The Idaho Republican Party, under the far-right leadership of former legislator and candidate for secretary of state Dorothy Moon, has made a gamble: The GOP will be able to maintain and gain control of the state if young voters, partisan dissenters, potential new voters, and women are excluded from the party’s priority list.
At the 2023 Idaho GOP Summer Meeting, party leadership made those decisions official. Here are the three main new rules gathering attention from within their own ranks.
The Affiliation Restriction
If an Idaho voter wants to change their party affiliation from a different party to Republican, they must wait until one year has passed since the end of the year of making that change. That means if you were a registered Democrat and you changed your affiliation to Republican on Jan. 1, 2023, you will have to wait until Dec. 30, 2024 to actually become a Republican voter.
Women, Young Republicans Stripped of Privileges
Within the Idaho Republican Party, the GOP Central Committee calls the shots. Now, the Idaho Federation of Republican Women, Young Republicans, and College Young Republicans chapters have been stripped of the right to vote on the executive committee. Women and youth can still vote on the board in other capacities — but those chapters no longer can.
Votes of No Confidence, Censures
The Idaho GOP can censure elected members of their party, and passed several votes of no confidence for politicians such as Gov. Brad Little and lawmakers.. Moon has repeated that the party stands for the state and U.S. constitutions, thus officially aligning the Republican Party with banning books and punishing fellow Republicans who disagree with the party platform in any way.
For years, Idaho Republicans have increasingly decried the far-right takeover of their party, saying the platform is straying from traditional conservatism of years gone by. (Idaho Statesman / Getty)
Those Republicans who disagree with these changes aren’t going down quietly.
Just a couple of weeks ago on City Cast Boise, Republican State Sen. Geoff Schroeder rejoiced in his “F” rating from the Idaho Freedom Foundation (IFF), the conservative think tank that has unofficially called the shots and punitively “graded” legislators for years.
“It’s a pity that it couldn’t go lower,” he said. “You either go in lockstep with what their commands are, or you get thrown out.”
The Canyon County Republican Women Executive Board rang the alarm in an article after the Idaho Federation of Republican Women were stripped of their voting privileges.
“Rather than work to enact policies that represent the preferences of most Idaho Republicans,” they wrote, “[the current leadership of the Idaho GOP] worked to purge the party of those who do not share their fanatical, revisionist views.”
