Rule-suspension question forces roll-call vote on hearing platform change recommendations…

For fairly obscure reasons, related in part to the national GOP convention having been moved up to July, the Idaho Republican Party’s state convention has to vote first by a two-thirds margin to suspend its rules, before it can hear any of its committee reports, including the platform committee. On the initial voice vote, there was a very loud “no” on suspending the rules. So party Chairman Steve Yates said, “The no’s have it; the platform committee did not convene this convention.”

Amid murmurs and rumblings, he then asked for a show of hands. There was still more than a third raising their hands for “no,” he said. Then, there was a motion for a roll-call vote. The roll is being called now.

The platform committee considered six proposed changes; it defeated two and approved four. The two that were defeated both were to remove items from the platform – the call for repealing the 17th Amendment and doing away with direct election of U.S. senators; and the call to return to the gold standard. The four that were approved include one on education, opposing unnecessary data collection and state funding for early-childhood education; one to add the word “divinely” before “inspired” in the platform’s preamble, referring to the U.S. Constitution; one declaring that “carbon dioxide is not a pollutant that should be regulated,” and stating that climate change is “the providence of God and cannot be altered or regulated by the actions of man,” while also calling for more state control of federal public lands and opposing forest road closures; and one stating,“The federal government must transfer title of all the public lands within the state to the State of Idaho.”

The four committee-approved changes won’t become part of the party platform unless the full convention votes to approve them.