Just when most Idaho Democrats thought the state’s Republican Party couldn’t get more conservative, this week saw a development that sent their heads spinning.
On Thursday, arch-conservative Senator Mary Souza, of Coeur d’Alene, announced she would be seeking the Chairmanship of the Idaho Republican Party. The announcement sets up a match between a much-admired crusader for social conservatives and the controversial current Chair of the Party, Dorothy Moon.
On many issues, the two have identical positions. Moon continues to criticize the 2020 Presidential election, but it was Souza who first called legislative attention to the perversion of elections created by selective “voter turnout” grants from private donors.
The most notable example of this is Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s infusion of hundreds of millions to “promote voting during the Pandemic.” Uncoincidentally, those grants favored Biden-supporting areas 3-to-1 over pro-Trump suburbs and rural communities. Souza sponsored Idaho’s law restricting private funding of public election administration.
Both former legislators will claim to have “kicked men out of the high school girls’ locker room.” The bill to keep biological males from invading women’s sports in Idaho’s House of Representatives was sponsored by Idaho Falls representative and coach Barbara Ehardt. Moon voted for Ehardt’s bill.
But Souza was Ehardt’s counterpart in the Idaho Senate, and she has worked hand-in-hand with Coach Ehardt to promote similar bills nationally. On just about every touchstone conservative victory in the Idaho Legislature where Moon and Souza agree, Souza was clearly the one taking hostile fire at the front of the battle lines.
But to say that moves Idaho Republicans even further conservative misses a key dynamic in the current debate: the battle to change the definition of “conservative.”
On a few key issues, Souza and Moon differ sharply, such as whether parents should be able to block porn on their underage kids’ cell phones. Souza has been supportive of Senator Kevin Cook’s efforts to empower parents in that area. Moon has never supported Cook’s legislation.
Perhaps the starkest difference is Souza’s firm opposition to exposing our kids to brain-damaging and addictive drugs. Souza was an ally to Senator Scott Grow’s joint resolution giving teeth to the Idaho Constitution’s “temperance” language. That measure erected high constitutional hurdles before Portland- or Seattle-style drug legalization could come to Idaho.
Moon, on the other end of the spectrum, was in the small group of Republicans who killed that measure in the House. That achievement earned her high marks and a front page “congratulations” from the Northwest regional cannabis and psychedelics lobby.
Both Moon and Souza claim fiscal conservativism and oppose over-regulation of non-harmful products. Both, therefore, sponsored bills to remove government barriers to Idaho production and trade in industrial hemp.
But here again, a distinct difference emerged. Moon’s House bill was severely criticized by drug court officers and law enforcement for its “tolerance” of higher levels of the addictive toxin THC (which the National Institutes of Health classifies as a “neurobehavioral toxin”). Souza responded by inserting tight thresholds on any product trying to pass as “industrial hemp.”
Moon opposed those changes and voted against the Senate hemp bill when it came to the House, even against the recommendation of the Idaho Farm Bureau which represented farmers interested in growing true, no-high-if-smoked, hemp fiber.
Souza’s brand of “conservativism” is much more traditional Republican. Moon’s clearly leans toward the “libertarian.”
In Coeur d’Alene, on June 13, 14 and 15, Idaho Republicans will gather in convention and decide whether “conservative” or “libertarian” is what defines them.
(1) comment
Nobody headed to CDA thinks Mary is more conservative than Dorothy, and they'd be correct.
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