THE UTGOP MUST SAVE ITSELF FROM DESTRUCTION...AND HAS THE CONSTITUTIONAL AUTHORITY TO DO SO!

For years in Utah, democrats have joined the Republican Party in order to get elected. This is possible because the UTGOP has been complacent in allowing membership in the Party simply by declaring it so. While this created challenges for voters to understand who the real Republican is, the Caucus/Convention system provided the locally elected delegates the final say in who indeed could represent the Party on the primary or general election ballot. In most cases, Democrats who declared themselves Republicans found out they could not pass the scrutiny of the well-informed delegates. So, they had to change the rules and provide an alternate path to the Republican ballot in order to get elected...Meet Count My Vote! 

According to SB54, “whenever there is at least one candidate chosen by convention and at least one who gained candidacy for the same office by collecting signatures, a qualified political party must participate in a primary election to choose between them.” If a party’s only candidates for an office are chosen at its convention, the party “is not required to participate in the primary election for that office.” For qualified political parties then, the requirement to participate in the primary only exists when the signature-gathering path to nomination is used by “declared republican” candidates outside of the Convention process. “A State cannot substitute its judgment for that of the party as to the desirability of a particular internal party structure.” The Party is a private constitutionally protected institution.
 
When a qualified political party only has candidates who emerged from its convention, the law does not require the party to participate in a primary. If Party members want a signature-gathering route to nomination outside the convention process, they can surely rally for that change to the Party’s bylaws, and if a cabal tried but failed to truly shut out the voices of ordinary members, they are free to quit, to form a new party, or to cast their votes elsewhere. It is none of the state’s business. 

There are Nine Registered Political Parties in Utah.  

Each of them has a First Amendment right to limit its membership as it wishes, and to choose a candidate-selection process that will in its view produce the nominee who best represents its political platform. The states only legitimate interest is insuring that any party’s nominating process is “fair and honest.” Since the Republican Party controls the offices of governor, Lt. governor, attorney general, and both chambers of the state legislature, one might ask why these elected Republicans would believe the Republican Caucus/Convention system isn’t “fair and honest” in determining its candidates. After all, we live in a Constitutional Republic where voters democratically elect representatives in “fair and honest elections” to make their decisions for them. We call them delegates. 

Think about it, all of these elected officials are declared Republicans and are subject to the Party’s candidate qualification requirements. These requirements, like its nomination procedures, are designed to make certain that nominees are committed to the Party’s platform. All candidates must file a statement certifying that they do not hold a position in any other political party. They must also certify they have read the Party’s platform and accept it as the standard by which their performance as an officeholder will be evaluated.  

When a party selects its platform, its chairman, or even whom it will endorse in the upcoming election, the state has no more interest in these internal activities than in the administration of the local Elks lodge or bar association. But when the party’s actions turn outwards to the actual nomination and election of an individual who will swear an oath not to protect just the Party, but instead the Constitution, and when the individual ultimately elected has the responsibility to represent all the residents in his or her district, the state acquires a manifest interest in that activity, and the party’s interest in such activity must share the stage with the state’s manifest interest. I will remind you again, the Republican Party controls the offices of governor, Lt. governor, attorney general, and both chambers of the state legislature. That means both the Republican Party and the state executive and legislative branches share the same stage already. So why is there a problem? 

The Supreme Court has ruled that states cannot force political parties to allow nonmembers to participate in their primary election. Understandably, the Court held that such a “forced association” intruded on the party’s First Amendment associational rights. 

When SB54 was initially passed, it did contain a significant associational burden (in the form of an open primary) forcing the party to associate with unaffiliated voters. However, that issue was fought in the first lawsuit, and the UTGOP won. Now the UTGOP’s nominee is decided only by those individuals who are members of the Party. The party controls the rules of association and therefore controls who its members are. There are no constitutional restrictions on a private organization determining criteria for who its members are. 

In the eyes of Utah’s Republican state government, the candidate selection process must be “fair and honest” in order to allow the party to determine its own candidates for the general election. According to SB54, to be “fair and honest,” a “state has a legitimate interest in requiring a showing of a ‘significant modicum of support’ before it prints on the state election ballot the name of a political party and its slate of candidates,” noting that such a requirement “serves the important state interest of avoiding ‘confusion, deception, and even frustration of the democratic process.”  Apparently, the state believes gathering signatures is what makes their elections “fair and honest”. So, if the UTGOP requires the same amount of signatures and membership in the party to run at convention, the UTGOP controls its nomination process, and the state has no say. 

Because our bylaws are protected by the First Amendment, we simply change our constitution and by-laws to require our convention candidates to “demonstrate a modicum of support” by gathering the necessary signatures to qualify as a convention nominee. Our by-laws would provide a method for one candidate to have the necessary votes to go straight to the general election and bypass the primary altogether. That way we do not allow for any method to gain the nomination other than competition at the Party’s convention.  

As a party, we can determine the threshold requirement of our membership and any “declared republican” candidate who secures signatures outside of the convention requirements loses their Party membership and is ineligible to run at convention, but certainly eligible to run as a non-republican in the state’s elections should they satisfy the states requirements. 

As an additional security measure against the possibility of unfaithful nominees, the Party’s bylaws will require all nominees to certify their signatures with the Party by name only (not actual signatures) and will abide by the Party’s new nomination procedures. All other candidates will have to meet the states election criteria on their own. It’s none of the Republican Party’s business. ​