SPENCER: Part of sordid movement

Larry Spencer, who is fast becoming Rep. Phil Hart's personal political hack, recently submitted his own House complaint against Hart's latest accuser: Rep. Eric Anderson. In it, he alleges that Anderson was guilty of a "conflict of interest" by personally benefiting from legislation dealing with the milfoil eradication program and then, in turn, buying property at depressed prices.

Both Spencer and Hart are poster boys for Idaho's new Republicans consisting of Tea Party activists, Ron Paul supporters and a reinvented religious right. In reality, however, they represent their own brand of RINOs (Republicans In Name Only), as do all former operatives in the Constitution Party which have infiltrated the Idaho GOP in recent years. These new Constitution-Republicans hold sway in seven of the 10 County Central Committees of North Idaho and a disproportionate influence in much of the rest of the state.

Constitutionalists differ from Republicans by embracing a mythology that America's Golden Age occurred during the period prior to the Civil War. They adore Andrew Jackson and despise Abraham Lincoln. GOP "Lincoln Days" celebrations are, at best, awkward for these people.

Spencer's appeal to an "everyone is doing it" argument as justification for Hart's misdeeds only proves that this latest political movement - of which they both seek to make into their own image - has lost its innocence and shares in the corruption of our state political establishment.

JAMES STIVERS

Desmet