Will there be a special session? Republicans deadlocked over primary election proposals

Ryan Suppe, Idaho Statesman

BOISE (Idaho Statesman) — Idaho Republican lawmakers are hastily trying to negotiate a deal for a special legislative session to reinstate a presidential primary election, but the House and Senate GOP majorities have yet to agree on a proposal that must be approved this week before the Republican National Committee’s deadline to finalize election dates.

Idaho law right now does not allow for a presidential primary, after a bill to move the election from March to May that legislators passed this year inadvertently eliminated a mechanism for candidates to file for the election. In the wake of the error, the state Republican and Democratic parties separately voted to hold caucuses to select their presidential nominees.

Last month, Senate Republican leaders proposed a special session to establish a May primary for presidential candidates, as the approved legislation intended, and most senators are on board. But most House members support a separate proposal that would instead reinstate the March primary.

At least 60% of Senate and House members must agree on one of the proposals to trigger a special session. Meanwhile, Republican National Committee rules dictate that changes to primary election dates must be finalized by Oct. 1, which is Sunday.

Rep. Brent Crane, R-Nampa, who is shopping the House proposal, said Monday that the odds of a special session before Sunday are “pretty good” because there’s bipartisan support for a primary election rather than a caucus.

“You’re finding both parties are saying: ‘This is a problem. A caucus is not the system we want to have for the selection process,’ ” Crane told the Idaho Statesman by phone. “We’re eight weeks apart on the date, essentially.”

Negotiations were continuing Tuesday, according to Senate President Pro Tem Chuck Winder, R-Boise. The House proposal “doesn’t appear to be acceptable at this time,” Winder said by phone.

“We’re working on, potentially, a counter to that,” he said.

WHAT ARE THE PROPOSALS?

The House proposal, sponsored by Rep. Lance Clow, R-Twin Falls, would repeal House Bill 138, the legislation that moved the presidential primary from March to May and passed easily, 61-6-3 in the House and 23-11-1 in the Senate. Previously, Idaho held its presidential primary in March and all other primary elections in May.

HB 138, which Idaho Gov. Brad Little signed into law this year, attempted to consolidate the primary elections, improve voter turnout and save taxpayers about $2.7 million in costs associated with a separate election. But it accidentally neglected a mechanism allowing candidates to file for the election, which eliminated the presidential primary altogether.

The Senate passed a trailer bill, Senate Bill 1186, that would have fixed the error, but the legislation failed in the House State Affairs Committee after Idaho GOP Chairwoman Dorothy Moon lobbied against it.

Moon previously told the Statesman that a March selection process compels candidates to focus their time and resources on Idaho and that a special session would “needlessly expend taxpayer resources” because the state party will not budge on a March date.

Last month, Senate GOP leadership proposed allowing the state political parties to move forward with plans. But if the parties choose not to caucus, the state would hold a presidential primary election in May. The bill, sponsored by Winder, would have the same effect as the trailer bill that failed in the House earlier this year.

Senate Republicans said the proposal is meant to protect voter access, since a caucus “significantly limits the number of citizens who can participate,” including active-duty military members, out-of-state missionaries and seniors with limited mobility, among other groups.

Democrats, meanwhile, have pushed for a restoration of the primary elections in either month.

“Our Democratic representatives have signed both petitions to return to a special session to restore a primary,” House Minority Leader Ilana Rubel, D-Boise, said in a news release Monday. “Whether the primary takes place in March or May, the important thing is that all Idaho voters be given an opportunity to vote.”

SENATE, HOUSE AT IMPASSE OVER MAY PRIMARY

Lawmakers can call a special session if at least three in five members of both the House and Senate agree to meet. Per a constitutional amendment that voters approved last year, lawmakers must circulate a petition that specifies the subjects they’ll address in the special session. Lawmakers can consider only those issues when they meet.

More than 60% of House members support Clow’s petition, Crane said, and Senate GOP leaders announced earlier this month that they have more than 60% support for Winder’s bill.

But Crane, who chairs House State Affairs, the committee that rejected the trailer bill with a fix to the candidate filing mechanism, said committee Republicans still don’t support the change. Committee Republicans opposed the initial legislation because the state party opposed moving the primary election from March to May, Crane said.

“The presidential primary process is a party process, and the party wasn’t consulted,” Crane said. “Members of my committee said we’re going to honor the party’s request here.”

Winder noted that House Bill 138 sailed through the House on that lopsided 61-6 vote in February, before the Senate discovered the candidate filing error and cleared the trailer bill. All but two Republicans on Crane’s committee supported HB 138 in the full House vote.

“We corrected it with (Senate Bill) 1186, sent it back over to them, and they gave it a cursory hearing and no motion to pass it,” Winder said. “As a result, we’re in the situation we are.”

Winder said senators won’t support the House’s current proposal in light of the support its members showed for a May primary during this year’s legislative session. There’s “a lot of work to do yet” before an agreement, Winder said.

“Originally, everybody wanted to consolidate the presidential primary with the partisan primary in May,“ he said. “We just want people to be able to vote for president, but we also want to make sure that there’s a good turnout for the legislative races.”