George Detweiler passed away Wednesday evening. Mr. Detweiler was one of the plaintiffs on the lawsuit to require party registration for Idaho Republican primary elections. He was a long-time Grassroots Idaho GOP activist. God Speed, George and our prayers to your loved ones.
TWIN FALLS – The closed primary cause in Idaho just lost one of its strongest champions.
George Detweiler, a retired private attorney and longtime active Republican in Twin Falls, died Wednesday night. He was 64.
Detweiler had passed out Wednesday evening and likely died of a heart attack, said his wife, Pamela Detweiler. That same night he attended a Twin Falls Republican Central Committee meeting and walked home, according to friends.
George Detweiler was not on the committee and never held political office, but he worked closely with its members, his wife said.
Closing primaries was important to him, said Pamela Detweiler, and he supported limiting Republican primary elections to GOP members.
“He would just go to the committee meetings,” said his wife. “Just an interested citizen – he cared a lot about that.”
Detweiler is listed as a plaintiff in a class action lawsuit against Idaho Secretary of State Ben Ysursa seeking to close the primaries.
“I was stunned when I heard the news this morning,” said Laird Stone, a member of the State Board of Education and a longtime friend who was at Wednes-day’s meeting. “I just always enjoyed his sense of humor.”
His grandfather, J.W. Taylor, served four years as Idaho attorney general beginning in 1937.
“(George) was just a patriotic man that had a passion for the government and for the constitution,” she said. “I think his grandfather was where he got that.”
No funeral date has been set yet, said Pamela Detweiler.
July 13, 2007 at 9:48 pm |
[...] Idaho GOP marks the passing of George Detweiler, a Plaintiff in the lawsuit to close the Republican Primaries in [...]