House Speaker Mike Moyle’s attack dogs, Lauren Walker and Brandy Paradee, have launched an all-out assault on conservative legislative scorecards.
It’s easy to understand why. Those scorecards show their pal Moyle isn’t the conservative stalwart they tell the public they think he is.
For years, the Idaho Freedom Foundation has published the Idaho Freedom Index, the gold standard of state-based legislative scorecards. Idahoans have used this tool to hold lawmakers accountable for their votes.
The Index isn’t perfect, but the end-of-session rankings typically reflect reality: Conservatives like Christy Zito and Brian Lenney rise to the top, where they’d land with or without a scorecard.
Moderates like Jim Guthrie and Treg Bernt sit just above the Democrats. And far-left lawmakers like Todd Achilles reside in the Freedom Index basement.
The Index has long been a burr in the saddle of powerful politicians who want to vote however they please without accountability. Past legislative leaders like Bart Davis, Brent Hill, and Scott Bedke largely ignored the Index—or quietly downplayed its influence.
Moyle is taking a different approach. The Speaker has dispatched his fishing buddies, Walker and Paradee, to wage war on the Idaho Freedom Index.
Why? Because Mike Moyle doesn’t meet the conservative standard. The Speaker’s lifetime Index score sits at 75.4%. Interestingly, his 2025 score, in what some dub “The Most Conservative Session Ever™️,” was an underwhelming 76.8%.
More bothersome is Moyle’s Idaho Spending Index score. His lifetime score is 40%, and his 2025 Spending Index score was a downright pathetic 24.6%.
Instead of holding Moyle accountable for his moderate-at-best record, Walker and Paradee are desperately trying to get IFF to rig the Index to protect the Speaker.
Because IFF has refused to trod that path, Walker and Paradee are determined to destroy the best tool Idahoans have used for more than a decade to hold lawmakers accountable.
More recently, Stop Idaho RINOs used AI to create a scorecard comparing lawmakers’ votes to the Idaho GOP platform. That new scorecard, which you can find here, reached the same conclusion about Moyle. Of course, Walker and Paradee attacked that, too.
Some might point to Moyle’s 2024 American Conservative Union Score – an 85% – as proof Moyle is a conservative gladiator.
Keep in mind a few things about that. First, Moyle’s lifetime ACU score sits at 81%. Better than many, but underwhelming. And the ACU score doesn’t take budget bills into account.
Next, the ACU scorecard puts conservative firebrand Heather Scott and liberal Republican Treg Bernt in the same conservative achievement category.
In 2024, ACU gave now-ousted lawmaker Matt Bundy of Mountain Home an 81%. This is the same Matt Bundy who voted to allow trans sex change surgeries for minors.
How valid is a scorecard that honors Matt Bundy and puts Heather Scott and Treg Bernt in the same conservative category?
And keep in mind—things haven’t always been this way. No more than 18 months ago, Walker herself was proudly touting the Freedom Index as a model for the rest of the country to adopt.
What changed? Walker needed to please and protect Mike Moyle.
Like it or not, the Idaho Freedom Index is a strong measure of conservative thought and voting in Idaho. And the Stop Idaho RINOs scorecard serves as a useful tool that reinforces the Index’s findings.
Walker and Paradee are obviously trying to wreck the Index because it hurts their pal Moyle. But if they succeed—and they won’t—Idaho will be worse off, back to the pre-Index days when you could count the number of true conservatives in the Statehouse on one hand.