Janice McGeachin

McGeachin has had a number of business ventures. She owns a restaurant in Idaho Falls and co-owns a wholesale automotive parts supply store and a torque converter remanufacturing facility with her husband.[3][4]

McGeachin unsuccessfully ran for Bonneville County commissioner in 1998, her first bid for elected office.[4] She was a member of the Idaho House of Representatives from 2002 to 2012.[4] As chair of the state House Health and Welfare Committee, she cut Medicaid funding and voted against legislation to create a state-based health insurance exchange.[3] An ally of the Tea Party movement, McGeachin was considered a possible Republican primary challenger to U.S. Representative Mike Simpson in 2010, but chose not to run.[3]

McGeachin was a delegate for Donald Trump at the 2016 Republican National Convention, and was vice-chair of Trump's Idaho campaign committee.[5][6][7][8]

In April 2017, McGeachin filed to run for lieutenant governor of Idaho.[9] Her candidacy was supported by state Senator Dean Mortimer.[6][10] McGeachin won the Republican primary election on May 15, 2018, with 28.9% of the vote, and defeated Democratic nominee Kristin Collum in the November general election.[11] During the 2018 campaign, McGeachin took security guards with her to a debate at the Idaho Public Television station in Boise, although there was no known threat against her.[3][12]

In February 2019, McGeachin posted a photo on her Facebook page of her posing in front of her Idaho State Capitol door with two members of the 3 Percenters, an anti-government militia movement group. The men wore shirts promoting Todd Engel, who was sentenced to prison in connection with the Bundy standoff.[13] For the caption, she wrote "Sending love to Todd Engel from the Idaho Capital and 'getting to know' the new Senate Pages."[14][15] McGeachin faced public criticism for the photo and quickly deleted it.[13] In a subsequent statement, McGeachin described the men as "two Second Amendment supporters who were here to support Todd Engel, an Idahoan who was treated unjustly by the court system" and said that she deleted the post after "a few people had begun erroneously assigning sinister motives which are contrary to my true character."[16] The Idaho Falls Post Register editorial board criticized McGeachin for embracing the 3 Percenters and militia movement.[17]

As lieutenant governor, McGeachin has had a strained relationship with Governor Brad Little, a fellow conservative Republican,[5] frequently criticizing his strategy regarding the COVID-19 pandemic.[18] In May 2020, Little said he had not spoken to McGeachin in weeks.[19] During the pandemic, McGeachin repeatedly criticized Little for taking steps (such as closing physical businesses) to prevent the spread of the disease.[20][21] In late-April 2020, McGeachin urged reopening all businesses in Idaho by April 30,[22] and also spoke at a protest in eastern Idaho against stay-at-home directives.[23] In a May 2020 editorial, McGeachin wrote that, "I lose sleep at night because the heavy hand of our government is hurting so many Idahoans."[21] By July 2020, after the state's economy had reopened, Idaho saw a spike in coronavirus cases.[21] In August 2020, McGeachin headlined a rally organized by the right-wing, conspiracist John Birch Society at the rally in Twin Falls, where speakers decried public health measures to combat the coronavirus.[18][24] At the rally, McGeachin criticized Little and other state officials.[18][24]

In November 2020, McGeachin submitted a proposal to Governor Little's Coronavirus Financial Advisory Committee, seeking to spend $17 million in federal COVID-19 aid funds to purchase and operate two "walk-through disinfectant cubes" at the Idaho state Capitol. McGeachin criticized the governor's coronavirus policies while touting the technology, although a National Institutes of Health study published months earlier determined that the use of "walk-through sanitation gates" was ineffective, possibly dangerous, and violates global health standards.[25]

In July 2020, McGeachin condemned federal economic relief granted during the COVID-19 pandemic. However, McGeachin's Idaho Falls-based business accepted two partially forgivable loans, totaling $314,727, from the federal Paycheck Protection Program. After the company's acceptance of the PPP funds was publicized, McGeachin said that the company accepted the funds to counter what she called harm "by the heavy hand of government in 2020."[26]

McGeachin was an Idaho presidential elector for the Republican slate in 2020, casting one of Idaho's four electoral votes for Donald Trump; the other Idaho electors that year were Melinda Smyser, Raul Labrador, and Rod Beck.[27]

In December 2020, the month after Donald Trump lost the presidential election to Joe Biden, McGeachin, along with Little, Idaho's two Republican U.S. House members, and other Idaho Republican election officials, signed on to an amicus brief supporting Texas' attempt to overturn the results of the presidential election by rejecting millions of votes in four key states won by Biden.[28][29] Legal experts dismissed the suit as meritless,[29] and it was rejected by the Supreme Court.[30]