When the dust settled after Idaho’s May primary election, one reasonable conclusion was that the hard right - what could have been loosely centered around the Idaho version of the Freedom Caucus - stood a good chance of taking effective control of the legislature in the next session. Up to now that group has been a powerful and sometimes successful force, but clear control has been elusive.
New cross-currents are setting that prognosis up for grabs. One big reason was outlined in a strong new report by the news group InvestigateWest, which found that Idaho’s Freedom Caucus has fallen into war with itself - and with the national group that helped found it. The whole thing is worth a read; much of what follows was drawn from it.
The contentious U.S. House Freedom Caucus, which is much better known even in Idaho, has been experiencing its own internal conflicts in the last couple of years even as a close ally was elevated to the House speakership. But the issues in Idaho are separate (though in some ways mirroring those in Congress), drawing from its relationship with an allied group called the State Freedom Caucus Network.
That is a national organization founded in 2021 by Republican operatives with the idea of extending the Freedom Caucus of the U.S. House - I’ll leave it to you to decide how good an idea that is - into statehouses around the country. They’ve planted a dozen of them so far, including in Montana, Wyoming and Arizona as well as Idaho.
But Idaho has been a problem child. Political scientist Matthew Green, who has been tracking activity in this area, remarked to InvestigateWest, “What’s interesting about Idaho is that you have this national organization that’s involved in this feud with the state Freedom Caucus. I don’t know of this happening in any other state.”
What has happened is in a way inevitable, because much of the draw and dynamic of Freedom Caucus culture involves suspicion, distrust and an automatic pulling away from people or institutions in power.
The Idaho conflict seems to have started in at least its present form when leaders of the state Freedom Caucus (which earlier this year had about a dozen legislators as members) decided against provoking unnecessary conflicts with House Speaker Mike Moyle, who on matters of ideology and legislation is mostly in alignment with them. That outreach to a similar-minded leader of the establishment, though, was too much for some Freedom Caucusers, and schism ensued.
That’s one reason, the InvestigateWest article noted, the dozen members of the caucus from last winter now seem to be headed down to seven (after two members who lost primary elections end their terms).
But there’s more. The national organization sided with the idea that cooperation with the powers that be was not a good thing, and the group’s director Maria Nate - hired by the national group - supported that. That was the background of a fiercely angry conversation, secretly recorded and later released, between Nate and Representative Heather Scott, a co-leader of the Idaho Freedom Caucus group and a backer of reaching out to Moyle.
Since then the Idaho group seems to have split from the national and named its own director, outgoing Senator (he was defeated in the primary) Scott Herndon, who backs the Heather Scott group. Meanwhile, the national group has been trying to recreate itself (with help from at least one Idaho legislator) under its flag as the Idaho Freedom Caucus with Nate as director.
So there are now, more or less, two Idaho Freedom Caucus groups, each with its own director, and apparently with conflicting claims on the group’s logo. Legal conflict looks like a distinct possibility.
If all this sounds improbable, well, it isn’t. Given the nature of what underlies these groups, it’s probably better seen as inevitable. The other states with Freedom Caucuses are on notice.