Introduction and summary

The Idaho Education Association (IEA) — a labor union representing many Idaho public-school teachers — likes to proclaim that “good education policy is non-partisan” and touts its track record of “bi-partisan” election endorsements.

But the IEA is an affiliate of the Washington, D.C.-based National Education Association (NEA), the nation’s largest teachers union. The NEA and its smaller counterpart, the American Federation of Teachers, have been aptly described by the Wall Street Journal’s editorial board as, “the ideological and institutional vanguard of progressive politics” and “a powerful wing of the Democratic Party.”

Given Idaho’s status as one of the most Republican states in the country, its understandable that the IEA would want to distance itself from its far-Left parent.

But a closer examination of IEA’s electoral political advocacy shows that while it may pay lip service to bipartisanship, its actions demonstrate it has clearly picked a side.

• In the 2024 general election, the IEA endorsed 49 candidates for state legislature: 34 Democrats, 14 Republicans, and one independent.
• Of the 14 IEA-endorsed Republicans, four had no general election opponent and nine prevailed over their Democrat opponent by an average of 44 points.
• However, in the 14 competitive legislative elections decided by less than 20 points, the IEA endorsed the Democrat in 12 and made a dual endorsement of both the GOP and Democrat candidates in a 13^th.
• The IEA supported Proposition 1, a ballot measure generally panned by the GOP and supported by Democrats, that would have instituted ranked choice voting and jungle primaries.
• The IEA’s political action committee, PACE, made $124,000 in contributions but routed most of the funds through a web of intermediary PACs. The NEA made an additional $20,000 in contributions.  
• In the GOP primary election, the IEA-aligned PAC spent 61 percent of its expenditures ($82,500) opposing Rep. Wendy Horman (a prominent school choice advocate) and Sen. Scott Herndon (chair of the Idaho Freedom Caucus). The other 44 candidates backed by the IEA generally received only token support.
• In the general election, 93 percent of IEA-connected PAC spending supported Democrats, totaling $35,750.

IEA’s 2024 general election endorsements

In the 2024 general election, the IEA endorsed 49 candidates for state legislature: 34 Democrats, 14 Republicans, and one independent. While the IEA’s endorsements alone show a clear preference for Democrats, its preference becomes even more pronounced upon further examination.

Fourteen Republicans were endorsed by the IEA. Of these, four ran unopposed. Nine of those with a Democrat opponent in the general election prevailed by an average of 44.4 percentage points. The one unsuccessful Republican candidate endorsed by the IEA shared the union’s “dual endorsement” with her Democratic opponent in a tight race decided by a mere 1.7 percentage points.

Of the 35 Democrat and independent candidates endorsed by the IEA, six were unopposed. In the 26 contested races in which the IEA endorsed the Democrat, the average margin of victory was 29.1 percentage points.

Most tellingly, of the 14 contested elections decided by fewer than 20 percentage points, the IEA backed the Democrat in 12. In the other two elections, the IEA (1) endorsed both the Republican and Democrat candidates in a tight race and (2) endorsed a GOP incumbent and retired teacher running in a district that shifted to the right in 2024.

In short, the IEA may endorse GOP candidates that it finds ideologically compatible if those candidates are going to win anyway but, in competitive races where its support might make a difference, the IEA consistently backs Democrats while simultaneously throwing moral support behind the Democrat candidate in any race involving a Republican it doesn’t think it can work with.

IEA backed Proposition 1

In addition to candidates, in 2024 the IEA endorsed Proposition 1, a ballot measure to replace Idaho’s party primaries with a jungle primary and to institute ranked choice voting. The measure was opposed almost universally by the various factions of the Idaho Republican Party but favored by the Idaho Democratic Party. It failed badly at the polls, with nearly 70 percent of voters rejecting Prop 1.

IEA campaign spending

In addition to endorsing candidates and ballot measures, the IEA maintains a political action committee from which it makes contributions to candidate campaign or other political funds.

IEA-PACE

Over the course of the 2023-24 election cycle, the IEA’s Political Action Committee for Education (PACE) contributed $124,000 to candidates and other political action committees, according to its campaign finance reports to the Idaho Secretary of State.

Of this, only $4,000 was contributed by IEA-PACE directly to candidates, including:

• $2,000 to three Democrats running in the primary election;
• $1,000 to Republican primary election candidates (both were defeated by more conservative Republicans who went on to win in the general); and
• $1,000 to a Democrat running for state senate in the general election.

The other $120,000 spent by IEA-PACE was contributed to two other political committees: $90,000 to “Right 2 Learn” and $30,000 to “Stronger Idaho.” Routing the funds through a web of intermediaries makes it more difficult to discern the IEA’s political preferences, but a review of how each of these PACs spent their funds is quite illuminating.

Right 2 Learn

Right 2 Learn received $155,550 in contributions in 2024, meaning the $90,000 it received from IEA-PACE made up 58 percent of the PAC’s total revenue.

The purpose of Right 2 Learn was to support 44 Republicans running in the GOP primary against opponents viewed as more conservative or less favorable to union interests. Right 2 Learn emerged from the primary with a mixed record: 17 of the candidates it backed were defeated while 27 prevailed.

However, while Right 2 Learn engaged in 44 races at some level, it focused primarily on just two: Backing challenger Sean Coletti against incumbent school choice supporter Rep. Wendy Horman in the 32^nd district, and backing challenger James Woodward against incumbent Sen. Scott Herndon, the chair of the Idaho Freedom Caucus, in the 1^st district.

Right 2 Learn spent a combined $70,837 on independent advertising promoting Coletti and attacking Rep. Horman, constituting 52 percent of the PAC’s total spending. Rep. Horman survived the onslaught and prevailed over Coletti by 10 points.

In the 1^st district, Right 2 Learn spent a total of $11,665 on independent advertising backing Woodward and opposing Herndon, or 9 percent of the PAC’s overall spending. Woodward narrowly edged out Herndon in the primary.

Right 2 Learn’s engagement in other races paled in comparison to those two marquee matchups, with the remaining 40 percent of the PAC’s expenditures divided among the other 42 candidates it backed at an average spend per race of only $1,281.

Stronger Idaho

The $30,000 contributed by IEA-PACE to Stronger Idaho constituted 48 percent of the funds raised by the PAC in 2024, with the rest of its contributions coming from the Conservation Voters for Idaho Action Fund and the Idaho Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee.

Unlike Right 2 Learn, Stronger Idaho’s expenditures all involved the general election and exclusively supported Democrats. All told, Stronger Idaho spent $31,867 on independent advertising supporting eight Democrat candidates for state legislature.

Stronger Idaho was strategic about investing its resources where they were most likely to swing the result in favor of a Democrat. The average margin of victory in the eight races in which it supported a candidate was only five points.

Idaho Students First

The third and final political fund in the teachers union’s ecosystem was Idaho Students First. Formed for the 2024 general election, the PAC was funded by a $20,000 contribution from the NEA Advocacy Fund, a political organization operated by the NEA’s Washington, D.C., headquarters and funded entirely by membership dues paid by NEA members, including those in Idaho.

Unfortunately, only about one-third of the nearly $17,000 spent by Idaho Students First was attributed to supporting or opposing identified candidates on its campaign finance reports, with $5,768.76 in supportive independent expenditures evenly split between incumbent union ally Rep. Lori McCann (R-Lewiston) and Democrat Julia Parker in her unsuccessful attempt to unseat Republican Sen. Dan Foreman in one of the more competitive senate races.

Conclusion

The IEA behaves exactly as one would expect of a far-left advocacy group in a conservative state.

The union attempts to curry favor by endorsing Republicans running in safe elections when the outcome isn’t in doubt, though rarely do such endorsements come with meaningful financial support.

In GOP primary elections, the IEA focuses its resources on defeating select ideological adversaries and, as soon as the general election rolls around, it switches gears to prioritize electing Democrats in competitive races. Overall, 93 percent of IEA-connected PAC spending in the 2024 general election supported Democrats.

At the same time, the IEA throws its weight behind efforts like Proposition 1 to skew the election system in Democrats’ favor and contributes fund to progressive advocacy groups.

Of course, as a private organization, the IEA has the right to engage in electoral politics and otherwise spend its money as it sees fit. The problem is that taxpayers are unwittingly supporting the operations of this partisan special interest group.

Thankfully, change may be on the way. The Idaho House of Representatives recently passed legislation introduced by Rep. Judy Boyle (R-Midvale) and Sen. Ben Toews (R-Coeur d’Alene), HB 98, which would ensure that taxpayer-funded school district personnel and resources are no longer taken advantage of by the IEA to subsidize its operations and activism and give teachers more control over their membership and interactions with the union. Hopefully the Senate will follow suit.