Ada GOP resignations weren’t sour grapes. They were making a statement. A brave one | Opinion
Earlier this month headlines across Idaho reported some version of: Six Ada County Republican Party officers resign. The principled heroism on display begs further examination.
Resigning were Ada’s Republican County chair, 1st, 2nd and 3rd vice-chairs, treasurer and state committeewoman. These six comprise the brains and muscle of the most successful “turnaround” political organization in Idaho politics.
The residual loyalists to state chair Dorothy Moon minimized the event claiming “it reflects a minority, and 15 Executive Board members remain.” This sleight-of-hand was contrived by adding, since the Party’s summer meeting, twelve executive board seats not elected by Ada County’s 197 precinct leaders.
In reality those resigning account for nearly every party official responsible for the phenomenal Republican comeback in Ada County politics.
For decades, pundits predicted Idaho would follow Oregon and Washington and turn Democratic because of a heavily populated, deep-blue state capital. And it started to happen. The small enclave of safe Democratic seats in north Boise grew until it encompassed most of the city.
Five of Idaho’s seven Senate democrats and nine of the Houses’ eleven come from Boise.
But the Ada GOP team, led by a faithful Christian and conservative Victor Miller, toiled to build, recruit, and fundraise, leading Ada Republicans to success again in county elections. A once all-Democrat county commission turned Republican. The steady spread of unquestioned Democratic turf was halted, forcing Boise Democrats to once again campaign hard to keep their seats.
Ada’s Republican Team resignations are not the “capitulation” characterized by Moon. Theirs was a principled protest, listing clear irreconcilable differences. Their reasons are universally accurate, pointing out millstones dragging down Republicans across Idaho.
The list is: (1) a bias against growing the party, imposing waiting periods on Hispanics and blue-collar workers seeking to “switch” Republican, (2) self-anointing purity squads to tell voters they nominated the wrong person, (3) picking nominees before they win the party’s primary, (4) removing Republican Women, Young Republicans and College Republicans from decision-making, and (5) imposing a pay-to-play on delegates elected to represent local Republicans at the state convention.
These reasons repudiate a mindset that abandons the necessity of appealing to voters. They uncover an arrogance toxic to party health, especially in Ada County where gains are hard-fought, and necessitate convincing voters that their views and values are welcome in the Grand ‘Ole Party.
The push by Moon to have mid-level party loyalists conduct purity inquisitions and vetting-before-voting causes havoc across Idaho. The timing couldn’t be worse. There is widespread belief that politics have been infected with cronyism, with many voters remembering a panel of Moon loyalists endorsing a replacement legislator later convicted of raping a statehouse intern.
Gone is the conservative ideal that government is answerable to, and only to, the people. No elected official in Idaho takes an oath to a party or its platform. The oath taken is quite the opposite: promising to execute constitutional duties benefiting all citizens.
Elected officials have the same duty to honor party wishes that they do for major donor demands. It is unwise to accept support you intend to repudiate, but no donor should control the behavior of an elected official. Nor, in a free society, should a party.
Injecting between voters and their voices in government a layer of accountability to a party is un-American, more like the control of authoritarian communists. American parties can exercise a positive influence, helping good people win elections. Punishing those who don’t answer to a small cadre of unaccountable partisans is not an enumerated power in any constitution.
Ada’s Republican leaders resigned for a good reason: they refuse to further a role for their party that is inherently self-destructive.
It is revealing that these resignations did not include stepping down as precinct officers, positions answerable directly to voters. Dorothy Moon’s dismissal of these resignations as “sour grapes” may ring hollow when voters in 2024 decide whose view of Republicanism is correct.