One of the Legislature’s most conservative members is trying to recruit challengers to run in certain legislative primaries to purge the Republican Party of what he calls 14 “socialist incumbent Republicans.”’

Rep. Roger Koopman, R-Bozeman, said he wants to help oust those Republicans “who have consistently sold out the cause of liberty in the Montana Legislature.” He wants to return the GOP to “its low tax, limited government, free market roots.”

Assisting Koopman in “the liberty project” is David Hart, state coordinator for Republican Ron Paul’s presidential campaign in Montana, who, via e-mail, urged Paul’s “Montana Freedom Fighters” to help recruit candidates.

Republican House incumbents targeted, in what Koopman said was “in rough order of priority,” are Reps. Llew Jones of Conrad, Walter McNutt of Sidney, Duane Ankney of Colstrip, Jesse O’Hara of Great Falls, Harry Klock of Great Falls, Bill Glaser of Huntley, Bruce Malcolm of Emigrant, John Ward of Helena, Carol Lambert of Broadus, Elsie Arntzen of Billings, Gary MacLaren of Victor and Mike Milburn of Cascade.

Republican Senate incumbents targeted are Sens. John Brueggeman of Polson and Dave Lewis of Helena.

However, Lewis pointed out that he is a holdover senator who doesn’t face re-election until 2010.

“I think that I’m representing my district, and if Roger feels I’m not, he should move up here and run against me,” Lewis said. “I’ll pay his filing fee.”

Brueggeman called it a “sad day when Republicans start attacking each other” and said it “flies in the face of the idea of a big-tent party.”

“I refuse to kneel before any ideological altar,” Brueggeman said. “It’s interesting that I was named Legislator of the Year by the Montana Ambassadors, and Champion of Business by the Chamber of Commerce. Apparently they think I’m doing a decent job, so if I have to choose between Koopman’s cabal and Montana’s economic community, I’ll happily take the latter.”

Koopman said it’s nothing personal. He said the project is all about accountability, to let voters know how their legislators voted on key issues.

“They need to be aware of when they have elected a Republican who has essentially betrayed them by morphing into a Democrat,” he said.

In the U.S. system of government, “primary elections are the best time for bringing these issues out and vetting them,” Koopman said. “I believe it’s a healthy thing for the party. It allows us to step back and ask the question of what do we as Republicans really stand for.”

State Republican Chairman Erik Iverson, who wasn’t aware of the Koopman effort, said there’s a wave of excitement in the state party, with a number of people energized.

“As party chairman, I make it a policy that I do not recruit candidates to run against our Republican incumbents,” he said. “As a party, we will not get involved in primary races.”

Iverson said primaries are healthy for democracy and the party. But he also said he constantly reminds Republicans of late President Ronald Reagan’s Eleventh Commandment: “Thou shalt not speak ill of a fellow Republican.”

Asked if he agreed with Koopman’s labeling of the 14 targeted Republicans as “socialist incumbent ‘Republicans,’ ” Iverson said, “I refer to them as Republicans. We’re a big-tent party. We’ve got room for all Republicans of all types of ideologies.”

Montana Democratic Party spokesman Kevin O’Brien said it’s just more of the same from Republicans.

“It started with picking off folks (in 2006) that weren’t deemed Republican enough, a legislative session where they were led by the far-fringe right and then a presidential primary where only 1,600 party insiders were allowed to vote,” O’Brien said. “And now it has led to this strategy memo. The big tent of the Republican Party has turned into a small shack with more people getting booted out than at a bar at closing time.”

Koopman said he selected the targeted legislators by using the ratings by the Montana Conservatives voting index released last fall by Rob Natelson, a University of Montana law professor who twice ran for governor.

Natelson said the study found that “a surprising 65 percent of state legislators — including all Democrats and 23 Republicans — registered liberal voting records, while only 10 percent achieved scores in the conservative range.”

Seven of the 12 House members targeted were among those who attended a secret meeting at a log-wall lodge west of Helena last May 5, with top officials of the administration of Democratic Gov. Brian Schweitzer.

The two sides reached an understanding that led to a compromise that enabled a special legislative session the next week to pass a state budget, approve a tax rebate and enact a school-funding plan — after lawmakers had failed to do these in the regular 90-day session.