Election mailers stir conflict within Kootenai County GOP

COEUR d’ALENE — With 25 days left until an election that could shift the balance of power on North Idaho College’s board of trustees, some Kootenai County Republican Central Committee members say the local GOP has sent “misleading” mailers to their constituents, causing confusion over which candidates they really support. 

The dispute is emblematic of a larger conflict within the central committee. 

In the hotly contested May primary election, a slate of challengers backed by the group North Idaho Republicans won 30 spots on the central committee. They had hoped to shift the balance of power on the KCRCC but fell six seats short of securing a majority. Many of the races were narrow, with candidates winning or losing by a handful of votes. 

According to several committeemen, about 30 of the 73 precinct committeemen have thrown their support behind NIC trustee candidates Rick Durbin, Eve Knudtsen and Mary Havercroft. 

The majority of the central committee voted to endorse William Lyons, Greg McKenzie and Michael Angiletta for NIC trustee. 

Kathleen Tillman, who represents Precinct 417, said she was surprised and dismayed this week to receive a mailer bearing the KCRCC’s logo, her name and a call for voters to “make NIC great again” by voting for Lyons, McKenzie and Angiletta. At least one mailer is labeled as paid for by Michael Angiletta, who did not immediately return a request for comment Thursday. 

“I didn’t authorize it for my precinct, and they’re using my name,” Tillman said. “It looks like I’ve sent it out. But those are not the people I support.” 

In May, Tillman won 62% of the vote in her race — a strong sign, she said, that she represents the views and interests of the more than 400 Republican voters in her precinct. That’s why she was troubled to see political mailers bearing her name and an endorsement she doesn’t believe in. 

“In my precinct, those should not have gone out,” she said. 

Party leadership takes a different view. 

“I really don’t understand what the problem is,” Kootenai County GOP Chair Brent Regan said Thursday. “Is it a fact that they are the precinct committeemen that represent those precincts? Yes. It’s also a fact that they’re a member of the central committee.” 

For years, Regan said, the central committee has put the names of individual precinct committeemen on the mailers that go to Republican voters across Kootenai County. He said he doesn’t believe the mailers are misleading. 

“There is a social contract between the members of the committee,” Regan said. “Whatever the committee votes on as a majority becomes the will of the entire body. Sometimes people are in the minority. Sometimes they’re in the majority. But you don’t get to pick and choose.” 

Some precinct committeemen maintain that the mailers are misleading and imply the endorsement of individual members of the Kootenai County GOP. 

“In my view, it’s retribution for not voting with the majority of the KCRCC,” said Darin Hayes, who represents Precinct 419 and says he supports Durbin, Knudtsen and Havercroft. “We do not have the majority. We are getting overruled. They are using our names as implied endorsements.” 

In an email obtained by The Press, Dan Sheckler, who represents precinct 418, objected to the use of his name on the mailers. 

“Members of my precinct sent me the attached flyer, concerned that I had made a flawed endorsement,” Sheckler wrote in an email to Regan. “In the future, I would respectfully request that the committee refrain from appropriating my name or likeness for its benefit by placing it on its literature supporting candidates I did not endorse. I believe that it implies an endorsement that I did not agree to. Voters in my precinct trust me to make competent decisions, and I don't want to breach that trust.” 

Regan replied that it is a precinct committeeman’s responsibility to relay the Kootenai County GOP’s positions to other Republicans. 

“Should your positions vary from the official position of the KCRCC, then you are free to publish and promote your positions as you see you fit using your own resources, as long as you do so as an individual and not identifying yourself as a Precinct Committeeman or utilizing ANY of the resources of the KCRCC,” Regan wrote in an email to Sheckler. “Should you lack the ability to reconcile your duties and responsibilities as Precinct Committeeman with your personal positions, then there is a simple, obvious, and honorable remedy.” 

For her part, Tillman said, she plans to send mailers to her constituents at her own expense and clear up any confusion. 

“It’s frustrating because that (KCRCC mailer) doesn’t represent me, and I was elected by the people of my precinct,” she said. “We should’ve been asked.”