Guest Columnist Idaho Senator Brian Lenney: The 2026 Idaho Legislative Session Lookback

Last week we finished 81 days in Boise.

And I want to give you the real account of what happened, not the version that makes everyone look good.

So, a few wins first.

I personally carried the bill that stripped teachers’ union dues off the taxpayer dime. Got it passed (waiting on the Governor to sign it… still). American law for American courts (I pushed that through in the Senate) is now signed into law. And my voter affidavit reform that actually puts teeth into ID voter verification at the polls is now law. These weren’t wins that fell into my lap. I put my name on the legislation and dragged them through to the finish line.

We also landed some hits on the money side. Idaho’s sitting on a $1.6 billion surplus and the instinct in that building was to spend it. Every surplus is an invitation to grow government, and there are plenty of people in Boise who answered that invitation enthusiastically.

I didn’t.

We pushed through rescissions and budget cuts that clawed back agency spending (and gutted millions from the fed-funded Minnesota-style daycare program too). But I want to be straight with you about what all of this actually is. Cutting agencies and clawing back program dollars is treating symptoms.

The disease is a spending culture in Boise that assumes every surplus belongs to the government first.

I held the line where I could but I’m not in the majority the way I’d need to be to actually win that war. So we won some battles this session. But the war is still very much going. And nothing proves that more than the biggest fight we could have had this session, the one we didn’t have. Not really, anyway. I’m talking about illegal immigration. It’s not just a “federal issue.” It touches everyone in Idaho. Your neighbor who can’t find construction work. The school that can’t figure out who’s actually enrolled. The wage that won’t go up because someone will always undercut it with labor that doesn’t cost what labor should cost.

I personally went in with several enforcement bills and they ALL got killed or refused a hearing before most Idahoans ever heard they existed.

Not by Democrats. But by our own Republican supermajority.

That’s where we’re at as a state. And you know what I keep coming back to? Somebody profits from this. Somebody profits when enforcement is weak and workers are cheap and nobody asks questions. And those somebodies were in that building, quiet and patient and effective, the whole session.

The Idaho Sheriff’s Association showed up to help kill the ICE cooperation bill I co-sponsored (and there were several more bills they testified AGAINST). I saw committee chairmen make bills disappear into their desks. And I watched every single bill we had die or got no hearing. Yes, in “Republican Idaho.” So while most legislators from safe Republican districts will send you an end-of-session letter that lists all the wins and call it a day…

I’m not going to do that.

Because you deserve to know what the cheap labor lobby still has on the Idaho statehouse. Their stranglehold didn’t loosen this session (if anything, now I know exactly how tight it is).

What you get from having me in that building is simple.

Someone who names it. Someone whose name is actually on the enforcement bills (not just the press releases). And someone who isn’t going to tell you we had a “great session” when the most important lever we had didn’t get pulled.

That’s the report from Boise.

Most people in Idaho have no idea any of this happened. You do now. That matters more than you think.