The captivating GOP cat fight over vicious dark-money-financed campaigns
Guest Editorial by Jim Jones
When the results of the May Republican primary were announced last year, many were shocked to learn that Chuck Winder, the well-regarded GOP Senate leader, had been defeated. House Speaker Mike Moyle received just 799 votes more than his GOP challenger. It was even more surprising that an out-of-state dark-money group, Make Liberty Win PAC (MLW), had campaigned heavily against them. The group spent $107,473 to defeat Winder and $112,852 attempting to get rid of Moyle.
What was particularly mystifying is that MLW’s claim to fame is supporting school voucher schemes across the country. It is an affiliate of Young Americans for Liberty (YAL), which has also been active in Idaho, financing waves of door knockers who pass out scurrilous handouts that trash responsible legislators. They may appear to be dedicated volunteers, but are often college students earning up to $4,160 per month, plus gas and housing.
Oddly, the voucher issue did not figure in the MLW attacks against the two leaders. Winder has been skeptical about voucher schemes, but the MLW handouts claimed he was a “Swamp King” supporting “Never Trump liberals”. Moyle has supported vouchers, but MLW claimed he was also a “Swamp King” and “anti-gun” to boot.
It is not entirely clear why MLW targeted Moyle. Some have speculated it is because the group supports legalization of marijuana and saw Moyle as a roadblock. Others thought it was because the extremist Idaho Freedom Foundation has opposed his continual tax cuts for big business. Whatever the reason, it was a rather stupid move on the part of MLW. They overlooked the old saying that “if you take a shot at the king, you best not miss.” They missed and we are now seeing the consequences.
Moyle and the House GOP leadership have just come out with 4 bills targeting the dark-money sleaze merchants. House Bill 307 would authorize the Secretary of State to investigate and publicize false claims against a candidate, House Bill 308 deals with electioneering and House Bill 309 increases lobbyist disclosure requirements.
House Bill 306 makes it a felony offense to smear public officers with “malicious lies.” It criminalizes the kind of reprehensible conduct that MLW targeted Moyle with in the primary election last year. To be sure, MLW and YAL have been using this kind of gutter politics against many other political opponents in recent years, particularly in the closed GOP primary. Their objective is to defeat responsible, problem-solving legislators and replace them with pliable culture warriors. The group has been quite successful in purging the GOP ranks of pragmatic legislators like Julie Yamamoto, Kenny Wroten, Jeff Agenbroad, Chenele Dixon, Greg Lanting and Linda Hartgen.
Even though it took being personally targeted for Moyle to react, he now proposes to address a real travesty–allowing unscrupulous candidates to win elections by using false claims or malicious lies to tar their opponents or just standing by while out-of-state sleaze merchants do the dirty work for them.
HB 306 has some warts that need to be worked out, like a potential First Amendment problem and a bit of overkill in the penalty provision. It calls for punishment of up to five years in prison and a $100,000 fine for violators, even though the Statement of Purpose says most violators would end up getting “a suspended sentence and probation.” It calls for the Attorney General to prosecute those accused, which would be a real problem with our present AG, who is primarily motivated by political considerations.
Several legislators, who have taken advantage of the dirty campaign tactics of MLW and YAL to win office, have attacked Moyle for his reform bills. Christy Zito, Glenneda Zuiderveld, Josh Kohl, Faye Thompson, Lucas Cayler, Kent Marmon, Clint Hostetler and David Leavitt, all culture warriors who gained office by unfairly attacking reasonable Republicans, have cried foul. They contend that Moyle is using dictatorial tactics to unfairly target them. This should be an interesting cat fight to watch.
HB 306 could be a valuable conversation starter, because the sacred right of the people to vote is seriously cheapened if rogue political actors can, without consequences, manipulate their votes by filling the campaign atmosphere with malicious lies and false claims.
About the Author
Jim Jones is a Vietnam combat veteran who served 8 years as Idaho Attorney General (1983-1991) and 12 years as a Justice on the Idaho Supreme Court (2005-2017). His columns are collected at JJCommonTater.com
It seems that Moyle and other targeted leadership are finally paying attention to the cancer they allowed to fester as long as it suited them, and are working to avoid being that last line in Niemöller's quote - "Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me."
Regardless of what's triggered their rush to "be above board", if this passes it will be a good outcome.
Funny how they are against "false claims and malicious lies", but you can bet they all support trump, the king of false claims and malicious lies.