Former Idaho Gov. Phil Batt, who also is a former Idaho state GOP chairman and widely considered the architect of the party's dominance in the state, has submitted a guest opinion to the Idaho Statesman newspaper decrying the moves by current party Chairman Norm Semanko and House Speaker Lawerence Denney to fire two GOP redistricting commissioners, reports Idaho Statesman editorialist Kevin Richert. "Now our party leaders want to sully the reapportionment process for more political gain. I guess they want 100 percent Republicans of their own variety (Dolores and I probably don’t qualify)," Batt writes. "But I predict that Republican dominance in Idaho will decline rather than grow if we say neutrality has no place in reapportionment, and that the commission must do it our way or else." You can read Richert's full post here, which includes Batt's full guest opinion, submitted today.

Another tidbit from the former governor's piece: "Labeling Dolores Crow as a RINO is ridiculous. She has been a steel-tough Republican and is just trying to do what she was appointed to do — to produce a plan based on facts and not on politics."