POCATELLO — The Republican Party of Idaho gathered for its summer meeting at Calvary Chapel in Pocatello this past weekend where it adopted rules and resolutions relevant to the party to present to the Idaho Legislature.

Craig Yadon, the Bannock County Republican chairman, says a variety of issues were discussed at the meeting, which was not open to the public. According to Yadon, Pocatello has been noticed at the state level for its Republican Party activity in the last few years, leading to the decision to host the summer meeting in the Gate City.

Over 300 GOP officials from all over Idaho were in attendance, including U.S. Sen. Jim Risch and Idaho Lt. Gov. Scott Bedke, who were both recently in Washington, D.C. for meetings of their own. One of the resolutions the IDGOP agreed upon was eliminating the state’s grocery tax.

“This just lets the legislature know that across the state, there’s some agreement in the Republican Party that this is a tax that affects the poorest among us,” Yadon said. “We just feel like you shouldn’t be taxed on your ability to survive and sustain yourself.”

In regard to the Republican caucus held during the most recent general election, the IDGOP also presented a resolution to reinstate the March primary.

“The legislature passed a bill that did away with our primary for the presidential election,” Yadon said. “And so the Republican Party stepped up and ran a caucus.”

In conjunction with this resolution, the IDGOP also discussed how judges are elected.

“Many times, you don’t know much about a judicial nominee, and so there was some talk about how to deal with that to make people more informed when it comes to judicial elections,” Yadon said.

Among the variety of issues discussed at the meeting, Yadon believes these to be some of the main issues presented. He is hopeful that these resolutions will be reviewed at the state level.

“We might not see it in this next session, but we’re hopeful,” Yadon said. “We do know that presenting these resolutions does have an impact.”

In order to create these resolutions, precinct committeemen from each county central committee present rules and resolutions. The county approves them, and then it gets moved forward to the state level where they are presented at meetings such as the IDGOP’s summer meeting over the weekend, which is later presented to the state legislature.

“It’s a really good example of just a grassroot effort,” Yadon said. “It’s not the state party that gets to present resolutions, that has to start from an individual precinct committeeman in an Idaho county. So I think that’s pretty remarkable how that process works.”

Yadon encourages the public to visit idgop.org to see how the IDGOP functions within county and state levels.

“The party is very active, and we’re looking out for the citizens of Idaho,” Yadon said. “We’re always concerned about big government and overspending, and in said meetings like this we can give those concerns to our government and really have input on what takes place.”