In Part 1, I wrote about what’s possible when lawmakers put partisanship aside and focus on solving real problems for real people. That’s The Good. Unfortunately, not every bill this session rose to that level. Some bills distracted, some divided, and a few did real harm. This brings us to The Bad.
In every classic Western, there’s a moment when things start to unravel. What began with a promise starts veering into danger. In The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly, Clint Eastwood’s character finds himself navigating a world where power is confused with principle and where the loudest voices aren’t always the wisest. That’s what The Bad looks like. And this year in the Idaho Legislature, we saw far too many of those moments.
It didn’t happen all at once. It happened quietly through policies that seemed benign but revealed deeper consequences the closer you looked. Take tax policy like House Bill 40, yet another income tax cut. On paper, it sounds appealing. Everyone likes a tax cut. But when you look at what it actually means for Idaho families, the picture shifts.
The average family got a few hundred dollars in relief. Meanwhile, the wealthiest 1% walked away with tax breaks north of $15,000. These cuts drained another $240 million annually from our state budget, adding to $4.6 billion in revenue losses since 2019. That’s money we could have used to expand childcare options, expand Medicaid for children, improve our roads and bridges, or invest in affordable housing. Instead, we prioritized short-term politics over long-term stability.
And speaking of Medicaid, one of the most consequential bills this session was House Bill 345, which promises to “rein in” costs by making the system harder to access. It includes work requirements, cost-sharing, mid-year eligibility checks, and the eventual shift to managed care. Thousands of working Idahoans rely on Medicaid during life’s setbacks. The red tape is a barrier to cancer treatment, mental health care, or insulin for people who need it to survive. Voters overwhelmingly supported Medicaid expansion in 2018. This bill may not repeal it outright, but at some point, you make these services so hard to access that regular people feel they lose all dignity and self-respect in simply getting what their tax dollars pay for in public aid.
We also saw new restrictions on public assistance, courtesy of House Bill 135. It creates harsh residency verification requirements to access prenatal care, postnatal care, and food assistance programs for children, as well as immunizations, crisis counseling, and crisis intervention services. Instead of helping people, the law makes it harder, especially for those who don’t have the right paperwork at the right time. If you’re struggling, under this bill, the system isn’t here to support you. It’s here to scrutinize you.
So, what makes a bill “bad”? It’s not always the headline. It’s the harm underneath. Too many policies in this legislative session were built on distrust of vulnerable communities, working families, and even democracy itself.
If The Good was about cooperation and common sense, The Bad was about what happens when ideology outpaces integrity. In this session, we saw what happens when the horses bolt and nobody’s left holding the reins.
Next time, we’ll talk about The Ugly. That’s when legislation didn’t just miss the mark but struck at the core of our values as Idahoans: accountability, equality, opportunity, and the rule of law.
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