No matter how many times my eyes began to glaze over as they skimmed every heading on a dozen websites, I couldn’t find anything to back up his claim.

No datasets, news articles, or even random blog posts could confirm his statement.

I had heard the presenter, voice fluctuating with the cooperation of the microphone, claim that Idahoans for Open Primaries, the political action committee supporting Proposition One, was funded mostly by out-of-state money.

This troubled me because if it were true, it meant that individuals who would never have to live with the consequences were influencing major decisions.

These supposed donors likely knew little about Idaho, let alone what was best for it.

There was no way to hold them accountable.

Late Oct. 2024, I was waist deep in podcasts, news updates and Substack articles to keep up with the latest campaign news.

Somehow, a flyer advertising a Proposition One information session ended up on my desk.

It was hosted by the local Republican Party, whose leaders were loudly against the proposition, so my family joked it was more of a “propaganda” session than an information session.

That is how I found myself sitting in an outdated theater watching a PowerPoint, hunched over my laptop in confusion about where to find the evidence to support this claim. 

Proposition One was a citizen initiative on Idaho ballots in November 2024 attempting to change the primary elections to a top-four ranked choice vote, open primary. 

I was publishing a ballot review article the next week, including a look into the proposition, and decided to continue my research and interviews, without finding a substantial answer.

Nov. 4 came, and when the ballots were closed and counted, Proposition One failed, gaining only 30.4% of votes.

The search begins

In February 2025, the last thing I was thinking about was Idahoans for Open Primaries until their name loaded in the cell on my data sheet as a recipient of the largest donation to 2024 political campaigns in Idaho.

All political action committees, candidates, political parties and individuals are required to report the contributions they receive and who they are from to the Idaho Secretary of State's office.

According to Idaho Code 67- 6610A, total donations to a state legislator, judicial, local government or political committee made for a candidate’s campaign from a corporation, political committee, individual or other legally recognized entities cannot legally exceed $1,000 for the primary and general races each. 

Donations from any of the above-mentioned groups to candidates running for statewide offices, such as the Secretary of State, are not allowed to exceed $5,000 per primary and general election. 

State parties are prohibited from donating more than $10,000 per election to a statewide candidate and $2,000 to other candidates.

Political action committees, unions and corporations are all capped at spending more than $5,000 on candidates in statewide elections and $1,000 for candidates in other elections. 

Exceptions

There are several ways to side-step these rules.

 First, donating as an independent expenditure. This means the entity donating does not coordinate with the candidate whom the donations support. There is no cap on these donations, but they are required to be reported to the Idaho Secretary of State. 

Second, donating to a political action committee. This is less effective because political action committees are regulated on how much they can donate. 

Third, out-of-state contributions. Idaho cannot regulate these contributions, which are governed by the Federal Election Commission.

Data from the Idaho Secretary of State Sunshine portal showed that the largest Idaho donation was only 8.3% of the largest out-of-state donation. 

Melaleuca Inc., a company selling natural-based health and home products, donated $100,000 to the political action committee, Republicans for Idaho.

The single out-of-state donation that dwarfed theirs: $1.25 million from the political organization named Article IV in Virginia to Idahoans for Open Primaries. 

In total, Article IV donated $2.39 million to political action groups Idahoans for Open Primaries and Defend and Protect Idaho.

It is the only contribution that reached into the millions.

This is possible, in a large part, due to the Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission Supreme Court decision.

In a 5-4 decision, the Supreme Court ruled that caps on donations from unions and corporations in the form of an independent expenditure (a donation made without coordination with a specific candidate) violated their free speech rights, because donating money is a form of political speech.

In a 90-page dissenting opinion, Justice John Paul Stevens wrote, "A democracy cannot function effectively when its constituent members believe laws are being bought and sold."

The Federal Election Commission also allows Super or Hybrid political action committees, groups without any affiliation to a particular candidate, to receive donations from organizations without any limits on the amount.

Idahoans for Open Primaries appears to land in this group, as they are focused on a specific issue instead of a candidate.

While Idaho does mandate reporting all donations received and expenditures made by these political action groups, there is still nothing regulating the amounts.

The real barricade to transparency and accountability is the groups donating to these political action committees, which don't even have to report donations and expenditures.

The name seemed purposefully vague.

Article Four in the Constitution guarantees states the right to a republican form of government and the citizens of every state equal federal treatment and privileges.

The reference did not give away much about a political action committee’s interests. 

This time I specified “organization” in the search bar and half a scroll down found a promising-looking link.

A white page with bold typeface stating,

“We improve the health of American democracy by instituting reforms that align citizens’ interests with politicians’ incentives,” filled the screen, with a faded image of the U.S. Capitol in the background.

If the website had a flavor, it would be vanilla.

It consisted of a single page with only generic descriptions about supporting initiatives by all parties to help keep power close to the people. The only contact information provided was a phone number and an information request email address.

No names and no faces.

I called the number.

No surprises there, straight to voicemail. 

I typed up an email and sent it to the info request address. 

Deciding to try another route, I googled Idahoans for Open Primaries. 

Clicking on another promising link led to an empty Squarespace page.

“Private Site. This site is currently private. If you’re the owner or contributor, log in,” were the only words atop the gray background.

A dead end.

Remembering some of their ads on Facebook back in November, I opened the site.

It wasn’t difficult to find the Idahoans for Open Primaries page. After reading through a few posts, I messaged the site. A few hours later, I saw it had been read, but not responded to. 

I sent a second message explaining I was looking for broad information only, and not to track influence, to see if that would coax a response. 

The weeks without another interaction have proven otherwise. 

The Issue

“They need to get their dark money out of here,” said Dorthy Moon, the chairman of the Idaho Republican Party, in a brief phone call. 

501 (C) (4) organizations are tax-exempt non-profits. They make millions of donations to political campaigns every election, but have no legal obligation to report where their money came from. Oftentimes, because of the lack of transparency, this money is referred to as “dark” money. 

Article IV and Citizens United, the group that won the landmark Supreme Court case in 2010, are both 501 (C) (4) organizations.

It is important to note that the Federal Election Committee delineates 501 (C) (4) organizations as different than corporations or unions when it comes to campaign donations.

When a corporation makes an independent expenditure, it still has to put the company name on the donation.

A 501 (C)(4) can obtain its money from a variety of sources or donors and is required to report none of them.

There is no cap on how much they may spend.

Without cooperation in goodwill, it is not trackable.

I was relying on a political action committee's “goodwill” to find out who donated millions to my state’s elections.

59% of donations to 2024 Idaho campaigns came from out-of-state.

Thankfully, I knew someone who had been loosely associated with Idahoans for Open Primaries, who might be able to provide some information.

Marsha Craner, the chair of the Madison County Democratic Party, said that Reclaim Idaho was the political action committee behind Idahoans for Open Primaries, and that I should try to contact them.

Reclaim Idaho worked to promote different initiatives throughout the years, sometimes increasing pay for teachers, and more recently, open primaries, according to Craner

In 2018, Reclaim Idaho succeeded in passing a Medicaid Expansion initiative, which now has over 100,000 Idahoans enrolled.

Back to Facebook.

My phone chimed almost immediately after I sent the message.

I quickly opened Facebook Messenger and saw an unread message from Reclaim Idaho.

An automated response.

Emailing their website garnered the same result.

Trying again, I dialed the number listed on the Article IV website and watched the Washington D.C. Area code on my screen as the call went to voicemail.

In Oregon, a $2.25 million contribution from Article IV surpassed Nike co-founder Phil Knight's check to a Republican Party political action committee, according to an article published in a Portland newspaper, the Willamette Weekly, by Nigel Jaquiss.

Similar to Proposition One in Idaho, Measure 117 in Oregon sought to implement a ranked-choice voting system.

The article quotes Rochelle Long, the elected Klamath County Clerk and the president of the Oregon Association of County Clerks.

“The influx of out-of-state money is very disheartening to watch," Long says. "We are already dealing with lack of trust and transparency, so having 501 (C)(4) non-profit organizations fund millions to the way we vote in Oregon only heightens and adds to this distrust. I question why these non-profit organizations care what form of voting we use in Oregon. Wouldn’t their money be better utilized for other non-partisan purposes rather than trying to promote election reform?”

Measure 117 failed, gaining about 40% of votes.

The word "non-partisan" is one used on the Article IV website to describe their organization's leadership and goals.

The Willamette Weekly quoted Tripp Wellde as the executive director of Article IV.

Tripp Wellde is the former campaign director for Barack Obama's Iowa campaign, according to the University of Richmond's paper, The Collegian's 12 Feb. 2009 issue, in which he described Obama's campaign as "nearly flawless."

South Dakota experienced the same outspending by out-of-state groups that Idaho did, according to an article by Makenzie Huber published in the South Dakota Searchlight, supporting Amendment H, an amendment to the South Dakota constitution that would create a top-two primary.

Hubner experienced the same response from Article IV as I did when she reached out with a request for comment.

"South Dakota Open Primaries Chair Joe Kirby said his ballot question committee does not have direct contact with Article IV, nor does the committee have control of what the organization advertises," Hubner reported in the article.

Article H failed, only gaining 34% of the vote.

Making the same promises as the Open Primaries initiative made in Idaho, proponents of Montana's Constitutional Initiative 126 claimed that instituting a top-four primary in Montana would temper political extremism, according to an article published in the Daily Montanan by Nicloe Girten.

As in Idaho, Montana's Republican Party combated the initiative.

Again, Article IV was one of the top contributors.

Initiative 126 narrowly failed to pass, gaining 48% of the vote.

"What's happening is, and we see this in lots of states, there used to be this clear divide between national races, or even Congressional races, and then local races," said Duane Adamson, Brigham Young University - Idaho political science professor and former campaign director. "And the campaigns and the political discussions around local elections were very local. In Idaho, in southeast Idaho agriculture, you know that sort of stuff. But what's happening is all of our races are becoming nationalized."

This nationalization of political issues and state races comes from the intensity of the national political discourse, according to Adamson.

Adamson explained that politics has become tribalistic.

Issues are more about identity than policy.

"It's an issue because once you say they're evil, and we're the good guy, then it's a fight, then it's a 'where do you compromise?'" Adamson said.

Adamson thinks that ideology is what drives out-of-state donations.

It's not just one side of the political aisle accepting difficult-to-track money.

"For most of the state, they're voting in Republican candidates," Adamson said. "And because of that, the real battle is in the primaries. And so where we see dark money in Idaho specifically is, it tends not to be in the general election. I'm not saying it doesn't happen, because it does, but PAC spending and darker gray money often is the battle within the party."

The current president of the group that helped open this metaphorical can of untrackable campaign donation worms, Citizens United, is David Bossie.

Bossie has worked as the deputy campaign manager for the Trump campaign in 2016 and senior advisor for the administration in 2020.

He was also a contributor to Fox News for four years and was a senior strategist in the 2020 campaign for Benjamin Netanyahu.

The National Rifle Association is another prominent 501 (C)(4), but little is unclear about their goals.

Article IV's consistent donations to supporting open primaries may be an example of national-ideologically driven donations.

As the vicereality of the national political scene has increased dramatically, so have out-of-state donations, Adamson explains.

I checked my email and Facebook messages again.

Nothing from Idahoans for Open Primaries, Reclaim Idaho, or Article IV.

I opened the search bar and typed "Open Secrets Article IV."

Open Secrets is a nonpartisan, independent nonprofit that provides in-depth data analysis on money in politics.

The page opened to show spending data from 2022, but nothing detailing the recent contributions to Idaho campaigns.

Once again, I emailed the information request address and waited.

Likely, I will continue to wait for my answer until the IRS changes the rules governing organizations with a 501(C)(4) tax status, or a court case forces more disclosure.