The Idaho Republican party adjourned its convention on Saturday without agreeing on a platform or electing a chairman, the Spokesman-Review reported.
Rep. Raúl Labrador (R-ID), the Tea Party congressman running against Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) to be House majority leader, lamented that as convention chairman, he was unable to facilitate consensus.
“For three weeks I’ve tried to broker a deal to prevent what happened today,” he told Idaho Public Television on Saturday.
During the convention, the entire delegation from Bannock County was unseated, leading to chaos, according to the Idaho State Journal. Attempts were underway to remove the delegates for two additional counties due to disagreements between establishment and Tea Party Republicans when Labrador brought the convention to a close.
State Sen. Chuck Winder blamed the chaos on Tea Partiers and libertarians.
“It was basically the ultra-, ultra-conservative, tea party-libertarian type people basically flexing their muscle in the way the thing was organized,” he told the Spokesman-Review. “It’s a real shame that a convention comes to that stage, where there really wasn’t any real floor leadership, there wasn’t any fairness in the process, either in the credentials committee or on the floor. It was all pre-determined. It’s kind of ‘who’s going to have the power,’ rather than working together.”
