Jim Woodward will seek re-election to the Idaho Senate

By Zach Hagadone
Reader Staff

Dist. 1 Sen. Jim Woodward, R-Sagle, has officially announced his campaign for re-election to the Idaho Legislature, tossing his hat in the ring for the Tuesday, May 19 Republican primary.

Woodward is in his third non-consecutive term representing Idaho’s Legislative Dist. 1 in the Senate, where he served two terms from 2018-’22 before being unseated by Scott Herndon from 2022-’24. Woodward returned to defeat Herndon in the 2024 primary.

The district encompasses all of Boundary County and most of Bonner County — an area in which Woodward has spent the majority of life, other than time spent away at the University of Idaho and service in the Navy, from which he retired as a commander after 21 years.

Throughout his time in the Idaho Senate, Woodward has served on the powerful Joint Finance-Appropriations Committee — which sets state budgets — including as a co-chair. He currently sits on the Senate Education Committee as well, and previously spent two years on the Senate Transportation Committee. He is also the Senate member on the Endowment Fund Investment Board, and has served on multiple interim committees, including most recently as co-chair of the 2025 Land Use and Housing Study Committee.

The owner of a small excavation and marine construction business for more than 20 years, Woodward volunteers his time and equipment to various nonprofit activities and projects. He has also served 12 years on the Northern Lights Electric Co-op Board and represents Northern Lights with the statewide electric utility association. 

In an interview with the Reader, Woodward said his top priorities in another term would be increasing the homeowner’s exemption to improve housing affordability; investing in transportation to accommodate rapid growth in the state; and ensuring adequate public safety, beginning with supporting the Idaho State Police.

In the meantime, he is focused on his work with JFAC, which he said faces structural challenges on top of navigating an especially complex budget picture during the current session and most likely the 2027 session, as well.

“Part of what I see we need to do now is get back to our budgeting process that we used for nearly five decades,” Woodward said, referring to what he called “politically motivated decisions” in the 2024 session to break separate funding packages into “maintenance budgets” and “enhancements,” rather than by state departments or divisions.

“Really the motivation there was that somebody could vote for the maintenance budget and say, ‘I’m supporting schools,’ or, ‘I’m supporting the ISP,’ then turn around and vote ‘no’ on the enhancement budget, which is really where the decision is made,” he said, describing that dynamic as providing “political cover” for lawmakers to both vote for and against budgets. 

Aside from reforming the Idaho budget process, Woodward said increasing the homeowner’s exemption is “No. 1 on my list.”

The exemption was last raised in 2019-’20, when it went from $100,000 to $125,000. However, Woodward said the intent dating to the exemption’s origin as a citizens’ initiative in 1982 was to keep 50% of property owners’ home value tax-free. However, the Legislature stopped indexing the exemption even as median home prices have surged.

He said he’s been working with partners in the House to propose legislation to address the issue; however, the deregulation of short-term rentals and proliferation of residential properties owned by institutional investors poses its own affordability challenges. Woodward said he’s also co-sponsoring a bill in the Senate that would serve as “a contrast” to House Bill 583, which recently passed through the House and removes almost all the powers of municipalities to regulate STRs as a special category of property use.

“The hope is to force everyone back to the table,” he said of Senate Bill 1263, noting that he helped to kill a bill similar to H.B. 583 in the 2025 session because “it was too much.”

“I believe in local control,” he said, later adding, “There are a number of legislators who think they have the best answer for you, even if they don’t know you. I don’t support that kind of centralized control. I want to make my own decisions, as I imagine you do, too.”

To learn more, visit woodwardforsenate.org.