Architect of Idaho's Closed Republican Primary: 'It's worked out exactly the way it was intended to work out'

Idaho’s primary elections have been allowed to be closed since 2011, when a federal court ruled Republicans had the right to disassociate from non-Republicans. Current Ada County Commission chairman Rod Beck was a driving force behind the effort, after two primary losses by less than 400 votes in the mid-2000s.

All Things Considered host Troy Oppie sat down with Beck, who is not up for election this year, to talk about issues in the county and about Proposition 1, which would allow voters to undo his work from more than a decade ago. 

Read the full transcript below.

TROY OPPIE: Idaho’s primary elections have been allowed to be closed since a federal court ruled in 2011 republicans had the right to disassociate from non-republicans, just as the constitution guarantees the right to free association. Current Ada County Commission Chairman Rod Beck was a driving force behind the effort to close republican primaries after two primary losses by fewer than 400 hundred votes in the mid-2000s.

ROD BECK: I was out knocking on doors and I came across a couple. And I said, I’m Rod Beck. I’m running for the state Senate. And he said, We know who you are. We’re going to vote for your opponent.

OPPIE: Beck told me he kept talking to those voters, discovering they were teachers, and members of the teacher’s union.

BECK: I said, “well, correct me if I’m wrong, but I thought most members of the teachers union are Democrats, particularly the leadership of the teachers.”

They said “absolutely. We’re proud Democrats.” So why would you be voting in a Republican primary? ‘Because we don’t want you to win. That’s why.’

[laughs]

That’s when I started working on the closed primary.

OPPIE: This week, I sat down with chairman Beck, who is not up for election this year, to talk about issues in the county, and about proposition 1, which would allow voters to undo his work from more than a decade ago.

OPPIE: As you’ve seen that play out here over the last now 13 years, has it worked out the way that you intended? 

BECK: Yes, it has. It’s worked out exactly the way it was intended to work out. And all the naysayers at the time, because there were some naysayers that didn’t want it within the Republican Party. And they were asserting that it would make independents mad and they wouldn’t vote for Republicans. None of that happened. In fact, we’ve strengthened our position in the legislature. There’s more Republicans now than there was (sic) in 2012. And so we strengthened our position. And one of the arguments that that’s coming forth with this proposition one is a bogus argument because they claim that, it’s moved the needle farther to the right, which isn’t true at all, because then I posed the question to the spokesmen, a spokesperson for the for the Prop one: If the needle has moved too far, the right. Because after all, ultimately an election is about policy. What policy do you think has been moved too far to the right? They wouldn’t say.

OPPIE: The exchange Beck is describing happened on the The Ranch podcast, hosted by Matt Todd. Here’s how Republican Hyram Erickson, who supports proposition one, replied during a debate with Beck.

ERICKSON: “But it’s not a question of a particular legislative outcome. Our legislators deal with hundreds of bills that deal with hundreds of issues, and they are supposed to be representative of their individual districts. And, and and right now, often they are not. And and that is not a healthy place for the state to be.”

OPPIE: I think you can make an argument, though, for a gradual shift that, those policies may not have been signed into law, may not have been passed, but incrementally they’re getting closer to passing with every legislative session. And you look at the issue of school choice or vouchers in schools, whatever you want to call it. That’s one that I think fits into that bill, where it has gotten incrementally closer With each bill.

BECK: And it should be getting enrollment incrementally closer, because that’s the official policy position of the Idaho Republican Party that’s got nothing to do with closed primaries. That’s what the Idaho Republican Party has always been, been in favor of school choice. But it’s not it’s not a policy drift that has occurred. What hasn’t occurred is it hasn’t passed.

OPPIE: Republicans have in recent years passed bills restricting libraries, banning abortion, banning trans girls and women from women’s sports as well. Some of those bills are still being challenged in court.

Beck criticized the moniker open primary, saying Prop 1 also includes rank-choice voting and is not a return to the same system used before Republicans closed their primary in 2012.

BECK: Your jungle primary, you have four people emerge from the primary and then it goes on to do it to a general election. If you have 16 to 18 offices on the ballot, you’re going to have anywhere from 60 to 70 people. It’ll be worth it. It’ll be worse than your S.A.T. tests. It’s going to take you an hour to get through your ballot. And then it’s confusing. What is this ranked choice? What does that actually do? I mean, Will my vote not count? because here’s what I … Your first place vote might get discounted because if they don’t have the, if they don’t have the majority on the first go around. Then they’ll drop one and it’s all an algorithm.

OPPIE: Well, it’s math. 

BECK: It’s all math.

OPPIE: I don’t know about algorithm, but it’s math.

BECK: It’s math. Well, that’s what algorithm is. It’s mathematic computation, and that’s what it will be.

OPPIE: The argument that ranked choice is too confusing, I found interesting. Because essentially you’re saying, ‘the constituents that I’m talking about can’t be trained, can’t be educated, can’t be brought along to this. 

BECK: I’m not saying that at all. I’m saying that even today, when you only have two people on the ballot – you go take a poll, ‘do you know who your senator is, your state senator?’ Nine times out of ten, they won’t. Just average ordinary people. They worry about their work, their family. And maybe a week or two before the election, they might start paying a little attention to it. They don’t really get into the details. Well, if it’s that way with just two people on a ballot, how’s it going to be with four? I think it’s going to be confusing.

OPPIE: Do you think it’ll pass? 

BECK: No, I don’t think it will pass, because I’m seeing some movement and it’s because more people are starting to understand it. I think the more people understand it, the more people will vote no.

OPPIE: Let’s shift to the topic of growth. The commission got an impact fee structure passed and put into place now that’s been underway through several variations of this commission started back as far as I could tell in 2019 and a conversation that at least may have gone back first. 

BECK: Started and then that was before my time. And When we first got here, we had anticipated that these impact fees would be forthcoming. I don’t quite know what happened, but the impact fee, it got beyond the study period. So we had to do that over again, which we did. We did the impact study over again. And that just takes time to do that. Now we have adopted the impact fee, but in order to properly collect it, you have to give it to all the cities or six cities in any county. They all have to adopt an ordinance that allows them to collect it for us.

OPPIE: A process that was expected to go smoothly. It’s i’s and t’s and a lot of… 

BECK: But it has to meet all these cities’ objections and it has to make sure that it follows, because this is an interlocutor agreement. Because most of the new construction is in the cities. Now we don’t have to do that with unincorporated areas, there’s still 65,000 people live in unincorporated Ada County.

OPPIE: Impact fees will support first responders and county services, like the sheriff’s office, Emergency medical service and the coroner’s office. Once in place, the income is only allowed to be used for infrastructure, which could take some pressure off property tax payers. But Beck says bonds aren’t going away, in particular, the proposed bond funding to expand the county jail.

BECK: We’re not going to allow our jail to be not safe. That’s our top priority. And so and we’re we’re pushing up against the top end of the jail capacity currently. And part of that, by the way, is because the state of Idaho, they haven’t they don’t come and get their prisoners as soon as they should, because we have anywhere from 70 to 140 state inmates and if we didn’t have those state inmates, we wouldn’t be jumping to bump up against the capacity.

OPPIE: Yeah, you’d be at 85, 90% of capacity.

BECK: Right. We’d still need to expand the jail because that jail hasn’t been expanded for a long time. And we’ll just have to have to see how the revenue comes in because you can’t build a building on anticipated revenue. I think we’re we’re about ready to take off again, there’s there’s an uptick in building permits, an uptick in at least four subdivisions. So that might, that might make a difference.

OPPIE: Shifting to this November, you’re not on the ballot. Your colleagues are. What are your priorities if this commission remains intact for another two years?

BECK: Well, my priorities have not changed. And they and they won’t change. My priorities have always been I want to provide the best government possible for the least amount of tax dollars. And I think we’re doing that. We’re we’re doing a lot of really good things in Ada County. And I want to continue to do those good things because I think it benefits the community.

OPPIE: Two years from now, do you expect to be back on the ballot? 

BECK: I would say it’s more than likely, yeah. Of course. You know, it’s … I enjoy the work. I think that the work that we’re doing here is really good. I think we’re in the best position that the county’s been in for a long time.

OPPIE: Thank you for being so generous with your time. 

BECK: I appreciate the good talk. Good talking to you. Yeah. It’s time that some of us Republicans get a little more space on your, on public radio.

OPPIE: Fair enough.

[laughs]

Rod Beck thank you for Joining us on Boise State Public Radio.