As pro-SB54 and Provo Mayor John Curtis supporters bask in the limelight of his victory in Tuesday’s 3rd District GOP primary race, many political pundits are saying Utah’s old caucus/delegate/convention system is finally dead.
Not so fast, say I.
Depending on how stubborn or determined Republican Party insiders are, opposition to SB54 and its dual-route to a party’s primary ballot for candidates could only be taking a breather.
Not only is the delegates’ power still lingering, it could be very much alive.
I put forward these possibilities: What would a GOP candidate do if:
— The state GOP was to oppose him if he didn’t appear before party delegates in the convention?
— What would he do if the state party were to actually refuse him party membership lists or other contact information?
— What if party leaders refused to include him in GOP-sponsored/associated debates or other public functions?
— What if party leaders financially and organizationally supported only candidates who went before delegates or only candidates who came out of a delegate convention?
— What if party leaders actually kicked out of the party candidates who didn’t come out of the convention process, but got on the party’s primary ballot via gathering signatures?
My guess is, serious GOP candidates would still go before their delegates, and work to secure enough delegate votes to at least meet the requirement of getting out of convention – and thus have to kowtow to the arch-conservatives once again.
All the above ideas may be even too extreme for the party’s state Central Committee or delegate conventions to endorse.
But the point I’m making is that so far state party leaders/CC members/delegates have not taken up these alternatives, nor ruled them out.
They haven’t swung the big club.
Several Republican Party county organizations do currently have bylaws that say the party will support only convention-approved candidates.
The state GOP doesn’t have such a specific bylaw.
However, I’m told the state GOP does have a bylaw saying party candidates can only be nominated via party bylaws.
And winning a primary GOP election after getting on the ballot via SB54’s signature-gathering route is not an approved road.
Already this week, newly-elected state GOP-chairman Rob Anderson has congratulated Curtis for winning Tuesday’s3rd Congressional District’s GOP nomination.
And Anderson says Curtis will be the GOP nominee on the November special U.S. House election.
All fine and good, for now.
But in September the 180-member state Republican Central Committee will meet for the first time since being chosen in last spring’s state organizing convention – elected by the delegates weakened by SB54’s dual route rules.
Should the CC chose, either in September or later, to take the road of several county Republican parties, and only endorse nominees who come out of convention, where are we left?
The state GOP could still back an ongoing appeal of SB54 before the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver. That appeal is likely to fail, as the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled state legislatures have the power to control the primary ballot, paid for by taxpayers.
So SB54 will likely withstand constitutional challenge.
But in the one, rare win for state Republican officials before the Utah federal court, Judge David Nuffer ruled that the party has the power to define its own membership.
And therein lies the huge club the party insiders still hold:
— They can deny party membership — or place all other kinds of candidate restrictions — internally on those who don’t take the delegate/convention route, or don’t get out of the convention in some delegate-approval manner.
Who in their right mind would run for the U.S. Senate, for example, in 2018 and not fear being officially kicked out of the Utah Republican Party, or denied party money or organizational aid, or otherwise publicly questioned about their “Republicanism?”
Much safer to take the dual route, gather your signatures, but still appear before the more-right-wing state delegates in convention.
Maybe you would lose in convention, like Curtis did.
But what if that convention loss also meant the state party would actively oppose you in the primary race – something Anderson et al. did not do to Curtis?
That could still happen in the future.
It would have happened to Curtis and businessman Tanner Ainge if the internal state GOP rules reflected what is done now in several county Republican parties.
Don’t be so quick to bury the Republican Party’s delegate/convention process.
Especially with Count My Vote now apparently going to the 2018 ballot for citizen approval of a “direct primary” law, the Utah Republican Party’s delegate power in electing arch-conservative candidates is far from dead.
