Ada County candidates spar over alleged campaign violation — and some signs come down

This story was updated Friday, May 3, to reflect a third complaint filed by Dornier’s campaign.

As the May primary election approaches, the campaign of Clyde Dornier — one of the candidates for Ada County commissioner — has gone after incumbent Commissioner Ryan Davidson for his use of campaign yard signs from last election.

In three complaints and news releases in two weeks, Dornier’s campaign accused Davidson of violating Idaho campaign finance rules by reusing campaign signs from the 2020 election. The signs say they were paid for by a PAC called Conservative Citizens for Thoughtful Growth, which supported Davidson in 2020 but has endorsed Dornier in the 2024 election, according to the releases.

The PAC garnered attention in the 2020 county elections, when it ran attack ads against then-county commissioner Diana Lachiondo, a Democrat; and the 2021 municipal elections, when it ran ads against then-Boise City Council Member Lisa Sánchez, the Idaho Statesman previously reported. The PAC is chaired by Dan Richter, general manager of the Avimor planned community in Eagle’s Foothills.

The Ada County Clerk’s Office responded to the complaint by asking Davidson to speak with the political action committee to find a “mutually agreeable solution” and resolve the issue by last Friday, April 26. After back-and-forth, Davidson reached an agreement with the committee to remove the offending signs by Tuesday, Nicole Camarda, the county clerk’s office’s marketing and communications specialist, told the Statesman via email.

After Dornier’s first complaint, Davidson told the Statesman that he did not realize he couldn’t reuse the signs, something candidates often do to save money. He said he wasn’t aware the PAC had endorsed Dornier and called the concern about an old PAC endorsement “new territory,” adding that he had never heard of it coming up before.

“I was just going based on common sense,” he said.

On Monday, Dornier’s campaign filed a second complaint with the clerk’s office, saying Davidson had failed to meet Friday’s deadline to remove the signs. In a news release, the campaign asked for the Secretary of State’s office to investigate.

“Despite the initial complaint and the given deadline, most of the original yard signs are still present, and Ryan Davidson’s campaign has distributed more illegal yard signs,” the news release said. “This blatant disregard for the law undeniably and illegally benefits the Davidson campaign, which is a serious violation of the election process.”

On Tuesday, Davidson’s campaign Facebook page posted a request for supporters to take down the signs “due to some various campaign technicalities.”

Barrett Tetlow, Dornier’s campaign manager, told the Statesman by email that he still saw “many of the signs” up on a drive around the county Wednesday afternoon.

After the first complaint was filed, Davidson told the Statesman he was frustrated that Dornier’s campaign did not first approach him directly about its concerns, calling the complaints a “dirty campaign tactic.”

Davidson told the Statesman after the second complaint that he spoke weeks ago with Tyler Hurst, the PAC’s executive director, and did not receive “any indication that there would be an issue” with reusing the signs until the last couple of weeks.

“I’ll be as charitable as I can and say that there was a misunderstanding,” Davidson said.

Hurst did not immediately respond Wednesday to a phone call requesting comment.

An email Dornier’s campaign shared with the Statesman showed that the county clerk’s office forwarded the campaign’s second complaint to the Secretary of State’s Office “for review,” but an email from the clerk’s office to the Statesman suggested the issue had been resolved as of Monday.

“We consider this matter now closed,” Camarda wrote at the time.

But on Friday, Dornier’s campaign filed a third complaint after Tetlow drove around the county and spotted several of the offending signs still in place.

Camarda did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment about whether or how the clerk’s office might respond.

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