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 · 2026-09-17
Recorded status: Verified funding concentration; additional $10,000 MVVA transaction date unresolved; control and coordination unproven
Idaho Sunshine committee profiles show unusually concentrated funding for two Hometown-linked downstream PACs. Idaho First reported $181,000 in contributions, supplied entirely by four PAC/network sources: Way Back PAC $100,000 (55.2%), Hometown Heroes $45,000 (24.9%), Right 2 Learn $30,000 (16.6%), and Take Back Idaho PAC $6,000 (3.3%). Magic Valley Voter Action reported $126,700 in contributions, of which Hometown Heroes supplied $112,000 (88.4%); the ba…
Read note and sources →Connection research · 2026-09-17
Recorded status: verified same-date network and targeting pattern; dollar-level allocation unproven
Hometown Heroes transferred $65,000 to Defend and Protect Idaho in two contributions: $45,000 on 2026-05-13 and $20,000 on 2026-05-15. Defend's independent-expenditure ledger reports $110,000 in Redbird Strategies broadcast expenditures on May 13 and $98,725 on May 15—$208,725 across the exact two transfer dates. May 13 opposition spending targeted Daniel Foreman ($26,671), Josh Keyser ($19,483.75), Christy Zito ($19,483.75), Julianne Young ($14,255), Barb…
Read note and sources →Connection research · 2026-09-17
Recorded status: SOURCE-RESTORED RECOVERY ITEM. URLs and source-specific support statements restored from corrected v2 snapshot. Evidentiary firewall preserved; dynamic aggregates and secondary reports still require ordinary publication-stage verification.
Six Ada County Republican Central Committee officers resigned in October 2023: Victor Miller, Megan Reichle, Travis Clyde, Barrett Tetlow, Dave Litster, and Kim Wickstrum. The resignation statement described a dispute with state-party direction and candidate-support constraints. Several of those names later appear in IMC leadership/donor records.
Evidence firewall: Supports a documented internal-party governance dispute, not an inference of deceptive inte…
Read note and sources →Connection research · 2026-09-17
Recorded status: Primary-record operational identifiers verified; person-name equivalence, legal entity and Redbird links unresolved
New primary evidence: KSNQ contract packet 6601147 page 5 lists agency COMMERCIAL SPACE EXPERTS TX, buyer KRISTIN HULSEN, advertiser DEFEND AND PROTECT IDAHO PAC, and Katz Radio representative Brenda Deaton. The associated issue-ad form on page 3 lists contact K. Black. Invoice 6601147-1 page 1 bills Commercial Space Experts, Attention: Meenah Hulsen. All use the same Austin business billing address already seen on the KIVI form. These records establish sp…
Read note and sources →Connection research · 2026-09-16
Recorded status: PRIMARY + SELF-BIO VERIFIED: Contours president Sarah Stremlau previously led Arabella fiscal sponsorship. This establishes personnel/operational continuity, not current Arabella control, funding or coordination.
Contours' own Sept. 4, 2025 IRS information-request response identifies Sarah Stremlau as President and states Contours was formed Dec. 27, 2024. In that same sworn response, Contours reported approximately $6.058M total 2025 year-to-date expenditures, including $700,000 in grants to two Section 527 political organizations, $49,990 in political-campaign research/polling and $25,600 in candidate recruitment; it said it had no employees and that independent …
Read note and sources →Connection research · 2026-09-16
Recorded status: Verified prior Arabella Managed Organizations work plus current Blue Moon/WFF, Contours and Way Back roles. Current Arabella control or ultimate decision authority remains unproved.
The operational cross-role around Jonah Meyers can now be extended backward with higher-quality evidence. The University of Maryland School of Public Policy reported in 2019 that Meyers (MPP 2016) had been promoted to Associate Director, Managed Organizations at Arabella Advisors. An Arabella Advisors fiscal-sponsorship white paper also lists Jonah Meyers among Arabella contributors, independently establishing his work inside Arabella's nonprofit-managemen…
Read note and sources →Connection research · 2026-09-16
Recorded status: STRONG CROSS-NETWORK POLICY SORTING: independent-expenditure records and contemporaneous reporting document opposite PAC support on the same HB93 fault line. No common coordination or motive is inferred.
The 2026 school-choice fights provide unusually clean evidence that outside money was not uniformly pushing one direction; competing outside-funded networks backed opposite sides of a specific Idaho GOP-platform issue. Idaho Education News reported that Citizens Alliance PAC, an Idaho PAC funded by a $450,000 contribution from a Virginia-based Citizens Alliance super PAC, spent $135,291 by April 9 to support 15 Republican legislative candidates. Every incu…
Read note and sources →Connection research · 2026-09-16
Recorded status: STRONG POLICY/STRATEGY ALIGNMENT, NO DIRECT FUNDING FOUND: official GOP criticism and issue-level divergences are documented; Dixon/Common Ground open-primary advocacy aligns with Unite America's stated reform agenda. Funding/control remains unproved.
Chenele Dixon provides a concrete case for the new alignment audit because policy divergence, party criticism, and election-reform advocacy are all documented independently. The Idaho Republican State Central Committee's 2023 Resolution 2023-43 named Dixon in a vote of no confidence over her vote against overriding Gov. Brad Little's veto of HB 314 and said the named lawmakers had voted in conflict with the Republican platform. Dixon's 2024 campaign/public…
Read note and sources →Connection research · 2026-09-16
Recorded status: ISSUE-LEVEL PATTERN VERIFIED WITH COUNTEREVIDENCE: several IDI-PAC endorsees voted against E-Verify, while Furniss/Guthrie voted for it. Control or single-issue endorsement motive is not established.
The dairy/immigration branch now has a more concrete candidate-vote comparison. Idaho Dairymen's Association publicly opposed E-Verify legislation absent major changes/guest-worker reform and its Spring 2026 PAC materials endorsed a slate that included Ben Fuhriman, Rick Cheatum, Dan Garner, Lori McCann, Stephanie Mickelsen, Rod Furniss and Jim Guthrie. On the House vote for SB 1247, an Idaho E-Verify Act, Fuhriman, Cheatum, Garner, McCann and Mickelsen vo…
Read note and sources →Connection research · 2026-09-16
Recorded status: Primary House disclosure verifies consulting for Sixteen Thirty, New Venture and WFF; FEC-derived records verify later Way Back candidate support. Causation/control not established.
A primary U.S. House financial disclosure provides a concrete example of personnel overlap across the same national funding architecture now being traced into Idaho. Nebraska congressional candidate Denise Powell's Aug. 13, 2025 candidate financial disclosure lists compensation in excess of $5,000 from each of Sixteen Thirty Fund, New Venture Fund and Western Futures Fund for consulting, along with multiple Nebraska advocacy/campaign clients. The disclosur…
Read note and sources →Connection research · 2026-09-16
Recorded status: PRIMARY IRS VERIFIED: Sixteen Thirty's FY2024 general grant-monitoring procedure, $2.75M WFF grant and Arabella administrative-services role are documented. Specific WFF grant terms and downstream Idaho direction remain unresolved.
Sixteen Thirty Fund's FY2024 Form 990 materially clarifies the upstream Sixteen Thirty→Western Futures relationship. Schedule I says Sixteen Thirty generally requires a written grant application stating the proposed use of funds, reviews and evaluates the application before issuing a grant, and requires interim and final reporting to confirm funds were used for the specified purpose. The same 2024 filing reports a $2,750,000 grant to Western Futures Fund f…
Read note and sources →Connection research · 2026-09-16
Recorded status: IRS/Schedule I VERIFIED: Article IV→Votes Idaho $75K across 2022–23; Article IV→Idahoans for Open Primaries $2.22M in 2024; Article IV→Conservative Accountability Project $25K in 2024. Control, coordination and upstream earmarking not established.
Article IV's reported Schedule I grant history adds a previously unrecorded direct Idaho lane. Its filings report two $37,500 general-support grants to Votes Idaho Company in 2022 and 2023 ($75,000 total), followed in 2024 by $2,220,000 to Idahoans for Open Primaries and $25,000 to Boise-based Conservative Accountability Project. An IRS-derived complete Article IV grant aggregation for 2021–2024 identifies these three Boise recipients as its Idaho portfoli…
Read note and sources →Connection research · 2026-09-16
Recorded status: Primary subsets + current reporting verified. Later Contours→WFF increment, full Way Back Montana allocation and common-control questions remain unresolved; no same-dollar tracing or centralized command established.
Current 2026 reporting and primary records extend the Contours→Western Futures→Way Back architecture beyond Idaho into a multistate political-support network, while still falling short of proving common legal control. Inside Elections' August 2026 investigation, based on tax and FEC records, reports that super PAC efforts supporting independent Montana Senate candidate Seth Bodnar received aggregate funding across the relevant PACs from Contours ($2.6M), W…
Read note and sources →Connection research · 2026-09-16
Recorded status: Official APOC verifies Nunnelly and Dupré each gave Unite America $125K in 2024; current reporting documents Carroll's large Unite America giving and Unite America's Idaho role. Idaho earmarking or donor control is not established.
A donor-level crossline around Unite America can now be documented without relying on the unresolved 'Toolbox' identity claim. An official Alaska Public Offices Commission disclosure filed June 10, 2026 by Unite America PAC identifies Mark Nunnelly and Denise Dupré as direct true-source donors of $125,000 each on June 25, 2024. The same filing provides a long donor list supporting Unite America's Alaska spending. Separately, current Montana reporting based…
Read note and sources →Connection research · 2026-09-16
Recorded status: CANDIDATE SUPPORT + COMMITTEE AUTHORITY + BILL OUTCOMES VERIFIED. Industry direction or quid pro quo is not established; Guthrie's immigration record is mixed.
Sen. Jim Guthrie is now a strong case study for the new alignment audit because candidate support, industry interest, platform policy and institutional authority all intersect in one race. Idaho Education News reported that Idaho Prosperity Fund spent $72,392 supporting Guthrie in the 2026 District 28 Republican primary; Idaho Liberty PAC spent another $72,771 supporting him, while Defend and Protect Idaho and other PACs also backed him. Idaho Capital Sun …
Read note and sources →Connection research · 2026-09-16
Recorded status: IRS/campaign-finance/reporting crossline verified at organization and role level; same-person CAP↔Idaho Liberty↔GS identity strongly corroborated but underlying Idaho registrations should still be captured directly. No Article IV→Idaho Liberty money flow or coordination established.
A new crossline connects Article IV's Idaho grantmaking to the previously tracked Little/Idaho Victory/Idaho Liberty political network through personnel rather than a proven money transfer between the two systems. Conservative Accountability Project Inc. (CAP), Boise, reports Robert Jones as president, Billie Jean Siddoway as treasurer and Guy Hurlbutt as secretary. Article IV reported a $25,000 general-support grant to CAP in FY2024; CAP reported $38,000 …
Read note and sources →Connection research · 2026-09-16
Recorded status: STRONG ISSUE-LEVEL ALIGNMENT FINDING: dairy economic interest, major PAC support, Guthrie committee action, and GOP E-Verify/school-choice positions are independently documented. Donor causation, coordination and quid pro quo are not established.
A retrospective alignment audit of Sen. Jim Guthrie identifies a concrete policy-interest convergence without proving quid pro quo. Idaho Dairymen's Association states that about 90% of on-dairy jobs are filled by foreign-born labor and its member-approved immigration policy supports legal status for existing agricultural workers, year-round agricultural visa access, and government—not employers—bearing ultimate status-verification responsibility. In a Feb…
Read note and sources →Connection research · 2026-09-16
Recorded status: Official/current records verify Kreizenbeck's SEP Idaho policy role, Judicial Council membership and 2024 GOP precinct election. Little appointment is contemporaneously reported; no cross-role coordination or funder influence established.
Jason B. Kreizenbeck, identified by Secure Elections Project as its Idaho Legislative & Policy Team member through Lobby Idaho, also occupies multiple formal Idaho political/institutional roles. The Idaho Judicial Council's official bio says Kreizenbeck was appointed to the Council on July 1, 2023. The Council states that its non-attorney public members are appointed by the Governor and subject to Senate approval; current state records list Kreizenbeck as …
Read note and sources →Connection research · 2026-09-16
Recorded status: TARGET/FUNDING OVERLAP VERIFIED; shared Robert Jones identity is strongly corroborated but still needs direct primary closure. No Article IV→Liberty flow or coordination established.
A new retrospective crossline links two legally separate Idaho political-influence lanes at the level of targets and leadership names. Article IV's FY2024 grant records show a $25,000 general-support grant to Boise-based Conservative Accountability Project (CAP). CAP's FY2024 filing reports only $38,000 in total revenue and identifies Robert Jones as president. CAP's own issue-advocacy pages attack Brian Lenney, Tammy Nichols, Glenneda Zuiderveld and Dan F…
Read note and sources →Connection research · 2026-09-16
Recorded status: PRIMARY/OFFICIAL + CAMPAIGN-FINANCE REPORTING VERIFIED cross-cycle candidate-selection pattern. Directional motive (e.g. shifting GOP policy left/right) remains unproved and must be tested using candidate records and donor/recipient strategy evidence.
Applying the new influence/use methodology reveals a concrete cross-cycle pattern around Way Back PAC that should be tested further rather than treated as ideological proof. In 2024, campaign-finance reporting based on Idaho Secretary of State records identified Way Back PAC as a $250,000 donor to Idahoans for Open Primaries. Idaho's official ballot summary states Proposition 1 would have abolished party primaries, replaced them with a single top-four prim…
Read note and sources →Connection research · 2026-09-16
Recorded status: Primary/IRS and current organizational records verify 1630/WFF funding and Kreizenbeck's Idaho legislative-policy role. Idaho bill-specific activity and grant-to-lobbyist dollar tracing remain unresolved.
The Secure Elections Project creates a direct national-funding-to-Idaho-policy personnel route. Sixteen Thirty Fund's primary Schedule I filings report grants to Secure Elections Project of $2.03M in 2022, $75,000 in 2023 and $100,000 in 2024, totaling $2.205M across those three years. Secure Elections Project's FY2024 recipient filing separately reports $100,000 from Sixteen Thirty Fund and $50,000 from Western Futures Fund among its disclosed FY2024 fund…
Read note and sources →Connection research · 2026-09-16
Recorded status: CORRECTED: Federal C00915595 has verified Contours/1630/WFF funding and Blue Moon payments. Way Back's $75K same-name payee is NOT yet linked to C00915595 because a separate South Dakota GTW PAC exists and previously received Way Back money.
Government That Works PAC (federal FEC committee C00915595, Washington, DC) is independently a significant shared recipient/professional-services node across organizations already central to the Western Futures/Way Back investigation. Its 2025 FEC filing reports Contours receipts of $650,000 on Aug. 19, $250,000 on Oct. 29 and $2,000,000 on Dec. 23 ($2.9M total); $15,000 from Western Futures Fund on Oct. 3; $300,000 from America Votes on Oct. 24; Global Im…
Read note and sources →Connection research · 2026-09-16
Recorded status: STRONG CONCENTRATED-BENEFIT AUDIT CASE: IACI member ties, lobbying, tax benefits and explicit tax-shift concerns are documented. Corruption or sole causation is not established.
The data-center policy fight is a strong example of the IdahoCabal concentrated-benefit audit because IACI's member representation, lobbying position, tax policy and cost-shift mechanism can be identified directly. IACI's current board includes a Meta public-policy manager and Micron's director of U.S. government affairs. Idaho's data-center incentive exempts qualifying facilities from sales/use tax on eligible equipment and construction materials if they …
Read note and sources →Connection research · 2026-09-16
Recorded status: PRIMARY/CONTEMPORANEOUS SOURCES verify IACI policy advocacy + IPF election role + GS Strategy financial/research crossline. Candidate-selection causation or improper coordination not established.
The alignment audit now shows a concrete institutional integration inside IACI rather than merely parallel business lobbying and election spending. IACI's own materials say the Idaho Prosperity Fund (IPF) was created to fulfill IACI's campaign/election-engagement mission and that the IPF board selects candidates for independent-expenditure support. IACI testimonials say members use the association to coordinate advocacy when legislative or regulatory solut…
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