A federal judge could soon rule on whether Idaho’s Blaine Amendment infringes on religious freedoms protected by the U.S. Constitution. 

Truth Family Bible Church, a Baptist congregation in Canyon County, last year sued the Idaho Housing and Finance Association (IHFA) and Sage International, a public charter school with campuses in Boise and Middleton, after the school cancelled the church’s lease to rent a gymnasium for Sunday services. 

IHFA lawyers at the time told Sage International that it would likely need to cancel the lease to comply with the Blaine Amendment — a longstanding provision in Idaho’s constitution that prohibits religious organizations from receiving taxpayer resources. Sage International had applied for publicly funded bonds to finance facilities upgrades.  

In recent months, attorneys on both sides of the lawsuit have requested summary judgements, asking a judge to rule on their constitutional arguments. Chief U.S. District Judge David C. Nye scheduled a hearing on the summary judgement motions for July 29.  

Truth Family’s attorney has argued that canceling the church’s lease violated its religious liberties and free speech rights, and that Idaho’s Blaine Amendment, on its face, violates the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. 

“This case is important because it exposes a real problem with the way outdated constitutional provisions with a checkered history are still being used to treat religious people and churches unfairly and in conflict with the First Amendment,” Katherine Hartley, a North Idaho attorney with the Pacific Justice Institute who’s representing Truth Family, told Idaho Education News. 

The case could have broader implications for Idaho’s ongoing debate over taxpayer funding for religious education. Critics of the state’s new Parental Choice Tax Credit, for instance, have threatened a lawsuit to block the new program, citing the Blaine Amendment’s prohibition on public aid for religious education.

Church argues First Amendment rights were infringed

Both sides of the lawsuit agree on the essential facts of the case: Last year, Sage International canceled its lease with Truth Family Bible Church, which was renting a gym on the charter school’s Middleton campus for worship services.

At the time, Sage International was applying for about $15 million in bonds to finance facilities upgrades. During a review of Sage International’s contracts, IHFA, the state’s bonding authority, flagged the Truth Family lease as a potential problem. A previous Idaho court ruling found that the Blaine Amendment does not allow taxpayer-funded bonds to be used for religious purposes. 

Sage International canceled its contract with Truth Family on Jan. 17, 2024. The following month, Chris Yorgason, an attorney for Sage International Middleton, sent a letter to Hartley, Truth Family’s attorney, explaining that the school was following IHFA’s advice. 

Yorgason wrote that he tried to find “any analysis” of the Blaine Amendment that would “allow a charter school to keep its leases with churches in place,” according to a copy of the letter that Hartley attached to court filings earlier this year.  “I personally believe that churches and schools can be very good partners.”

Truth Family sued on April 19, 2024. The complaint alleges that the Blaine Amendment — as applied in this case and on its face — violates the Free Exercise, Establishment and Free Speech clauses of the First Amendment. 

In subsequent court filings, Hartley argued that IHFA’s application of Blaine was not neutral toward religion, and the termination of Truth Family’s lease was based on views expressed during worship services. The state constitution’s prohibition on public aid for religious organizations “demonstrates an open hostility toward religion,” Hartley argued. 

Hartley also highlighted a separate contract that Sage International held with a private, secular music group renting the charter school’s facilities. This contract “was not flagged as a problem” when Sage International applied for the bonds.  

The Truth Family attorney pointed to U.S. Supreme Court rulings in recent years that found “no-aid provisions,” similar to Idaho’s Blaine Amendment, violated the First Amendment when they excluded religious schools from public benefits available to secular private schools. 

“IHFA wielded the Blaine Amendment as a sword to slash the First Amendment rights of the Church,” Hartley wrote in an April 2025 motion. “The question before the Court is whether the problem was a misapplication of the state constitution or whether it is a fundamental problem with the Blaine Amendment itself.”  

IHFA says it followed legal precedent

Truth Family faces two different counter-arguments: One from IHFA, which hired private attorneys, and one from the Idaho attorney general’s office, which intervened in the case.

IHFA hired Givens Pursley. Attorneys with the Boise firm, Preston N. Carter and Melodie A. McQuade, argued that IHFA followed Idaho precedent when the bonding authority reviewed Sage International’s application to ensure it was consistent with state and federal law. 

They pointed to a 1974 Idaho Supreme Court case, which found that bond proceeds to finance a religious hospital violated the Blaine Amendment. Idaho voters later approved a constitutional amendment adding an exception for health facilities, but the “no-aid provision” still applies to other religious organizations. 

“IHFA’s review was rooted in Idaho precedent, and was based on IHFA’s concern that the $15 million public bond appeared to violate precedent from the Idaho Supreme Court interpreting Idaho’s constitution, when the bond issuance must comply with Idaho law,” Carter and McQuade wrote in a March motion. 

The attorneys also argued that only the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment — not the Free Speech or Establishment clauses — should apply to Truth Family’s complaint, and they questioned Truth Family’s facial challenge to the Blaine Amendment. 

“There is no evidence IHFA made ‘religious observance compulsory’ in violation of the Establishment Clause,” Carter and McQuade wrote, and “this case does not involve a regulation or restriction on speech like those at issue” in the cases that Hartley cited. 

Additionally, the church’s attorney “alluded to” a facial challenge — which would suggest that the Blaine Amendment is always unconstitutional — but only briefed an “as-applied” challenge focused on the particular facts of Truth Family’s case, the Givens Pursley attorneys noted. 

IHFA declined to comment for this article. “It’s not appropriate to comment on pending litigation,” said spokesman Benjamin Cushman, “but we will be happy to answer any questions after the legal proceedings have concluded.”

A spokesperson for Sage International did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Attorney general argues IHFA ‘erroneously’ applied Blaine Amendment

Attorney General Raúl Labrador’s office, meanwhile, hasn’t defended IHFA. Instead, the state’s attorney has argued that the bonding authority “erroneously” applied the Blaine Amendment when reviewing Sage International’s bond application. 

EdNews reported last year that Labrador’s office filed a motion to intervene in the case to  “ensure that the Idaho Constitution is not applied in a manner that violates fundamental rights.”

In more recent filings, James E. M. Craig, chief of the attorney general’s Civil Litigation and Constitutional Defense division, has argued that the Blaine Amendment does not prohibit agreements like the one between Sage International and Truth Family. And IHFA incorrectly interpreted the provision.

The Idaho Supreme Court has never applied Blaine to lease agreements “where public property is rented at fair market value,” Craig wrote in a March motion. “And issuing bonds to a public school, which happens to have an arm’s-length lease with a church, does not give aid to a religious institution.” 

Labrador’s spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment. 

Chief District Judge David Nye’s ruling on whether the Blaine Amendment violates the U.S. Constitution could have ripple effects beyond Idaho churches’ ability to use public school facilities. 

Earlier this year, Idaho lawmakers and Gov. Brad Little enacted the Parental Choice Tax Credit, which offers non-public school students, including those enrolled in parochial schools, tax refunds covering tuition and other education expenses. 

Critics of the new bill plan to file a lawsuit attempting to block it, the Idaho Statesman reported in April. Jim Jones, a former Idaho Supreme Court justice and attorney general, has argued that the tax credit “would necessarily result in subsidization of religious schooling, in direct violation” of the Blaine Amendment.