Bonneville County’s GOP dislike the governor’s fundraising PAC
Several Bonneville County Republican Central Committee members are concerned about the governor’s new fundraising Political Action Committee, the Otter PAC.
“As a sitting governor, who makes appointments, who makes large decisions, who issues contracts, he has no business being involved in a PAC,” said Doyle Beck, one of the concerned members of Bonneville county’s GOP committee.
Beck says that while it’s not illegal for a sitting governor to have a PAC, he thinks it’s unethical and invites corruption.
“Should a sitting governor, who has three years left, encourage donations to him from say a utility company, who then he appoints the utility commissioners,” said Beck. “I think we have too much cronyism already, and this is just icing on the cake.”
Beck also says the PAC gives Otter too much authority over local elections and changes the way the Idaho Republican Party is run.
“This (the Idaho Republicans) is a grassroots party,” said Beck. “Let the precinct committee, let the counties become the party. Not from the top down become the party, because you know as well as I know that if you put enough money in a precinct race, you’ll probably dominate that race.”
Many of the committee members concerns and requests for change were written down in a document called “Bonneville Co. GOP Central Committee, A call for Party Unity.”
Near the end of the document Beck and others who wrote the document call on Governor Otter and Idaho Republican Chairman Steve Yates to “support party unity by suspending and renouncing any state wide activities, and more particularly any such actions by the Otter PAC, designed to influence the elections of Precinct Committeemen.”
State Republican Chairman Steve Yates did respond to the resolution, but cautioned against taking the resolution too seriously. “As chairman, I’m not really in the business of commenting on resolutions that are not passed by county committees or presented to the state committees,” said Yates.
Yates also spoke about an email that Beck had sent late last year. “If any political entity has questions about what might be done with this PAC, I received in November some very wise counsel from none other than Chairman Beck,” said Yates “He (Beck) said he was disappointed that some members of the local committee would use the press to make false accusations against the Republican Party. He concluded with ‘that I would respectfully ask that anyone who is concerned with Republican party issues to raise them in house, and resist the brand tarnishing technique of bringing them up with the media.'”
Continuing, Yates said,”So my main response would be I think it would be great if Chairman Beck and his committee would follow their own counsel.”
Local News 8 and Eyewitness News reached out to Governor C.L. “Butch” Otter’s office over the phone and left a message. His public information officer did call us back and said since it was a political discussion, only the governor could respond. The PIO also said the governor was busy preparing for his state-of-the-state address and would not be able to make any comment until a later time.
