County GOPs vow not to criticize … each other

Spokane County Republicans and the candidates seeking their votes were urged Saturday to remain united and civil through the coming political year – at least, civil to other Republicans.

There’s a U.S. Senate seat to try to take back, a Legislature to try to recapture, and a county courthouse they’d like to turn into a complete Republican stronghold.

Don’t go beating up on each other, County Commissioner Phil Harris warned the delegates and candidates gathered in the Chase Middle School gymnasium.

“Sometimes, people would just be better off if they didn’t say anything,” he said.

Delegates to the county GOP convention obliged through the morning of speeches and a tame debate over the party’s statement of principles, called a platform. So did the candidates to what could be the hottest Republican primary this fall, the sheriff’s race.

It features recently appointed Sheriff Ozzie Knezovich and Spokane Valley Police Chief Cal Walker, who also wanted the job after Mark Sterk retired.

Knezovich, who is the former president of the deputies union, sought to allay any doubt delegates had that he was a good Republican. He noted his unanimous appointment by the county’s three Republican commissioners and that Ronald Reagan also started out as a Democrat, and cited his work on GOP campaigns from President Bush on down.

That tended mostly involved putting up signs or passing out literature, which he suggested was better than “going to rubber chicken dinners.” If he gets to keep the job, he promised to devote more resources to watching registered sex offenders, send detectives out to get more familiar with their districts and find a solution for the overcrowded jail.

Walker, who had Sterk’s support and topped the party’s list of endorsed nominees for the replacement, said he didn’t agree with the commissioner’s choice but planned to “persevere and do the right thing for the community.” Just because he’s running against Knezovich, his new boss, “it doesn’t mean we’re opposed to each other.”

“I don’t want to see us divide ourselves over issues,” Walker said. “We will both live with the outcome” of the primary.

Democrats have no announced candidate for sheriff, so the Republican primary could be the key to winning the office, even though the primary winner will have to run in the Nov. 7 general election.

After an hour of candidate speeches, delegates offered few objections to the platform, which contains long-established GOP standards as support for “the sanctity of life from conception to natural death,” a balanced federal budget, the death penalty for a deliberate taking of life, the right to keep and bear arms, and smaller government with services privatized whenever possible. It called for eliminating the state’s business and occupation tax, privatizing Social Security and removing the United States from the United Nations and the United Nations from the United States.

Delegates voted unanimously to add a line to the platform calling for the elimination of the state’s Growth Management Act, which convention Chairman Jim Robinson called a “regressive and repressive” way to force people into concentrated urban centers and away from open spaces.

“Remember the American dream? They renamed it urban sprawl,” he said.

They also deleted a suggestion that guest worker programs for immigrants be eliminated, saying agriculture and other businesses need immigrant labor to survive. Delegates remained opposed, however, to amnesty for illegal immigrants.

But they rejected a proposal to demand U.S. ports be managed by American-owned companies – a reaction to the controversy earlier this year about a company owned by the United Arab Emirates gaining control of some ports – after several delegates pointed out that many ports are currently run well by foreign companies, and the amendment made them sound like “isolationists.”

The 88 delegates were scattered among folding chairs set for about 250, and Harris noted that the gathering was small. But Robinson said for a year without the excitement of a presidential election, the turnout was pretty good.

“These are the party faithful,” he said. They’re the ones who will be key to victories or losses in the fall.