WCRCC gaze set on future after organizational meeting

Chris Christopherson is the newly elected Washington County Republican Central Committee chair.

 But the outcome did not unfold easily.

 The WCRCC held a meeting last week to re-organize its executive positions and to decide on delegates to represent it at the state convention scheduled for June 13, 14, and 15 in Coeur d’ Alene. 

 It began on Wednesday, May 29 and resumed on Friday, May 31 after voting members were unable to agree on a new chair to replace now former WCRCC Chair Kirk Chandler and how to proceed in the face of a 5-5 tie between Christopherson and Jon Mills.

 Talks would have resumed the following day, but were put off until Friday due to the legislative Dist. 9 re-organizational meeting in Payette on Thursday, May 30.

 It gave the WCRCC time to research the tie-breaking procedure moving forward, which ultimately fell to Washington County Treasurer Sabrina Young.

 “It (Thursday’s break) was also in order to give her time to try and do some research for us because we were at a stalemate as to who could break the tie and exactly ‘what’ allowed the tie to be broken,” Vice Chair Ron Robbins told the Signal American on Monday.

 In the end, apparently no clear process under Idaho election code or Robert’s Rules of Order could be found or agreed upon, other than to allow Chandler, who is not a precinct committeeman, to make the call.

 “Nobody had a good definition, so they ended up letting Kirk go back and break that tie; and he broke the tie by voting for Chris,” Robbins said.

 Every vote thereafter, for executive positions, ended in a 5-5 tie, which was settled via a coin toss.

 “What we did, once I was elected chair, we came up with a process that everybody supported, not only to do a coin toss to break ties, but we went one step further: you had to draw for heads or tails that both candidates had to draw from a hat,” Christopherson explained. “So, they didn’t pick whether they were heads or tails, it was from a draw.”

 As a precinct committeeman, Christopherson has the ability to vote, but only once.

 “I can only vote one time and it’s common within Robert’s Rules for a chairman, if he does not vote, to be able to break a tie by casting one vote,” Christopherson clarified. “That practice was used by Kirk. With me not having that ability because of being a precinct committeeman, I didn’t have the ability to cast a vote, so that’s why we went to the other option of the coin toss and that is a practice that has been done not only in identified state election code, but it’s been done in other central committees here in Treasure Valley.”

 Here are the voting results from last week’s meeting:

 Chair – Chris Christopherson; Vice Chair, Ron Robbins; Secretary, Debbie Moxley-Potter; Treasurer – Hal Harris; State Youth Committeeperson, Austen Thomason; State Committeeman, Mike Kaech; and State Committeewoman, Stacey Walker. 

 Representing the WCRCC at the state convention as delegates will be Clarence and Anna Stark.

 Christopherson said he hopes the WCRCC can move forward following last week’s re-organizational meetings.

 “Just getting through the election, that was a success, and I’m always optimistic and positive going forward,” he said. 

 “Hopefully, people can work together and we can be a success within Washington County. The goal is to get people working together to promote the Republican Party.”