Idaho Freedom Foundation

Learn more about how the State Policy Network aids ALEC and spins disinformation in the states.

Learn more about corporations VOTING to rewrite our laws.

The Idaho Freedom Foundation (IFF) is a research institute is Boise, Idaho that advocates for "free market solutions, private property rights, individual responsibility and transparent, limited government."

Ties to the American Legislative Exchange Council

The IFF has ties to the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) through its Executive Director, Wayne Hoffman. In an article on the foundation's website entitled, "ALEC Helps Promote Good Public Policy," Hoffman states, "ALEC has been an invaluable resource and friend to me and the Idaho Freedom Foundation. Few people know how often I have asked ALEC’s staff for help battling big-government ideas, including the federal health care takeover and the imposition of confiscatory tax polices. And it has always responded....I’m grateful for ALEC, and you should be, too.".

Furthermore, according to the Idaho Reporter, the IFF sponsored a trip to Boise for John Graham of the Pacific Research Institute and Christie Herrera, director of the ALEC Health and Human Services Task Force, to meet with Idaho lawmakers to discuss health care policy. (For more on the Idaho Reporter and the Idaho Freedom Foundation, see their connections to the Franklin Center for Government and Public Integrity).

Additionally, the IFF has ties to the American Legislative Exchange Council through its membership with the State Policy Network, which is an ALEC sponsor. ALEC is also an Associate Member of the SPN.

Please see SPN Ties to ALEC for more.

About ALEC

ALEC is a corporate bill mill. It is not just a lobby or a front group; it is much more powerful than that. Through ALEC, corporations hand state legislators their wishlists to benefit their bottom line. Corporations fund almost all of ALEC's operations. They pay for a seat on ALEC task forces where corporate lobbyists and special interest reps vote with elected officials to approve “model” bills. Learn more at the Center for Media and Democracy's ALECexposed.org, and check out breaking news on our PRWatch.org site.

Ties to the Franklin Center for Government and Public Integrity

The Idaho Freedom Foundation publishes IdahoReporter.com and The Idaho Freedom Foundation is listed as a Franklin Center for Government and Public Integrity "Statehouse News Bureau". The Franklin Center funds reporters in over 40 states. Despite their non-partisan description, many of the websites funded by the Franklin Center have received criticism for their conservative bias. On its website, the Franklin Center claims it "provides 10 percent of all daily reporting from state capitals nationwide."

Franklin Center Funding

Franklin Center Director of Communications Michael Moroney told the Center for Public Integrity (CPI) in 2013 that the source of the Franklin Center's funding "is 100 percent anonymous." But 95 percent of its 2011 funding came from DonorsTrust, a spin-off of the Philanthropy Roundtable that functions as a large "donor-advised fund," cloaking the identity of donors to right-wing causes across the country (CPI did a review of Franklin's Internal Revenue Service records). Mother Jones called DonorsTrust "the dark-money ATM of the conservative movement" in a February 2013 article. Franklin received DonorTrust's second-largest donation in 2011.

The Franklin Center also receives funding from the Wisconsin-based Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation, a conservative grant-making organization.

The Franklin Center was launched by the Chicago-based Sam Adams Alliance (SAM), a 501(c)(3) devoted to pushing free-market ideals. SAM gets funding from the State Policy Network, which is partially funded by the Claude R. Lambe Foundation. Charles Koch, one of the billionaire brothers who co-own Koch Industries, sits on the board of this foundation. SAM also receives funding from the Rodney Fund.

Personnel

• Executive Director: Wayne Hoffman
  
• Board President: Heather Lauer (Owner, Villageous LLC)
  
• Director: Bob Rathbone
  
• Director: Dan Symms (Partner, Symms Fruit Ranch)
  
• Policy Analyst and Program Manager: Erik Makrush
  
• Policy Analyst: Parrish Miller

Core Financials

2011

• Total Revenue: $355,673
• Total Expenses: $350,348
• Net Assets: $294,580

2010:

• Total Revenue: $494,134
• Total Expenses: $356,081
• Net Assets: $289,255

2009:

• Total Revenue: $369,377
• Total Expenses: $218,275
• Net Assets: $151,202

Contact Information

PO Box 2801
Boise, ID 83701
Phone: (208) 258-2280
Fax: (208) 965-8111
wayne@idahofreedom.net

Articles and Resources

Related Sourcewatch Articles

• State Policy Network:
  • SPN Funding
  • SPN Agenda
  • SPN Founders, History, and Staff
  • SPN Members
  • SPN Ties to ALEC
  • Thomas A. Roe
  • Tracie Sharp
  • Byron S. Lamm
  • Roe Foundation
• American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC)
  • ALEC Non-Profits
• DonorsTrust
• Donors Capital Fund
• Koch Family Foundations
• Koch Industries
• Franklin Center for Government and Public Integrity
• Heritage Foundation
• Think tanks
• Whitney Ball
• Adam Meyerson
• Bridgett Wagner

Franklin Center for Government and Public Integrity
Idaho Reporter

External Resources

• Center for Media and Democracy and Arizona Working Families, A Reporter’s Guide to the Goldwater Institute: What Citizens, Policymakers, and Reporters Should Know, organizational report, March 14, 2013.
• Paul Abowd, Center for Public Integrity, Donors use charity to push free-market policies in states, Consider the Source, February 14, 2013.
• John R. Mashey, Fake science, fakexperts, funny finances, free of tax 2, DeSmog Blog report, updated October 23, 2012, p. 74.
• Andy Kroll, The Right-Wing Network Behind the War on Unions, Mother Jones, April 25, 2011.
• Guidestar, State Policy Network, IRS filings and other organizational information about SPN.
• Center for Policy Alternatives, ALEC and the Extreme Right-Wing Agenda, organizational brochure about ALEC and SPN.
• John J. Miller, Fifty Flowers Bloom: Conservative think tanks — mini–Heritage Foundations — at the state level, National Review, November 19, 2007.
• Bridge Project, State Policy Network, online resource listing grants to SPN and SPN's connections to other groups.
• People for the American Way, State Policy Network, RightWingWatch.org, organizational resource.
• Greenpeace, Koch Industries Climate Denial Front Group: State Policy Network (SPN), organizational resource.

Related PRWatch Articles

• Rebekah Wilce, A Reporters’ Guide to the "State Policy Network": the Right-Wing Think Tanks Spinning Disinformation and Pushing the ALEC Agenda in the States, PRWatch.org, April 4, 2013.
• Sara Jerving, ALEC and Heartland Aim to Crush Renewable Energy Standards in the States, PRWatch.org, November 27, 2012.
• Connor Gibson, Meet the Network Hiding the Koch Money: "Donors Trust" and "Donors Capital Fund", PRWatch.org, October 29, 2012.
• Brendan Fischer, Koch-Funded Mackinac Center Brings Wisconsin Act 10 Provisions to ALEC, PRWatch.org, May 2, 2012.
• Sara Jerving, Franklin Center: Right-Wing Funds State News Source, PRWatch.org, October 31, 2011.