Jan Brown

Jan Brown: Democratic Nominee for Idaho Senate District 33

Jan Brown, whose legal name is Janice Marie Brown, won the May 19, 2026 Democratic primary for Idaho Senate District 33 without opposition, receiving 662 votes, according to certified Idaho Secretary of State results. She faces four-term Republican incumbent Sen. Dave Lent in the November 3, 2026 general election. This is Brown's third documented campaign for elected office: she also ran for Bonneville County Commissioner District 1 in 2024, losing to Karl Casperson, and for State Representative B, District 32 in 2002, winning an unopposed Democratic primary before losing the general election to Ann Rydalch, 8,781 votes to 4,698 (65.2% to 34.9%), per Idaho Secretary of State canvass records.

Background

Brown holds a bachelor's degree from the Oregon State University School of Forestry and moved to Idaho Falls in 1976. In a candidate questionnaire published by East Idaho News during her 2024 county commissioner campaign, she wrote that she began her career as a local Girl Scout field advisor and worked at the Idaho National Engineering Laboratory from 1979 to 1982 as a program specialist with the National Low-Level Radioactive Waste Program. She and her then-husband owned and operated the Lucky Dog Retreat guest lodge in Island Park from 1984 to 1994. She later commuted to Boise for more than a year to serve as Gov. John Evans's natural resource and nuclear waste advisor as he concluded his final term.

From 1991 until retiring in 2019, Brown served as executive director of three nonprofit organizations, including nine years leading the Henry's Fork Foundation, where she helped create the Henry's Fork Watershed Council in cooperation with the Fremont-Madison Irrigation District, work she says "laid the foundation for what is now 25 years of cooperation between farmers and fishermen in the Henry's Fork Basin," according to a Rotary Club of Idaho Falls speaker biography. In the 1990s she also served on the advisory committee that developed the Henry's Fork Basin Plan, a component of the State Water Plan, and on the Governor's Task Force on Irrigation Water Conservation. She later managed a $1.5 million sustainable development project for Fremont County. In her 2024 East Idaho News questionnaire, she said she was named one of Idaho's ten "Catalysts for Change" for the 21st century in 2000, citing her work as co-facilitator of the Henry's Fork Watershed Council. She returned to Idaho Falls to retire in December 2020. She is an active elder at First Presbyterian Church, serves on the board of Friends of Harriman State Park, and is the Bonneville County Democrats' state committeewoman.

Campaign Finance

Brown's 2026 campaign finance filings with the Idaho Secretary of State's Sunshine portal show a beginning cash balance of $1,808.19, total contributions of $7,057.58, and total expenditures of $1,429.09, leaving an ending cash balance of $5,628.49 and no debt. Her largest contributor is the Bonneville County Democratic Central Committee ($1,500.00), followed by Nancy Batchelder ($540.00), Sandra Brow ($500.00), Kenneth Hutson ($500.00), Mary Noonan of Heber City, Utah ($300.00), Cathy Chisholm ($250.00), Amy Grose ($250.00), Mary Guenzler ($200.00), Jan Hagers ($200.00), and Pat Stanger ($200.00).

Sources

• Idaho Secretary of State, certified results for the May 19, 2026 primary election
• Idaho Secretary of State, election canvass database
• East Idaho News, candidate questionnaire (November 1, 2024)
• Rotary Club of Idaho Falls, "Community Building - A True Story of Peacemaking" speaker biography (February 7, 2024)
• Idaho Secretary of State Sunshine portal, 2026 campaign finance filings for Jan Brown