Boise Democrat steps down from Idaho Legislature – to run for U.S. Senate

BOISE – Todd Achilles is no longer an Idaho state legislator, and he’s no longer a Democrat.

Instead, he’s an independent, now challenging a longtime Idaho Republican senator for his seat in Congress.

Achilles, 58, weighed the decision to run against U.S. Sen. Jim Risch for a long time, spurred by frustration with the state of the economy and the dysfunction of the two-party system, he told the Idaho Statesman.

Idaho’s Republican congressional delegates, including Risch, in recent months have faced public outcry over some of President Donald Trump’s policies, including proposals backed by Trump to sell public lands in Idaho for development. Risch has called on lawmakers to reject the proposal – though in April, he voted to reject a budget amendment that would have banned the government from reducing the federal deficit using proceeds from the sale of public lands.“Everybody’s frustrated by the debt, deficits and dysfunction in Washington, DC,” he said. “Too many people are struggling. Their wages are low. They’re having to get health care from Medicaid programs. The whole system is broken.”

Achilles was appointed to the seat representing West Boise’s Legislative District 16 in February 2024 by Gov. Brad Little after former Rep. Colin Nash left the seat to focus on the Boise City Council. In November, Achilles won another term.

Todd Achilles’ voting record in Idaho Legislature

In the Idaho Legislature, Achilles was often a lone dissenting voice against Republicans in the House State Affairs Committee. He challenged a proposal to allow public school teachers in Idaho to carry concealed weapons in the classroom, even if school boards didn’t want them to.

“The boards are responsible for what happens in their schools,” he said in February. “That’s a fundamental principle of federalism here, and for us to do a top-down telling them what to do is not smart.”

And he joined Democratic colleagues in pushing back on a Senate bill – now law – to ban homeless encampments.

“The bill isn’t addressing homelessness,” he said on the House floor in March. “It’s pushing the problem around.”

Risch, 82, has served in the Senate since 2009 and is the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. He briefly served as Idaho’s governor from 2006 to 2007, in between serving as lieutenant governor for about six years. A vocal supporter of Ukraine, he issued no statements after Trump and Vice President JD Vance berated Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelesnkyy in the White House and have subsequently embraced Russian President Vladimir Putin. In June, he helped to reunite an Idaho woman and her husband, who had been unlawfully jailed in Cameroon.

Risch in 2023 faced criticism after the Statesman reported on his attempt to reroute flights away from a Southwest Boise neighborhood where he lives.

An Army veteran, he Achilles told the Statesman in 2024 he brings to the table 30 years of experience in the military, business and nonprofit worlds. He teaches public policy at University of California Berkeley and previously worked for T-Mobile, Hewlett-Packard and startups.

There was no specific moment when he decided to run, Achilles said, but was an “accumulation” of concerns about the national two-party system and how it’s failing working Americans.

“We just decided, you know, it’s now or never,” he said.

‘Two-party system has failed Idaho,’ Achilles says

From his time in corporate America, he knows “the positive effect of healthy competition,” Achilles’ campaign website says. But he also knows “what happens when monopolies take over and exploit hardworking Americans.”

He’s campaigning on the idea that both Democrats and Republicans have threatened public lands, increased the national debt and pursued policies that support large corporations over working families.

“The two-party system really is broken,” he told the Statesman.

In June, Risch spoke out against the proposed sale of more than 3 million acres of public land, part of the federal budget reconciliation bill.

In messaging that echoed a May rally in Nampa for U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders – at which Achilles was a speaker – Achilles emphasized on his website that his campaign wasn’t about political party allegiance, but about regular people taking on large corporations.

“The challenges ahead of us are not right versus left, but top versus bottom,” he wrote.

Idaho’s Democratic Party will submit to Little the names of three candidates to fill Achilles’ vacancy. Little will select one of them by July 14, Avery Roberts, a spokesperson for the party, told the Statesman by email.

Roberts pushed back on Achilles’ characterization of Democrats and Republicans as equally problematic. Democrats “have always defended public lands” and have taken “real steps” to reduce the national deficit, she wrote. Idaho Republicans, meanwhile, have “rammed through reckless revenue cuts” that endanger school funding, health care and emergency response, she said.

Achilles during this year’s legislative session voted for a tax cut bill that is projected to reduce state revenues by $240 million.

“Idaho Democrats are here to get results for working people in this state. That means electing leaders who show up, listen, and put Idaho families first,” Roberts wrote. “If someone wants to claim both parties are the same, they’re ignoring the facts.”

Running as an independent, Achilles will need at least 1,000 signatures from Idaho voters. Idaho has never elected an independent senator, and it last elected a Democratic member of Congress in 2008. But Achilles said he felt confident “we have a path to win.”

His legislative district, which he won as a Democrat, is only 25% Democratic, with the rest independent or Republican. When he campaigns, he hears from all of those people that they are “frustrated by the system,” he said.

He plans to travel to every county in the state in the coming months on a “shake up the system” tour, according to a Tuesday news release from his campaign.