An independent conservative running in a swing district against a Republican incumbent and a Democratic challenger means anything could happen in November.

Rep. Mike Pohanka, R-Jerome, narrowly won the 2024 general election over Democrat Ned Burns by 2.4 percentage points. Pohanka now faces a three-way race against a Democrat with a long career in education and a Christian conservative independent who believes the government has turned away from God. Pohanka is seeking a second term in District 26 House Seat A.

District 26 includes blue voters in Blaine County and red voters to the south in Jerome and Lincoln counties. But Pohanka said he considers himself colorblind. He’s said he’s a public servant who wants to help his constituents.

“I have people coming up to me saying, ‘You know what? I’m a Democrat, and I’m voting for you because you are a person that cares and you’re doing the job,'” Pohanka said.

That attitude encouraged independent Bella Schiffler to run. She interned for two lawmakers in Boise and said she learned that many politicians who call themselves conservative aren’t really conservative.

Schiffler said education has become “woke,” citing a debunked hoax about litter boxes in schools. She told EdNews that she would be in favor of taking away women’s right to vote if it helped the country move closer to God.

“America is a Christian nation, and we are founded on godly principles,” Schiffler said.

Pohanka said he hopes Schiffler will not split the conservative vote in November, which happened two years ago when her aunt, Kala Tate, ran for the Senate as an independent.

Anita Janis, chair of the Jerome County Democrats, wants to bring her experiences of teaching around the country to the Legislature. She said Idaho can learn from other states, where education funding works differently.

“I have lived in other states where there would never be a levy put together to support salaries,” Janis said.

She wants to see the Legislature fulfill its duty under the Idaho Constitution to fund public schools.

Election Day is Nov. 3. Here’s more on each candidate:

Pohanka said he’s not a politician — he’s a public servant.

When he’s not in Boise, Pohanka attends city council meetings and asks local leaders what’s on their wishlist. For the mayor of Dietrich, a rural city of about 300 residents, it was a backhoe.

After hearing that request, Pohanka contacted the Idaho Transportation Department. A week later, the state provided a free, used backhoe. Local news station KMVT covered the delivery.

It’s an honor to serve in Boise, Pohanka said, but he loves having his boots on the ground helping people in his district. 

“I do it from my heart,” Pohanka told EdNews. “I just want to make things better than I found it, and I hope the good people, the constituents here of District 26, will see the work that I’ve done and put me back up there.”

Pohanka is first-generation American. His father escaped Czechoslovakia in the late 1940s after the communists took over. Upon arriving in the U.S., his father studied plant genetics at Penn State, then worked for a seed company and ended up in Twin Falls.

“I’m every day so grateful that he risked his life to give me freedom,” Pohanka said. “I don’t take that for granted. I do everything I can to serve the people.”

Pohanka serves as a chaplain for the Idaho State Police, Jerome County Sheriff’s Office and Jerome City Police Department. He’s on call day and night to make death notifications to families who have lost loved ones in vehicle crashes.

That experience prompted him to sponsor a bill this year that made driving 20 mph over the speed limit count as reckless driving while in active construction zones and school zones. A hearing on the bill came shortly after three drivers hit three students walking to school in Caldwell School District crosswalks.

“I’ve made more death notifications than I care to do,” Pohanka said. “I don’t like doing them. It’s horrible for the family. And, I thought, if this is a way that I’m not going to have to knock on as many doors, I’m going to do what I can to get this through.”

On education funding, Pohanka voted against the $50 million Parental Choice Tax Credit last year.

He said parents should make decisions on their kids’ education, but when taxpayer dollars are involved there should be accountability. He said House Bill 93 fell short on that mark.

“I didn’t want to take money from public schools,” Pohanka said. “It moves money but asks little in return with really no meaningful reporting to taxpayers footing the bill.”

Pohanka said he hopes Schiffler does not pull conservative voters away from his campaign.

“I’m hoping the good constituents at District 26 have seen how I have worked for them and will re-elect me,” he said.

After a long career in education, Janis wants to bring her experiences from different states to the Idaho Legislature.

She has taught in Wisconsin, Illinois, Oregon and California and was the dean of Washington’s Wenatchee Valley College before moving to Idaho in 2019.

“Others need to understand what those states are doing,” Janis said.

School funding, she said, works differently in Idaho. Districts in other states she’s lived in would never have to put a levy on the ballot to support teacher salaries, which is common in Idaho.

Janis said Idaho’s public schools have not been getting their fair share of funding, as prescribed in the Idaho Constitution, which requires the Legislature to “establish and maintain a general, uniform and thorough system of public free common schools.”

She said the state has failed to support construction, maintenance and repairs to school buildings and has forced more of the burden of funding education onto local property taxes. The combination of high property taxes and supplemental levies, she said, is like a double whammy.

“So it keeps increasing, and our property taxes keep increasing,” Janis said. “So how else can we help fund this? The state has a pretty healthy rainy day fund, and that could help offset some of this need to go out for levies for salaries.”

If elected, she said she would try to influence the Legislature to make school funding decisions based on the Idaho Constitution. She also strongly opposes the $50 million Parental Choice Tax Credit, which, she said, takes money from public schools.

“Keeping the same people in the same spots and doing the same thing over time doesn’t make change,” Janis said. “I believe we’re ready for change, and I believe I can be one of those people to help implement change.”

Throughout her career, Janis helped improve career and technical education, which she would like to continue as a representative.

She said she helped develop a program to train workers in Oregon on how to use pivot irrigation systems. As dean of the community college, she supported programs to train workers in the cherry and apple production industries.

As food production in Idaho evolves, Janis said employers need to keep on top of it, and employees need to constantly be trained.

“Employers, as they locate in a given area, often make that decision based on the capacity or capability of the training and education available in that area,” she said.

Looking to the November election, Janis said she thinks the state and District 26 have the potential to shift significantly. She said she’s heard from Republicans who are “downright upset” with the Legislature.

“The folks that have been at the helm have turned the wheel the wrong way, and we need to go back the other direction and try to balance things out and make it sensible and reasonable and supportive of the people in our state,” she said.

Schiffler believes the government is corrupt and has turned away from God.

As an intern at the Idaho Legislature for three years — for Rep. Heather Scott, R-Blanchard, and Sen. Glenneda Zuiderveld, R-Twin Falls — she said she saw that corruption firsthand. Legislators will say one thing, then vote differently.

“That’s very common,” Schiffler said. “It’s called being a politician. Most politicians do that, but in my family, we say politician is a cuss word because we believe in patriots.”

Schiffler, who lives in a worship barn, has an online degree in Christian leadership and political science from Bradford Christian College. She said “woke education” is one of the biggest issues in Idaho.

When asked to clarify, Schiffler’s first example was a debunked hoax that schools have litter boxes for students who want to be cats. She said she heard about it from a constituent.

“Kids were like, ‘Oh, we can be cats if we want,'” Schiffler said. “So like, woke ideology is absolutely demonic. It’s hellacious, and it’s just anti-God in every single way.”

She added that woke ideology teaches kids that “transgenderism” is OK and that boys can turn into girls and girls can turn into boys.

“Our children need to be protected from absolutely insane, ludicrous information that we can be boys when we’re actually girls,” Schiffler said. “That’s what I mean by woke.”

Schiffler said she opposes the $50 million Parental Choice Tax Credit. She doesn’t think the government should give homeschool parents money because it comes with strings attached.

“If we’re going to have funds into our education system on the state level, then it should just be in the public school,” Schiffler said.

She added that she doesn’t think taxpayers without kids in public schools should have to pay taxes that support public schools. 

“If your kid is in public school, then OK, then your tax dollars can pay for your kid to be in public school,” Schiffler said. “But if they’re not, then I don’t think you should have to pay that.”

When asked about Christian nationalism, she said it’s a funny term that gets “slapped” on people like it’s a bad thing.

“If someone’s going to slap that title on me, I’m gonna be like, ‘Oh yeah, sure, I’m a Christian nationalist because I am a Christian who loves my nation, and I’m a Christian who knows our godly roots,'” Schiffler said. “America was founded on God.”

When asked if women should have the right to vote, she said there are so many “raging radical feminists” that she does not align with, and a lot of women have become overthrown with the “demonic spirit of feminism” and think it’s OK to abort babies. Repealing the 19th Amendment, she said, would bring the nation closer to God.

“Would I be willing to do that for this nation to come back to God?” Schiffler said. “Yeah, I actually would, which is kind of a radical answer because I’m a woman. I’m a woman running for office.”

Schiffler’s aunt ‘stole votes’ in 2024

Schiffler is part of a “freedom fighting family.” Her grandmother and aunt ran for the Legislature two years ago, and her cousin, Shaila Tate, is running as an independent for the Senate this year.

Kala Tate, Shaila’s mother, ran for Senate in 2024 and received 10.5% of the vote. Democrat Ron Taylor won the race with a 1.7-point margin over Republican Laurie Lickley.

After the election, Kala Tate told the Twin Falls Times-News that she “stole several thousand votes” from Lickley, whom she called a “very powerful politician,” to keep her out of the Legislature.

“That was ultimately all we were supposed to do and it worked, so praise God,” Kala Tate told the Times-News.

When EdNews asked Schiffler if she thinks the same thing could happen this year, she said it’s “definitely a possibility.” But she believes that if no one takes a stand there won’t be a way to fix the corruption and turn the government around.

“I don’t want a Democrat to get office, but I’m doing what the Lord told me to do, and I’m standing up for truth,” she said, adding that Democrats support killing babies.