2024 Winter Meeting, Day 1

A few fireworks, but mostly civil dialogue

Day one of the Idaho Republican Party Winter Meeting is in the books. I had a great time yesterday meeting so many patriots from across the state. Attorney General Raúl Labrador hosted a reception at the 127 Saloon across the street along with Ada County Commissioner Ryan Davidson where everyone had a lot of fun.

Last night I attended the Executive Board and Rules Committee meetings, posting live updates from each. Click the links to read those updates, keeping in mind that posts are in reverse order.

Idaho GOP Chairwoman Dorothy Moon opened the meeting with a general report mostly covering preparations for the caucus on March 2. As you recall, when the Legislature eliminated the March presidential primary the party had to come up with a way to take part in the nominating process.

The executive director and the remaining party officers shared updates about party organization and finances. Most county committees have fulfilled their obligation to support the state party, including Ada, after the leadership turnover earlier this year. 1st Vice Chair Daniel Silver commended the party’s stance against the blanket primary / ranked choice voting initiative, and National Committeeman Bryan Smith pointed out that while “open primaries” are somewhat popular among voters, ranked choice voting is not, so we must continue exposing the truth about this radical initiative.

Each of the seven region chairs, or their vice chairs, shared updates from their area. One thing that jumped out to me was Region I Chairman Bjorn Handeen’s announcement that he was putting together a committee to study how to improve the platform. This is something that Handeen has thought deeply about and written about on his own Substack. He points out that the platform, rather than being a general statement of principles as it is now, used to be a specific set of policies that the party wanted to see accomplished in the Legislature. Is it time to return to that format?

Farhana Hibbert, president of the Idaho College Republicans, shared her organization’s work registering young people to vote and spreading the Republican message. Despite no longer having a voting seat on the executive board, Hibbert still made the effort to speak for the College Republicans here at the Winter Meeting. That cannot be said for Idaho Federation of Republican Women president Tracey Wasden or Idaho Young Republicans president Ryan Finney, neither of whom were apparently in attendance.

The biggest issue that the executive board tackled Friday night was the appeal by the Bingham County Republican Central Committee. Basically what happened was that the Bingham County GOP chairman, Dan Cravens, notified his committee that he would be resigning on a certain date. He then convened a meeting to elect his successor, which violated state party rules that say the 1st vice chair must call a meeting at least seven days after a vacancy occurs. Chairwoman Moon notified Bingham County that they had broken the rules and must call a new meeting. Even though the results of that meeting would surely have been the same, Bingham decided to sue the state party instead.

Since the purpose of the meeting was to hear the appeal of the chair’s decision, Dorothy Moon handed the gavel to 1st Vice Chairman Daniel Silver. National Committeeman Bryan Smith recused himself, as he is serving as counsel for the state party. Former state representative Greg Chaney is serving as counsel for Bingham County and presented their appeal. Before that, however, 2nd Vice Chairman Mark Fuller moved to disqualify Silver as chair for the meeting, presenting evidence that he had been in contact with the Bingham PCs regarding the issue at hand prior to the appeal or the lawsuit. Silver countered that he had simply answered questions about the rules, however the committee voted to disqualify him. Secretary Maria Nate took over as chair.

Greg Chaney finishes his presentation while Bryan Smith prepares for his.

After much discussion and debate, the board voted 9-3 to deny the appeal, upholding Chairwoman Moon’s judgment that the Bingham County GOP broke party rules. How this affects the lawsuit and the relationship between the county and state parties, I don’t know.

Next up was the Rules Committee, chaired by Kootenai County GOP chairman Brent Regan.

Click here to read through the rules that were proposed by PCs and committees for this meeting. The rules that passed the committee (and have just passed the full state central committee as I write this) are 2024-2, 2024-3, 2024-7, 2024-8, 2024-9, and 2024-10.

Rule 2024-3 clarified some language regarding the upcoming caucus, though a provision to allow voters who move between December 31 and March 2 to sign an affidavit to vote in their new location was stripped prior to passage.

Rule 2024-8 was the most controversial proposal. It would have strengthened the party platform enforcement rules that were passed over the past year. However, the harshest component of this rule, which would have given committees the ability to remove twice-censured lawmakers from the Republican primary ballot, was stripped prior to passage.

The six rules relating to the voting rights of the leaders of three affiliate organizations were debated and defeated together, which saved some time.

The committee finished its work by around 9:15pm, while committee considering resolutions took another hour. Stay tuned for a full report from the Saturday general session!