Idaho Attorney General Raúl Labrador’s office issued an opinion last week allowing churches to spend money opposing or supporting ballot initiatives — including Proposition 1, the abortion rights measure on the November ballot — without revealing individual donor names, provided the spending comes from general church funds rather than targeted solicitations.

The opinion, published August 27, was requested by the Idaho Secretary of State’s office after several churches sought clarity on their campaign finance disclosure obligations ahead of the Proposition 1 campaign season.

What the Opinion Says

Under the AG’s interpretation, when a church draws from its general operating fund to support or oppose a ballot initiative, the institution’s name appears on campaign finance reports — but individual parishioners who contributed to those funds are not separately listed. The key distinction is between general donations given as an act of religious practice and targeted contributions made specifically to influence a political campaign.

The opinion grounds its reasoning in Idaho’s Free Exercise of Religion Protected Act, concluding that compelling churches to disclose their donors in this context would place a substantial burden on religious exercise. “This is because the donors generally donate to churches as an act of worship or as an exercise of their religious beliefs,” the Attorney General’s office stated, as first reported by the Boise State Public Radio.

The churches that prompted the inquiry indicated they plan to oppose Proposition 1 based on sincerely held religious convictions about human life beginning at conception.

Legislative History

The question of church involvement in ballot campaigns was the subject of an earlier legislative effort that did not advance. Senate Bill 1365 would have capped church spending on ballot initiative campaigns at 10 percent of the prior year’s total donations. For the Catholic Diocese of Boise — which reported roughly $23.2 million in revenue for its most recent fiscal year — that cap would have meant a ceiling of approximately $2.3 million in campaign spending.

A state Senate committee narrowly rejected the measure in March. Christian Welp, a lobbyist representing the Catholic Diocese of Boise, had worked on the legislation for months before the committee turned it down.

Sen. Ben Adams (R-Nampa) has argued that churches wishing to engage in campaign activity should form political action committees rather than spend directly from congregational coffers. “When it comes to the institution, there is benevolent neutrality that has to play for there to be a separation, or every church just turns into a super PAC,” Adams told Boise State Public Radio.

Prop 1 Campaign Finance Landscape

Proposition 1 would enshrine abortion rights in the Idaho Constitution. The measure has already attracted significant organized opposition and support. As of early this week, the two main groups backing the initiative — Too Extreme for Idaho and Idahoans United for Women and Families — had together raised approximately $4.6 million.

The AG’s opinion could open the door for faith communities with substantial budgets to enter that spending landscape without their individual members appearing in campaign finance disclosures, a prospect that critics of the ruling view as a gap in transparency requirements and that supporters frame as a necessary protection for religious freedom.

What Comes Next

The Idaho Secretary of State’s office is in the process of drafting formal guidance for election administrators and church leaders based on the Labrador opinion. That guidance will shape how campaign finance filings are processed if churches move forward with spending on the Proposition 1 campaign.

With November approaching and write-in and candidate filing deadlines closing out in several states, Idaho election officials face a compressed timeline to finalize the guidance before campaign activity intensifies. The outcome of the Proposition 1 vote will also likely influence how the legislature revisits questions of church campaign participation — whether through legislation similar to the rejected SB 1365 or through other statutory changes — when lawmakers return to session.

The broader question of how religious institutions fit within Idaho’s campaign finance framework remains unsettled as a policy matter, even as the AG’s opinion provides a near-term answer for the current ballot cycle.