Former precinct committeeman objects to removal from KCRCC

COEUR d’ALENE — A former member of the Kootenai County Republican Central Committee said she was wrongly removed from her elected position, while GOP leadership contends that her removal was required under the group’s rules. 

Kootenai County is divided into 74 precincts, each containing at most a few thousand residents. Representatives from each precinct, called committeemen, form a central committee for each political party. These committeemen are elected during primary elections. 

When Republican voters in Precinct 417 elected Kathleen Tillman in May 2024, she said she didn’t anticipate that her husband, Alan, would be diagnosed with cancer the same year. He was bedridden by October and Tillman spent the following months caring for him until his death in December. 

“I was unable to leave the house,” she said. 

Tillman missed the October and November meetings of the central committee. The KCRCC does not meet in December. 

After her husband’s death, she spent the holidays in Boise with her adult daughters and grandchildren and remained there through January, missing that month’s central committee meeting. She also missed the February meeting while visiting family in California. 

Each month, Tillman informed the Legislative District 4 Chair — at that time, Becky Funk — of the reason for her absence. She sent a different proxy to stand in for her at each meeting, in compliance with the central committee’s rules. 

“I had a vote at all four meetings,” she said. 

Tillman said she was surprised when KCRCC Chair Brent Regan opened the group’s March meeting with an announcement that she was no longer a precinct committeeman. 

Regan said the decision was out of his hands. 

“The committee didn’t remove (Tillman),” he said. “She removed herself by not giving an excuse.” 

The central committee’s bylaws state that “a notification of vacancy shall be given by the chairman when any committee member ... without excuse acceptable to the KCRCC, fails to attend four consecutive regular meetings of the KCRCC.” 

Regan said the matter should’ve been brought before the body for a vote. Informing Funkel about the reason for Tillman’s absences wasn’t enough to excuse them, he said.

“Any one of the committee members could’ve brought it up to the committee,” he said. “Had that happened, then she would’ve had an excuse acceptable to the committee, but she didn’t.” 

Tillman and Funk said they had no reason to think this was necessary. The central committee’s bylaws don’t define an excused absence or describe how an excused absence is obtained. 

“There’s no protocol whatsoever,” Funk said. “There’s nothing.” 

In an April interview with The Press, Idaho Secretary of State Phil McGrane said Kootenai County’s GOP isn’t the only central committee facing these kinds of quandaries — and there are no clear-cut answers. 

Precinct committees are unusual in that they are private organizations with their existence established by Idaho law. 

“The law is not that thick,” McGrane said. 

The state of Idaho runs the elections for precinct committeeman positions, then hands off the results to these private political organizations. Idaho code notes the term of office for a committeeman — from the eighth day following the primary election until the eighth day following the next primary election — but provides no mechanism for removing a committeeman. 

“Is someone, because they were elected, entitled to retain that seat? It’s unclear,” McGrane said. “It’s ripe for challenging, for someone to go to court and figure it out. We don’t have any case law on it.” 

Tillman went before the central committee May 27 in the hopes of being appointed to the newly-vacant seat she was elected to fill last year.

“I spoke from my heart,” she said. “Some people wouldn’t even make eye contact with me.” 

Most of the precinct committeemen voted to appoint Avery Granum to the seat. Granum filed to run for the position in the May 2024 primary election but dropped out of the race, according to public records. 

Tillman said she believes Granum’s appointment disenfranchises the Republican voters in 417 who elected her last year. 

“They didn’t vote for him,” she said. “They had no say.” 

Regan took a different view. He emphasized that central committees are private organizations, not government entities, and that primary elections allow voters to choose which candidates will represent their political parties in the general election. 

“Nobody is elected to office during a primary,” he said. 

For precinct committeeman races, there is no general election. 

Regan acknowledged that some Republican voters don’t understand how the precinct committeemen they elect are different from the other candidates they elect. 

“There’s even confusion (about the matter) on the central committee,” Regan said. “They think they were elected as a representative on the central committee and they think their will is more important than the will of the body.” 

Tillman rejected the notion that she wasn’t elected to her position. 

“I put out campaign signs,” she said. “I walked my neighborhood.” 

Tillman said she has appealed to the Idaho Republican Party, arguing that her removal “lacked legal foundation and procedural fairness.” 

She said her removal from the central committee is an example of the type of unilateral action she originally ran to stop. 

“We need to have other voices who don’t make up the rules as they go,” she said. 

    Regan
  

    McGrane