GRANT: The rest of the story

Brent Regan wants you to believe the sky is falling. He complained about CTCL (Center for Tech and Civic Life) grant funds that he hints influence elections.

The CTCL requirements Ada County and others had to follow was to restrict funds to election needs like hiring staff, purchasing mail-in ballot processing equipment, and similar items. Failure to use the funds for those purposes will result in losing the grant. Brent didn’t bother to put that in his letter.

Having counties acquire additional funds that help them hold elections was so scary that Sen. Mary Souza introduced and passed legislation opposing this grant. She had to do this because when the grants were challenged in the courts in other states, they lost. There was nothing illegal about the grants.

What Brent Regan and Mary Souza helped us to understand is that no county in Idaho should take money for any purpose if any of the group’s members are not claiming to be Republican. We can’t have anyone other than the “R” party look good.

And Mary Souza, when you stop participating in ALEC (American Legislative Exchange Council), a group basically made up of large corporations writing model laws for state legislators that support the interest of big business, you can talk about influence peddling. Until you stop opposing things that actually help working people in favor of those helping huge national corporations, you really have no right to pretend you are helping the voters.

Brent’s propaganda letter was an election power play.

BARBARA OSTIPWKO

Coeur d’Alene