Future of Bonneville County GOP is up for grabs this election
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IDAHO FALLS — In what is expected to be a tight race for control of the Bonneville County Republican Central Committee, 48 candidates backed by the Gem State Conservatives are running against 36 candidates endorsed by the Integrity in Government PAC.
Integrity in Government is a political action committee registered to LeAnn Callier in Idaho Falls, which has generally endorsed more right-wing Republican candidates, including the current Bonneville County GOP Central Committee leadership. It has mailed flyers and made endorsements that have been shared by Bonneville County GOP Central Committee leadership. To date, it has raised $26,685.
Gem State Conservatives is a statewide coalition of more moderate Republican candidates identified by their red-on-top and blue-on-the-bottom signs, running to take back control of the Idaho GOP from further-right conservatives like state party Chairwoman Dorothy Moon. According to the Bonneville County candidates’ website, their goals are to “welcome new and young Republicans, respect the voter’s candidate choices, support new party leaders who work for Idaho Republican voters and end the kangaroo courts and purity tests.” The group has $100,000 in its war chest.
Bonneville County Republican Central Committee Chairman Nick Contos affirmed this year’s election has brought heightened interest.
“This year, though, I think is the record,” he said. “We have … 89 volunteers to serve as precinct officers that will be on the ballot to be elected.”
Those 89 candidates are running for office in 50 precinct races, said Bonneville County Elections Supervisor Helena Welling. Of those, 37 precincts feature two-person races, one is a three-way election and 12 are uncontested. Among the Bonneville County Democrats, 15 candidates are running uncontested in 15 precincts.
Precinct committee officers form the backbone and the grassroots of a political party, according to Contos.
Because of the unprecedented number of candidates, whichever group wins will have much greater sway in the leadership and direction of the party.
“The Republican party reorganizes itself every two years,” Contos said. Together, all the precinct committee officers (PCOs) in Bonneville County form a central committee.
The central committee nominates leadership, proposes platform changes and selects delegates to the state GOP convention, which will be held June 13 to 15 in Coeur d’Alene. At the convention, about 700 delegates will “gather together, and they debate and discuss via committees and then the full convention, potential planks or changes to the platform,” Contos said.
Ultimately, they will adopt a platform for the next few years.
A tale of two GOPs
“I don’t think that one voice or one philosophy should be allowed to silence others.”
The two factions running for office present competing visions and tactics for the Bonneville County GOP, after a year of special investigative committee hearings, censuring, RINO name-calling and fights over what it means to be a Republican.
A ground-swelling of candidates is upset with the party’s current direction and “tone,” said Erin Bingham, a PCO candidate in precinct 57 affiliated with the Gem State Conservatives. “I feel like that there’s a lot of contention in the Republican Party, where Republicans are fighting against Republicans. … We can have respectful conversations, and we can agree to disagree on certain points, but I don’t think that one voice or one philosophy should be allowed to silence others.”
Current Assistant Precinct Committee Officer Josh Golden is also running for PCO office in Precinct 46. He has been endorsed by the Integrity in Government PAC, but said he is unaware of the political action committee and is simply running to benefit the greater community.
“It’s the best way to engage my neighbors in the community in making a difference in our politics,” Golden said. “It’s one thing to just show up and vote in elections. It’s another thing to listen to, support and help our neighbors be a part of this great country and form of government we have where it’s by representation.”
Golden said many of the new Gem State Conservative candidates for PCO have never been involved in the party before.
“There’s a top-down movement to replace the grassroots PCOs, who are just volunteers and trying to benefit their community.”
“I’ve never seen any of these folks at any of the meetings … and they’re trying to replace people that have been involved for years,” he said. “I feel like there’s a top-down movement to replace the grassroots PCOs, who are just volunteers and trying to benefit their community. This top-down movement wants to change the internal structure of the Republican Party.”
Contos said former Idaho GOP party chairmen Tom Luna and Trent Clark have been particularly critical of Moon and have organized Gem State Conservatives across Idaho to bring a united challenge to her leadership.
But Bingham said she was not recruited to run for Gem State Conservatives.
“I decided to run a while ago,” she said. “I have joined Gem State Conservatives to have a unifying voice in saying I stand for something different than what we currently have in Bonneville County.”
She’s attended multiple meetings and is concerned about a number of issues in the Bonneville County GOP and Legislative District 32 and 33 committees over the past few years.
“Recently, there’s been a lot of these meetings – these censuring meetings – where they have called in our politicians, and have asked them to account for their voting records. To me, it has felt more like a tribunal, where they are called in question on how they voted, and, and I feel like are being asked to tow a party line and being told how to vote. If they do not vote in accordance with the current leadership’s philosophy of what a Republican is, then they’re censured,” she said.
RELATED | Legislative committee censures local lawmakers accused of violating party platform
She said Sen. Kevin Cook, R-Idaho Falls, was elected with 75% of the vote in the 2022 primary, but has been censured on three counts by the Legislative District 32 Committee.
“I feel like the current leadership is trying to negate thousands of people who have voted for Sen. Cook by trying to censure him and saying that he is not Republican enough,” Bingham said. “I feel like it is important that each citizen has a right to vote and to voice their opinion, and I feel like that that is done at the ballot box and is not done in a backroom meeting by a few individuals who disagree.”
Golden argued that the party has a right to enforce legislators voting in line with the party platform.
“If you want to run as a Republican, then you need to stand on and defend the platform and the beliefs that have been set up by the people you say you represent,” he said. “With the ‘Integrity and Affiliation (pledge),’ all we’re asking for people is to be like, ‘Hey, if you say you’re a Republican, then you’ve got to agree to what all the people in the state say are our core beliefs that make up the Republican Party.’”
He said the hearings were set up primarily to facilitate discussion between the legislators and elected PCOs to respond to complaints that they were not voting in line with the party platform, but the legislators refused to participate.
Contos also defended the legitimacy of the hearing process.
“There is no downside to coming and talking to the volunteers explaining your positions,” he said. “They may not agree with you, but you’re going to be in much better position if you engage with them, rather than just going to war with them in a publicity war. ”
Rep. Stephanie Mickelsen, R-Idaho Falls, emphasized the statewide significance of the PCO elections on May 21. Mickelsen was also a subject of an Legislative District Committee hearing, and was censured along with Cook and Sen. Dave Lent, R-Idaho Falls and Rep. Marco Erickson, R-Idaho Falls.
“Most people didn’t even realize how important precinct committee officers are and … how (at) the local level of a precinct committee officer, which is basically your polling area, what a difference that makes on the policy that comes out of not only your county, but out of the state,” she said.
A statewide contest
The division between the Gem State Conservatives and many current PCOs in the Bonneville Republican Central Committee is part of a wider battle taking place across the state over the leadership and the platform of the Idaho GOP.
“We have veered significantly from the inclusive big tent party envisioned by Ronald Reagan. Chairwoman Moon’s party has instead become synonymous with purges, division and expulsions,” Luna and Clark said in a news release earlier this year. As evidence, they cited “counties and districts abandoning neutrality in primaries, holding platform compliance tribunals, imposing ‘donate or you can’t vote’ rules, and removing the vote of women and youth groups on the statewide team responsible for party success.”
Moon countered that portrayal.
“Now, those same former leaders (Luna and Clark) are bankrolling a statewide effort to buy enough PCO races to return to power,” she wrote in April. “Any registered Republican can put his or her name in the hat for precinct committeeman. This is an unquestionable right. I think voters will be able to tell the difference between a true grassroots representative of the people and a stand-in for elite power brokers.”
The Idaho Capital Sun characterized this tug-of-war for control of the party as a “battle for the soul” of the Idaho GOP.
“All of a sudden, people are like, ‘Whoa, what, what’s happening? Like, this isn’t my Republican Party,’” Mickelsen told EastIdahoNews.com. “I assure them, ‘It’s our Republican Party. We’ve just been the silent majority, and people have woken up to it now and want a positive change to make a difference.’”
Contos emphasized the party’s official neutrality in the PCO election process. Although other groups are making recommendations on who to vote for for PCOs, the Bonneville GOP party is not.
“As a central committee, we make no endorsements on precinct committee officer candidates,” Contos said. “That decision is left up to the voters in each neighborhood precinct.
“If people want to work and advance the Republican cause, then absolutely I encourage it and welcome it. We don’t all have to share the same opinion on on tactics or strategy or flavor of the Republican Party. We can find common ground.”
All the candidates agreed on one thing: Voters need to participate in the election, which is happening May 21.