Dorothy Moon held on to her position as head of the extremist Idaho Republican Party at the Republican National Convention in Coeur d'Alene on June 15. Mary Souza challenged Moon for the chairmanship in hopes of bringing more moderation to her party, but she failed to get voted out. 376-228. Reasonable Republicans made a huge effort to win most of the precinct committee positions in closed Republican primaries this year. The goal was to drive out extremists and change the direction of the party. Despite considerable success in some parts of the state, the Reformists failed to win a majority. If it continues, it will come up in the next election as well.
President Moon has shown that the Communist Party wants to strengthen minority control over the country's political life. She declared that her GOP was a “private group.” “It is a private organization.” She told reporters that competition proceedings are closed to the media and transparency is not part of the equation. One of the reasons Moon shut down her press, she said, was so she and her colleagues could explore a strategy to defeat the Open Primaries Initiative, which will come up on the November ballot. .
President Moon knows that she and her Republican faction would be history if every Idaho voter could have a say in who gets elected to office. Extremists have been able to seize and maintain control of the legislature by favoring candidates in low-turnout Republican primaries. Rational Republicans are defeated by a sophisticated disinformation campaign supported by out-of-state dark money interests. Idaho's 275,000 independent voters, including about half of the state's 160,000 veterans, are effectively denied the right to vote in the primary unless they claim to be Republicans.
As if current Moon Republican bossiness wasn't enough, convention delegates voted to file a lawsuit against Secretary of State Phil McGrane to prevent cross-voting. McGrane correctly informed Moon that state law trumps GOP rules, but Moon appears to think his rules are Idaho's law. Attention is being paid to whether Attorney General Moon Jae-in will be able to effectively defend the lawsuit.
The delegates then got down to the business of preparing for various culture war battles. Among other things, they opposed “the use of taxpayer funds for post-high school programs.” So Moon Jae-in's Republican platform will now withhold state funding for higher education while making taxpayers cough up money for K-12 private and religious education. Is there a fear that too much education is harmful to our children?
“Idaho has the right and obligation to remove from our state all persons living illegally within our borders,” the delegates resolved. This will devastate construction projects across the state, as well as Idaho's agricultural industry, especially dairy farms, feed suppliers and processors. It is fortunate that the state has no legal authority to enforce this resolution.
Delegates voted to ban the destruction of embryos, which can interfere with in vitro fertilization. They called for an end to no-excuse absentee voting and an end to all government funding and programs not required by the Constitution. The representative did not consider the number of current programs that are not even mentioned in the Idaho Constitution. They overlooked the fact that their extremist legislators had failed to provide adequate funding for a duty specifically required by the Constitution: “a general, uniform, and thorough system of public, free, common schools.”
Even though reformers were unable to replace Moon as Speaker or remove extremist planks of the Republican platform, Moon and her colleagues clearly demonstrated that responsible and responsive government is impossible. Their continued misbehavior leading up to the November election will result in the passage of the Open Primaries Initiative. The reformists lost the convention, but the example set by President Moon and her disruptors will lead to the detoxification of the Republican Party.