The state legislative session this year ran January through April 4. By the end of the year, the top spender was Modern Ag Alliance, based out of St. Louis, Missouri. The group spent over $620,000 lobbying on one bill, House Bill 303, which would have largely granted legal immunity to pesticide manufacturers. The bill never advanced out of the committee.
“Most of the spending comes right at the end of February into March,” McGrane said Wednesday. “So in the heat of the session is when money starts to really trickle in. It starts off slow, and then comes in strong.”
The second-highest spender of the year was the American Federation for Children, a Washington D.C.-based organization that advocates for public subsidies for private school education. The entity has spent more than $200,000 in Idaho, with a large focus on House Bill 93 — a private school choice tax credit that provides a total of $50 million for families to go toward private school tuition or other educational expenses. The governor signed HB 93 into law on Feb. 27.
There are around 400 lobbyists registered in Idaho, McGrane said.
“For all of you legislators, that means there’s four of them for each one of you,” he said.
The second new data visualization dashboard available online depicts the close legislative races the state has seen since 2018. All 105 seats in the Legislature are up for election every two years.
There have been 49 legislative primary races decided by 435 — the number of attendees registered for Wednesday’s conference — or fewer votes since 2018.
“Fifty races were determined by just the people here,” McGrane said. “So if we can get more people to participate, more people to show up, they can have a big impact.”
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