Thursday evening in the Lewiston School District was supposed to be about parent-teacher conferences. To the Idaho Education Association (IEA), however, it was an opportunity to pressure teachers into backing the union’s preferred political candidates.

“May Matters” had arrived in Lewiston.

Launched at the end of the 2025 legislative session, May Matters is the teachers union’s campaign to recruit, endorse, and fund liberal Republicans to challenge conservative state legislators in the May 2026 GOP primary election.

Perhaps the most controversial part of the IEA’s campaign to “expel” the “infestation” of “destructive” conservative lawmakers in Boise is its encouragement of Democratic and unaffiliated voters to re-register as Republicans so they can dilute the votes of conservatives participating in the GOP primaries and put the more liberal candidates over the top.  

As part of the effort, the IEA is enlisting the aid of union-aligned school board members and superintendents to give its campaign more legitimacy with teachers.

For instance, in Twin Falls earlier this year, the district and union held a joint, all-staff meeting on work time at which the school board president exhorted the hundreds of teachers in attendance to help elect “legislators who support public education.”

Parent-teacher conferences, or union-teacher politics?

According to a Lewiston educator, at least some of the parent-teacher conferences on Thursday, March 5 were interrupted and/or delayed by IEA-affiliated teachers pressuring their colleagues to register as Republicans and promoting an IEA May Matters event to be held the following evening.

At least some of educators reportedly found the IEA’s efforts to get them to switch party registration to be unethical and opposed the union activists’ political campaigning while educators were supposed to be working.

A flyer distributed by the IEA advertising the March 6 event noted that the featured speakers would include Lewiston School District Superintendent Timothy Sperber and Rep. Lori McCann (R-Lewiston).

McCann is the only Republican to have received IEA support in the 2024 general election and is currently seeking to unseat incumbent Sen. Daniel Foreman (R-Moscow) in District 6.

Friday evening’s May Matters event promoted both McCann and Mike Collins, an IEA-backed candidate seeking to unseat incumbent Rep. Kyle Harris (R-Lewiston) in District 7.

While Collins was not present at the event, his campaign materials indicated that he opposes the Idaho parental choice tax credit adopted by the legislature in 2025, the reversal of which is a top IEA priority.

In his remarks Friday evening, Sperber “pleaded” with teachers to “get out and vote and… pick people that are pro-public education… and get your friends to vote.”

Time to end taxpayer support for the IEA

All of this is par for the course given the stated aims of IEA’s May Matters campaign. But the fact that the union is engaging in political advocacy during the school day drives home the importance of legislation like HB 745, which would prohibit taxpayer support for teachers unions. Among other things, it would prohibit school districts from allowing teachers to engage in union political activity during their contract hours.

HB 745 recently passed the Idaho House of Representatives in a strong 45-23 vote. Upon its arrival in the Senate on March 4, HB 745 was referred to the Senate Commerce and Human Resources Committee, chaired by Sen. Foreman.

Although Sen. Foreman is a co-sponsor of the legislation, he has inexplicably yet to schedule the bill for a hearing in his committee.

HB 745 is supported by the full spectrum of state and national conservative organizations, including at least: Americans for Prosperity, Americans for Tax Reform, Citizens Alliance of Idaho, Foundation for Government Accountability Action, Heritage Action for America, Idaho Family Policy Center, Idaho Freedom Foundation, Idaho Republican Party, Moms for Liberty, Mountain States Policy Center, and the National Right to Work Committee.

What’s more, Idaho voters support the reforms in HB 745 by wide margins.

Ending taxpayer support for teachers unions is both sound public policy and a generational opportunity for Idaho conservatives. There’s no excuse for the legislature not to act.