Here’s why Idaho should stick with May for presidential primary | Opinion

Idaho legislators might for the first time use a voter-approved constitutional amendment that allows them to call themselves back into special session.

As reported by the Idaho Statesman’s Ryan Suppe, legislators are proposing to come back to the state Capitol to pass legislation setting a presidential primary date in 2024.

On its face, it’s a good use of a special session. It corrects an error in the last legislative session that inadvertently eliminated a presidential primary in Idaho.

But the devil is in the details, and this special session already is shaping up to be contentious.

First, some far-right Republicans want a primary in March, saying they want Idaho voters to have an impact on who would win the national nomination. (That’s rather laughable, since Idaho is not a player when it comes to the national nomination. Remember in 2016, when Ted Cruz took Idaho?)

But they already lost that argument during the legislative session this year, when the House and the Senate overwhelmingly voted to move the primary to May.

House Bill 138 passed 61-6-3 in the House and 23-11-1 in the Senate.

But because of an error in the legislation, we’re in the situation we’re in now. The bill inadvertently neglected a mechanism allowing candidates to file for the election, which eliminated the presidential primary altogether, according to previous Statesman reporting.

Both the Republicans and the Democrats have been making plans to hold a caucus, a tedious, old-fashioned, lengthy process compared with a primary, which is held more like a regular vote.

That’s because if there is no primary, the caucus is the only other option.

But the Idaho Republican Party, which has fallen into the hands of its far-right faction, has upped the game: Unless the Legislature changes the primary back to a March date, the Idaho Republicans will hold a caucus in March — even if there is a primary in May.

“The Idaho GOP’s position remains resolute: The only conceivable scenario in which a presidential primary could take place is through the repeal of House Bill 138, thereby reinstating the presidential primary to March of 2024,” party Chair Dorothy Moon said in an emailed statement. Moon lobbied against a trailer bill in the session that would have fixed the error in the original legislation and would have avoided this whole mess. “This perspective is firmly embedded in the will of our party members as expressed through the (state central committee’s) decision-making process.”

Doesn’t matter, we guess, that it wasn’t the will of all of those GOP legislators who voted to move the primary to May.

So even if the Legislature convenes and votes to fix its technical mistake, and hold a May primary, the Republicans would still gather in March, like spoiled children holding their breath until they get their way.

And because they would caucus regardless, these Republicans argue that a special session would be a waste of money and time.

But legislators should stick with the May primary that was heartily approved by both the House and Senate during the session. In addition to that, the reasons for doing so should sound familiar to Republicans: A May primary would improve voter turnout and save taxpayers about $2.7 million in costs associated with a separate election.

That’s the same argument that many Republicans used in the last session to try to kill March elections for school districts. House Bill 58 would have eliminated both March and August as possible dates, and GOP supporters said doing so would increase voter turnout and reduce costs.

“If we want to really be a representative republic, we have to have the greatest voter turnout that we can have, and that voter turnout occurs in May and in November when normal elections are held,” bill sponsor Rep. Joe Alfieri, R-Coeur d’Alene, said in floor debate.

That bill passed the House, 43-26-1, but never made it to the Senate.

We’d like to see the mental gymnastics some of these Republicans will go through to justify wanting to kill a March date for schools in the name of being a representative republic but put forward a March election for themselves.

For a potential special session, Senate President Pro Tem Chuck Winder, R-Boise, has proposed a bill that would correct the error in HB 138 and keep the primary in May.

Sen. Scott Herndon, R-Sagle, a member of the Legislature’s so-called Freedom Caucus, has proposed his own bill to move the primary to March.

Idaho’s reasonable legislators should stick to their guns and call a quick vote on Winder’s bill. They had the votes before to pass it, and then some, so it shouldn’t be a problem this time around.

If Idaho Republican Party officials still choose to hold a cumbersome, low-turnout, expensive, archaic caucus, that’s their problem.

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.