Pair of Introduced Bills Would Eliminate Idaho Presidential Primary

Last week the Idaho House State Affairs Committee introduced two pieces of legislation that would eliminate the Gem state presidential primary. Idaho Democrats for years have used a caucus as a means of allocating delegates to the national convention and Republicans in the state opted to follow suit for 2012, abandoning the mid-May primary. That cleared the way for the presidential primary line to be removed from the May ballot on which are choices for state and local office nominations as well.

The first bill, H 391, would simply strike the references to the presidential primary from the existing elections code while the second, H 392, would strike those references but also move the primaries for state and local office from the third Tuesday in May to the first Tuesday after the first Monday in August in even years.

This will have no bearing on the 2012 presidential primary calendar as both Idaho political parties have already decided to hold caucuses, but the change -- if passed -- would remove the presidential primary line from the primary ballot whether that election takes place in May or August. That distinction will become clearer when and if one of these two bills passes the legislature and is signed into law.

Thanks to Richard Winger of Ballot Access News for passing along the news of these bills.

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