What matters to Idaho

Public Education — Investing in Idaho's Future

Education is a generational investment, not simply another line in the state budget. Idaho cannot expect to compete in a global economy while continually shortchanging the education of its children. Businesses need an educated workforce, and our children deserve the preparation necessary to pursue opportunities wherever they choose.

Article IX, Section 1 of the Idaho Constitution explicitly requires the Legislature to establish and maintain a “general, uniform and thorough system of public, free common schools.” Public education is a constitutional responsibility of the State of Idaho.

I support substantially increasing investment in public schools, with particular attention to competitive teacher compensation, recruitment and retention, safe facilities, strong foundational academics, and career and technical education. Rural districts must be able to provide quality instruction even when small student populations make programs more expensive to operate.

I support parental choice. As the father of four sons, I’ve spent nearly 40 years navigating public education across five states. Most of my children’s education was in public schools, although we occasionally chose homeschooling and private schools. Those were our choices as parents.

Education was also a significant part of my professional career. I spent approximately a decade teaching advanced technical courses internationally and later helped manage Microsoft’s worldwide professional certification program. I’ve experienced education from both sides of the classroom, as well as the development and administration of large-scale testing and assessment systems.

Funding matters, but spending alone is not an adequate measure of educational success. I would evaluate progress through teacher vacancies and retention, course availability, school facilities, and demonstrated student learning. School districts also need sufficient flexibility to meet local needs.

Idaho’s obligation is not simply to operate public schools. It is to maintain the thorough system of public education required by our own Constitution.

Water Security — Beyond the Next Curtailment Crisis

Water security is fundamental to Eastern Idaho’s economy. Agriculture, rural communities, businesses, and growing cities all depend on the same interconnected water resources.

The 2026 drought and groundwater curtailment threats exposed an unacceptable weakness in Idaho water policy. Farmers faced risks under senior agricultural water rights and a separate threat involving the Swan Falls hydropower agreement. These conflicts have been known for decades.

Farmers cannot plan their livelihoods, finance equipment, or make multiyear investments when they cannot be confident that water will be available for the next growing season.

I would pursue substantial additional, multiyear state investment in managed aquifer recharge, irrigation and conveyance infrastructure, groundwater monitoring, and assistance for farmers adopting effective conservation technologies.

I would also support an independent review of the 2026 curtailments and the Swan Falls framework. Idaho Power serves customers in Idaho and Oregon and participates in regional electricity markets. When senior hydropower rights put Idaho agriculture at risk, the public deserves a transparent accounting of how those rights benefit Idaho ratepayers, how much electricity is sold outside Idaho, and who bears the economic consequences of curtailment.

Established water rights must be respected. That does not mean accepting decades of recurring crises without examining whether better long-term arrangements are possible.

Water conservation also requires a systems approach. Reducing irrigation water applied to an individual field does not necessarily increase the water available to the overall watershed. Some of that water may previously have returned to streams or recharged groundwater. Conservation projects should demonstrate genuine reductions in consumptive use or other measurable basin-wide benefits.

Regenerative agricultural practices that improve soil structure, infiltration, biological activity, and water retention also belong in a comprehensive strategy. They should be evaluated for their actual contribution rather than treated as substitutes for hydrological measurement.

During the 2027 legislative session, I would pursue a durable regional water plan, with mitigation arrangements established before farmers must make seasonal planting and irrigation decisions.

I would require transparent reporting of acre-feet recharged or conserved, groundwater trends, streamflows, farm impacts, project costs, and the effectiveness of public investments. Results should be reviewed after three years, with funding and performance targets reassessed after five.

Temporary mitigation of a curtailment order is not a long-term water strategy.

Artificial Intelligence — From Legislative Framework to Real-World Readiness

Artificial intelligence is already changing education, employment, business, and government. Its effects will reach almost every occupation and community in Idaho, regardless of whether those communities participate directly in developing the technology.

After more than four decades working in technology, including senior positions at Microsoft and my current responsibilities in cybersecurity architecture and AI security policy, I understand both the extraordinary opportunities and the serious risks.

I am enthusiastic about what AI can accomplish. I am considerably less enthusiastic about allowing the companies developing it to determine its rules, limitations, and consequences without meaningful public accountability.

Idaho has made an important start. During the 2026 legislative session, the Legislature passed Senate Bill 1227, establishing a framework for generative AI in K–12 education. The legislation addresses responsible use, student privacy, human oversight, academic integrity, AI literacy standards, and educator professional development. The Idaho Department of Education has begun making training opportunities and resources available.

That is useful progress, and it deserves recognition.

The next challenge is bridging the gap between a legislative framework and actual implementation in Idaho classrooms.

A statewide framework does not, by itself, ensure that teachers are prepared to use AI effectively or that students will develop useful skills. We need sustained implementation, practical educator training, appropriate resources, and meaningful ways to evaluate whether the intended outcomes are being achieved.

AI literacy must extend beyond learning how to enter prompts. Students need to understand how these systems work, where they are useful, how they can fail, and why convincing language does not establish factual accuracy. They must learn to verify generated information, recognize misinformation, protect private information, and exercise independent judgment.

An AI system that produces a polished but fabricated answer is not demonstrating reliable knowledge. Our educational programs need to make that distinction fundamental.

I would pursue implementation funding and accountability measures tied to actual educator preparedness and demonstrated student competence, rather than treating the adoption of a policy or completion of an introductory course as proof of success.

But K–12 education is only part of the challenge.

I would extend AI education through Idaho’s community colleges, building three complementary programs:

1. General public AI literacy: Practical education for adults who need to understand and use AI responsibly in their everyday lives and work.
2. Occupation-specific training: Programs developed with employers to help existing workers incorporate AI into their professions, improve productivity, and remain competitive.
3. Career-transition programs: Targeted training for workers whose jobs are substantially changed or eliminated through AI, helping them develop skills for new employment opportunities.

These programs must be accessible to rural Idahoans without requiring them to relocate to major population centers.

Success should be measured through demonstrated competence, employment outcomes, and wages—not simply the number of certificates awarded.

Idaho must also approach AI deployment in government with genuine technical competence. Automated systems used in public administration can affect privacy, access to services, security, and individual rights. Those systems need meaningful human oversight, independent evaluation, and accountability.

The question is no longer whether AI will affect Idaho. It is whether Idaho will prepare its citizens to benefit from it while protecting them from its risks.

Rural Healthcare — Protecting Essential Services

Healthcare access is not simply a question of insurance coverage. An insurance card cannot replace an emergency department that no longer exists.

Rural communities face distinct challenges in maintaining hospitals, emergency services, maternity care, and clinics. These services have substantial fixed operating costs even when the surrounding population is relatively small.

If emergency services disappear in Teton, Caribou, or Bear Lake counties, patients may face substantially longer transportation times before receiving treatment. For a heart attack, stroke, serious injury, or pregnancy complication, those delays can be consequential.

I would prioritize the preservation of essential rural emergency and maternity services, nursing capacity, diagnostic capabilities, primary care, and medically necessary patient transportation.

Idaho has received substantial federal funding intended to strengthen rural healthcare. I would insist on transparent, county-level reporting showing where those funds are allocated, which providers actually receive them, and whether they preserve essential medical services.

There is a fundamental difference between funding a project and establishing sustainable support for an emergency department.

I would evaluate rural healthcare investments by actual service availability, staffing, patient transport and transfer performance, and continuing financial viability.

Idaho’s reproductive healthcare laws also require substantial correction.

The loss of obstetric providers affects all families who need pregnancy and delivery services, regardless of their views on abortion. Physicians need clear authority to treat hemorrhage, infection, pregnancy loss, and other dangerous complications according to accepted medical standards, without delaying necessary care because of uncertainty about criminal prosecution.

I support Proposition 1 as an opportunity to reset Idaho’s current abortion laws. Because it is a statutory initiative rather than a constitutional amendment, I expect the Legislature to revisit the subject. My hope is that subsequent legislation will be substantially more reasonable and protect the health and safety of pregnant women.

Healthcare policy should be judged by whether people can obtain necessary medical care, not simply by whether they possess insurance or whether government has announced another funding program.

Affordability, Taxes, and Economic Fairness

Idaho should be business-friendly, not business-submissive.

Economic growth can create jobs and prosperity, but it can also impose substantial costs on communities. Those costs do not disappear when businesses or developers avoid paying them. They are transferred to someone else.

Economists call this externalizing costs. Idaho families encounter the consequences through higher property taxes, rents, utility bills, and reduced public services.

I support eliminating Idaho’s sales tax on groceries and the unnecessarily complicated tax-credit system associated with it. Everyone eats. Collecting a tax and requiring households to recover some of it through an annual credit creates administrative work that should not be necessary.

Repeal must include a transparent accounting of the net revenue lost and a responsible plan to preserve essential services. I will not pretend that eliminating a tax also eliminates the need to pay for schools, roads, or public safety.

I would also strengthen local authority to recover documented, proportionate infrastructure costs from new development. Subdivisions and commercial projects create additional demands on roads, water and sewer systems, schools, and emergency services.

When those costs are not adequately assigned to the projects that create them, existing residents pay the difference. Development should bear its fair share without duplicative or arbitrary charges that needlessly increase housing costs.

AI Data Centers — Who Benefits, and Who Pays?

The same economic principles apply to AI data centers, but the scale of their potential impact demands particular attention.

Idahoans can benefit from artificial intelligence without necessarily hosting another massive data center. These facilities may create substantial temporary construction employment, but ongoing staffing can be relatively limited compared with the scale of the investment and its continuing resource requirements.

Their electricity demands can require new generation, transmission, substations, and other infrastructure. Water consumption and cooling requirements must be evaluated in the context of local supplies.

Noise is also a serious siting consideration, not an incidental inconvenience. Cooling equipment can generate a persistent mechanical hum, including low-frequency and tonal noise, while backup generators can create additional noise during testing and operation. Nearby residents should not be expected to absorb those impacts without informed consent or enforceable protections.

These concerns should be examined before approval, including projected electricity and water consumption, ratepayer exposure, infrastructure costs, noise characteristics, and effects on neighboring properties.

I would repeal Idaho’s special data-center sales-tax exemption and exclude data centers from the property-tax exemption available to qualifying billion-dollar capital investments.

I would also require informed approval by affected local voters before major data-center projects proceed. Local elected officials should retain meaningful authority over land use and local tax incentives, rather than having those decisions dictated by Boise.

I support technological innovation. That does not require granting preferential tax treatment to some of the world’s wealthiest corporations or shifting their operating and infrastructure costs onto Idaho households.

More broadly, I am concerned about an economic system that increasingly favors accumulated wealth and returns to capital over people who earn their living through labor.

I’m not opposed to financial success. A farmworker and a highly paid neurosurgeon both earn their living by going to work. My concern is the preferential treatment afforded to those whose enormous wealth provides disproportionate economic and political influence, while ordinary taxpayers are expected to finance essential services with fewer resources.

Government needs to examine economic incentives, tax preferences, and public expenditures with the same discipline expected in a well-run business.

Every significant tax benefit or spending decision should answer three questions: Who benefits? Who pays? And what do Idahoans get in return?

Supporting Family Farms and Rural Communities

Family farms are a foundational pillar of American life, and too many are at risk of not making it to the next generation.

State agricultural policy should stop automatically favoring the largest operations and instead consider where public support can make the greatest difference to the long-term viability of rural communities.

I support practical assistance for family-scale agriculture, dependable water supplies, conservation investments, healthier working lands, and opportunities to improve the value of agricultural production.

As the owner of a developing regenerative fruit orchard in Ammon, I understand the challenges of making long-term agricultural investments before they produce meaningful revenue.

Our orchard operates without herbicides, fungicides, or insecticides. We focus on soil biology, microbial diversity, nutrient cycling, plant health, and water management, using soil and plant testing to evaluate whether our practices are delivering measurable results.

That experience reinforces a principle applicable far beyond my orchard: agricultural systems are interconnected. Soil health, water availability, nutrient cycling, crop productivity, and farm economics cannot be managed effectively as unrelated problems.

Regenerative agricultural practices deserve consideration because of their potential to improve long-term soil function and farm resilience. Their benefits should be evaluated through measurable outcomes, not simply by adopting a label.

Family farms also need fair access to infrastructure, markets, and programs intended to support agriculture. Government assistance should not disproportionately benefit the businesses best equipped to navigate the political system.

Big Ag certainly doesn’t need the support. Your neighbor does.

Privacy, Civil Liberties, and Government Surveillance

Technological capability does not automatically confer government authority.

Automated license-plate readers, facial recognition, biometric identification, and related technologies can allow government agencies to identify individuals and reconstruct their movements, associations, and activities on a scale previously impractical.

These technologies can have legitimate law-enforcement applications. That does not justify automatically collecting information about everyone who travels on a public road or participates in ordinary civic life.

After decades working in cybersecurity and complex technical systems, I understand both the operational capabilities of these technologies and the potential for misuse, unauthorized access, inaccurate identification, and uncontrolled data sharing.

I have developed the Idaho Mass Surveillance Voter Authorization Act, a detailed legislative working draft addressing these concerns.

Its central principle is that covered mass-surveillance systems should require informed, affirmative authorization from voters in the communities affected.

The proposal would require public disclosure of system capabilities, costs, participating agencies, and data practices before voters decide. Authorizations would be temporary and subject to periodic renewal, rather than becoming permanent permissions granted by a city council or law-enforcement agency.

It also establishes safeguards addressing warrants for specified investigative searches, data retention and deletion, independent auditing, biometric identification, improper targeting, and meaningful remedies for violations.

A community voting to authorize a surveillance system would not surrender the constitutional rights of its residents.

Ordinary private security cameras and routine police body cameras and dashcams would remain outside the covered mass-surveillance authorization requirement.

My objective is not to prevent legitimate investigations. It is to ensure that the government’s ability to identify and track ordinary citizens remains subject to democratic consent and enforceable constitutional protections.

Government should not systematically surveil a community without that community’s informed and continuing consent.

Read the Idaho Mass Surveillance Voter Authorization Act

Local Control and Accountable Government

District 35 covers portions of Bonneville, Bannock, Caribou, Bear Lake, and Teton counties—nearly 5,000 square miles encompassing communities with substantially different economic, geographic, and infrastructure needs.

The challenges of housing affordability in Teton County are not identical to those facing Ammon, Soda Springs, or Montpelier. Policies appropriate for a rapidly growing community may be unsuitable for a smaller rural town.

Boise has increasingly restricted local authority while leaving communities responsible for the financial consequences of development, infrastructure demands, and essential services.

I support giving local governments meaningful authority to address local conditions, including land use, infrastructure planning, and appropriate financing mechanisms, subject to transparent decision-making and accountability to local voters.

Representation also requires more than an occasional appearance in the district’s largest population center.

I would schedule regular public meetings throughout all five counties, including smaller rural communities, with remote participation where practical. I would meet residents, farmers, educators, healthcare providers, small businesses, and local officials where they work and live.

I would also publish understandable updates concerning significant legislation, my votes and reasoning, district funding requests, and the results of those efforts.

As a legislator, I would introduce specific proposals, work with legislators from both parties where possible, scrutinize expenditures, seek committee hearings, and report what actually changes.

I cannot promise that every proposal will pass. I can promise to make my positions clear, explain my decisions, and remain accountable for the results.

A legislator represents everyone in the district, regardless of how they voted.