Least Regulated State

What is the Source Little cites for the Least Regulated State assertion?

To support the claim, the chainsaw ad from the 2022 primaries cites an 11/10/21 article by KOMO, a television station in Seattle.

What is the REAL Consequence?

Ambiguity and obscurity in contracts and regulations create unmeasurable risks. Businesses must mitigate risk. Therefore, when it comes to State regulations, they must err on the side of caution. They must interpret the 1000's of changed sentences as equivalent to the previous versions that contained any of the 5 restrictive words. They cannot afford battles with any of the 180 agencies in Idaho.

What did the Mercatus Center say about this?

When this exploitable vulnerability was pointed out to Mercatus, their response was, "[we have] seen the shall-to-will substitution take place." They continued, explaining that "Usually, if that is happening in a state where reg reform is ongoing, it gets noticed eventually by those in charge . . . As for it affecting count accuracy for data purposes—yes, it probably does.

What does the New Mercatus Data Show about"How Idaho ushered in the largest regulatory cuts in state history"?

Regulations on State websites are not easy to find. There is no single master index with links to each regulation. Even if you had that index, performing text analysis on the .pdfs is a massive task. Mercatus developed this capability in 2012 and has been publishing the final numbers. That summary data is the basis of the above table and charts. The machine-readable files were released in September 2022.

What might Little say after seeing this new data?

In this video from January 30, 2022, Little describes the crowning achievement of his administration. He stumbles out of the starting gate, saying he "cut" regulations, corrects himself by saying they "simplified" 75% of all rules, but later goes back to saying they cut regulations. We showed above what "simplified" means to him. He then uses the word "rules," which means regulations.