COEUR d'ALENE - The vote to remove a Republican precinct committeeman was postponed until after the November election.

The Kootenai County Republican Central Committee voted to hold off on deciding whether to oust State Committeeman Matt Roetter Tuesday night over his refusal to support Phil Hart as a candidate.

The committee did vote 42 to 21 to officially adopt the stance that it will support Republican candidates who won in the primaries.

"You're taking away our freedom," Roetter said. "A line has to be drawn at some point."

Roetter has said he doesn't support Hart amid the Athol legislator's tax problems. He has said that Hart's tax issues weren't in the public's eye until after the primary election, therefore Roetter doesn't want to support him.

Committeeman Jeff Ward said Republican committee persons, unlike regular voters, have the responsibility of supporting Republican candidates. To defy a candidate is to defy the role of a committee person.

"That's our only job," he said. "You accepted your responsibility."

"It's beyond the pale for me," Ward added.

Several people spoke in favor of adopting the official stance, stating that it wasn't proper to "air dirty laundry" in the media.

Roetter labeled Hart - who refused to pay income tax for several years and has hundreds of thousands of dollars in liens imposed by the federal government on his property - as an "illegal tax dodger" and a "timber thief," alluding to timber on state land Hart used to build his Athol home, in a previous e-mail to The Press.

Roetter said he wanted to delay the vote on his fate to better focus on the election.

The vote on whether to remove Roetter will be at 7 p.m. Tuesday, Nov. 23 at the Kootenai County Administration building.