OPINION: Here’s what may lie ahead for Idaho in the new year to come

Some stories that ought to have an ending never seem to go away.

The Moscow murder case which continued to generate so many Idaho headlines in 2024 began with four deaths in 2022, has gone through various changes of venue and personnel and squabbles over legal issues, but it won’t be tied up until at least well into 2025. And maybe later. It will reliably generate more headlines in the coming year.

And there are stories everyone would like to go away but prove hard to quash. One example would be the invasion of the Snake River system by quagga mussels, which the state has fought since they were spotted in 2023 and hoped were eradicated. Such eliminations are hard to accomplish, and they returned this last year. Will they be back in 2025? We can hope not, but they could be.

Then there are other stories with larger implications which have no clear beginning or end point. They morph into new phases, and Idaho will have to deal with new versions of them in 2025.

One example is the state’s massive suburban growth, mainly in the Boise metro area but to some degree elsewhere too, such as in Kootenai County. There’s more than the usual pressure from more development, as housing supply in Idaho’s big population centers has remained limited and prices have stayed high, even if they’re not growing quite the way they did a few years ago.

Ada County is poised for another massive explosion in the next couple of years, with new developments recently approved by the city of Meridian and the projected expansion of Avimor in the hills above what has been the city of Eagle, among other examples. Those approvals are not the end of the story, but only the beginning. We’ll see more of what comes of it in the next year.

Politically, Idaho voters in 2024 made decisions — which largely aligned — which may put the state’s recent ideological developments on a high-speed rail. The election of an even less centrist Legislature, coupled with the clear voter rejection of the open primary/ranked choice voter initiative, gives the most hard-core factions in the Idaho Legislature full motivation (and even some surface justification) for plowing ahead as far as they can see.

One of the questions looming over the state ever since election day, then, has been: How far is that?

The ground apparently ripe for seizure seems likely to include passage of school vouchers — another way of saying money transfers from public to private schools — which has been frustrated for years. This next session starting in a matter of days is likely to be a different story, with changes in overall membership and committee leadership.

Probably there will be much more. While the colleges and universities, and their governing boards, have submitted in advance to demolition of their social equity programs, the Legislature is likely to see that as an opening bid begging for a raise. The culture war at the Statehouse is more likely to accelerate than to slow down this session. The point, after all, is not to solve a problem so much as it is to keep stirring the pot, and we can expect plenty of that.

And 2026 will be a relatively high-end political year in Idaho elections, or at least it may be. All the statewide offices, including governor, will be up for election, and so will a U.S. Senate seat (now held by Jim Risch) and two U.S. House seats. Will Risch seek a fourth term, or will Rep. Mike Simpson seek his 15th? There’s some potential for a shakeup. And the governor’s office will be the object of a lot of speculation and war gaming. The pieces of all that should be in place by this time a year from now.

And, of course, there will be fallout from the Trump Administration Redux, though I’m offering no predictions at the moment about exactly what form that will take.

Happy New Year, and let’s make the best of it we can.

Stapilus is a former Idaho newspaper reporter and editor who blogs at ridenbaugh.com. He may be contacted at stapilus@ridenbaugh.com.