Hailey attorney is former AG candidate, prosecutor and mayor

New Chairman for Idaho Democrats

By Jill Kuraitis, 1-05-08

Members of the Idaho Democratic Party’s Central Committee voted Friday to elect attorney Keith Roark as their new chairman. His full biography is here.

Roark, a central Idaho resident, was last seen in politics in 2002, when he ran unsuccessfully for Idaho Attorney General against Republican Lawrence Wasden.

After the Friday vote, Roark issued a statement which said, in part: “It is time for Idaho Democrats to take a cold, hard look at some rather dismal facts.  In the general elections of 1994, 1998, 2002 and 2006, Idaho Democrats have lost twenty-four of the twenty-eight races for statewide office.  Today, not one statewide elected official is a Democrat.  We have not won a U.S. Senate race since 1974 and have lost every race for the U.S. House of Representatives since 1992.

“Idaho currently has a United States Senator who has disgraced our state and placed his own petty interests above the good of the public.  We have a United States Representative whose comments about Islam show not only ignorance of the United States Constitution but a total lack of common decency.  We have a Governor who never holds a press conference and disdains the very notion of public access to elected officials.  Where there is no effective, two party system there is no accountability.  Where there is no accountability there is no responsibility.  Elected officials, under such circumstances, eventually ignore not just those who did not vote for them but those who did as well.

“Today, I feel the first, faint rumblings of a still distant earthquake that will eventually restore integrity, fair play and openness in Idaho government. The special interests, in the absence of a two party system, have come closer each year to replacing the power of the ballot with the raw and merciless power of the almighty dollar.  But Idahoans, like Americans everywhere, eventually come back to an understanding of just how important a vibrant two party system is to liberty, justice and good government.

Idaho Democratic Party Vice Chairwoman Jeanne Buell said she expects Roark to quickly energize and mobilize the rank-and-file.

“I know Keith will take the reins of the Idaho Democratic Party immediately to ramp up fundraising and recruit great candidates,” said Buell, who has been serving as interim chairwoman since the resignation of former chairman Richard Stallings last Nov. 20. 

Roark defeated one other candidate for the job in Friday’s vote. Jerry Brady, candidate for Idaho governor in 2006, also vied for the job but Roark won the secret ballot. 

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