Here's a link to my full story at spokesman.com on today's surprise holdup for SB 1198, the closed-primary election bill, after the House State Affairs Committee balked this morning and asked to hold the bill for a day so various questions about it can be answered. The Idaho Republican Party successfully sued to overturn the current system, in which Idahoans can choose which party's ballot to vote on during primary elections, without ever pledging loyalty to one party or another. The Idaho GOP adopted a party rule saying only registered Republicans should be able to vote in its primary, and a federal court ruled that the state law violated the party's freedom of association rights by forcing violations of the party rule.

It's now up to lawmakers to decide how to restructure Idaho's primary election laws to comply with the court decision. The plan put forth by GOP leaders, in consultation with the Republican Party, would let parties choose each election whether they're going to allow unaffiliated voters or members of other parties to vote, or just their own members; under the current Idaho GOP rules, it'd be just their own members. The issue is of particular significance in Idaho, where this year's Boise State University Public Policy Survey showed that independents are now the single largest group in the state at 37 percent, edging out Republicans, 33 percent, who hold most of the state's elective offices, and Democrats, 21 percent, who hold few offices.