Idaho Supreme Court victory for educational choice bodes well for Wyoming scholarship supporters

Wyoming is not the only state in the Mountain West with education choice facing legal scrutiny in state supreme court. Idaho’s Parental Choice Tax Credit (HB93) also went to its state’s highest court — and won a total victory earlier this month against the teachers union trying to strike it from law. In its opinion, the Idaho Court dismissed the case, denied the writ of prohibition, rebuffed every significant constitutional argument — and even awarded attorney fees to the state. 

While the education choice measures differ, as do the state constitutions, the arguments in the Idaho case are remarkably similar and should encourage advocates of the Steamboat Legacy Scholarship Act in Wyoming that they will prevail.

Petitioners in both states claimed that their constitutions prohibited funding anything but public schools and that they had standing to sue over hypothetical irreparable harms. 

In Idaho, the court found, “Article IX, section 1 does not impose a limitation on the legislature’s authority . . . Rather, it establishes a floor, and not a ceiling.” 

Similarly, in Wyoming, the Wyoming Education Association (WEA) plaintiffs have argued that the constitution requires a “complete and uniform” system of education and that scholarship-funded schools are part of the same system without being held to the same legal and educational standards. The Idaho Court found that the tax credit did not create a parallel school system and that the petitioners’ argument was “unduly restrictive” and denied the legislature’s plenary power.

Wyoming Supreme Court Justice Kari Gray made the same argument when questioning the Wyoming Education Association attorney Jeff Lupardo, on February 10th, in a hearing on the case. As she said to him, “your whole argument really hinges on us granting that somehow this is part of the uniform system of education…If we don’t agree with that, if we think the Legislature has plenary power, then you don’t have one.” 

This issue has been argued in courts across the country and the verdict is that “complete and uniform” clauses act as a baseline and do not prohibit additional education programs. The Wyoming Constitution, in particular in Article 1, Section 23, asks the state legislature to go above and beyond funding an appropriate education and to “encourage means and agencies calculated to advance the sciences and the liberal arts.” 

In regards to irreparable harms to the plaintiffs, the Idaho Court found that their injuries were “speculative and hypothetical and therefore insufficient to establish traditional standing.” Similarly, the WEA argued from a standpoint of future harms, not actual ones. As Lupardo said in court on February 10th, “We know that children across Wyoming, including the parents we’re representing —their children, are going to be denied opportunities, marginalized, discriminated against.” 

Separately, the Wyoming petitioners argued that the Steamboat Scholarships violated the Wyoming Constitution’s ban on direct payments to individuals. Article 3, Section 36 states, “No appropriation shall be made for charitable, industrial, educational or benevolent purposes to any person, corporation or community not under the absolute control of the state, nor to any denominational or sectarian institution or association.” 

Plaintiffs purposely misread the section to their advantage because the law doesn’t send money directly to parents. Instead, it sends funds to the Wyoming Department of Education, which allocates funding based on the program’s rules and regulations similar to how other state departments allocate grants for the arts, nonprofits and cash assistance to low-income individuals, to name a few examples. All of those programs would be unconstitutional under the WEA’s arguments. 

Given the vast body of evidence that “complete and uniform” provisions in state constitutions do not prevent legislatures from adding to the educational options in their states and that plaintiffs have not demonstrated any harm to themselves from the Steamboat Legacy Scholarship Act, supporters should take heart that the law is on their side.

As one Idaho justice noted during oral arguments, lawmakers are capable of walking and chewing gum at the same time when it comes to education policy.

In Idaho, the number of families who have applied for the tax credit surged following the legal victory. May a legal victory for scholarships in Wyoming make the fall of 2026 be the start of an era dedicated to educational choice, student success and a focus on educational outcomes rather than money into the system.