Republican leaves party for Idaho Senate ticket

BOISE – Tony Edmondson, a longtime Republican county commissioner and city councilman from southwestern Idaho, has switched sides and is running as a Democrat in the state Senate race this November against incumbent Sen. Monty Pearce, R-New Plymouth.

Edmondson, the Republican Washington County Commission chairman until 2001 and a former nonpartisan member of the Weiser City Council, left the GOP after nearly four decades because its platform has “drifted to an extreme right-wing ideology,” he told the Associated Press on Saturday.

If elected, Edmondson would become one of two openly homosexual members of the Idaho Legislature. In February, he spoke at the Statehouse during a House committee hearing on a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage in Idaho. Lawmakers put the amendment on the ballot in November.

The gay marriage debate is not the focus of his campaign, he said.

“The issues that affect me in my daily life are the same issues that affect all Idahoans: property taxes, school funding and health care, to name just a few,” Edmondson said. “The Legislature decided to focus on issues of ideology and posturing that they thought would get them elected – instead of focusing on the people’s business.”

State Rep. Nicole LeFavour, D-Boise, is currently Idaho’s only openly gay lawmaker.

Edmondson, the administrator in a Weiser-area medical practice since 1983, is chairman of the Idaho State Historical Society.

In this campaign, he replaces Bob Barowsky on the Democratic ticket.

In July, Barowsky, the former Payette County sheriff, was appointed by Gov. Jim Risch to the Idaho Fish and Game Commission, which forced him to withdraw from the race against Pearce, a two-term legislator.

Democrats had complained Risch had poached Barowsky for the Fish and Game Commission post – to keep a viable candidate from challenging Pearce.

Pearce, reached by cell phone at a family reunion in St. George, Utah, said he’d received correspondence from Edmondson but that he didn’t know him.

“I guess it (Edmondson’s swap of party affiliation and subsequent run) is part of the political game,” Pearce said. “I guess it shows there’s as much difference between Republicans as there is between Republicans and Democrats.”

The seat has been in Republican control for decades.