The race to be Idaho’s next secretary of state gets competitive, with still a year to go
.jpg "Candidates running for Idaho Secretary of State, from left, are Chief Deputy Secretary of State Chad Houck, Ada County Clerk Phil McGrane and state Sen. Mary Souza, R-Coeur d’Alene.")
The race to be Idaho’s next secretary of state just got more interesting.
Chief Deputy Secretary of State Chad Houck told me Monday that he filed his paperwork for a campaign treasurer over the weekend.
“I didn’t want to be caught joining the game in the fourth inning,” he said. “I at least wanted to get the conversation going.”
Even though the Republican primary is a year away, candidates have been making announcements on runs for office. Lt. Gov. Janice McGeachin announced last week she’s running for governor, and Rep. Priscilla Giddings, R-White Bird, announced she’s running for lieutenant governor.
The secretary of state, one of seven constitutional officers, is the state’s chief elections officer and also is responsible for registering business and other government services, such as licensing notaries and registering trademarks.
Ada County Clerk Phil McGrane announced back in March that he’s running for the office. State Sen. Mary Souza, R-Coeur d’Alene, also has filed paperwork indicating a run for secretary of state. And now Houck has entered the fray.
McGrane ran for Idaho secretary of state in 2014, losing to eventual winner Lawerence Denney, coming in second with 28% of the vote in a four-way Republican primary.
Denney, 73, who is now in his second four-year term, hasn’t announced whether he’s running for a third term, and when I called his office Monday, he said through an assistant that he hasn’t announced anything yet.
That leaves a mystery, then. Or does it?
I suspect that Houck’s campaign treasurer might provide us a clue as to whether Denney will seek reelection or not.
Keep in mind that the “paperwork” that everyone is filing right now is not as a candidate. It’s to name a campaign treasurer and it allows candidates to raise money and spend money. The official filing period as a candidate doesn’t begin until Feb. 28, 2022.
Houck’s campaign treasurer is Lawerence Denney’s wife, Donna Denney. It would be odd, indeed, not only for Houck to run against his boss, but also to run against his boss when his campaign treasurer is his boss’s wife.
So I think the safe money is on Denney not seeking a third term.
Houck has been with the Idaho Secretary of State’s Office since 2016 and was named chief deputy in 2019. He is scheduled to earn a master’s degree in homeland security from the Naval Postgraduate School this year, and he holds a bachelor’s degree in business administration from the University of Montana.
McGrane was elected Ada County clerk in 2018. Before that, he was the deputy county clerk, and he’s worked in the clerk’s office since 2005. He has a master’s in public administration from Boise State University, a law degree from the University of Denver and a bachelor’s degree in philosophy from the University of Washington.
McGrane’s campaign treasurer is Maxine Bell, a Republican legend who spent a total of 30 years in the Idaho House of Representatives, from 1988-2018.
Souza is in her fourth term as a state senator. She has a bachelor’s degree in nursing from Pacific Lutheran University and a master’s in health education from Whitworth University. She is a former critical care nurse, a former clinical nursing instructor at Spokane Community College and has co-owned a business for 32 years. Her campaign treasurer is Jeff Siddoway, who was in the Idaho Senate for 12 years.
The primary may be a full year away, but it’s already become competitive.
This story was originally published May 25, 2021 at 4:00 AM.
CORRECTION: This column has been updated to correct the status of Houck’s master’s degree from the Naval Postgraduate School.
