<html><head><meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"></head><body dir="auto"><div><span></span></div><div><meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"><div><span></span></div><div><meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"><div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"><span></span></div><div><meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"><div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"><span></span></div><div><meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"><div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"><img src="cid:F9550338-FF39-4661-9BBD-12A4564F88D8" alt="128689620764404382.jpg" id="F9550338-FF39-4661-9BBD-12A4564F88D8" width="437" height="575"></div><div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"><br></div><div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;">Courtesy of today's (July 30, 2014) Spokesman-Review.</div><div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"><br></div><div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;">-------------------------------------</div><div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"><br></div><div><h1 style="font-size: 28px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; clear: both; line-height: 1.2; color: rgb(17, 17, 17); font-family: Arial, sans-serif; -webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Barry Peterson isn’t Idaho GOP chairman, court rules</h1><p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; margin-bottom: 21px; overflow: visible !important;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">TWIN FALLS, Idaho – A judge rejected a bid Tuesday from embattled former Idaho GOP Chairman Barry Peterson to hold onto his leadership position within the state’s dominant political party.</span></p><p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; margin-bottom: 21px; overflow: visible !important;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">“His term has expired,” Fifth District Judge Randy Stoker told a full courtroom after nearly three hours of arguments in a Twin Falls courtroom.</span></p><p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; margin-bottom: 21px; overflow: visible !important;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Two warring wings of Idaho’s Republican Party fought for control after Peterson sued two state GOP officials and asked the court to rule that he was still the state party chairman.</span></p><p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; margin-bottom: 21px; overflow: visible !important;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">“This is not a question of this court taking any position with regard to what the Republican Party should do in this state,” Stoker said. “I have no dog in this fight, so to speak.”</span></p><p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; margin-bottom: 21px; overflow: visible !important;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Peterson sued the party officials after they called an Aug. 2 central committee meeting to choose new leaders. The state chairman normally is elected at the state party convention, but the party’s tumultuous and sharply divided convention in Moscow last month ended in disarray without any votes on leaders, resolutions or a party platform.</span></p><p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; margin-bottom: 21px; overflow: visible !important;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Peterson argued that by adjourning without voting on leaders, the convention delegates were choosing to keep him on for another two years.</span></p><p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; margin-bottom: 21px; overflow: visible !important;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Convention Chairman Raul Labrador said as much before the adjournment, after conferring with parliamentarian Cornel Rasor. But Rasor later said publicly that he erred, and “inadvertently misread the rules.”</span></p><p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; margin-bottom: 21px; overflow: visible !important;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">“That was the error the chairman made, that was the error the parliamentarian made,” the judge said. “And frankly that was the reason why Mr. Peterson and the rest of the officers just weren’t elected.”</span></p><p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; margin-bottom: 21px; overflow: visible !important;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Under Robert’s Rules of Order, Stoker said, the chair’s reply to an inquiry is not binding – it is merely an opinion. “It was not part of the motion – it was not voted upon by the delegates,” the judge said. “It couldn’t have constituted an election of officers because that was required by secret ballot of the delegates in the convention.”</span></p><p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; margin-bottom: 21px; overflow: visible !important;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">“Maybe they thought they were voting to continue the officers,” Stoker said. “Maybe they were voting to take an early break because they’d had enough. … Who knows? … There is no possible way I can make that decision. It’s pure speculation.”</span></p><p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; margin-bottom: 21px; overflow: visible !important;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Under parliamentary rules, business left undone at the time of adjournment “falls to the ground,” the judge said. “It’s a dead issue.”</span></p><p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; margin-bottom: 21px; overflow: visible !important;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Peterson said he accepts the judge’s ruling, and won’t run when the party picks its new chairman on Aug. 2. At least three candidates are now vying for the post, all from southern Idaho.</span></p><p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; margin-bottom: 21px; overflow: visible !important;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Christ Troupis, attorney for Peterson and six of his supporters, argued that a party rules committee meeting Peterson called after the convention upheld his interpretation that the convention’s adjournment extended his term as chairman.</span></p><p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; margin-bottom: 21px; overflow: visible !important;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">But Timothy Hopkins, attorney for the two GOP officials Peterson sued, said Peterson “stacked” that committee with new members in violation of state party rules. “It was politics at its worst,” Hopkins said.</span></p><p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; margin-bottom: 21px; overflow: visible !important;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Stoker said whether or not the rules committee was properly constituted, anything it decides is merely a recommendation to the party.</span></p><p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; margin-bottom: 21px; overflow: visible !important;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">For now, under the judge’s ruling, the Idaho Republican Party has no top officers.</span></p><p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; margin-bottom: 21px; overflow: visible !important;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">“You are a party without direction, it’s pretty clear,” the judge said.</span></p><p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; margin-bottom: 21px; overflow: visible !important;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">--------------------</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 21px; overflow: visible !important;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Barry Peterson walks out of the Twin Falls courthouse after a judge ruled he’s no longer Idaho GOP chairman.</span></p><p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; margin-bottom: 21px; overflow: visible !important;"><img src="cid:913FB857-8859-4E7B-A6F8-70BD4197AC0B" alt="30_BARRY_PETERSON_t1240.jpg" id="913FB857-8859-4E7B-A6F8-70BD4197AC0B" width="640" height="470"></p></div><div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;">-------------------------------------<br><br><div><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Seeya 'round town, Moscow, because . . .</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><br></span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">"Moscow Cares" (the most fun you can have with your pants on)</span></div><div><a href="http://www.moscowcares.com/" style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><font color="#000000">http://www.MoscowCares.com</font></a></div><div><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"> </span></div><div><div><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Tom Hansen</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Moscow, Idaho</span></div></div><div><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><br></span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">"There's room at the top they are telling you still.</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">But first you must learn how to smile as you kill,</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">If you want to be like the folks on the hill."</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><br></span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">- John Lennon</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"> </span></div></div></div></div></div></div></body></html>