MSPC policy recommendations were a huge hit in 2025

As we prepare for the start of the 2026 Legislative Session in a few weeks in Idaho, Washington and Wyoming (there’s no legislative session next year in Montana), it’s a good time to look back and reflect on the many exciting things that occurred in 2025. Here are just a few that stand out:

• Several of our recommendations were enacted during the 2025 Legislative Sessions across the region, including: “Record tax relief” in Idaho and Montana, reforming the ballot fiscal impact statement process in Idaho, requiring reasonable Medicaid work requirements in the region, and expanding options for students and families in Idaho with enhanced education choice opportunities by adopting an education choice tax credit (HB 93). 

• MSPC research was referenced on the national Sean Hannity show concerning education spending and results, and we were quoted multiple times in the Wall Street Journal on tax policy.

• During his acceptance video for the MSPC Elevation Award in November, Montana Governor Gianforte provided this endorsement of our work: “Since taking office, the Mountain States Policy Center has been an incredible resource to me and my staff and a loyal and honest advocate of the work we're doing here in Montana."

  
  

• We launched our Idaho Kids Win campaign to help parents learn more about the new HB 93 parental choice tax credit. Along with a resource website, several town halls were held across Idaho to answer parents' questions.
  

• On November 14, the Idaho Supreme Court accepted our amicus brief defending the HB 93 Parental Choice Tax Credit. Our brief provides the court with national case law analysis demonstrating that HB 93 is a constitutionally sound program that serves a legitimate public purpose benefitting Idahoans. We demonstrated to the court that there is currently no enforceable state supreme court ruling in the United States holding a school choice tax credit as unconstitutional. Instead, court after court, across the country, has allowed families to benefit from education choice tax credits. The legislature’s separate brief also cited MSPC research as an authority.
  

•  We released the nation's first Public School Transparency Index. This important tool allows citizens, taxpayers, and elected officials the opportunity to compare and contrast key budget data from school districts in Idaho.

• MSPC’s Sebastian Griffin was invited by the Idaho Department of Education to be a keynote speaker at the department’s 10th Annual Family and Community Engagement Conference in Sun Valley in October. The keynote addressed Sebastian’s study, “The Parental Guide to Digital Media Safety Resources.” The presentation focused on using voluntary parental tools as market-driven solutions, encouraging innovation, competition, and consumer options. Sebastian noted that efforts by the government to regulate social media, or force one-size-fits-all digital rules on society, only too often encounter constitutional questions and don’t create the intended outcomes.

• We released the first edition of the MSPC “Fact Book.” This handheld booklet contains over 60 datapoints benchmarking Idaho, Montana, Washington, and Wyoming against each other and nationally in terms of taxes, spending, transportation, economic output, crime, housing, and education indicators.  

  
  

• We published studies on education spending and results, reforming Wyoming's property tax, regulatory reforms, transportation taxes and spending, Medicaid reforms, debanking, Montana tax reforms, open enrollment for schools, emergency powers reform, and government IT projects.

• MSPC’s policy expertise grew as we hired Meg Goudy as our new Education Director and Rob Natelson as Senior Fellow in Constitutional Jurisprudence.

  
  

• Our op-eds were published more than 600 times across the region.

  
  

None of this would have been possible without your generous support. We are already working to provide lawmakers with new recommendations to consider next year to help improve taxpayer protections, government transparency, regulatory relief, housing affordability, and more. Additional details will be available soon on these proposals.