Browse sourced findings, connection research, and open questions. Each entry retains the status and qualifications recorded with the research. A connection research note is not automatically a verified network-map relationship.
Connection research · 2026-09-16
Recorded status: Primary/IRS-derived FY2024 grants verified: 1630→LCV $11.796M, 1630→America Votes $27.85M, America Votes→LCV $6.29M, LCV→CVI $298K. Same-dollar tracing/control not established.
The conservation/election branch into Idaho now has a more precise FY2024 multi-lane funding topology. Sixteen Thirty Fund's primary FY2024 Schedule I reports $11,796,000 to League of Conservation Voters (LCV) for civil rights, social action and advocacy. America Votes' IRS-derived FY2024 grant data separately report $6,290,000 to LCV, while Sixteen Thirty itself gave America Votes $27,850,000 in FY2024. Conservation Voters for Idaho's recipient-side FY202…
Read note and sources →Research finding · 2026-09-16
Recorded status: Primary/official records verify SEP funding and Kansas anti-RCV testimony; previously documented Idaho records verify Way Back support for the Prop 1 RCV campaign. This is evidence against assuming uniform downstream policy control from shared funding alone.
A useful counterexample has emerged that constrains any claim that Sixteen Thirty Fund or Western Futures Fund imposes one uniform election-policy line on downstream organizations. Secure Elections Project received $2.205M from Sixteen Thirty across 2022–2024 and $50,000 from Western Futures in FY2024. In February 2025, Secure Elections Project submitted proponent testimony in Kansas for SB 6, legislation prohibiting ranked-choice voting. By contrast, in I…
Read note and sources →Connection research · 2026-09-16
Recorded status: IRS-derived CaPA→CVIEF $60K and Sixteen Thirty→CaPA Education Fund $1.05M verified; CaPA itself documents donor-selected geography/criteria. Idaho donor identity/earmarking not established.
A separate 2024 grantmaking lane into Idaho has now been documented with unusually explicit information about how donor preferences can influence grant portfolios. Conservation Voters for Idaho Education Fund's FY2024 filing reports a $60,000 grant from Clean and Prosperous America (CaPA) for organizational support; CVIEF also received $84,300 from League of Conservation Voters Education Fund, $60,000 from Western Conservation Foundation, $50,000 from LCV,…
Read note and sources →Connection research · 2026-09-16
Recorded status: PRIMARY REGULATORY RECORD: IACI, Perpetua and mining interests opposed 2026 changes; DEQ later vacated. Causation is unproved and industry public-interest arguments are preserved.
A current regulatory case shows how IACI and an IACI-board member company participate in the same rulemaking to protect regulated-industry interests. DEQ's 2026 Groundwater Quality Rule docket proposed, among other things, aligning Idaho groundwater standards with federal national primary drinking-water standards and considering changes to aquifer categorization; DEQ described the goal as consistent standards protective of human health. On June 16, IACI su…
Read note and sources →Connection research · 2026-09-16
Recorded status: PLATFORM + ROLL-CALL + 2026 IE support verified for key candidates. IACI/IPF's own HB93 position and endorsement motive remain unproved.
The retrospective alignment pass identifies a second concrete policy fault line: school choice. The Idaho Republican Party platform adopted June 15, 2024 states that parental choice should be maximized through money following students to the parent's school of choice and expressly includes private/parochial schools and education savings accounts. In the 2025 House vote on HB 93, which created the Idaho parental choice tax credit, Republicans Ben Fuhriman, …
Read note and sources →Research finding · 2026-09-16
Recorded status: HISTORICAL MECHANISM VERIFIED: IACI sought larger repeal; final bipartisan compromise cut business taxes ~$20M with state sales-tax backfill. Capture/abuse is not established.
A historical IACI tax campaign provides a clean example of the concentrated-benefit-versus-cost-shift framework, although the final policy was a broad compromise rather than IACI's original proposal. In 2013 IACI pushed a phased full repeal of Idaho's business personal property tax, which applies to business equipment/furnishings. Contemporary reporting put IACI's full-repeal proposal at roughly $120 million; public schools alone received an estimated $38.…
Read note and sources →Connection research · 2026-09-16
Recorded status: Primary 2024 Sixteen Thirty grant and America Votes Idaho state-table presence verified. Idaho staff, budget, partners and any Votes Idaho relationship remain unresolved.
The Sixteen Thirty→America Votes branch is materially larger than the direct Sixteen Thirty→Western Futures route and has a documented Idaho-facing operational presence. Sixteen Thirty's primary FY2024 Schedule I reports $27,850,000 to America Votes for civil rights, social action and advocacy. IRS-derived grant aggregation reports approximately $179.6 million from Sixteen Thirty to America Votes across five annual grants from 2020–2024, making America Vot…
Read note and sources →Connection research · 2026-09-16
Recorded status: RECONCILIATION UPGRADE: Primary FEC reproduces $175K Way Back→Hometown Heroes through 6/30/26, while previously captured Idaho Sunshine shows $205K. Preserve the unresolved $30K delta; do not silently choose one total. Officer identity still unresolved.
Hometown Heroes remains a major Idaho money-routing and independent-expenditure node, but transaction-level reconciliation now exposes a specific $30,000 discrepancy that should be preserved rather than smoothed over. The Idaho Secretary of State Sunshine profile previously reproduced in this research shows $205,000 in contributions from Way Back PAC to Hometown Heroes. Primary Way Back FEC Schedule B records directly reproduce only $175,000 through June 3…
Read note and sources →Connection research · 2026-09-16
Recorded status: PRIMARY/FEC + DIRECT PUBLISHER VERIFIED: Way Back paid Tavern $15K for research in 2025; Contours commissioned Tavern polls in 2026; WFF-backed 1861 later reported a $450K Tavern IE. Shared vendor node verified; data-sharing/coordination not established.
Tavern Research now emerges as a documented professional-services crossline across three branches of the network. A primary Way Back PAC FEC Schedule B filed July 30, 2025 reports a $15,000 payment to Tavern Research on April 24, 2025 for 'Research Services - Non-Contribution Account.' Separately, Tavern Research's own 2026 published polling identifies Contours Inc. as the commissioner of likely-voter surveys in Montana and Nebraska; Contours' own Sept. 4,…
Read note and sources →Connection research · 2026-09-16
Recorded status: PRIMARY IRS VERIFIED: Article IV reports strategic support to state reform campaigns; FY2024 $2.22M IOP + $25K CAP grants and $170K DPI + $30K Way Back political payments. Idaho-specific advisory assignment/coordination not established.
Article IV’s FY2024 Form 990 materially sharpens its role beyond passive grantmaking. In its program-service narrative, Article IV states that its “core team of cross-partisan advisors” provided strategic support to various state reform campaigns aligned with Article IV’s policy priorities and board vision, while Article IV also made financial grants to those campaigns. The same filing’s Schedule I reports $2,220,000 in general support to Idahoans for Open…
Read note and sources →Research finding · 2026-09-16
Recorded status: SOURCED USE/EFFECT BASELINE: candidate-selection, ballot-reform, legislative-pressure and campaign-infrastructure channels are documented. Ideological direction varies by branch; no claim of centralized control or sole causation.
The research should now distinguish money-flow from demonstrated use/effect. Current public records support at least four separate Idaho influence channels. (1) Republican primary candidate selection: Defend and Protect Idaho, whose largest 2026 donor was Way Back PAC at $350,000, spent more than $752,800 supporting 23 Republican primary candidates and opposing 14; Idaho Capital Sun and Idaho Education News describe the supported side primarily as mainstre…
Read note and sources →Connection research · 2026-09-16
Recorded status: MULTI-LANE INDUSTRY PATHWAY VERIFIED: workforce policy, legal-service support and GOP-primary PAC strategy are explicit. Illegality, candidate control and net public harm are not established.
The alignment audit connects several previously separate dairy-industry activities into one documented policy/electoral chain. Idaho Dairymen's Association (IDA) has long described stable access to agricultural labor as economically important to dairy operations and advocates immigration-policy changes including legal status for existing agricultural workers, year-round worker visas and federal responsibility for employment-status verification. In 2018, ID…
Read note and sources →Connection research · 2026-09-16
Recorded status: VERIFIED CANDIDATE-SET OVERLAP: official 2023 Idaho GOP resolution plus 2026 DPI spending and IDI-PAC endorsement records. Reason for later support and any coordinated strategy remain unproved.
A retrospective candidate-set comparison finds a non-random-looking overlap that merits issue-by-issue follow-up but does not itself prove common strategy. In June 2023, the Idaho Republican State Central Committee formally passed Resolution 2023-43 issuing a vote of no confidence to Gov. Brad Little and fourteen Republican House members over their votes against overriding Little's veto of HB 314. The resolution expressly said those lawmakers had voted in …
Read note and sources →Connection research · 2026-09-16
Recorded status: PRIMARY FEC VERIFIED comparator: Fight for Nebraska reported WFF $100K cash + $12,522 in-kind polling in March 2026. This supports the plausibility of the Way Back $75K research-services reconstruction but does not replace the missing raw Way Back row.
A primary FEC filing provides a useful behavioral comparator for the reconstructed Way Back→Western Futures Fund $75,000 in-kind research-services transaction. Fight for Nebraska PAC's Apr. 15, 2026 Q1 Form 3X reports Western Futures Fund twice in the same filing: a $100,000 cash contribution on March 18 and a $12,522 'In-kind - Polling' receipt dated March 3. The filing also reports a corresponding $12,522 Western Futures Fund Schedule B entry for 'In-kin…
Read note and sources →Connection research · 2026-09-16
Recorded status: VERIFIED: IACI operates IPF; 2026 snapshot shows IDI-PAC→IPF $15K and IPF→GS Strategy $14.6K; IDA verifies IPF membership; Jones presented at IACI in 2025. Coordination/control beyond these links not established.
The IACI/dairy overlay can now be tightened with direct organizational and campaign-finance evidence. IACI's current site identifies the Idaho Prosperity Fund (IPF) as its election PAC and says the IPF board decides which state/local candidates and statewide issues to support; IACI's staff page says vice president John Eaton oversees all aspects of IPF. A Transparency USA snapshot explicitly labeled for Idaho's 2026 election cycle reports IPF at $320,210 i…
Read note and sources →Research finding · 2026-09-16
Recorded status: HIGH-CONFIDENCE FILING RECONSTRUCTION: Q2 exact counts/totals prove Way Back’s $160K GTW payee is non-federal, excluding federal C00915595. Earlier $75K likewise reconciles as non-federal. Treat these as South Dakota/state GTW pending raw address/state-row confirmation.
Way Back PAC's June 4–30, 2026 Q2 filing materially resolves the same-name Government That Works identity problem preserved in sequence 528. The filing reports exactly one $750,000 'Contribution to Committee - Non-Contribution Account' transaction and eight 'Contribution to Non-Federal Committee - Non-Contribution Account' transactions totaling $605,000. Its payee table reconciles exactly: Montana Freedom PAC is the sole $750,000 federal-committee payment;…
Read note and sources →Connection research · 2026-09-16
Recorded status: IRS/primary records verify 1630→CaPA EF $1.05M, CaPA EF→CaPA $8.169M, and CaPA→1630 $1M in FY2024. Reciprocal organizational grants are documented; same-dollar tracing and Idaho earmarking are not established.
The Clean and Prosperous America branch shows a reciprocal organizational grant relationship with Sixteen Thirty Fund in FY2024, without proving that the same dollars moved back and forth. Sixteen Thirty's primary FY2024 Schedule I reports $1.05M to Clean and Prosperous America Education Fund (CaPA EF). CaPA EF's FY2024 filing reports an $8.169M general-support grant to Clean and Prosperous America (CaPA). CaPA's FY2024 Schedule I then reports two separate…
Read note and sources →Connection research · 2026-09-15
Recorded status: Verified grant portfolio and personnel relationship; no grant earmarking to Idaho Solutions or Idaho election activity established.
Mormon Women for Ethical Government Foundation's FY2024 IRS-derived grant records identify at least $608,000 from eight institutional funders, including Public Private Strategies Institute $225,000, Defending Democracy Together Institute $150,000, Unite America Institute $85,000, Western Conservation Foundation $80,000, New Venture Fund $30,000, American Gift Fund $20,000, Raymond James Charitable Endowment Fund $10,000, and PayPal Charitable Giving Fund a…
Read note and sources →Connection research · 2026-09-15
Recorded status: Verified organization-to-organization grant chain; same-dollar tracing, earmarking and centralized control explicitly unproved.
A new multi-hop organizational funding chain reaches several Idaho advocacy/electoral nodes through Global Impact structures. IRS-derived data show Hopewell Fund gave Global Impact (501(c)(3), EIN 52-1273585) $19.5 million across four grants from 2020-2024. Global Impact in turn granted Global Impact Social Welfare Foundation/Fund (501(c)(4), EIN 92-0652730) at least $22.3 million across 2022-2023; newer IRS-derived data including FY2024 put Global Impact’…
Read note and sources →Research finding · 2026-09-15
Recorded status: Verified organizational operating model plus multiple legal-entity funding/campaign relationships; specific Idaho strategic guidance and cross-entity earmarking remain unproved.
Unite America’s own current strategy describes a deliberately integrated investment model spanning 501(c)(3), 501(c)(4), and PAC giving. It says Unite America invests in state campaigns, national partners and infrastructure; builds political/public/ecosystem power; funds and connects partners; advises grantees on strategies/campaigns/programs; makes network connections; and provides shared messaging, polling and other infrastructure. Separate records now s…
Read note and sources →Connection research · 2026-09-15
Recorded status: PRIMARY VERIFIED from FEC Statements of Organization; exact reason/date of organizational change remains unresolved.
Way Back PAC’s federal organizational filings establish a time-bounded change in its formally reported relationship with Western Futures Fund. A Dec. 8, 2023 FEC Statement of Organization explicitly reports “NONE” on Line 6 for connected organization/affiliate/sponsor. The same filing lists Jonah Meyers as assistant treasurer/designated agent. A Jan. 14, 2026 FEC Statement of Organization instead lists Western Futures Fund on Line 6 and checks “Connected O…
Read note and sources →Research finding · 2026-09-15
Recorded status: Verified from IRS-derived grant records; donor-advised-fund underlying donors may remain undisclosed.
IRS-derived records covering 2018-2025 identify Hopewell Fund as receiving about $729.7 million across 975 grants from 396 funders. The largest identified institutional sources include Fidelity Investments Charitable Gift Fund at approximately $332.9 million, Susan Thompson Buffett Foundation about $73.8 million, Foundation to Promote Open Society about $28.3 million, Pivotal Philanthropies Foundation about $20.4 million, and Silicon Valley Community Found…
Read note and sources →Connection research · 2026-09-15
Recorded status: Grant and initiative-sponsor/qualification facts verified; use of WFF funds for a specific campaign expense is not established.
IRS-derived FY2024 grant records report a $60,000 Western Futures Fund grant to Idahoans United for Women and Families, described as General Purpose. Idaho Supreme Court records state that Idahoans United filed a statewide initiative petition with the Idaho Secretary of State, and current Idaho Secretary of State election records identify that initiative as qualified for the Nov. 3, 2026 general-election ballot. This establishes a direct WFF funding relati…
Read note and sources →Connection research · 2026-09-15
Recorded status: Board role and political giving verified. Crossline only: no Gem State Housing↔Defend and Protect coordination or shared-fund use established.
A locally based crossline now connects the housing-policy and election-PAC branches without implying organizational coordination. Idaho Capital Sun identifies Caleb Roope, president/CEO of Eagle-based The Pacific Companies, as a board member of Gem State Housing Alliance, where he publicly advocates reducing local regulatory barriers to housing development. Separate 2026 campaign-finance reporting identifies Roope as a $90,000 contributor to Defend and Pro…
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