Banning media from Idaho Republican caucus is business as usual for this club | Opinion

It should come as no surprise that the leadership of the Idaho Republican Party wants to ban members of the media from the Republican presidential caucus on March 2.

After all, ever since Dorothy Moon was elected to be the party chairwoman, the state party has barreled toward increasing secrecy, consolidation of power and intolerance of opposing views.

While egregious and outrageous, this latest move to bar reporters from the electoral process is Moon’s modus operandi.

Over the summer, the Idaho Republican Party passed a resolution to allow central committees to summon Republican elected officials to potentially censure them for not adhering to the party platform, with multiple censures potentially resulting in those officials unable to run as Republicans in future elections, according to Melissa Davlin of Idaho Public Television.

At the same time, they removed voting privileges from the Federation of Republican Women, Idaho Young Republicans and Idaho College Republicans on the party executive committee, Davlin reported.

“What happened (this weekend) does not represent the majority of the Republican party,” former Idaho GOP chair Tom Luna told Davlin. “But what it did represent was the majority of the people that showed up were those that were very well organized and intent on purging the party of people that do not agree with them 100 percent of the time.”

As the Idaho Statesman’s Bryan Clark pointed out, the central committee tribunals are reminiscent of the Soviet politburo.

As we all know, the Soviets weren’t fond of a free press. Neither is the Idaho Republican Party.

Just to begin with, the Republican Party has chosen to close its primary to anyone who’s not registered as a Republican, leaving out tens of thousands of unaffiliated Idaho voters.

Beyond that, a caucus, compared with a primary, consolidates power into the hands of a few because it’s much more difficult to vote in a lengthy, in-person caucus process than simply vote in a primary, either at a polling place or by mail.

While Idaho legislators last session intended to move the presidential from March to May, the bill they passed inadvertently left out the part about holding the primary. A trailer bill sought to fix it, but Moon lobbied legislators to kill it, leaving political parties in Idaho no other choice than to hold caucuses.

One has to wonder if all of this is by design.

It strikes us as ironic that the party that’s spent the past four years parroting Donald Trump’s Big Lie that the 2020 presidential election was rigged and stolen in a shroud of secrecy is now trying to keep its caucus a secret from the press.

What are they trying to hide?

But further, we have to question the legality of Moon’s mandate to ban media from public buildings. Many of these caucuses are being held in school buildings, which are bought and paid for by Idaho taxpayers.

How can the Idaho Republican Party ban an Idaho taxpayer from a publicly funded building? Are they going to have reporters arrested for trespassing on public property?

It just goes to show you how people like Moon would run the country if she were in charge. What else would be closed off to targeted groups of citizens? Public parks? City halls? The state Capitol?

Finally, this kind of secrecy gives yet another black eye to the reasonable Republicans whose party has been hijacked by the likes of Moon.

When asked about media being banned from the caucuses, Idaho Gov. Brad Little seemed genuinely surprised and taken aback, saying he wasn’t aware that was happening.

“I’m kind of a transparent guy,” he said at an Idaho Press Club event.

Yet, this is your party, governor.

This is just another step along the path the Republican Party has been traveling down the last several years.

It’s outrageous and egregious. But it’s not surprising.

Statesman editorials are the unsigned opinion of the Idaho Statesman’s editorial board. Board members are opinion editor Scott McIntosh, opinion writer Bryan Clark, editor Chadd Cripe, newsroom editors Dana Oland and Jim Keyser and community members Mary Rohlfing and Patricia Nilsson.