Republican primary candidates make pitches to Shelley voters

SHELLEY – Republican Candidates running for congress and State offices came to Shelley Saturday afternoon to meet the people. A group of approximately 50 people attended the meet-the-candidates at the Shelley-Firth Rural Fire Station Saturday afternoon, March 19.  Community Pioneer had a live Facebook interview with each candidate following the meeting.

Blake Marsden, a campaign worker for the Bryan Smith’s Campaign, organized a meet-the-candidates forum held at 3 p.m., Saturday at the Shelley-Firth Rural Fire Department. Approximately 50 people attended the event, which was broadcasted live by Community Pioneer on Facebook. (Watch the full episode on Community Pioneer’s Facebook page.)

Dorthy Moon – candidate for Secretary of State

Five Republican candidates addressed the gathering.   First, Dorothy Moon, running for Secretary of State, addressed the group. She expressed concern over the integrity of our elections.

“The two things the Secretary of State deals with are business entities and being chief election officer. They make sure there is uniformity and consistency in elections across the State,” candidate for Secretary of State Dorothy Moon said.   “If you live in Kootenai County and move down to Madison County and walk into vote, you should see the same procedure. During Covid, we saw a lot of absentee ballots. One person in Madison County got nine absentee ballots. So, there was obviously something wrong.” 

Moon stated she was upset the Governor and Attorney General did not sign on to the Texas lawsuit over the battleground States’ election conduct.   

“Biden said we are going to nationalize our Presidential elections. We tried to pass a law that would not allow drop boxes, but a Senator on the State’s Affair Committee killed the bill,”Moon said. “People need to get to the polls and vote out those who don’t represent you.” 

Brandon Durst – candidate for State School Superintendent

Up next, Brandon Durst, who is running for State School Superintendent, said he is running for office because he wants to fight for parents.   

“I think we need to get back to where we trust parents,” Brandon Durst said. “There is something strange to have to say that. It should be assumed we trust parents. There are places all over Idaho when parents’ decisions are not trusted, where kids are being forced to wear masks over parents’ objections. Where parents are not able to review what their children are being taught or go into their classroom.” 

Durst believes common core separates parents from their families when answers are based exclusively on the textbook’s conclusion and not what parents have learned. He also said students are being indoctrinated. 

Finally, he stated that every family in Idaho should have school choice. “The money should follow the student,” said Durst.

Bryan Smith – Candidate for U.S. Congress

Bryan Smith, a candidate for U.S. Congress, was next to address the crowd. When he last ran for congress against Mike Simpson, he won Shelley, he said. 

“In 2014, I ran against Mike Simpson because he was too liberal,” said Smith. “He has accomplished the worse, he has got more liberal. He has been in Washington for 22 long years. He has opposed term limits. He has been paid millions of dollars in salaries and benefits. He has voted for an expansive, bigger government.   And you probably haven’t heard this, but he co-sponsored a bill last year for special transgender rights giving civil rights protections to transgender people. Even last week, he voted against our 2^nd amendment rights.” 

Smith stated when the liberals expanded Obama-care; a Republican Governor vetoed grocery tax; and when the redistricting map threatened our election integrity, I was the attorney who fought them all the way to the State Supreme Court. He did so because he is conservative.

Smith asked how many in the room have someone in Washington looking out for them. No one put up their hand. He stated he would represent these people.

Priscilla Giddings – candidate for Lt. Governor

The next candidate Priscilla Giddings, who is running for Lieutenant Governor, addressed the group.   She stated she feels we are losing our freedoms here at home. She ran for the legislature in 2016 to help stop common core with no policy vote and entities in the State and Federal Agencies usurping the law and not being accountable for their actions.

“I have noticed that we are not as conservative as we think.   I have served on the budget committee for the last six years, we have almost doubled our budget. We went from 6.5 billion to 12 billion dollars. Almost 50 percent of our budget comes from the Federal Government,” Giddings said. “I identified last year critical race theory the State Board of Education that was trying to introduce through pre-school books. We stopped it by one vote.” 

 Giddings is running because of what has happened over the past two years with the executive branch.   I am jealous of Florida, which has a Christian leader willing to fight conservative values. 

Janice McGeachin – candidate for Governor

Finally, Janice McGeachin addressed the crowd. She is running for Governor against incumbent Brad Little. She said she got back into politics because of Donald Trump’s “Make America Great Again” campaign. He inspired her to get into the executive branch and run for Lt. Governor. She said he now supports her candidacy for Governor.  

“Why am I running for Governor now? Because of the decisions our current Governor made in the past two years, I am very much against it. When he arbitrarily and randomly decided what businesses were essential and what was not essential. And those not essential had to close down. We had unemployment throughout our State go from about 2.5 percent to 13 percent,” McGeachin said. “It is wrong to remove the ability of an individual to provide for his family, it is wrong to enforce mandates on the individual, its wrong for us to not be able to worship freely, and I vow to never allow this to happen in our State as your governor.” 

We are losing the sovereignty of our State by the Federal Government, which pays 46 percent of our state budget. We are losing our rights to them through their funding. Finally, I want to fight for the people’s conservative values, which the leaders do not represent.    

After the meeting, Community Pioneer met with four candidates, Brandon Durst, Lt. Governor Janice McGeachin, House Representative Dorthy Moon, and Bryan Smith, and individually ask them specific questions regarding their campaign for office.