IFF Scores Against Sunshine: What Are They Trying to Hide?
Overhauling lobbying rules to create transparency should be a good thing... so why are some Idaho groups working so hard to stop it?
House Bill 398 is the kind of legislation that doesn’t usually survive Idaho’s Capitol.
It’s smart.
It’s overdue.
And it threatens the people who’ve grown comfortable operating in the shadows.
This bill is a complete overhaul of Idaho’s lobbying laws. It aims to bring influence operations into the light—especially the ones hiding behind X accounts, Facebook pages, and anonymous PAC-funded outrage. It doesn’t just update some definitions or fiddle with filing deadlines. It redefines what lobbying actually is.
And that’s precisely why the Idaho Freedom Foundation (IFF) hates it.
HB398 requires lobbyists—not just the suited kind who shake hands in committee rooms, but the keyboard warriors running influence campaigns from home—to register and report their work. That includes so-called indirect lobbying like social media campaigns, mass email pressure tools, and content designed to sway public officials.
IFF didn’t just oppose the bill—they gave it a -3 on their “Freedom Index,” sending a clear message to their loyal legislative operatives: kill it. Members of IFF’s Gang of 8, ever faithful, lined up and voted no. Shocker!
Because if this bill passes, we might finally get to see the machinery they’ve built—and how it really works.
Lobbying Isn’t Just Steak Dinners Anymore
Lobbying today doesn’t just happen in the Capitol. It occurs in meme factories, behind social media pseudonyms, and in PAC-funded echo chambers posing as newsrooms.
HB398 recognizes this shift. It brings transparency to indirect lobbying—the online tactics that have taken over Idaho’s policy debates. Under the bill, if you spend more than $250 worth of time or money per quarter influencing legislation—even if unpaid—you may need to register.
That’s the heart of the reform: value matters, not just paychecks. And in this political economy, the unpaid work being done by IFF-aligned operatives is likely worth far more than they want to admit.
What’s the Value of a Propaganda Campaign?
A social media specialist in Idaho may earn between $25–$30/hour. Some of the most active IFF-aligned voices—people like John Heida, Brian Almon, Lauren Walker, and Ryan Spoon—are producing signifigant hours of content each week.
Think about what they do:
Clip hours of legislative video footage.
Write attack posts with coordinated talking points.
Promote tools like “Email Idaho” that flood legislators’ inboxes.
Target lawmakers who dare disobey far-right directives.
Amplify messaging from their network of social media operatives.
Even at just 5–10 hours per week, that’s easily $1,000 or more worth of social media influence work per quarter. HB398 says if you’re doing that kind of work—even unpaid—you owe the public some disclosure.
This is not hypothetical. These campaigns already exist. The difference is, nobody has to tell the truth about who’s doing it, or why.
Meet the Keyboard Warrior Lobbyists
Take John Heida, the face behind the “Stop Idaho RINOs” and “Think Liberty Idaho” PAC. His X account is a daily barrage of legislator harassment, digital attacks, and callouts demanding fealty to the IFF agenda. He isn’t just venting online. He’s shaping public pressure campaigns—packaged in PAC branding, targeted to voters, designed to influence bills.
Or Greg Pruett, head of the Idaho Second Amendment Alliance. He’s a registered lobbyist, but also runs Idaho Dispatch, which masquerades as independent news while echoing the IFF’s narrative in every headline. HB398 may force a line: is Idaho Dispatch truly a media outlet—or is it a lobbying front pretending to be a news outlet? With his content regularly crossing channels, its hard to tell where the media ends and lobbying begins.
And then there’s the broader influencer crew—self-described “citizen journalists” producing content that consistently pushes IFF legislative narratives, demonizes their opponents, and coordinates with the same talking points echoed by the far-right machine.
HB398 doesn’t stop them from speaking. It requires them to be honest about who they are and what they’re doing.
Political Potatoes Is Not the Problem
Let’s be clear: Political Potatoes is commentary and analysis. I’m not coordinating with lobbying groups—they are too scared of IFF attack dogs to work with me! (It’s what happens when abusive people make you a lightning rod…) I don’t use auto-email tools to trigger spam campaigns against elected officials. I focus on telling the truth, even when it offends extremists.
The irony, of course, is that IFF-aligned propagandists will try to argue that any media critical of them isn’t “real journalism”—even while they build fake news brands to carry their own narratives.
The standard isn’t whether your words are passionate or partisan. The standard is: are you trying to influence legislation, and are you coordinating that effort through labor, money, or partnerships?
The IFF Machine Fears Exposure
The reason the IFF opposes HB398 so aggressively isn’t because it silences them. It’s because it maps their network.
If we force disclosure of indirect lobbying—especially the kind that operates through digital influence and unregistered labor—we can trace the network:
Who’s funding the attacks?
Who’s doing the content creation?
Who’s coordinating the message?
Who’s laundering propaganda through fake media outlets?
In other words, we get the proof of the political machine blueprint.
That’s what they’re trying to hide. And that’s why their loyal foot soldiers voted against it—not to protect liberty, but to preserve the one thing they can’t afford to lose: the veil of credibility with their base.
Once the people who supported them learn what’s happening, they’ll feel betrayed after seeing the proof that their favorite “influencer” was just a proxy.
The Fight Against HB398 is a Fight Against You
This bill is not perfect. No legislation is. But it gets the most important part right: it recognizes that influence doesn’t need a green badge or a business card to matter. It needs scale. It needs repetition. It needs a lie told loudly enough, often enough, and in enough inboxes to shape legislation.
The people screaming loudest against this bill it are the ones who thrive in darkness.
Coercion masked as influence is still coercion. That negative pressure works against Idahoans to the benefit of dark money donors. It’s time for legislators to operate in good faith on behalf of their constituent without fear of undisclosed dishonest influence campaigns.
Your legislators are supposed to be working for you. Be sure to thank them when they do.
About the Author
Gregory Graf is the creator of Political Potatoes and a lifelong conservative Republican. His articles often criticize the hypocrisy committed by far-right grifters who’ve taken control of the GOP. Graf is the CEO of Snake River Strategies, a strategic communications and political consulting firm based in Eagle, Idaho. You can follow Graf’s work on X, Threads, or Facebook.
Disclaimer
The following is intended to convey an opinion on newsworthy events of public concern regarding public figures and/or public officials in exercising their official duties. No implications or inferences—beyond those explicitly stated in the preceding— are intended to be conveyed or endorsed by the Author. Wherever available, hyperlinks have been provided to allow readers to directly access any underlying assertions of fact upon which this opinion is based.
Don’t forget to share this article with your friends on Facebook, Nextdoor, Reddit, and email! Be sure to share this article on Substack as a note to support this ongoing work.
Do you want to help support Political Potatoes?
Please consider upgrading to a paid subscription or leave a tip 😊
Your support keeps this work going and is appreciated.
One more thing on the subject of Idaho's legislature. Yesterday, the Joint Finance-Appropriations Committee (JFAC) voted to cut $2-million from both Boise State and University of Idaho over "DEI" concerns. One of the represenatives, House Assistant Republican Leader Josh Tanner (R-Eagle, said “They need to start listening to the legislature as a whole on the direction that we want them to actually go and hopefully this sends them a slight message to them to straighten their act up.”
Maybe representative Tanner should take his own advice. Maybe the Legislature should start listening to their constituents. Boise State's annual Public Policy Survey shows yet again, just how out of sync the legislature is compared to the top priorities and concerns of the people who sent them to the Statehouser.
For instance, iIncreased teacher pay is Idahoans’ top education budget priority. A majority of Idahoans say they oppose (53%) the use of tax dollars to pay for a private or religious
school.
Nearly half of Idahoans (49%) say access to health care is difficult in the state. 39% of Idahoans say increasing the number of immigrants helps Idaho’s economy, but that proportion
grows to 46% when discussing legal immigrants specifically.
A majority of Idahoans (55%) believe that abortion should be permitted in Idaho through at least the first trimester. A majority (64%) also believe that exceptions for abortion access should be expanded.
A majority of Idahoans (51%) have concerns about the security of elections in the United States, but less than a quarter (22%) have concerns about the security in Idaho itself.
A majority of Idahoans are concerned about campaign spending by independent groups in Idaho.
Yet our legislature's top concerns seem to be culture issues. Bathrooms, "DEI," using taxpayer money to help fund private/religious schools, libraries, tax cuts versus increased/adequate funding for our PUBLIC schools. And look at the legislature's stance on abortion and higher education. Idaho is having trouble attracting and keeping doctors. Could legislation that once again, is contrary to the wishes of Idahoans, contribute to that issue. And we just lost another University president as Dr. Marlene Tromp is leaving for the University of Vermont. Could Idaho's legislators' insistence on controlling our institutions of higher learning contribute to retention issues at the leadership level, and recruiting issues for teachers and staff?
Not only does the legislature refuse to consider the priorities of we the people of Idaho, they try to make it even more difficult for us to take action on issues important to us when the legislature fails to act, or acts contrary to the wishes of THE MAJORITY OF IDAHOANS. Almost every legislative session, the legislature tries to make it harder if not impossible for citizen initiatives to get on the ballot and when they do, make them hard to pass. Even when they pass, the legislature does everything in their power to overturn the will of the people. Of course we do it to ourselves; we keep electing people who are more beholden to extremist groups like the IFF, the Idaho Family Policy Center, the rogue right wing nuts controlling the once great Idaho Republican Party. All of them espousing minority opinions, but well funded so they outspend and out-shout the majority. Isn't it time to elect a legislature that actually has the same priorities as the people they represent?
Yesterday during discussion of HB 398, Representative Clint Hostetler made quite an argument against the bill. He maintains an A+ rating from the Idaho Freedom Foundation, and as reported by Idaho Political Potatoes, the IFF was vehemently opposed to HB398, which shines a light not just on traditional lobbying but also on campaigns aimed at alarming voters enough for them to pressure their representatives to vote with the IFF and other extremist groups. During the 2024 campaign, I received text messages asking me if (name the exreme behavior) had happened and it was supported by an opponent of Representative Cody Galloway, would it change my vote? I said no, that even if what they mentioned HAD happened (I don't think it had), I wouldn't change my vote. I got a text message right back, asking if (something even more extreme) had happened, would THAT convince me to vote for Cody Galloway instead of her opponent. Again, I said no. Who conducts this "research?" Who is SO desparate, SO motivated to discredit Idaho's few Democrats, even moderate Republicans, that they will stoop so low as to create false scenarios, each one a little worse, trying to determine what claims they would have to use to get voters to change their minds and vote for their preferred candidate? WE SHOULD KNOW who is making these claims and on behalf of which organizations and candidates. Yet once again, the IFF wants to continue operating in the shadows and Representative Clint Hostetler is happy to carry their water, as is Representative David Leavitt. One (or both) of them said it's a First Amendment issue. Come on! They just want extremist groups to be able to send out salacious mail, email and texts, to put up billboards and run negative radio and TV commercials to encourage voters to pressure their representatives OR they threaten to finance primary opponents more likely to vote as instructed, and hide behind vague identification about who's really slinging the dirt. It's very telling to listen to who objects the most to bills designed to shine a light on all the darkness invading Idaho's elections.