Small races, big stakes: Precinct committee elections may shape Kootenai County’s politics

COEUR d’ALENE — As the May 21 primary election approaches, Kootenai County residents may have noticed something they’ve never seen before: Yard signs for Republican central committee candidates.

In the race for 73 seats on the Kootenai County Republican Central Committee, something unprecedented has happened. All but three of these usually uncontested races have challengers.

Now the KCRCC and a different group, North Idaho Republicans, are vying for the majority that will shape politics in Kootenai County.

Small races, big stakes

County-level central committees are the foundation of political parties in Idaho.

Kootenai County is divided into 73 precincts, each containing at most a few thousand residents. Representatives from each precinct called “committeemen” regardless of gender, form the central committee for each party.

These committees choose which candidates to support in general elections and, in some cases, primary elections. They choose which delegates to send to the state convention, where the delegates vote on the party’s rules and make changes to the state party’s platform. They also pass resolutions that may drive conversation within the state party or the legislature.

And yet, relatively few people vote in the committeemen races. In 2022, for example, most of the uncontested candidates garnered fewer than 400 votes.

These are neighborhood-level races, sometimes won and lost by a handful of votes.

“That granularity — that the central committee is made up of one person from each precinct — means that the central committee is the most representative body in the county,” said Brent Regan, chair of the Kootenai County Republican Central Committee. “This is by design.”

The county's central committee sees little turnover. Regan said he believes this is because local Republicans are satisfied with the service of the committeemen representing their precincts.

“We’ve got people who’ve been precinct committeemen for 10 or 15 years,” he said. “They know all their neighbors. Their neighbors watch and wait for them to come by during election times.”

Rep. Joe Alfieri, R-Coeur d’Alene, is also a committeeman representing precinct 420. He's been endorsed by the KCRCC.

“It’s the closest to the people,” he said of his role as a committeeman. “When you’re elected, it’s very difficult to stay in touch with the community because it’s a large community. It’s not easy to talk to 50,000 people.”

In contrast, central committees give voters a connection to the county party through someone in their neighborhood. Alfieri likened central committee meetings to meetings held in the Old North Church in Boston, famous for its role in Paul Revere’s midnight ride.

“This is very close to that,” he said. “This is what your local party does, Republican or Democrat or Constitutionalist.”

Central committees also play an important role when elected offices become vacant.

After the 2020 death of Kootenai County assessor Rich Houser, a Republican, it fell to the KCRCC to nominate three Republican candidates to replace him until the next election.

County commissioners voted unanimously to appoint Béla Kovacs to the office of assessor over the other candidates, Bjorn Handeen and Roger Garlock, both of whom are precinct committeemen. The three commissioners agreed that Kovacs’ experience, including 20 years as a purchasing director for Spokane County, made him the best choice.

Public records later revealed that Kovacs resigned from his Spokane County job in 2018 rather than be fired, following an investigation into his behavior.

In Kootenai County, Kovacs’ tenure has been controversial.

After missed deadlines, commissioners slashed Kovacs’ salary in half, though a judge later ordered them to restore it.

Late last year, Kovacs admitted to secretly recording conversations with his employees and other elected officials. More recently, he announced that his office will no longer administer solid waste fees — a task that his office is not required to perform by law but which Kootenai County assessors have carried out for at least 30 years.

Rated and vetted

The Kootenai County Republican Central Committee’s practice of endorsing Republican candidates ahead of the primary election is a controversial one.

The process has a few stages. First, Regan said, a recruiting committee identifies conservative candidates for partisan and nonpartisan offices. A vetting committee takes a closer look by reading through questionnaires filled out by the candidates. The candidates are also interviewed and a background check is performed.

Finally, the KCRCC meets in closed session to discuss the candidates and cast ballots to determine which ones get the central committee’s endorsement.

“It’s simply our opinion as to who the best Republican for the seat is,” Regan said. “There are folks who object to that, but it’s our freedom of speech. The state party rules allow for doing exactly that.”

Indeed, under the state party’s rules, “endorsements may only be made by a majority vote of the voting members and available to all eligible candidates for any given office being endorsed.” To get the KCRCC’s endorsement, a candidate must receive 50% of the vote plus one.

Critics of this process say it’s inappropriate for a Republican central committee to endorse candidates ahead of a primary election.

“The endorsements of the party should be saved for when Republicans are running against Democrats or other parties,” said former Idaho Lt. Gov. Jack Riggs. “The primary should be for the voters to decide.”

Riggs and his wife, Sandy Patano, are founding members of North Idaho Republicans, a group of local conservatives who describe themselves as “passionate about maintaining a big tent under which people in North Idaho from all walks of life come together to fight every day for a strong Republican Party.”

North Idaho Republicans have endorsed a slate of 70 candidates who are running against the incumbent precinct committeemen on the KCRCC.

“We’d just like some good, conservative Republicans to sit on the committee and do the right thing,” Riggs said.

That includes doing away with primary-election endorsements.

Patano, a former vice chair for the Idaho State Republican Party, said it’s wrong for the KCRCC to pit Republican candidates against one another through its rating and vetting process.

“They take the party’s resources and use them against other Republican candidates,” she said.

Candidates endorsed by the KCRCC in the primary election often win and usually go unopposed in the general election. County government, the North Idaho College board of trustees, the Community Library Network board and other local bodies are mostly filled with officials who were endorsed by the central committee.

Regan said there’s nothing suspicious about it.

“It’s that we have a good record of picking the guys who are going to win,” he said. “We can spot winners.”

He acknowledged that this could be seen as a sort of self-fulfilling prophecy. The central committee endorses Republican candidates during the primary race, then pours the party’s resources — usually greater than any individual candidate’s — into promoting that slate.

In Regan’s view, it’s a fair practice. The rating and vetting process serves as a kind of mini-election, he said, with candidates attempting to win over committeemen representing different parts of the county.

“If you can’t win that election, you probably can’t win the big one,” he said.

The KCRCC doesn’t speak with one voice, however.

Dan Gookin sits on the Coeur d’Alene City Council. He’s also a precinct committeeman, representing precinct 416, one of just three candidates who are running unopposed in the May election.

Gookin said he believes the central committee’s role is to search for good candidates for public office, raise money for the party and promote the party and its philosophy.

“That’s what the committee is designed to do,” he said. “That’s what it does best.”

But that’s not what the central committee is doing now, Gookin said.

“The only election in which the central committee should be actively involved is the general election,” he said.

Gookin is a vocal critic of the central committee, sharing his views on the local party, its processes and the candidates it endorses on social media and his YouTube channel, Kootenai Rants.

“They don’t support Republicans,” he said of the KCRCC. “They don’t support Republican voters. They support their own ideology, which is authoritarian in nature and anti-American, in my opinion.”

The KCRCC endorsed Gookin’s opponent in the nonpartisan city council election last November. Even so, Gookin cruised to victory with 59% of the vote. Fellow incumbents Christie Wood and Dan English were opposed by the KCRCC but won their races by similar margins.

Three weeks before the 2023 general election, the KCRCC sued Gookin, alleging that he defamed the central committee by calling the endorsement process “rigged” and saying the KCRCC violated campaign finance laws. The lawsuit referenced several of Gookin’s social media posts.

Gookin brushed off the lawsuit as a political stunt on the eve of an election.

“It’s not defamatory,” he said last year. “It’s not malicious. It is legitimate criticism.”

Power struggle

The central committee and North Idaho Republicans agree on one thing: Power is at the center of this election. But the camps appear to disagree on who wants it and why.

Regan believes the North Idaho Republicans slate is not the result of a grassroots movement but rather a coordinated effort.

“This is a power grab being conducted across the entire state,” Regan said. “One of the focuses is Kootenai County. They know we’re one of the leading counties.”

Alfieri echoed that sentiment.

“This is a concerted effort by a group of people who are dissatisfied with the direction the state is going in, and that is to maintain its conservative roots,” he said.

Riggs and Patano said the North Idaho Republicans movement is made of local conservatives who are tired of the current central committee’s practices, including what they see as an unfair and divisive endorsement process.

“We don’t feel the best candidates have been selected,” Patano said. “By engaging in this process, other potentially good candidates won’t even run now because they know, individually, against the KCRCC machine, they don’t stand a chance.”

Gookin suggested that for the KCRCC, this race is about a fear of losing influence.

“This is all about power,” he said. “The reason this race is so important is because the Republican power in Idaho has transformed itself into a shadow government. This parallels the way the Communist Party worked in Soviet Russia, in that the party was basically superior to the government.”

Gookin pointed to the Idaho Republican Party platform, which empowers central committees to summon Republican elected officials to appear before the group to answer for alleged party platform violations. Central committees may censure such officials and “remove party support and prohibit the use of Republican Party identifiers on campaign information and advertising” for that official for a period of five years.

“The Republican Party platform has become superior to the law in that, if an elected Republican refuses to swear an oath of fealty to the party platform, they can be thrown out of the party,” Gookin said.

Peter Erbland, who is running for the precinct 420 seat currently occupied by Alfieri, said negative rhetoric and the rating and vetting process are turning some voters away from the KCRCC.

“What I’m hearing is that people are tired of the politics of division and are wanting to save our community from that,” he said. “The people I talk to are grateful that something is happening to change this process that’s worked its way into our community over the last 10 years.”

Real Republicans

What is a Republican?

Regan posed that question in a recent column published in The Press. Some North Idahoans believe they have the answer, while others believe no single entity or person can decide for everyone.

“If the Republican Party offers you a candidate that says ‘Republican’ on the wrapper, does the party have any obligation to ensure that what is inside is an actual Republican?” Regan wrote. “Of course it does!”

He argued that the candidates supported by North Idaho Republicans are part of a “statewide coordinated effort to crush the Republican Party and turn Idaho blue.” He said the KCRCC’s endorsement process is a means of weeding out fake Republicans.

Patano said voters should note the familiar faces on the North Idaho Republicans slate. The candidates running opposite the central committee’s incumbents include longtime public servants like Vic Holmes, who served the city of Rathdrum as both a mayor and city councilor for a combined 16 years.

Patano said it’s significant that the candidates endorsed by North Idaho Republicans are deeply-rooted in Kootenai County.

“These people are talented,” she said. “They’re movers and shakers. They’re business leaders. They’re PTA leaders. They’re active in the community. We’ll put these candidates up against anyone. They’re good quality human beings and very interested in how they can preserve quality of life.”

Alfieri also suggested the candidates challenging the incumbent committeemen are not true Republicans. He added that some constituents in his precinct are perplexed by committeeman races.

“People are a little confused about who’s the Republican and who’s not,” Alfieri said. “Many people are not being taken in by it. They are seeing through the smokescreen and understanding what’s really going on.”

Among the candidates supported by North Idaho Republicans is Dave Patzer, a second-generation Kootenai County resident who grew up two blocks away from the North Idaho College campus. He graduated from NIC before going on to the University of Idaho.

“The college and the Fort Grounds are near and dear to me,” he said.

For more than a year, NIC has operated under a show-cause sanction, the last step before loss of accreditation. The college’s accreditor, the Northwest Commission on Colleges and Universities, has made it clear the sanction is not due to problems with finances or academics, but solely due to dysfunction on the board of trustees.

The board’s majority consists of three trustees who were endorsed by the KCRCC: Mike Waggoner, Greg McKenzie and Todd Banducci. The latter two trustees are precinct committeemen.

Patzer said watching the accreditation saga unfold at NIC is what spurred him to run for a seat on the central committee.

“We’re spending hundreds of thousands of bucks (at NIC) and we’re supposed to be conservative,” he said, referring to increased legal costs and other expenses tied to NIC’s accreditation woes. “We’re flying off the track here.”

Patzer is running in precinct 205, which spans roughly from 15th Street to the Wolf Lodge area. Brent Regan is the incumbent.

“I knew taking him on was going to be challenging, but I want the people in my precinct to have a choice,” Patzer said.

Patzer, a retired U.S. Navy pilot, said he’s faced criticism for some of his public service, including on Coeur d’Alene’s urban renewal board and the McEuen Park design committee. He pushed back against the notion that these activities undercut his conservative values and said the KCRCC is not empowered to define him.

“I’m just a guy that likes to give back to my community, and I’m tired of people moving to our community and telling us what we should think, say and do,” he said.

For his part, Regan said he’ll accept the results of the election, whatever they may be.

“I do this because it’s a job that needs doing and people want me to do it,” he said. “If they don’t want me to do it, then I’m happy not to do it.”