Guess who is using SB54’s new dual-track process to get on their political party’s primary ballot in 2016?Read up, Peeps!
Republicans.
Especially Republican incumbents in the Utah House and Senate.
In fact, when I checked Thursday afternoon on the Utah Elections website, out of the 70 folks who have signed up for the petition route, all but one were Republicans.
The lone Democrat is gubernatorial candidate Vaughn Cook.
TAYLORSVILLE — It appears Republicans will be on the ballot in 2016 in one of the reddest of red states.Read the delightful full morning stories, folks:
The Utah Republican Party’s Central Committee voted to comply with a new election law during a special meeting here on Saturday. The vote by an overwhelming number of committee members may end an internal party fight over the direction of the state’s most powerful political party.
The Utah Republican Party’s most recent proposals of a $10,000 fee for candidates to run as Republicans and a purity test for all Republican candidates are just more evidence of being out of touch with reality. This exclusionary thinking goes against the fundamental purpose of a political Party and makes the Party irrelevant in the entire discussion of getting more people involved in Utah’s political process. The more the Party makes outlandish proposals, the more they prove the CMV hypothesis that those with power within the Utah Republican Party are so power-hungry they won’t give up that power even if by doing so more Utah voters will get involved. It is a sad state of affairs.
Many say that all of this Republican Party dysfunction is a failure of Party leadership to lead. As a former Republican Party Chair, I know just how difficult it is to lead a Party. The most difficult responsibility of a Party Chair is to propose Party direction that challenges Central Committee preference. Almost all Chairs face that dilemma and their legacy becomes how they handled those difficult issues. To my friend James Evans, I would say that his legacy hangs in the balance.Our take? James. Evans' very survival as State GOP Chairman hangs in the balance, as Utah GOP warhorses such as Mr. Lockhart keep "piling on," (if you take our meaning):
MURRAY — Salt Lake County GOP delegates were urged Saturday to participate in a state party survey about what requirements candidates must meet to run as Republicans under a new law being challenged in court.Read the full story, O Gentle Readers:
"We do have to move forward and prepare for 2016," Utah GOP Chairman James Evans told the more than 1,000 county delegates gathered at Cottonwood High School for their annual convention.
He said the party can't afford to lose its focus on the upcoming election "because we don't want a Democrat to gain even an inch in Salt Lake County or anywhere else in this state."
The state party survey, which went out last week, lets Republicans weigh in on some of the controversial proposals that have surfaced to deal with changes made to the candidate nominating process in SB54.A Weber County Forum Tip O' The Hat to D-news reporter Lisa Riley Roche, for providing the link to the online survey, wherein Utah GOP "leaders" seem to be reaching out (surprise of surprises) to find out what Utah voters think:
The proposals include requiring would-be Republican candidates to meet with party officials, attest to their support of the party platform and, for the first time, pay a yet-to-be determined fee before being allowed to run.
The survey also asks whether Republican candidates should lose their party membership for choosing to bypass the caucus and convention system in favor of the newly available option of gathering signatures for a spot on the primary ballot.
Results of the survey, being conducted by mail and online, are scheduled to be discussed Tuesday at a meeting of the state GOP's executive committee. The final decision on the proposals will be made at the party's state convention in August.
Utah Republican leaders are toying with a proposal to form a committe to interview candidates who decide to use the new signature method to get on the ballot. The idea is to make sure they agree with the Republican platform. Our "Political Insiders" and readers think the plan is one of the dumbest things they've ever heard in Utah politics.Check out the full article, for a full complement of charts and graphs, along with a sampling of select Utah Policy surveyee quotes:
77% of the Republicans on our panel along with 74% of Democrats and 57% of our readers say the committee is is "one of the stupidest ideas to ever come forth in Utah politics."
Additionally, 85% of the Republicans in our survey disagree with the plan to interview candidates as do 91% of Democrats and 84% of our readers.
Despite the unprecedented success of Republican governance in our state, it is sad for me to see the Republican Party itself divided in an acrimonious struggle over how Republican candidates are to be selected.
Alexander Hamilton once said, “In politics, as in religion, it is equally absurd to aim at making proselytes by fire and sword.” Heavy-handed tactics will neither protect nor save the Utah Republican Party. If the party is to survive and thrive in the years to come, we must preach the principles of the party using persuasion, logic, compassion and kindness to continually grow, re-energize and renew our ranks.
In short, we must apply the principles of the Republican Party to the Republican Party.
A plan to have potential Republican candidates vetted and judged based on their commitment to the party's principles before being eligible for its nomination is drawing fire from some in the GOP who say it empowers a small elite group of insiders to decide who gets to be a candidate.Read up, Peeps! And no! We are NOT making this up!
Utah Republican Party Chairman James Evans said the idea of creating committees to help screen potential candidates springs from concern that, under the state's new nominating process, people who aren't even Republicans could gather signatures and get onto the primary ballot and the party would be helpless to stop them.
To combat that, Evans said candidates would have to come meet with the interview committees to become certified members of the GOP. If they refuse, they would be ineligible to be a candidate for the Republican nomination, he said, because the law says the candidates have to be a party member.
A federal judge said Thursday he wants the Utah Republican Party to offer a concrete case for why a deal cut last year to change how candidates for political office are chosen violates the U.S. Constitution and should be stopped from being implemented.Read the full story, folks:
U.S. District Judge David Nuffer said he wants attorneys for the party to be able to point directly to the Constitution or legal precedent to show why specific lines and provisions of the deal legislators cut with Count My Vote — a group formed to push a ballot measure to change the nominating process — violate the law.
A federal judge on Friday refused to block a new Utah law that will change the way candidates are nominated in next year's election.Here's the full post-hearing story, peeps:
U.S. District Judge David Nuffer ruled from the bench at the conclusion of a more than five-hour hearing on the Utah Republican Party's quest for a preliminary injunction against SB54.
Nuffer said the GOP had failed to show that the law placed unconstitutional burdens on the party.
"Every legislator that voted for SB 54 knew that if we passed it and the governor signed it, they would withdraw the initiative. They acted in good faith and it's important that we maintain the integrity of that," says Bramble. "If we don't then how will any group feel comfortable negotiating with this body."Will Utah's far right "sacrifice its honor for power"?
And that's the key. Most of the lawmakers who voted for the compromise last time around are still on the hill.
"There's a critical mass up here that supported the compromise last year," Bramble points out.
SALT LAKE CITY — Many in Utah have mobilized to increase participation in neighborhood caucus meetings, in what may be the last election under the state's current system.Read the full story, Weber County Forum political wonks, wherein DNews reporter Whitney Evans provides all the "particulars.":
Senate Bill 54 — a bill allowing those who gather enough signatures to become candidates without attending a party caucus or convention meeting — takes effect on Jan. 1. This year neighborhood caucus meetings will move forward as usual: Democrats will meet Tuesday and Republicans will meet Thursday.
Some believe the passage of SB54, “Election Amendments,” will be the death of the caucus and convention system in Utah. I am not one of them. Instead, I believe it will have far more reaching consequences, not the least of which is the death of the two-party system and the birth of a new, two-intra-party system within the Utah Republican Party. -Stuart ReidAnd here's Senator Reid's full rant:
Feast your eyes on the full Robert Gehrke story here:Despite grumbling and constitutional doubts, the Utah Legislature sent a deal to Gov. Gary Herbert that will overhaul the process for choosing candidates for office and bring to an end Count My Vote’s ballot initiative."I don’t argue that this policy will be better than the caucus-convention process," said Rep. Dan McCay, R-Riverton. "The vote today is not whether you like one [nominating system] over the other. … Your vote today is ‘do I preserve a history at the same time I grab the future?’ That is this bill."While the bill, SB54s2, lets parties keep their existing caucus-and-convention system for nominating candidates, it also allows aspiring officeholders who collect enough petition signatures to go straight to the primary ballot.
I applaud their efforts of trying to find a compromise that protects the convention-caucus system, which I’ve been a big supporter of in the past, and yet provides opportunity for a general primary and a different pathway to the ballot," Herbert said before the Legislature’s final passage..Brace yourselves for a sea change in Utah politics, as these monumental changes to the nominating process take effect, beginning with the 2016 Utah General Election.
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