Suit filed to close primary
BOISE – Seventy-two members of the Idaho Republican Party – but not the party itself – are suing the state of Idaho to close GOP primary elections to anyone not registered as a Republican.
That would be a huge change, since Idaho has no party registration. “The laws of Idaho do not provide for party registration,” said Secretary of State Ben Ysursa, the sole defendant named in the lawsuit. “Seven hundred thousand of us are registered now without party affiliation.”
Ysursa, like every other statewide officeholder in Idaho, is a Republican. So is a large majority of the state Legislature.
Rod Beck, a former state senator and a GOP activist who’s leading the charge on the lawsuit, said, “I invited the chairman of the party to be a participant in the lawsuit. He respectfully declined. I would prefer that the leadership of the party would support the overwhelming grass-roots effort and support of the party.”
Party Chairman Kirk Sullivan said he favored legislative changes, rather than a lawsuit against the state. “It was my decision to give the Legislature that opportunity,” he said. “I’m not going to comment on anything in the suit … since the party is not involved in it.”
Idaho’s GOP Central Committee voted 88-58 last month to restrict the party’s primary elections to registered Republicans only. “There were a lot of proxies in there, so there were not 88 people in there who voted for it,” said Sullivan.
The issue came up during this year’s legislative session, but nothing to change state laws passed. The call for closed primaries also was approved in 2006 in the Idaho Republican Party’s current platform, which states, “To allow those who have no loyalty or allegiance to the Idaho Republican Party or its platform and resolutions to select our candidates is simply not proper.”
Beck said that based on U.S. Supreme Court decisions in cases from other states, he believes his lawsuit is “rock-solid.”
In March, a deputy Idaho attorney general sent an advisory letter to House Majority Leader Mike Moyle, R-Star, suggesting that if the state were sued over the issue, it would lose.
Idaho Democrats crowed over the lawsuit and the apparent GOP split on Thursday, saying they’ll keep their party primary elections open to all comers – including the roughly one-third of Idahoans who identify themselves as independents.
“We have a strong independent streak in our state, so for people to have to step forward and say, ‘I’m a Democrat’ or ‘I’m a Republican’ really goes against the grain,” said House Minority Leader Wendy Jaquet, D-Ketchum.
Democrats hold closed caucuses for party members only to select their presidential convention delegates, but that’s a privately funded affair separate from the primary election, at which all partisan state and local offices are on the ballot, Jaquet said. “What my folks are saying is, ‘Why do I have to pay for the Republicans to have their special election?’ “
Beck called that a separate question. “If they want us to have it a privately funded thing, I’d support that,” he said. “But that’s not what is at issue here.”
Among those joining Beck in the lawsuit are 15 North Idaho residents, led by state central committee members John Cross, Ruthie Johnson and Ron Vieselmeyer, all of Kootenai County.
The lawsuit says the GOP primary must be closed to “stem the infiltration of non-Republicans into the selection process for Idaho Republican Party candidates.” That “infiltration,” the suit says, poses “a direct and immediate threat to the integrity of the party.”
Attached to the lawsuit was an article from a Boise alternative weekly written by a “well-known Democrat,” saying the author, Bill Cope, planned to cross over in the 2006 congressional primary to vote for moderate Republican Sheila Sorensen. The article was entitled “Clown Control.”
Keith Allred, a Harvard professor and head of The Common Interest, a nonpartisan citizens group, said, “This suit is bad for Idaho. The evidence is clear that when you close an open primary, we get representatives who are less reflective of the people. … They will be more ideologically extreme.”
Allred crafted compromise legislation this year to move Idaho to a “modified-closed” primary, which would require registered party members to vote in their own party’s primaries but allow independents to choose whichever primary ballot they wished. The legislation was introduced but never got a hearing.
Allred said the fact that the party itself isn’t suing may raise legal issues related to standing, and that could delay the case – possibly giving the Legislature another chance to act before a court could order changes in Idaho’s election system.