Voter Guide: Jan Brown (D)
Party:
Democrat
- Website: https://brown.dems4idaho.org/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61594145669725
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Q: Tell us about your background, including your education, career experience, public service, and any previous political involvement. What experiences have best prepared you to serve in the Legislature?
I moved to Idaho Falls in 1976 shortly after graduating from the School of Forestry at Oregon State University.
Before retiring in 2019, I enjoyed a 43-year career working in the natural sciences, resource recreation, and watershed conservation across Eastern Idaho and Central Montana. In the 1980s, my ex-husband and I operated a year-round guest lodge in Island Park called Lucky Dog Retreat. During that period, I briefly served as the natural resource and nuclear waste advisor to Idaho Governor John V. Evans while he ran for the U.S. Senate. This was my earliest exposure to the state political scene, and I found it most rewarding.
I also worked for two different INL contractors here in Idaho Falls. As a program specialist for the National Low-Level Waste Management Program, I helped compose the nationwide strategy for safely disposing commercial low-level radioactive waste, a job where I synthesized the input of a multi-state task force and university research teams. Later, while serving as an advisory scientist at the INL, I developed a plan for sharing waste cleanup technologies with several Western states dealing with legacy waste from mining, smelting, drilling, and military activities.
For most of my career, I led nonprofit organizations. I was executive director of the Henry’s Fork Foundation (1999-2000), Yellowstone Business Partnership (2003-13), and the Montana Cooperative Development Center (2015-19). I am an ordained elder in the Presbyterian Church (USA) and have served on multiple resource advisory councils and boards of conservation organizations. From 1993-94, I was a member of Governor Andrus’ Task Force on Irrigation Water Conservation.
Q: If elected, what would be your highest legislative priority, and what specific policies or actions would you pursue to address it?
My priority is to restore balance to the state tax system and ensure that corporations and high-wage earners pay their fair share of income taxes, particularly to properly fund public schools and higher education.
In the 1980s, Idaho had a more balanced tax system, with the “three-legged stool” of sales, income and property taxes each contributing nearly equal amounts to state and local coffers. Since that time, deep cuts to corporate taxes combined with tax exemptions for too many enterprises have shifted the tax burden to sales and property taxes that disproportionately impact low-to-middle class wage earners. Here are a few actions I would pursue if elected:
a) Increase the Idaho Homeowner Exemption from $125,000 to $200,000, giving immediate relief to homeowners. In 2016, the Idaho Legislature eliminated the annual adjustment to the Housing Price Index and froze the exemption at $100,000 (with only one adjustment up to $125,000 in 2021). I support returning to an indexed annual adjustment.
b) Repeal the Parental Choice Tax Credit that forces the public to subsidize the tuition and eligible expenses of private and home schooling without having the recipients accountable to the public for educational outcomes. This would restore up to $50 million to the general fund.
c) Explore the viability of a wealth tax on the assets of the top 1% of Idahoans so those who have benefited most from past tax cuts will pay their fair share of the cost of state government.
We also must keep PUBLIC our Public Lands, Public Health, and Public Education. I oppose the short-sighted sales of federal and state public lands, especially sales that ignore public input and local land use plans. I support science-based management of federal lands and long-term stewardship of our school endowment lands for long-term support of our public schools.
Q: Many families are concerned about rising costs of fuel, housing, groceries, health care, and other essentials. What role should government play in addressing inflation and improving economic opportunities, and what specific steps would you support?
The root causes of inflation right now are the President's tariff policies and an ill-advised war with Iran that have increased fuel and fertilizer prices worldwide. We all are feeling the consequences of short-sighted decisions at the federal level. Until inflation comes under control, there are several actions state government can take:
a) Encourage the formation of housing cooperatives and community land trusts as both are affordable bridges to home ownership for working families. Those who join privately held housing co-ops can build equity on their share (instead of paying rent) while living in supportive, lower-cost communities.
b) Incentivize public transit, car sharing and van pools in Idaho’s urban centers, as well as rail travel across rural Idaho, so families will have alternative transportation when global conflicts cause fuel prices to rise. Continue to promote electric charging stations at key locations so EV owners can confidently travel throughout our state.
c) Fully participate in federal SNAP and other food programs to relieve stress on our food banks and pantries across the state. Most adults are working multiple jobs to make ends meet for their families and are not committing fraud. It is essential to revisit the latest work requirements imposed on SNAP to ensure they are not impacting essential caregivers who must stay home with disabled or elderly family members.
d) Support formation of food cooperatives in small towns when local markets are forced to close. Food co-ops operate at cost and can bring stability to rural areas when essential services like grocery stores are lost.
Q: Immigration remains a major issue at both the state and federal levels. What is your position on immigration policy, and what role, if any, should state government play in addressing immigration-related concerns?
Immigration reform is long overdue at the federal level, but that impasse does not justify the cruel actions of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in exaggerating the number of deportable immigrants engaged in criminal activities. Particularly unjustified is deporting those showing up at their assigned refugee hearings or suddenly reclassifying those who one day had temporary-protected status (TPS) and the next day were illegal.
Idaho should join other states in the Northwest and/or Intermountain regions to design interstate immigration compacts for recruiting a year-round immigrant workforce to support our shared agricultural and construction industries. States could work together to ensure that immigrants are well-treated and integrated into the regional culture, all while sharing the load with immigrant placement, education, monitoring and enforcement.
Q: Access, affordability, and workforce shortages continue to challenge the health care system. What do you see as the biggest health care issues facing residents, and what solutions would you advocate for?
I believe that reproductive health decisions are the private domain of the family, their physician, and their pastor. Every faith is entitled to their beliefs on the viability of a fetus versus the health of the mother, and all sides may legally express their religious beliefs in the public square.
However, no faith is entitled to impose their beliefs on the rest of us, especially when laws such as Idaho’s abortion ban have created such pain and confusion. Many gynecologists have been compelled to leave Idaho to practice medicine without fear of prosecution, which impacts our overall health care statewide.
Idaho’s current abortion ban is unnecessarily restrictive and is hurting our state. It is discouraging businesses from locating here and preventing adequate maternal care in rural communities. The Legislature has had four years to fix this flawed trigger law, and Proposition 1 is our best chance to remedy its problems.
We all need to VOTE YES on Proposition 1. Should it pass and I be elected, I will stand up to those legislators who are likely attempt to overturn the wishes of the voters.
We also need to properly fund our local health departments and challenge vaccine falsehoods. We must restore public confidence in adult and childhood vaccinations and community-based disease prevention. Day-care vaccination requirements are essential to protect very young children (too young for vaccines) from those families still denying the efficacy of vaccines.
Similarly, we should empower local governments, law enforcement, and nonprofit organizations to cooperatively meet their local mental health challenges by restoring full funding needed for treatment and rehabilitation. This will cost less than incarceration.
Q: As lawmakers consider state budget priorities, what level of funding do you believe public schools should receive? What factors shape your position, and what outcomes would you hope to achieve?
According to Idaho Education News, Idaho’s average per-pupil spending increased by about $600 to $13,666 in the 2025-26 school year whereas the national average in April 2026 was $17,499. Idaho continues to rank last in per pupil spending, but our students' test scores are in the middle of the pack nationwide. This means that despite the state's low investment, money is only one factor in determining positive educational outcomes.
If elected, I would support modernizing the school funding formula so it is more enrollment-based than attendance-based, and that a district's enrollment of special needs students would be weighted to receive more funding. Towards this end, Idaho should restore funding for regional education hubs to support rural school districts as opposed to using private, contracted services that are costing even more. The hubs house school psychologists, business experts, speech language pathologists and counselors to assist smaller districts unable to afford these specialized services.
Teacher salaries need to be competitive compared to our surrounding states, and Idaho needs to improve from its current ranking of 36th in the nation. I would support funding performance incentives based on observable criteria as opposed to rewarding only certain credentials.
And finally, we need to demand more accountability from those receiving the Private Education Tax Credit, and as a starting point, the State Tax Commission needs to release the data on how many of those families benefiting from the subsidy were already homeschooled or attending private schools prior to the program.
Q: Looking at the most recent legislative session, what do you think lawmakers got right, what did they get wrong, and what changes would you advocate if elected?
Partisan politics in Idaho have become so toxic that many residents are disgusted with the negativity and are not even registering to vote. This attitude must be addressed. Our quality of life and our democratic freedoms are at stake.
a) Oppose those promoting White Christian Nationalism in Idaho and the concentration of power at the executive and legislative levels. We need to return more local control to cities and counties. I support local option tax authority and strong local land use planning.
b) Repeal Senate Bill 1300 passed by the 2026 Idaho Legislature, restoring the power of three bipartisan agency boards/commissions (ITD, IDFG, IDPR) to hire department directors who are not subject to partisan politics.
c) Safeguard our religious freedom and keep separate the activities of church and state. Rescind the “minute of silence” now being imposed on public schools and oppose unconstitutional “bathroom bills” and other cruel legislation targeting transgender people.
Q: What is one issue that has not received enough attention during this campaign, and why do you believe voters should care about it?
It is critical that we all VOTE NO on HJR 4 as it would yield to the Idaho Legislature our current Constitutional right to legislate as citizens. This granting of undue power to the Legislature to rule on any “psychoactive substance” is poorly defined, too broad, and ultimately would not be restricted to marijuana or narcotics. This is a dangerous amendment that is not needed, and we citizens need to guard against efforts such as this to concentrate power in Boise as opposed to protecting our lawmaking authority as Idaho citizens.
