GOP votes to keep open primary

SANDPOINT (AP) - Republicans at their state convention voted to recommend keeping the GOP primary open to all voters, a reversal of efforts the last two years to close the party primary.

The narrow 199 to 192 vote prompted advocates of the closed primary to cry foul, saying delegates to the convention had been manipulated to stack the deck in favor of open primary supporters.

The vote is only a recommendation to the state central committee. Changing the party rule to support an open primary still would require a vote of those party leaders.

The closeness of the vote illustrates just how divided members of the state's dominant party are on the issue of how to elect Democrats.

Some say a three-quarters Republican majority in the 105-member Idaho Legislature and an all GOP slate of statewide elected officers including Gov. C.L. “Butch” Otter is a sign the existing open GOP primary has worked well for the party.

Others including Rod Beck, a chief backer of closing the primary, and social conservatives say that's allowed moderates and Democrats to cross party lines to elect GOP candidates who aren't faithful to the party platform.

“I think it's indicative of the divisiveness, the fact that there's no real clear mandate one way or another,” said state Sen. Joe Stegner, a delegate from Lewiston, of the vote. “It really means the party has a lot of work to do to find something that has the solid support of the rank and file of the Republican Party.”

The vote is a marked departure from two years ago, when state Republican Convention delegates in Idaho Falls overwhelmingly backed a plan to end Idaho's open primary.

Since then, the state GOP central committee has also voted to close the primary.

When asked what changed, Party Chairman Kirk Sullivan said the landscape has shifted.

“Two years ago we had 100 percent different people, in a different environment,” said Sullivan, an open primary supporter. “This group made up their own minds based on what happened in the rules committee.”

Despite the vote, Sullivan still plans to pursue a lawsuit filed by the Idaho Republican Party in April against Secretary of State Ben Ysursa to close the primary, barring a new direction from the central committee.

After the vote, closed primary backers pointed fingers at Sullivan and other members of the party's establishment, accusing them of tomfoolery in getting delegates named to the convention.

For instance, Beck said local party leaders in Canyon and Kootenai counties picked slates of delegates heavy on open-primary supporters, rather than allowing delegates to be chosen individually.

In addition, Beck said state Sen. John McGee, R-Caldwell and a delegate from Canyon County in southwestern Idaho, pushed aggressively for nine members of the region's Young Republican group to be included, resulting in a delegation that didn't accurately reflect desires of most Republicans there.

“That vote is not determinative at all,” Beck said. “That vote is just a good job by our opposition forces to lock out people who supported our efforts and not let them be properly considered as a delegate.”

McGee countered that there was nothing improper about the way delegates from Canyon County were vetted and approved.

“If including young people in the political process in the state of Idaho is 'manipulation,' then I'm guilty as charged,” he said.

Norm Semanko, who is challenging Sullivan for the party chairmanship in a vote slated for later Saturday, said the closely divided issue calls for renewed resolve among Idaho Republicans to develop a primary system that everybody in the party can accept. That resolve hasn't emerged under Sullivan in the last two years, said Semanko, a lawyer and lobbyist from Eagle, Idaho near Boise.

“This cries out for some leadership to get all sides in a room together so we can solve this issue and move forward,” he said. “I don't want to be back here in another two years with another divided vote.”