What is going on?

A Fractured Country

The U.S. political system wants us to believe we are divided. Right vs Left no longer exists in the U.S. or in Idaho. Both sides are opposed to 1A and 2A. They both want more money from us and more rules for us.

A Fractured Party

The traditional Republican Party in Idaho has been taken over by RINOs who want to impose their rules on the rest of us. What we need is for fiscally conservative small government Republicans to step up and replace the socialist, anti-freedom, big government politicians.

A Fractured Economy

The rich keep getting richer while working families struggle to survive. This is causing a strong shift to the left politically. People everywhere are blaming capitalism for our problems and are pushing us towards more socialism. Businesses have only three choices:

1. Take care of your workers and their families.

2. Pay more taxes to have the government take care of your workers and their families.

3. Have more regulations of make businesses take care of their workers and their families.

It is the business culture that is broken, not the system. Pay your workers first and everyone wins.

may 22, 2026

My name is Paul Sand and I won the Libertarian Party nomination for the Office of Governor of Idaho in the Idaho Primary Election on May 19, 2026. According to unofficial results, I beat my opponent with 57% of the votes cast. I will be on the general election ballot for Governor of Idaho in November. Before this, I served ten years on my local city council. I have experience preparing budgets and working with federal, state, and county agencies and other taxing districts. I have been an Idaho property and business owner for the last 30 years.

More About Me

MY PLATFORM

My Politics

I am opposed to any state policies that are intended to bring more businesses and more people into Idaho. Let's just lift up the businesses and people we already have. If we want to grow Idaho, we should invite counties in eastern Washington and eastern Oregon to join us.

As a conservative Libertarian, I am against open borders. All illegal immigrants need to be sent home.

I believe that the unborn have the same right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness as any of the rest of us. Abortion, except to save the life of the mother, should be illegal.

I am opposed to any efforts to privatize our public lands. Idaho is not for sale.

I have a plan to end the polarization that is crippling our country in every state that has "blue" urban counties and "red" rural counties. Majority rule doesn't work in large centralized governments. The small population of our rural regions means that the urban government will always win elections to exploit and subjugate rural populations. For rural areas, this is clearly taxation without representation. Rural communities should not be taxed to support the social programs and problems of large, big-government cities, like Boise.

The National Divorce

There are at least three approaches being considered to de-polarize our national politics.

The Succession Movement - why this is impossible

The State Border Movement - why this is very difficult

The Only Sensible Movement. - why this is the only way

My Proposal

If elected, I want to invert the political system in Idaho and make counties and local government the top layer. County governments are more democratic because your elected representatives are your neighbors. They share your social and economic community. They go to your same stores, churches and schools. Big government urban politicians couldn't care less about our rural communities.

A lot of politicians are calling for ending property tax. Property taxes fund your local government services. The state wants to determine how much your community gets and how you can use your land. They would be able to build data centers and low income housing without local approval. This would also be an enormous gift to the ultra wealthy, as usual, who have substantial real estate holdings and no means of avoiding the tax.

The Mini-State Political Layer

A Mini-State is an autonomous federation of counties that share a common social and economic demographic. These virtual states would have their own rules and regulations, taxes and budgets. One or more counties can, with 2/3 voter approval, create a mini-state and additional counties can join, with approval of the existing member counties and 2/3 of their own voter's approval. The mini-state host and member counties don't need to be in Idaho or adjacent to other sub-states. A county in Washington or Oregon and declare independence from their state government and join the Idaho state government.The state borders don't change and neither would their addresses. The only thing that moves is their government alliance

This does not require any federal or state constitution changes. State legislatures would need to pass a law authorizing counties to govern themselves and form alliances with other counties. Counties already have taxing authority, so no new legislation would be needed here. Public property ownership is unaffected. Federal property is still federal property, state property is still state property, county property is still county property.

An example of an urban mini-state would be the Boise area metropolitan counties. The existing state government services, offices, and workers would simply move from the state level to the mini-state level.

Horizontal vs Vertical Growth

The mini-states can implement policies that attract more people and more businesses to widen their economy or implement policies that lift our existing businesses and people without bringing in Californian or foreign immigrants.

The State of Idaho

The existing state government would be the bottom layer in the new political structure. The state government should only be concerned with statewide issues that benefit the entire state and that everyone can agree needs to be done. The only statewide offices should be transportation/highways/road and fuel taxes and the secretary of state. Keeping our roads safe is of utmost importance for Idaho. The overall economic policies of Idaho should be small government, minimal regulations, and support local businesses. I would reduce the responsibility of the state legislature to doing almost nothing, which is currently all they do now. They could work one week per year and get paid $100 per day. The state income tax and sales tax would go away. If all the counties in eastern Washington and eastern Oregon joined Idaho, the population of Idaho would be more than 3.5 million.

Get Money Out of Politics

Donating to political parties and candidates is just a money laundering scheme. They want you to spend your money knowing that third party candidates have no chance of beating the political establishment and their money machine. I am not accepting any donations from individuals or businesses. I have no money of my own, so I will be relying on free press and word of mouth to get my message out.