Minority report: Forgive us our trespasses

By Dave Britton
Reader Contributor

The Bonner County Republican Central Committee on June 16 held its first meeting since reorganizing after the primary election for the new session. Early in the meeting we took up whether our meetings would be recorded for later public access. Last session a ruling had been made to stop Washington Precinct Committeeman Tom Bokowy video recording the meetings, but the old prohibition no longer applied, and Bokowy was actively recording. 

The committee reinstated the ban, only allowing the BCRCC secretary to video record meetings, and making them available to the public on the committee’s website, bonnergop.org, pending technical details being worked out for next month. 

But the devil was in the details when Scott Herndon (former committee chair, re-elected P.C. and current candidate for District 1 state senator) demanded Bokowy stop recording immediately. Bokowy refused, standing on principle, because there were still no guarantees that the full, intact meeting recording would be made public and comments made during the amendments discussions clearly foreshadowed the likelihood that the recordings would be edited and bowdlerized if that was not explicitly prohibited, which would have to wait until next month. 

On principle, Bokowy was refusing to trust the committee’s leadership to do the right thing: release the unredacted video publicly.

Biblically speaking, the snake in the Garden arrived when Herndon began rapidly citing lengthy sequences of citations and references to Idaho Code, other ordinances and Roberts Rules of Order as if divine justification, disabling rational discourse since one cannot in the moment reasonably check the citations for their relevance to the matter at hand. 

Like Eve, the committee was distracted from the core issue of “is this the right thing to do?” and was tempted by the taste of the apple’s power. 

When presented with a confidently uttered strong assertion from an authority, with explicit pressure to act and temptation to be pleasing and winning, it is hard to resist. It’s a downside to democracy, that it can let a majority disrespect and even vilify the minority. 

Tom stood fast for his principles and for his constituents, and all of us who understand that principled dissent see that it strengthens democracy. 

But the snake’s temptation worked. The committee went into executive session, passed the motion “trespassing” Bokowy if he wouldn’t stop recording; called the police when he stood firm; and, after an hour or so of waiting around calling for directions about what to do, the police escorted him quietly from the premises. Score one for the apple.

Dave Britton serves as Beach Precinct Republican committeeman.