Op-Ed: Proposition One Designed to Hurt Conservatives and the State GOP

The following Op-Ed was submitted by Doyle Beck. Op-Eds do not necessarily reflect the views and opinions of those at the Idaho Dispatch.

It took me quite a while to figure out what Hyrum Erickson was trying to say in his Pro-Ranked Choice Voting op-ed in Idaho newspapers. The commentary itself is a dizzying collection of hypocrisy and revisionist history.

On one hand, he says “libertarians, Democrats, constitutionalists, and independents” register to vote in the Republican Party, but on the other hand, he argues that GOP primary elections should go back to the lack of Registration system, which naturally means we’d go back to allowing libertarians, Democrats, constitutionalists, and independents to vote in the primary.  

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He says the result of party registration is that “instead of a solid, principled GOP,” we’ve ended up with a ‘big tent’ that is overflowing with people “who don’t share our conservative values.” 

This is a really curious statement for two reasons. First off, Republicans like Erickson have long advocated having the GOP be a big tent party. Second, by every measure imaginable, Idaho’s elected officials have become more conservative since the decade old requirement/process of selecting a REPUBLICAN Candidate in a REPUBLICAN primary you must be a registered REPUBLICAN. That’s certainly not because of Democrats’ overflowing influence in Republican party registration.

Erickson says it’s a problem that 59% of Idaho’s electorate have registered as Republican. But he doesn’t mention the fact that 65% of newcomers to Idaho have been joining the state GOP or that the party is so much more philosophically conservative today than it once was that people who had been previously turned off by the more moderate “wine and cheese” party of the past have come back to the party because of its strongly-held Republican values. 

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So what is Erickson really after? Why is he so determined to support the Ranked Choice initiative? As it turns out, the answers can be found in a Sept. 2 podcast in which Erickson laments the conservative focus of our elected legislators. He said he prefers the more moderate brand of Republican legislators, like the ones that Madison County has been electing. 

Conservative legislators that want to support policies like that of Ronald Regan (Go see the movie) or Donald J Trump are just not his cup of tea.

So that’s why Erickson wants to dilute the voices of conservatives by having Democrats once again fully participate in the Republican Primary. He doesn’t say this in his commentary because he knows that would turn off conservative voters who are likely to cast ballots for Donald Trump in the November election.

What’s also interesting about Erickson’s commentary is that he barely mentions the ranked choice part of Proposition One. This is the confusing part of the proposition that would allow less popular candidates who get fewer votes than the frontrunner in an election actually be declared the winner. This system is so confusing that Alaska voters are working to repeal it just four years after it became law. The Alaska system of rigging elections – which voters there are fighting to get rid of – is what Erickson and the leftist group Reclaim Idaho is trying to get voters to approve. Why is it that the proponents of Rank Choice Voting never want or propose their scheme in any of our liberal blue states across our country?

I get it that Erickson wants a less conservative Legislature. That’s his right to advocate for that. It’s just too bad he makes up a story to try to convince newspaper readers that Proposition One would have the opposite effect.