Money and Campaigns for Measures

Course 46 already covers the core of measure money. Lesson 4 there shows how to register and run a political committee, lesson 7 covers ballot measure committees, the Proposition 1 money of 2024 and 2026 and the public-resources rules, and lesson 11 shows how to file a complaint. This lesson does not repeat them. It goes earlier in the life of a measure, to the months when the only product is signatures, and to the money questions specific to initiatives, referendums and recalls.

When petition money becomes reportable

Idaho's campaign finance law reaches money spent "in support of or in opposition to" a measure. Idaho Code 67-6602(11) defines measure broadly, as any proposal submitted to the people, "including any initiative, referendum, recall election, or revision of or amendment to the state constitution." Then it fixes the start date:

• An initiative or referendum proposal "shall be deemed a measure when the attorney general, county prosecutor, or city attorney, as appropriate, reviews it and gives it a ballot title."
• A recall is a measure "upon approval of the recall petition as to form" under 34-1704.

Before those moments, the drafting phase sits in a gray zone. Money spent researching, polling or writing a measure before the ballot title is not spent on a "measure" as defined. Once the title issues, the same group's spending to gather signatures is spending to support a measure. A group that plans to circulate should set up the committee and the bank account before the title arrives, so that the first payment to a canvasser lands on a clean set of books.

Stage	What triggers it	What the money law asks
Drafting and pre-filing	None yet	No measure exists under 67-6602(11). Spending on a candidate or another measure is still reportable.
Ballot title issued (initiative or referendum)	Attorney General, county prosecutor or city attorney assigns the title	It is a measure. A group designated to support or oppose it is a political committee (67-6602(14)(a)). Paying gatherers triggers 67-6612.
Recall form approved	Secretary of State or county clerk approves the petition form (34-1704)	It is a measure. Recall committees on both sides register and report.
Circulation	Up to 18 months for a statewide initiative; 75 days for a recall	Monthly 67-6612 statements; regular committee reports under 67-6607; paid circulator disclosures under 34-1807(2)
Ballot campaign	Qualification through Election Day	Committee reports, 48-hour notices for $1,000 gifts, independent expenditure statements, attribution on ads
After the vote	Election	Committees report until the balance is zero and debts are paid (67-6607(5))

Who is a committee

Under 67-6602(14), a political committee is anyone "specifically designated to support or oppose any candidate or measure," or anyone who receives contributions and makes expenditures over $1,000 in a calendar year for that purpose. So a sponsoring group that exists to qualify one initiative is a committee from the start of the measure, whatever its size. The committee appoints a treasurer, keeps a separate checking account, records each contribution and expenditure within seven days, and files reports: monthly by the 10th in the election year, an annual report by January 10 in a nonelection year, and a 48-hour notice for any contribution of $1,000 or more (67-6604 and 67-6607). A statewide drive that starts gathering in 2027 for a 2028 ballot is in a nonelection year for its first reports.

Two other actors show up in measure fights:

• Nonbusiness entities. A nonprofit, association or club that is not itself a committee but spends more than $1,000 in a year in or directed to Idaho voters on candidates or measures must file a statement within 30 days of crossing the line. It lists its officers and anyone who paid it more than $500 in dues, fees or other payments in the current or prior two years (67-6606). Many statewide measures are run by coalitions in which a nonprofit pays for organizers before any committee forms; this is the rule that reaches them.
• Independent spenders. Anyone who spends more than $100 on communications expressly advocating passage or defeat of a measure, without coordinating with a committee, files an independent expenditure statement 7 days before and 30 days after the primary and general elections, plus a 48-hour statement for $1,000 or more in the window from the 16th day to 48 hours before the election (67-6611). Idaho's "electioneering communication" definition in 67-6602(6) covers messages that refer to a candidate, so measure ads are reported as committee spending or independent expenditures.

Paying for signatures: the 67-6612 report

The Legislature added 67-6612 in 2020. It is the one Sunshine section written for the petition stage, and the details matter:

• Who files: "any person" who pays or provides other valuable consideration of $100 or more in aggregate to people for gathering signatures on an initiative or referendum petition. That includes the committee, a nonprofit paying canvassers, and a vendor that subcontracts.
• When it starts: the day the petitioners receive the official ballot title, and it continues for as long as the filer is paying gatherers.
• When it is due: on or before the 20th of the month following the payments.
• What it lists: the name and address of each signature gatherer paid more than $50 during the month, and the month's total paid to all gatherers.
• The late rule: anyone who pays gatherers $1,000 or more during the 14 days before the election files a notice within 48 hours.

Read literally, the 48-hour rule runs to "the election," which for a statewide initiative is November, months after signatures are due on May 1. For a referendum, which must be filed within 60 days of adjournment, and for local measures on shorter calendars, the window can be closer to the circulation period. The section mentions initiatives and referendums. It does not mention recalls, though recall committees still report their spending, including canvasser pay, as ordinary expenditures under 67-6607.

Payments to a vendor that then pays circulators raise the obvious question of who reports the names. The statute reaches whoever pays the gatherers, so a committee that pays a firm should require the firm to file, or to hand over the gatherer list, in its contract. The 2026 medical cannabis drive is a warning. The sponsor's response to the Secretary of State's disqualification letter said a contractor handled circulator payments and held the payment data, Cannabis Business Times reported, and the office's letter cited insufficient circulator documentation and payment disclosures among its reasons. The first vendor then said the sponsor owed it a substantial sum, and the sponsor said its confidence in that vendor had been misplaced.

A federal limit worth knowing

In Buckley v. American Constitutional Law Foundation (January 12, 1999), the U.S. Supreme Court struck Colorado rules requiring petition circulators to wear name badges and requiring sponsors to report each paid circulator's name, address and pay. It left in place disclosure of the sponsors' identity and their total spending on signature gathering, and Colorado's circulator affidavit. Idaho's 67-6612 asks for each gatherer's name and address once pay passes $50 in a month, which resembles the reporting the Court rejected in Colorado. We found no reported decision testing Idaho's version. Idaho's badge, by contrast, must say "paid petition circulator" and the statute does not require the circulator's name on it (34-1807(2)(b)); the Court in Buckley did not decide whether a badge stating paid status is allowed. Lesson 7 covers the circulator rules themselves.

Local measures and recalls

Local committees get a filing threshold. 67-6608 exempts a committee specifically designated to support or oppose a local ballot measure from filing until it receives or spends $500. A committee that is not designated for one measure but works on local races or measures is exempt until $1,000. In both cases the treasurer then files a cumulative report within seven calendar days and reports on the regular schedule afterward, whatever the amounts. All reports are filed online with the Secretary of State (67-6607(4)), and 67-6615 states the Legislature's intent to keep filings for all offices and measures in one central database, with the county clerk inspecting statements for local offices and measures.

A recall works the same way once the petition form is approved. The petitioners' committee reports what it raises and spends, and so does any committee formed to defend the officer. The officer's own candidate committee is a separate account, and recall elections count as general elections for the contribution limits on candidates under 67-6610A(4). A city or county recall committee that stays under $500 files nothing, which is why small recall efforts often leave no money trail at all. Lesson 2 covers who may be recalled.

Public money stays out

The Public Integrity in Elections Act says no public entity, employee or official may spend public funds, or use public property or resources, to advocate for or against a candidate or ballot measure (74-604). "Advocate" means campaigning for or against; it does not include stating facts such as cost, purpose and election dates in a neutral way (74-603(1)). Officials may campaign on their own time with their own money, and a public entity may send an objective statement of a measure's purpose and effect (74-605). Fines run up to $250, $1,500 for a knowing violation and $2,500 for a repeat knowing violation within 12 months (74-606). Course 46's lesson 7 and course 60 lesson 8 apply the rules to bonds and levies.

Two features matter for initiatives and referendums specifically:

• The definition. 74-603(2) defines "ballot measure" as "constitutional amendments, bond measures, or levy measures." Citizen initiatives, referendums and recalls are not listed. Yet the Act's 2024 exception speaks of advocacy on an initiative or referendum. How the Act applies to a public entity's statements on a citizen initiative is not settled in any decision we found. Recall elections involve a person, and the Act's candidate language may or may not reach them. A public body considering any spending on such a question should get a written answer from its county prosecutor or the Attorney General, who enforce the Act (74-606(4)).
• The legislator exception. Senate Bill 1376 (2024), a Senate State Affairs Committee bill that passed the Senate 30 to 5 and the House 55 to 12, became Session Law Chapter 268, effective July 1, 2024. It lets a sitting legislator personally use public property or resources to advocate on an initiative or referendum, limited to electronic or physical correspondence with the public and recordings of the Legislature and its committees. It excludes travel and any candidate advocacy (74-604(2) and 74-605(4)).

Bills that tried to change the money and signature rules, 2024 to 2026

Bill	What it proposed	What happened
S 1376 (2024)	Legislator exception to the public-resources ban for initiatives and referendums	Law, Chapter 268, effective July 1, 2024
H 652 (2024)	A public review period for initiative signatures, more time to remove signatures, monthly signature updates	Passed the House 49 to 20 on March 7, 2024; referred to Senate State Affairs and not passed
S 1117 (2025)	Updated fiscal impact statement when an initiative is modified after review	Law, Chapter 305, signed April 4, 2025, effective July 1, 2025
H 501 (2026)	Require signature gatherers to be qualified electors and paid gatherers' badges to name who pays them	Passed the House 65 to 0 on February 18, 2026; referred to Senate State Affairs and not passed
S 1422 (2026)	Campaign finance transparency rewrite	Reported out of committee March 25, 2026; held on the Senate calendar and not passed

As of October 2026, then, the paid-circulator rules are the ones in 34-1807 as amended in 2024, and the money disclosure rules for petition drives are 67-6612 and the general committee sections. Had H 501 passed, its qualified-elector rule would have raised the question Buckley answered for Colorado, where the Court struck a requirement that circulators be registered voters. Its badge rule named the payer, not the circulator, which Buckley left undecided.

Proposition 1 as a money example

Course 46's lesson 7 lays out the snapshot tables. Three more ways to read the same public numbers:

• Totals, not snapshots. By mid-October 2024 the supporting committee, Idahoans for Open Primaries, had raised about $2.8 million and spent about $350,000 on electioneering, and opponents had spent more than $460,000 (Idaho Education News, October 16, 2024). Over the whole campaign the committee raised more than $5.6 million, most of it from out of state, and independent expenditures supporting the measure topped $4.4 million against about $553,000 opposing, the Idaho Capital Sun reported in October 2026 from the Secretary of State's data. Snapshot figures a month before the vote missed roughly half the money.
• Money per vote. The 2024 canvass shows 269,960 yes and 618,753 no. $5,600,000 / 269,960 = about $20.74 raised per yes vote. Opposing independent spending of about $553,000 / 618,753 no votes = about $0.89 per no vote. Supporting independent spending of $4.4 million against about $553,000 opposing is a ratio of about 8 to 1, and the measure lost by more than two to one. The money paid for signatures and ads; it did not carry the vote.
• The 2026 version. The 2026 ballot carries a different Proposition 1, the Reproductive Freedom and Privacy Act. As of September 29, 2026, the supporting committee had raised about $4.9 million from more than 3,000 donors and the opposing committee about $2.5 million from 83 donors, with opposing independent expenditures reported at $29,142.79 as of September 30, according to the same October 5, 2026 report. The paper noted that inconsistent naming of the measure in reports may undercount independent spending.

That last caution is practical. Measure names are not standardized across filers, so a search for "Proposition 1" in 2026 also turns up 2024 filings, and a search for the initiative's full title misses filers who wrote "Prop 1." Search by every name the measure goes by, and by committee.