I keep meaning to stop writing about outside organizations stirring the pot, but they keep doing it. I feel compelled to not only call out their dishonesty, but also to use the opportunity to explain how the system works, and how it doesn’t.
This morning, I received yet another email from Young Americans for Liberty (YAL) via its activist project, American Action Fund (AAF). I saved the entire email in PDF format in case you want to read the whole thing, but I’ll highlight a couple of places where the author either blatantly misrepresented events or simply doesn’t understand what she thinks she knows.
As usual, the email is about the grocery tax. If you listen to groups like YAL, you might think that’s the only issue that matters in Idaho this year.
The first problem comes in the seventh paragraph:
The grocery tax credit bill (House Bill 231) that was proposed by leadership would force taxpayers to save all their receipts from every week when they go to the grocery store and then file that as part of their taxes just to try to get some of their money back.
I wonder why the author didn’t include a link to the actual bill. Remember, organizations like YAL don’t want you to be informed; they want you to be angry. If you read the text of the bill, you’ll find that taxpayers are not required to save their receipts to receive their money back. Instead, they can simply check a box on their tax return to receive $155 per household member.
Taxpayers do have the option of holding on to their receipts to claim up to $250 if they believe they paid more during the year. But telling the truth doesn’t serve YAL’s purpose, which is to provoke visceral outrage.
The email goes on to explain what happened on the Senate floor last Wednesday:
Thankfully, Senator Christy Zito made a motion to send House Bill 231 back to committee to amend the bill to be REPEAL of the grocery tax rather than another grocery tax credit expansion.
But that’s not what happened. Sen. Zito moved to send H231 to the 14th Order, where it could be amended — not back to committee. If the author of this email can’t even get basic details right, how can we trust anything else she says?
Further, Zito’s motion was simply to send the bill to the 14th Order; grocery tax repeal was not being voted on. You see, once before the Committee of the Whole Senate, there would have been no guarantees about what would happen next. Any senator could have moved to amend the bill, and the entire Senate would have voted on those amendments. Moving a bill to the amending order and then completely rewriting it is known as a “radiator cap” maneuver—akin to dismantling a car, replacing everything except the radiator cap, and then calling it the same vehicle.
Such maneuvers are considered hostile and create friction between legislators. They can occasionally succeed if the body is unified, but that was clearly not the case here. Rep. Kent Marmon attempted the same maneuver with H231 in the House, and his motion received only six supporting votes. Sen. Zito’s motion in the Senate received five.
Watch the entire Senate debate on H231 for yourself here:
The last time a bill to eliminate sales taxes on groceries reached the governor’s desk was in 2017, and it happened through a radiator cap maneuver. House Bill 67 was originally an income tax bill sponsored by Rep. Mike Moyle, now Speaker of the House. However, the Senate Local Government & Taxation Committee voted to send H67 to the amending order, where it was essentially replaced with a bill to eliminate the grocery tax. The Senate approved the bill, the House concurred, but Gov. Butch Otter vetoed it.
It’s understandable why some believe a hostile radiator cap procedure could work again, but it’s also easy to see why others react negatively to attempts to hijack their bills.
I heard from multiple Republican officers this week that YAL/AAF has been making calls trying to pressure Idaho GOP central committees into pushing the grocery tax issue. Given the controversy YAL has generated this year, they must realize their standing with Idaho Republicans and conservatives has significantly declined.
Speaking of stirring the pot, another organization has begun sending emails to Idaho Republicans, accusing Chairwoman Dorothy Moon and other state officers of various forms of malfeasance. Calling itself “Party Watch,” this group sent out an email last month detailing complaints against Moon, 1st Vice Chair Mark Fuller, and National Committeeman Bryan Smith — three figures long targeted by former establishment figures.
The same group created a Twitter account as well, which last posted on February 10.
During last night’s Ada County Republican Central Committee meeting, Chairman Thad Butterworth revealed that the emails from Party Watch came from the mail server used by the Gem State Conservatives. As you surely recall, this group supported precinct committeeman candidates throughout the state last year in an attempt to oust Moon from Idaho GOP leadership. The organizers of the Gem State Conservatives were former state party chair Tom Luna, current Region VIII chair Trent Clark, and activist-attorney Ashley Brittain.
Is Party Watch just a rebranding of Gem State Conservatives? Who is personally responsible for sending these emails and running the Twitter account? Why do the people behind it not come out from behind the curtain and make their statements in public? What are they trying to hide?
Butterworth added that he received additional emails from Party Watch that threatened to release information they believed would be damaging to his reputation.
What do these two organizations have in common? In both cases, their strategy is to create division—to pit people against one another, generating outrage and chaos from which they hope to gain some measure of power. As I wrote last week, they don’t want to inform you; they want to make you mad. They don’t want you to think critically; they want you to react emotionally. It’s manipulative and mendacious. These tactics have more in common with rabid leftists disrupting public meetings than they do with civilized debate.
I’m not asking you to be angry at YAL or Party Watch, rather I want you to be informed as to their tactics so you can see them and avoid reacting in anger. As I always say, I don’t mind if you disagree with me on the issues. I only ask that you arrive at that disagreement through critical thinking, not by reacting emotionally to an email or social media post. Let’s work together to raise the level of discourse rather than simply stirring the pot.
About Brian Almon
Brian Almon is the Editor of the Gem State Chronicle. He also serves as Chairman of the District 14 Republican Party and is a trustee of the Eagle Public Library Board. He lives with his wife and five children in Eagle.
