Governors hate to telegraph vetoes.

They’d sooner share their PIN.

But Gov. Brad Little performed a twist on this familiar strategy. He telegraphed his intention to sign a bill he didn’t like.

So, nothing if not predictable, Little quietly signed a bill at 5:30 p.m. Monday, cutting this year’s budget even deeper than he wanted to.

To put it mildly, Little deferred to the Legislature.

To put it more accurately, he acquiesced to the Legislature.

Again. As he has done repeatedly.

If there’s any question about who’s running the show around the Statehouse these days, Little let everybody know.

It would be surprising, again, if Little hadn’t telegraphed it.

Almost a month earlier, with the budget cuts working their way through the Legislature, Little sounded like a concerned but powerless bystander.

“They’re the legislative branch,” Little told Statehouse reporters at a Feb. 17 Idaho Press Club Q&A. “They get to set the budget.”

This year, the legislative branch is getting to set the budget largely on its own. The bill Little signed Monday is evidence of that.

The 2026 Idaho Rescissions Act cuts $131.3 million from Idaho’s general fund for this budget year, which ends June 30. In fairness, most of these cuts were Little’s idea; the bill incorporates the 3% reductions he made in August. But the bill goes further, with $15.3 million in additional cuts sought by, and secured by, the Legislature’s budget hawks.

This $15.3 million isn’t a huge chunk of a $5.6 billion general fund budget.

But far smaller is what Little claimed to win in this showdown with legislative budget-writers of his own political party.

After Little signed the cuts into law, his staff pointed to several budget items legislators restored. That includes $957,000 for career-technical education programs in rural Idaho — money that comes from a dedicated fund, not the general fund budget supported by sales and income tax collections.

Tallying up the spending add-ons, Little’s staff says the Legislature actually wound up cutting only $14.5 million from this year’s general fund budget.

In other words, the Legislature got nearly everything it wanted.

Which makes Little’s prepared statement Tuesday ring hollow. “I appreciate my partners in the Legislature for working closely with my office to right-size state government to match taxpayers’ means while minimizing the impact of spending reductions.”

Describing the relationship between Little and lawmakers as a partnership seems a stretch.

Add this signature to a growing pattern:

• Little began the 2025 legislative session earmarking $100 million for tax cuts and $50 million for private school choice. Legislators crashed through the door and approved $453 million in tax cuts and tax credits. After at first questioning whether Idaho could afford this magnitude of a tax holiday, Little signed everything into law — setting the stage for the budget crunch that has consumed the 2026 session.
• Little opened this 2026 session staring down another spicy meatball of tax policy: what to do about all the cuts in President Donald Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill. Politically, there was no way Little was ever going to say no to tax cuts engineered by a president who had already endorsed him. The only question was timing. Little wanted to hold off until the start of the next budget year to carve out some breathing room. Legislators wanted to put the tax cuts in place immediately — at a roughly estimated cost of $155 million, this budget year. Little went along, deferring to the Legislature, again, on a multimillion-dollar tax gamble.

Here’s where things appear to be headed now.

Next year’s budget bills include additional spending cuts, above and beyond the 3% proposed by Little. Legislators want to take an additional 2% off the top. The difference is $31 million. The Legislature and Little have agreed to leave K-12 off the chopping block (and the Legislature also exempted Medicaid, prisons and Idaho State Police), but that means Idaho’s two- and four-year colleges will take a disproportionate share of the hit.

On top of that, the Legislature took $10 million from next year’s fund for Idaho Launch, Little’s coveted postsecondary aid program. Little didn’t ask for this. But the Legislature put the Launch downsizing into Senate Bill 1332, an omnibus fund transfer bill, and Little signed the bill into law Tuesday.

Will this affect students? Wendi Secrist, the head of Little’s Workforce Development Council, has said the $10 million could cover aid for 1,250 high school grads, or more. But on Wednesday, Little’s staff painted it differently.

“The governor believes this one-time transfer will not affect this year’s Launch awards based on how applications are trending at this point in time,” spokeswoman Emily Callihan said. “The Workforce Development Council and governor’s office expect available funding to meet projected needs for Launch for the class of 2026.”

It is by now well-known that Little is reluctant to veto bills. In 2025, he used his veto stamp just twice. It’s worth noting, though, that one of Little’s 2025 vetoes cut a line item from a fund transfer bill — similar to SB 1332, the transfer bill he signed in full Tuesday.

It’s not that vetoes from Little are unheard of. They are just very uncommon. And it creates a Statehouse climate where the Legislature often gets the final word.

Even when Little appears to be a prohibitive favorite for re-election. And even when he has the political capital, and the votes, to assert his authority in the Statehouse.

SB 1331, the rescissions act, seemed like one such opportunity.

The bill did pass the House with two-thirds vetoproof support. But not with much enthusiasm. In perhaps the quote of the 2026 session, House Majority Leader Jason Monks didn’t exactly offer an impassioned appeal. “It’s a crappy bill that we have to vote on,” said Monks, R-Meridian, before casting one of the House’s 48 votes for the rescissions.

However, the Senate passed the bill by a razor-thin 18-17 majority, suggesting Little had plenty of votes to sustain a veto.

Of course, we’ll never know.

Because Little signed on.

Basically like he said he would, weeks ago.

Kevin Richert writes a weekly analysis on education policy and education politics. Look for his stories each Thursday.