BOISE, Idaho — A court has dismissed a lawsuit by a former state senator against the Idaho Department of Education that accused the department of infringing on his family’s freedom of religious expression.

Chris Trakel, a former senator from Caldwell who helped advocate for bills that would have allowed families to use taxpayer money for religious schools’ tuition, in February sued the department and his children’s public charter school, the Idaho Home Learning Academy, over its refusal to reimburse the family for its selection of a religious curriculum.

Trakel was a member of the Idaho Freedom Caucus, a group of far-right conservative lawmakers aligned with the influential lobbying group Idaho Freedom Foundation. The group has pushed to allow families to use public grands for private school tuition and repeal the Blaine Amendment, a part of the Idaho Constitution that forbids taxpayer money to be used for religious teachings.

The Idaho Home Learning Academy allows parents to seek reimbursement for independent curricula and educational materials they select. But when Trakel and his family sought reimbursement for religious curricula — handwriting lessons that use passages from the Bible and math problems with religious references in them — the school balked.

It wasn’t allowed to reimburse families for religious curricula, as that would violate a section of the Idaho Constitution barring the use of public funds for religious education, it told Trakel. Trakel argued that amounted to discrimination against Trakel’s family’s religious beliefs.

A judge shut down that line of reasoning and dismissed the family’s case last week.

While the state cannot discriminate against citizens because of their religious beliefs, “nothing in the First Amendment allows parents to dictate the contents of school curriculums or requires state schools to provide students with a religious education,” wrote Judge Lynn Winmill, a U.S. District Court judge for the District of Idaho.

Trakel declined to comment.

Trakel’s lawsuit went after the Idaho Constitution itself. Barring the use of public funds for religious education “is not neutral with respect to religion,” according to the family’s complaint. “Instead, it discriminates against religion on its face in that it prevents religious people from receiving public funding from a generally offered benefit from the state.”

Winmill took issue with that framing. Reimbursement for school curricula is not a government grant program, he wrote in his dismissal.

The school’s reimbursement policy “is not a public benefit,” Winmill wrote. “Although families have an unusual degree of input and flexibility, (the academy) is ultimately a public school that sets its own curriculum.”

The materials for which the school reimburses parents become, effectively, the school’s own curriculum, Winmill wrote. So the school’s freedom of expression was in question — not the Trakels’, he argued.

Former state senator drew controversy over public meeting

Trakel served in the Legislature from 2023 to 2024 before losing reelection to Sen. Camille Blaylock and declared his candidacy to run for the seat again in the 2026 election.

During his time with the Idaho Freedom Caucus, the group opposed state funding for higher education and workforce training and supported education savings accounts, often referred to as school vouchers, which would let families use state grants for private education.

In a Freedom Caucus release on education funding, on which Trakel’s name is listed, the group said the Blaine Amendment — the part of the Idaho Constitution that bans using public funds for religious education — “discriminates against religious schools.”

Trakel supported bills targeting transgender rights, including one to require the use of the bathroom that aligns with someone’s sex at birth. In 2023, he also sponsored a bill to ban flags for ideological causes from classrooms, taking aim at LGBTQ+ Pride flags.

As a state senator, Trakel garnered attention for his role in a contentious Caldwell school board debate over a policy on gender and sexual identity in schools. At a January 2023 meeting, Trakel said the board would be putting all students’ “moral health and safety at risk” by enacting the policy and allowing students to use locker rooms that align with their gender identity, the Idaho Statesman reported at the time.

After Trakel spoke, the meeting became unruly, with some attendees yelling at board members, calling them “cowards” and “unethical,” Idaho Education News reported.

After the meeting, Travis Manning, the board’s vice chair, blamed Trakel for the meeting’s disorder.

“Last night’s Caldwell School Board chaos was orchestrated by Idaho Sen. Chris Trakel, who doesn’t believe ID boards have the legal right to run their own (meetings) or set policy,” Manning tweeted.

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