Idaho GOP’s election suit treading water

BOISE – It’s been a month since the Idaho Republican Party filed a federal lawsuit against the state, attempting to restrict the Republican primary election to registered GOP party members.

But the second step in moving the case forward – formally serving the state with a summons or notice of the lawsuit – has yet to be taken.

The Idaho Republican Party offered different answers on why the summons had not yet been served. One of the party’s lawyers, Charles Crawford Crafts, said the delay is “strategic.” The party’s executive director, Sidney Smith, said it was not “a conscious decision,” and that another of the party’s lawyers, John Sutton, had been out of town in recent weeks.

But Rod Beck, who led the push within the party for closed primaries, called the delay “deceitful,” contending party leaders were failing to abide by the resolution that the party adopted in January. That resolution called for the lawsuit to be filed and vigorously pursued if the Idaho Legislature failed to pass a law closing the primary during its 2008 session. The state Senate passed such a bill; the House did not. The session ended April 2.

Beck and other closed primary supporters warned Republican party leaders on Monday that in 10 days they would ask the judge to allow them to intervene in the existing case.

Federal court rules allow a maximum 120 days to pass between filing a lawsuit and serving notice on the respondent. That gives the Republican Party until about Aug. 9 to present the summons to Secretary of State Ben Ysursa, who oversees the state’s elections.

“They wanted to get the complaint filed in a timely fashion,” Crafts said. “The clock was ticking in that we had to get the lawsuit filed within 10 days of the Legislature ending. We know we’re not going to be able to change anything in this primary so for now we’re waiting in the wings, getting everything ready. That was a strategic move.”

Not everyone in the party is buying into the strategy, however.

“Justice delayed is justice denied,” Beck said. “Just filing a lawsuit without a summons does nothing. As a plaintiff you want this thing resolved expeditiously.”

At issue is a fear among some conservative Republicans that Democrats, Independents or other voters could infiltrate the Republican primaries and skew the result by voting for more moderate candidates.

Idaho has had open primaries for the past 36 years, though there have been previous efforts to close them. In 2007, a federal judge rejected a lawsuit brought by Beck, a former Republican state senator, that sought to close the primaries. In his ruling, U.S. District Judge Mikel Williams wrote that Beck and 71 other GOP members who brought the case didn’t represent the party and therefore didn’t have any right to sue.

This time around the lawsuit comes from the entire Idaho Republican Party, its executive committee, state central committee, chairman and executive director. The change was possible because rules were passed during the 2006 state party convention closing the primary and the rules were later officially adopted by the party’s central committee.