Letter to the Editor
This year may set a new record: the smallest percent of Idaho voters participating in their party’s nomination for President. Only 6.8% of affiliated Republicans went to caucus sites to choose between Donald Trump and Nikki Haley. This turnout fails the first “resolve” of the Republican National Committee (RNC), “to encourage and allow the broadest possible participation of all voters in Republican Party activities at all levels and to assure that the Republican Party is open and accessible to all Americans.”
So how could this happen?
On “Day One” of the 2023 Legislature the Idaho GOP faced two hurdles. First, the bond election which made a Presidential primary in March possible was slated for repeal under a leading property tax relief proposal. Second, the May primary election date would fall too late on the calendar for Idaho to submit its delegates to the RNC – making a Presidential vote on May 21 useless.
Question: So, what caused the legislative mess that forced a caucus? Answer: The legislature and Secretary of State were informed of only the first problem, receiving only half the information needed.
Idaho Republican Party Chairwoman Dorothy Moon was notified by RNC leadership on December 21, 2022, that Idaho’s delegates would need to be submitted sooner than is possible under the existing election calendar. The party’s State Convention, where Idaho’s Presidential delegates are voted on, cannot in practice occur before June 2. The RNC must receive those names several
days sooner.
Fixing this requires moving Idaho’s May primary earlier. However, this key obstacle and its solution were never shared with the legislature. Senator Guthrie’s April primary proposal this year would have been one solution had it been proposed
last year.
When it became obvious the March Presidential primary was gone, the obvious question was “When else can we hold it?” Many state leaders made the logical assumption it could roll onto the next state-funded election, the May 21 primary. Legislators were never told a May 21 primary jeopardized Idaho’s participation in the Presidential race altogether.
Apparently, the unworkable timing of the May 21 election was never shared outside Party headquarters.
And that omission set in motion a series of “fixes” doomed to miss the target, because no one knew what the target date needed to be.
With no proposal from the Party itself, and deadlines for new bills looming, House Bill 138 was drafted to combine the Presidential primary with the next state-funded election date, May 21.
This bill would become a strawman for “blame.” Even with omitted provisions replaced in a second bill, a restored Presidential primary vote on May 21 would be too late. Not knowing this, all but six of the 70 members of the Idaho House of Representatives voted for it.
House State Affairs Chairman Brent Crane voted for it. Even Chairwoman Moon’s own liaison to the House, Rep. Julianne Young, voted for it. How could they not know the date was unworkable?
Governor Little signed HB 138 recognizing a political and financial reality: the votes to fund a second-in-a-year $3 million “gift to political parties” did not exist, and the repealed bond election left a $700,000 hole that wouldn’t be backfilled. A March Presidential vote was gone, whether HB 138 passed or not.
In the meantime, still, no one in State GOP leadership let the legislature, the Governor, or any constitutional officer know the May primary itself was too late on the calendar to get Idaho’s delegates to the RNC on time. The problem never mentioned was never solved.
When the RNC insisted late-submitted delegates would incur a steep “penalty,” an emergency Idaho Republican Party Rules Committee was convened. With a stroke of a pen, the 137-year tradition of voter-elected convention delegates was gone.
In its place, Idaho’s 2024 GOP National Convention delegation will be selected . . . wait for it . . . by a committee appointed by Dorothy Moon.
Chairwoman Moon failed to tell anyone that May 21 wouldn’t work, and when that problem wasn’t fixed, she assumed the power previously belonging to primary voters, disenfranchising nearly 600,000 affiliated Republicans.
And some people think she isn’t brilliant.
Trent Clark, Idaho Republican Party southeast regional vice-chair
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Trent Clark is the Idaho Republican Party’s southeast regional vice-chair, and sits on the party’s State Central Committee representing Caribou County.
