Are You a Platform Republican?
Take the quiz and find out
By Brian Almon
In Idaho, we talk a lot about the Republican Platform. We use it as a litmus test to determine who is truly living up to conservative Republican principles. Yet how many of us know what it really says?
Legislators are called upon to vote on hundreds of bills every year, often with little time for deep analysis before they come to the floor. Yet it is in voting that their stated principles meet reality. The proof in the pudding is in the eating, and the proof for our lawmakers is in the voting.
The Institute for Legislative Analysis (ILA) evaluated 42 bills from the 2024 session — about 10% of the total — based on the Idaho GOP Platform. Four legislators earned perfect scores, many had good scores, but a majority fell below 60%.
Now’s your chance to find out. I’ve created a quiz on the Gem State Chronicle featuring all 42 bills from the ILA analysis. You can take the quiz right now. Read the bill titles, review the text from each Statement of Purpose, and decide how you would vote.
I believe this will be an incredibly valuable tool for voters to better understand both the bills their legislators considered this year as well as what the Idaho GOP Platform has to say. You’ll also quickly notice that the ILA’s analysis is subjective in some cases. You might read the Platform and come away with a different perspective than what is presented in their analysis.
I did my best to remove any bias I might have from the quiz. The bill text comes from the Legislature’s website and the explanations for how each bill reflects the platform comes from the ILA. My only editorial decisions were in the thumbnails I chose for each bill.
I became quite familiar with these 42 bills while putting together this quiz. I even took it myself, voting based on my own understanding of the bills, and didn’t score 100%. Take the quiz and see where you land. Share your results on social media or in the comments section. I hope this exercise gives you a new appreciation for the challenges our legislators face in making laws on our behalf and better equips you to hold them accountable to their principles and promises.
I plan to make additional quizzes for the other scorecards in Idaho, so stay tuned for those! If you’re not subscribed then now would be a great time to start!
From gemstate.substack.com