Jason Chaffetz renounces automatic delegate position

April 18, 2010 – 9:31 pm
I've got some great exclusive news to share with you all. I had an amazing phone conversation with  Rep. Jason Chaffetz recently. In an unprecedented move, he told me that he renounced his automatic delegate (Ex Officio) position with the Utah County Republican Party. "Just because I'm a Congressman doesn't mean I should be an automatic delegate," Jason said. Yes, you heard it correctly, he just gave up his State AND County delegate position. Chaffetz' delegate position can now be allocated to someone else in the party according to the Party bylaws. He gave his official notice to the Utah County Party Secretary, Lisa Sheperd. In place of the automatic delegate positions, he is receiving an honorary non-voting credential to the convention. I've never heard of any public official doing this, ever. This all came about because of a technicality (Bylaw 1.A.5) that requires a written acceptance of such positions. Lisa Shepherd sent out a ...

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Guess who was Counting Ballots at the Utah County Republican Convention?

May 28, 2009 – 3:26 pm
As a State Central Committee member and a candidate for the SCC at the April 25th Utah County Convention, I would like to give my personal observations on one of the issues Steve Diamond brought up in his "items we must still attend to" email last week: the State Central Committee ballot count. After the convention was officially over, I decided I would hang out and wait for the State Central Committee count to be completed. It was taking forever. I started to feel very guilty about having unintentionally roped my poll watcher into staying for the entire day, when I thought he would only be counting during the convention. I waited downstairs for quite awhile and then ventured up to the counting room. Being a candidate myself, I approached the room cautiously, not wanting to, in any way, compromise the count. I peeked into the room and asked if someone could ...

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Do your homework and choose wisely

April 21, 2009 – 2:32 pm
I voted for Mitt Romney in the Presidential Primary. Last August, just prior to the Republican National Convention, I attended an emergency meeting of Utah's Republican State Central Committee. As a member of that committee, I was asked to come and vote on whether or not Utah should release its national delegates from Mitt Romney and give them to "the highest vote getter who is still a candidate," which would, of course, have been John McCain. I know all of the logical reasons for giving the votes to McCain: Romney was no longer a candidate; Romney had asked that his delegates be transferred to McCain; it would show unity within the party; it would help Romney in future elections; it would make Utah look good for McCain. I also know that the voters in the state of Utah voted for Romney, an overwhelming 90%, with many of those voters standing in line for ...

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The Negative Aspects of Multiculturalism

February 5, 2009 – 2:54 pm
The Negative Aspects of Multiculturalism ©   By Russell Sias In the United States, the issue of multiculturalism has been largely ignored.  At the very least, it has either been inappropriately represented or misunderstood for years, perhaps both.  As citizens, we have allowed ourselves to be convinced that diversity is a good thing for those within (and without) our country.  In some instances, encouraging diversity is a correct and appropriate position for the citizens of our country to adopt, in others, it is not. Where multiculturalism causes a division within the country it is detrimental.  Division is created when a specific group refuses to speak the commonly accepted language and resists becoming part of the culture by refusing, for example, to recognize the same holidays and demanding recognition of their own.  These and similar practices cause community isolationism, narrowly define ...

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Mr. Jenkins Goes to St. Paul

January 30, 2009 – 10:20 pm
Brian Jenkins, who challenged Orrin Hatch for the Republican nomination as candidate for  U.S. Senate in 2006 and ran for the Republican nomination as candidate for Congress in the 2nd Congressional District in 2008, gives the following account of his experience last year as a Utah delegate to the Republican National Convention at which Senator John McCain received the Republican nomination for President: Brian Jenkins of Saratoga Springs was elected at the May 10, 2008, GOP State Convention to serve as a delegate to the GOP National Convention in St. Paul, Minnesota, held September 1 - 4, 2008. Brian attended the convention with hopes of participating in a thoughtful, deliberative assembly, but instead was assaulted with a school yard bullying lesson in hardball politics bordering on the unethical. A party rule, in place at the time of his election, said that Brian's first-round vote was to be cast for the winner of ...

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Automatic Delegates

January 23, 2009 – 11:40 pm
[As published in the Daily Herald on Tuesday, 27 May 2008 in response to a column in this section a week ago by party officials Stan Lockhart and Marian Monnahan.] Mr. Lockhart and Ms. Monnahan brag about the "strong representation" in UT County. The leadership of the party is so strong in fact, that grass root party members have little voice in the party. We are being led by our party leaders, regardless of where/how our grass root people may want to be led. Many delegate positions are made by appointment by party leaders, instead of election by the precinct being represented. In spite of our constitution, delegates are appointed from a group of volunteers, rather than according to our state constitution. Article XII, Sec. 2, C, of the Republican Party constitution clearly states how delegates are to be determined. This provision makes no mention of allowing appointed delegates. There is no provision ...

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Convention-al Wisdom

January 23, 2009 – 9:51 am
Convention-al Wisdom Should Utah's caucus/convention system be retained, or scrapped? Utah is one of the few remaining states that still use the caucus/convention system for political parties to winnow their candidates down to one per public office. The system used to be almost universal, but has been abandoned in favor of the direct primary system in recent decades by most states for reasons explained below. As a quick review, our caucus/convention system works like this: Every even-numbered year, voters in the several precincts (a voting precinct being a geographical division of about a thousand voters, give or take a few hundred) meet in what is called a precinct caucus, for the party of their choice, to elect delegates to represent them at the party's nominating conventions later in the year. In the case of the Republican Party in Utah County, each precinct elects one or more delegates to the county Republican convention and ...

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Welcome

July 2, 2008 – 3:02 pm
Welcome to the unofficial Utah County GOP blog.  Subscribe to this blog to stay current with happenings in Utah County politics, and this website.

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