Prosecutor Will Run As Republican Douglas Seeking Fourth Term, Follows Lead Of Two Sheriffs

Kootenai County Prosecutor Bill Douglas announced Monday he’s switching political parties.

A longtime Democrat, Douglas will now run for re-election as a Republican.

“I feel as a member of the majority party I could make more headway,” Douglas said Monday. “I’m the same Bill Douglas.”

Douglas, 52, is seeking his fourth term as prosecutor. He served his first three as a Democrat.

Douglas said he first began thinking of changing parties in 1994, when former Sheriff Pierce Clegg announced he was defecting from the Democratic party.

“The main reason is I want to join the same ticket as the sheriff,” Douglas said. “I think we can make a strong law enforcement team.”

Sheriff Rocky Watson is running for re-election as a Republican. He, too, was once a Democrat and switched to the Republican party.

“A lot of people have done it,” said Jerry Shriner, chairman of the Kootenai County Democratic Party. “I think there are different reasons. I think it’s money in this case.”

Shriner said he believes Douglas changed parties because his 24-member office with a $1.1 million budget is underfunded. Having a Democratic tie meant he couldn’t get much-needed funding from Republican county commissioners, Shriner said.

He also said Douglas wants to become a judge. Knowing Gov. Dirk Kempthorne is also Republican, there wouldn’t be a chance he would be appointed if he was still a Democrat, Shriner said.

“If you want to get appointed as a judge and it’s really important to you, what are you going to do?” Shriner said.

The decision came as a surprise, he said.

“Everybody assumed he was going to run as a D,” Shriner said. “It puts us in a bad spot.”

So far, no other candidates have announced they will run against him. Prospective candidates have until Friday to file with the county’s elections office.

“By the very nature of my office, every action is considered political,” Douglas said. “The fact of the matter is I’ve always placed citizenship over partisanship.”

Douglas said he is impressed with the Republicans’ stance on human rights and domestic violence and hopes to help create stronger legislation that would hold criminals accountable.

He said he hopes also to serve on state committees such as the Human Rights Commission.

Douglas’ decision to switch parties drew criticism from sheriff’s candidate Ted Pulver.

Pulver has questioned Watson’s security contract with the county, citing a conflict of interest.

Douglas said he reviewed the case when Watson was appointed sheriff last year and found no conflict of interest.

“If that doesn’t underline the conflict of interest that Bill Douglas has in determining his independence in the conflict of interest issue I don’t know what does,” Pulver said. “I really think that if in fact Bill is turning Republican and aligning himself with Rocky Watson in the new administration, that this pretty much takes the decision on whether to have an investigation out of Bill’s hands.”

Pulver has asked Douglas to seek an attorney general’s opinion on the matter.

“Certainly politics have not been involved,” Douglas said. “It’s unfair to ask someone to give up their livelihood because they are in public office.”

Watson dismissed Pulver’s claims.

“I would say Mr. Pulver is desperately reaching for anything,” he said. “Let’s take this one step further. Isn’t the (attorney general) Republican? Where do we go from there?”

Douglas graduated from Gonzaga Law School in 1973 and served as a judge advocate general in the Army Reserve.

He was in private practice and served as a deputy public defender for Kootenai County from 1987 to 1988.

He has three teenage boys and his wife, Geri, is an emergency medical technician with the county.