OPINION: Butch Otter’s right: ‘Idaho deserves better’
If the Open Primary Initiative passes next year, credit won’t necessarily go to former Idaho Gov. C.L. “Butch” Otter and the more than 100 prominent Republicans — including former Sen. Joe Stegner, R-Lewiston, and former Nez Perce County Republican Central Committee Chairperson Eric Peterson — who endorsed the measure Wednesday.
Qualifying the initiative for the ballot, persuading voters to support it and then, possibly, defending it against a hostile Legislature, remains a daunting task.
But give Otter and Republicans for Open Primaries their due: They have refocused the argument.
No longer can Idaho GOP Chairperson Dorothy Moon, Attorney General Raul Labrador and Kootenai County Republican Central Committee Chairperson Brent Regan credibly claim that doing away with their rigged primary will transform the Gem State into another Colorado or — gasp — San Francisco.
This isn’t about handing the state over to the one-third of Idahoans who still vote Democratic.
Idaho will remain a Republican state.
The only question is, what kind of Republican state will Idaho be?
Nobody knows this better than Otter, who wasn’t in office two years when in 2008 extremists in his own party began the push toward closing what had been an open primary since 1932.
By 2012, they had prevailed in the courts, thereby launching a system that required people to publicly register as Republicans to vote in the one election that really counts in a one-party state. Nonaffiliated voters could register at the polls, but it meant publicly disavowing their independent status. And anyone who had registered as a member of another party was effectively locked out.
This gave the hyperpartisan 17% of Idaho GOP voters an enormous advantage over nominating — and effectively electing — the state’s leadership.
That’s how Janice McGeachin — nominated with less than 29% of the vote in a five-way primary contest — got elected lieutenant governor in 2018.
It’s why fringe candidates such as Scott Herndon, of Sagle, Dan Foreman, of Moscow, and Brian Lenney, of Nampa, are serving in the state Senate.
Left in place, it’s only a matter of time before this crew extends its reach into more statewide and congressional offices.
In response, the Idaho Coalition for Open Primaries — which includes Reclaim Idaho, Veterans for Idaho Voters and now Republicans for Open Primaries — has pursued a constitutionally valid way to reopen the primary by removing the parties from the process.
There would be no registration by party and no voter suppression. The choices you make remain private.
The top four vote-getters in any primary contest — regardless of party affiliation — would advance to the fall general election.
In November, an instant runoff — or ranked choice voting — would determine the outcome. Voters state their first, second and third preferences. If no candidate captures an outright majority, the least successful drops out and the second and third preferences are split among the remaining candidates until someone reaches a majority.
Therein lies fear of the unknown and Moon plays on it. But the system, now in place in Alaska, Maine, a number of cities, Australia and Ireland, has not warped the preferences of voters.
Walter Olson of the libertarian think tank Cato Institute pointed out Alaska remains a Republican stronghold.
But had it been in place in Idaho in 2018, McGeachin likely would have lost to a more centrist Republican — such as former GOP Chairperson Steve Yates, of Idaho Falls — in November.
Were this the system offered to voters last year, Labrador would have faced a much tougher fight in ousting incumbent Attorney General Lawrence Wasden on the more even playing field of a general election.
Even if right-of-center candidates emerge from this open primary process, they have every incentive to appeal to broader, more centrist coalition of voters in the fall campaign.
But who ever heard of Walter Olson or the Cato Institute?
Otter and his fellow Republicans for Open Primaries are a different matter. A known commodity for Idaho voters, they boiled down the question to this:
Do you want to hand over Idaho’s future to a Republican Party leadership that has:
-- Censured 14 House Republicans and Gov. Brad Little because they defended librarians against book-banning fanatics?
-- Silenced the voices of the Idaho Federation of Republican Women, the Idaho Young Republicans and the Idaho College Republicans?
-- Hauled lawmakers such as Rep. Lori McCann, R-Lewiston, before a tribunal of GOP central committee members for the offense of representing their voters?
-- Took a wrecking crew to North Idaho College and the West Bonner County School District?
-- Flirted with the idea of blocking even more moderates and independents from voting in their primary?
Which would you prefer?
A state leadership focused on your concerns — education, jobs and growth?
Or one that gets bogged down fighting over school vouchers, critical race theory and undermining public health initiatives?
Finally, the grownups within Idaho’s dominant political party have joined the fight. And the state’s 32nd chief executive has offered the rallying cry: “Idaho deserves better.” — M.T.
