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 reminder to Chaffetz and other automatic delegates asking for their written acceptance. Chaffetz’ trend setting response will surely be long remembered and followed, I hope.

I asked Lisa what she thought of Chaffetz’ response. “At first I was surprised.  Then I remembered previously having read a letter signed by Jason and some others that stated they didn’t agree with the the whole automatic delegate status. Then, I thought, hmmm….he does both walk the walk and talk the talk. Jason does what he believes is right and that is why the people of the 3rd District admire him.”

In my opinion delegate positions should be earned uniformly by going to your precinct caucus and winning the favor of your neighbors. Right now, elected officials are given an automatic delegate position simply by virtue of the public office they hold. These positions should not be used like an award, gift or some kind of recognition.

This news comes at an interesting time. Coincidentally there is currently a lawsuit against the State and County Parties over these automatic delegate positions. The suit claims the Party rules don’t allow automatic delegates.

Chaffetz has done the right thing, try asking your elected officials if they would consider doing the same

Matt Misbach

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 give a message to my poll watcher, because I didn’t think it would be appropriate for a candidate in that race to be inside the room while the counting was going on.

As I waited, by the door, for the message to reach my poll watcher, I looked around and saw that Susan Bramble,* who was also candidate for the State Central Committee, had a stack of ballots in front of her next to her left hand. She had a pencil in her right hand and seemed to be making marks on a paper. Then someone informed me that the poll watchers had given up watching the polls and were, instead, helping with the count, because there were so many ballots. This bothered me, because, obviously, the purpose of poll watchers is to ensure that the counting is done correctly, not to help with the counting themselves.

As I turned away to head back down the stairs, Chad Bunn, the man who was in charge of the counting of the ballots, came back up the stairs with another candidate for the State Central Committee. They both asked me if I would come and help count. I said, no, I could not help count because I was a candidate. The other candidate said: “So am I.” And Chad Bunn said: “Pffft!,” waved one hand in the air, and, with the other, lifted his blue candidate tag up for me to see.

The person in charge of organizing the ballot counting was, himself, a candidate!

If these people were not seasoned county officers, this glaring error in judgement might be attributed to inexperience.

I understand that in Utah County, among so many “nice” people it is easy to think that this is not an issue, that everyone is going to be fair. But the idea that it is inappropriate for candidates to count ballots is not without reason. Whether there was any hanky-panky going on is not the issue I am most concerned with at the moment. The main issue is that the counting is supposed to be observed by poll watchers, be done by non-candidates and be openly and unquestionably fair. The impropriety here was in not following protocol, if nothing else. This cavalier attitude toward rule-breaking and questionable conduct has been very prevalent among our leadership.

I’d like to see our party do better than this. There should be no suggestion of impropriety. We should be bending over backwards to make sure that everything is done by the rules and is completely above board.

I think it is time for those who are really in charge of the party to stand up and take back the authority that is theirs. If you are a chair or vice-chair in your precinct, please come to the County Central Committee meeting on May 30. Please let the new party leadership know that you are watching them and that you expect them to abide by the rules and take the high road where all matters of ethics are concerned.

Kristen S. Chevrier
Precinct Chair HI04
politicalmommy@gmail.com

P.S. (Since I came in 34th in the voting tally for the 2009 SCC, and only the top 20 win, no action taken on this issue by the County Central Committee will put me in the top 20.)

*Susan is the wife of Senator Curt Bramble; she just retired as Utah County Party Secretary, and is no neophyte in the political arena.

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 hours to vote for one candidate who was certain to win, regardless. They did this on the understanding that Utah was a winner-take-all state and that the national delegates would be bound to Romney in the first round at the national convention. (Because Romney was no longer in the running, delegates would have been released to McCain after the first round.)

Earlier last summer, at the Utah State Republican Convention, after Romney had “suspended” his campaign, Republican delegates were asked to consider a motion to amend the party bylaws to say that the national delegates could be released. Although the Chair had enforced time limits on other speakers, he attempted to bend the rules for himself, so that he could better explain what he wanted to do. The delegates felt that they already knew what he wanted to do and loudly disapproved. The outcome was that a motion to table the issue indefinitely was passed by a large majority of the state delegates. Obviously, these delegates hoped that their will would prevail and that the issue would remain asleep until the next convention.

Not so fast, delegates.

It is informative to note here that, as the issue was being debated, Lowell Nelson, who was going to speak against releasing the delegates, yielded the microphone to a speaker, who said he wanted to speak in favor of releasing the delegates. Oddly, instead of speaking in favor of releasing the delegates, the speaker moved to table the motion. If he was really in favor of releasing the delegates, what would motivate him to table the motion? Is it possible that the leadership preferred to table the motion, without voting on it, so that there would be no record of an overwhelming state delegate vote against releasing the national delegates? That would certainly make things less complicated, down the road, in case the leadership wanted to ask the State Central Committee to override the will of the delegates.

Well, you guessed it, since things didn’t work out at the state convention, our State Constitution and By-laws Committee worked hard and found some “ambiguity” in the by-laws. (Never mind the fact that some of those committee members were on the committee when the “ambiguous” by-laws were written and knew full-well the intent of the authors.) Still, the ambiguity is there and Robert’s Rules apparently says that ambiguities are to be clarified by the State Central Committee. The least problematic way to approve the changes is to wait until it is too late to challenge the credentials of the national delegates and then approve a “standing rule,” rather than make a by-laws change.

So, they brought the ambiguities before the State Central Committee, spent at least an hour explaining the necessity of our approving the standing rule, jokingly telling us it was up to us to decide “what the meaning of ‘is’ is.” When one committee member asked what would happen if we didn’t approve the standing rule, we were told that the chair, Mr. Lockhart, had the authority to override our decision. (It was a good thing I drove all the way up to West Jordan to give my opinion then, wasn’t it?)

Even though I understand that there were some good reasons for releasing the delegates, I did not appreciate the way the leadership oozed their way through bending the rules, against the will of the people of Utah. Because of this and because I felt it was my duty to represent the people of Utah, I was among a handful of SCC members who stood in opposition to releasing Romney’s delegates in the first round.

This is just one example of the maneuvering and power-playing that goes on within the Utah Republican party on both the county and state levels. The leadership knows the rules and uses them liberally against the delegates who are less conversant in the intricacies of the game.

We are in the process of choosing new leadership. Now is the time to stand up for honesty and transparency. Do your homework and choose wisely.

Kristen S. Chevrier
Precinct Chair HI04
State Central Committee Member

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 the Presidential Primary Election held on February 5, 2008. Mitt Romney won that election with a landslide 265,000 first-place votes (90%). John McCain received 16,000 first-place votes, and Ron Paul 9,000 first-place votes. The ballot did not allow voters to express a second preference.

Mitt Romney quit the presidential race in late February, however, and the party rule did not address how national delegates should cast their first-round votes in such a case. At the Utah State Convention party leaders asked delegates if they would like to unbind Utah’s National Delegates. The delegates said, “No.” Unwilling to abide the will of the delegates they did an end run, called a meeting of the State Central Committee and and passed a rule such that Utah’s national delegates were now bound to vote for John McCain in the first round.

Never mind the fact that the presidential preference primary did not allow voters to express a second preference.

And never mind the fact that Jennifer Sheehan, Legal Counsel for the RNC, plainly stated in a letter to Nancy Lord, Utah National Committeewoman, several weeks before the convention, “[The] RNC does not recognize a state’s binding of national delegates, but considers each delegate a free agent who can vote for whoever they choose.” And, “The national convention allows delegates to vote for the individual of their choice, regardless of whether the person’s name is officially placed into nomination or not.”

Wednesday came. Brian had told the president of the the Utah delegation (Jon Huntsman) he wanted his vote recorded correctly–not simply cast for McCain against his will. The president did not help. The Republican Party Chairman did not help. The time for the roll call vote drew near. Brian Jenkins brought the convention sergeant-at-arms and a security officer under the sergeant’s direction, and Stan Lockhart, Utah’s Republican Party Chairman, together for a conversation.

“This man would like to make sure his vote is recorded correctly,” said the sergeant at arms to Chairman Lockhart.

“I am instructed to remove anyone from the floor who votes contrary to the Utah State Central Committee’s instructions,” replied Stan.

Brian looked at the Sergeant-at-arms and said “The meeting where the State Central Committee ruled Utah delegates must vote for McCain was illegal. And the RNC specifies that delegates may vote for whomever they wish.” Then he instructed the Sergeant-at-arms, “Please check and see if Stan can remove me from the floor under these circumstances.”

The sergeant-at-arms told Brian to remain where he was, and that he would look into the matter. Neither he nor his assistant returned.

However, shortly thereafter, Ivan Dubois, an employee of the Utah Republican Party, polled Brian and several other national delegates as to whom they wished to vote for. Brian, a Ron Paul supporter, directed Ivan to cast his vote for Mitt Romney because the party rule in place at the time of the primary required delegates to vote for Utah’s first-place selection in the presidential primary. Thus, his vote was cast for Mitt Romney instead of Ron Paul (whom he intended to support, but did not for fear of being removed from the floor of the convention).

Requiring national delegates to vote according to the results of a primary makes Utah more democratic and less of a republic. Democracies are surprisingly ineffective types of government with short, violent lives and unable to safeguard its citizens’ rights. But worse than a democracy is an oligarchy, which is the government under the control of a party with its few leaders. That is what we see manifest when Utahns vote one way and party leaders force something different. In Utah, controlling the Republican party is almost like choosing Utah’s senators and congressmen and governor.

The founders intended that American citizens would select delegates who would spend more time than they might normally spend selecting the ideal candidate. In Utah, a candidate that won 5% of Utah’s popular vote received a nearly unanimous vote from Utah’s national delegates. Because Utah and many states no longer allow their delegates to operate as intended and use their best judgment based on current information, (who should I vote for now that Romney has withdrawn) Brian was not able to spend convention time exploring candidate commitment to principles of proper government (so who is Sarah Palin anyway) but was instead forced to seek the assistance of security to make sure his vote was recorded as he wanted. It is why many Ron Paul delegates from various states voted contrary to their best judgment at the national convention and most of the Utah delegation voted contrary to Utah’s delegates’ wishes. We simply let our party leadership cast our vote for us. It is why not all of Utah’s National Delegates were ever asked whom they were voting for.

Brian believes free elections are a foundational element of a free society and they are jeopardized in Utah and throughout the U.S. Brian believes it is a tragic irony that while America is fighting to insure free elections abroad they are slipping through our fingers at home.

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 for delegate selection by party leaders. Delegates are to be properly elected people, i.e., elected as delegates by their own precincts. Delegate seats must be (“shall be”) allocated down to the precincts based on a particular formula that represents each precinct’s relative Republican strength. There is no other authorized basis for allocating discretionary or replacement delegates, nor any based on party leadership, volunteer status, or other elected office positions.

When ex officio, automatic delegate positions are granted by party leaders, the effect is to dilute the representation given to the individual precincts through their elected delegates.

Delegate positions should be for the express purpose of enabling grass root representation, yet we very likely have 10-15 percent of our delegates not elected by grass roots precinct members to these positions. The question then must arise, whom do these automatic delegates represent?

In Utah County’s most recent convention, even 2 percent of the vote could have drastically changed the outcome of several races, and who was/wasn’t forced into a primary, giving the general population the right to choose. The impact skews grass root representation, and allows it to become, not a “voice of the people” but a “voice of the party leaders”.

Delegates have been appointed by party leadership to represent different precincts than in which they live.

Mr. Lockhart and Ms. Monnahan refer to fairness.

Refusal to make public, as prescribed by state law, the party’s delegate lists is biased and unfair as well as a violation of the established rules. The party constitution states in Article XII, Sec. E, 2, that all such listings shall include, at a minimum, the name, address, and phone number when available, and the basis of eligibility, of each person listed. Some who request the list get it with less than the minimum information required by rule, others get the list with additional contact information included, like e-mail addresses, or the required basis of eligibility, as mandated by our party constitution.

We have seen in recent years discretionary use of supposedly unbiased party mailing capabilities, even financial contributions, to some candidates and not others.

Our elected delegates are routinely unable to be heard. We have suffered from the scheduling of delegate sponsored amendments, resolutions, etc., after other non-business functions during conventions. Ultimately, this inappropriate scheduling winds up bringing about the adjournment of the meeting without considering any delegate raised issues and effectively silences our elected delegates from having a voice. Rarely has the scheduling been over-ruled by the delegates. This is party leadership manipulation, demonstrating inappropriate control over elected delegate input, and has essentially eliminated the voice of the individual Republican grass root party member through their elected delegates.

Mr. Lockhart, along with Ms. Monnahan, are well learned in how to manipulate and control the party for their own purposes. The claim is that this makes a strong party, when in fact, it damages the party. All one has to do is look at the numbers. We have approximately 3,500 delegates in the state. Often, about one-third bother to attend our state convention, likely because they know they have little or no voice. The “strong representation” to which Mr. Lockhart and Ms. Monahan refer is not strong representation of the people, it is strong (and practically insurmountable) representation of/by our party leaders.

In the words of General Douglas MacArthur: “I am concerned for the security of our great nation, not so much because of any threat from without, but because of the insidious forces working from within.”

• Provo resident Russell Sias, a retiree, is a former Republican precinct chair.

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 chooses one or more nominees who are ratified by the delegates at the county convention to be delegates to the state Republican convention. Each precinct is guaranteed at least two county delegates and one state delegate. The number of delegates allocated to each precinct varies, depending on the aggregate number of votes cast in that precinct in the last presidential election for the offices of governor, attorney general, state auditor, and state treasurer. Precincts that have thereby shown greater Republican “strength” are rewarded with a greater number of delegates. The number of county delegates allocated to a precinct is generally larger than the number of state delegates. Typical numbers are two to three state and four to six county delegates per precinct.

At the county and state nominating conventions, the delegates vote for their preferred candidates in races for elected public office where more than one Republican candidate has filed, and nominate by acclamation those candidates who are unopposed within the party. In a contested election, a candidate who receives 60% of the delegates’ votes becomes the party’s nominee and is thereby able to avoid a primary election. (Until about 10 years ago, it required a 70% vote of the delegates for a candidate to receive the party’s nomination and bypass a primary.) If no candidate in a contested race receives 60%, the two top vote-getters then face each other in the primary election and the one receiving a majority of the votes of registered Republicans in the general public becomes the party’s nominee for the general election. Because the delegates are the ones who determine who the party’s candidates will be in the primary election (if three or more Republicans have filed for the same office) and even, if 60% of them vote for one candidate, who the party’s candidates will be in the general election, they have a tremendous amount of power. They serve as gatekeepers to make sure that only certain types of candidates are presented to the public, by the party, to vote on.

In a direct primary system, all of the candidates who filed under a particular party show up on the ballot in the primary election, and the one from each party who gets the most votes from the voters in his or her party becomes that party’s nominee in the general election. The primary election may be either open or closed. If open, voters may vote for candidates from any party—even from parties that they are not registered members of. In a closed primary, only members of a given party or, in some cases, unaffiliated voters may vote for candidates from that party. Since open primaries encourage crossover voting to sabotage a rival party’s nominees, the Republican party in Utah holds closed primaries, in which only registered Republican voters and voters who have declared no party affiliation may vote for Republican candidates. The Democrat party, on the other hand, is so hard up for votes (and candidates) in this state that they keep their primary elections open. In Utah County it is so rare that the Democrats have more than one candidate per office (they often don’t even have one candidate for every office) that it really doesn’t matter whether their primary is open or closed.

The caucus/convention system has two advantages over the direct primary system. One is that it reduces the cost—to candidates and society as a whole—of elections. It is much easier and less expensive for a candidate to contact and try to persuade the roughly 1,100 county delegates or 3,500 state delegates than it is to do the same with, say, 15,000 voters in a state house district, 45,000 voters in a state senate district, 200,000 voters in a race for a county commission seat, or a million voters in a race for governor. Even with the cost of putting on a convention factored in, surely less money is spent, on the whole, in the caucus/convention system than in the direct primary system. (One recent interesting counterbalancing trend, however, is that some few savvy candidates are catching on to the fact that it can be easier to secure the party’s nomination at convention than in a primary and are spending as much as $30,000—an amount that is more typically spent on an entire campaign from filing through the general election—prior to convention in order to get the delegates’ votes.)

The other big advantage of the caucus/convention system is that it tends to put the selection of a party’s nominees into the hands of people who are more knowledgeable than the general electorate. With the exception of the perturbations caused by the UEA’s perennial efforts to pack the caucuses with members and supporters of their labor union, Republican delegates tend to be more conservative than Republican voters as a whole and even more conservative than the general electorate. The result is that the caucus/convention system tends to preserve the ideological purity of the party better than a direct primary system. But perhaps even more important than orthodoxy is the fact that delegates either are people who are already far more informed and engaged in politics than the average voter or quickly become so as a result of their service as delegates. So they know, better than most voters, who’s who and what’s what. They can more accurately make judgment calls as to whether a particular candidate has integrity and leadership skills and whether the candidate is likely to be effective in advancing the conservative agenda, because they often already know these individuals from years back; or, if they don’t already know them, they quickly get an opportunity to become better acquainted with the candidates than most voters are usually able to. There is tremendous merit to the humble institution of cottage meetings, for example, in which candidates meet with delegates in intimate settings to state their positions and get input and feedback.

The democratic urge runs broad and deep in the American psyche. Even the most ignorant man deems himself to be as competent as the next guy to determine who is fit to serve in public office. But our Founding Fathers, with their reading of history, didn’t see it that way. In the Constitutional Convention, the question wasn’t whether they would forge a republic or a democracy. They were committed to some form of republican government. They knew that democracies have always shown themselves to be unstable institutions that collapse into tyranny. Benjamin Franklin summed up their sentiments well when he answered a curious woman who inquired, as he emerged from the convention, what type of government they had forged, by saying, “A republic, if you can keep it.” The Founding Fathers were leery of extending the franchise to everyone, because history told them that the poor masses, if given the vote, invariably use it to plunder the property of the wealthy minority. Contrary to our contemporary sentiments, they saw benefit to society in maintaining a degree of aristocratic control of government as a counterpoise to the mob mentality of the masses. So they originally set up the Constitution so that U.S. senators were elected not by the people directly, but by the legislators of the state that they represented. (That has since been changed by the 17th Amendment, so that now senators are elected directly by the people, just as members of the House of Representatives are.) They modeled the Senate somewhat after the House of Lords in England, and the House of Representatives after the House of Commons. Interestingly enough, Alexis de Tocqueville, the young French aristocrat who visited the United States in 1830 eager to learn what made this new republic tick and who wrote his observations in his most excellent Democracy in America, noted in chapter 13 that the members of the United States House of Representatives at the time were, almost to a man, a vulgar, unrefined, often uneducated lot, whereas the Senators were all very distinguished individuals. He attributed the difference to the differing modes of election to the two legislative bodies. (This was long before the 17th Amendment.) One can hardly say that such a difference persists to this day. About the only difference is that the Senators are more conceited than their House counterparts. For similar reasons, the Founding Fathers established the Electoral College for the selection of President. The idea was to establish a select body of electors that kept the election of so important and powerful an office as the presidency a step or two removed from the vote of the masses. In the meantime we have subverted the purpose of the Electoral College to the point that it seems archaic.

Even though the Founding Fathers did not establish the caucus/convention system (a system that first developed in Pennsylvania in the 1820s and quickly spread to most states), the system preserves the spirit of multiple layers of representatives inherent in the Constitution’s guarantee of a republican (that’s with a small “r”) form of government for every state of the Union. (See Article IV, Section 4.) Think about it a moment: Is society better served by letting the masses, no matter how ignorant, dictate policy; or by putting control into the hands of people who are more knowledgeable? The answer, it turns out, is not all that cut and dried, since knowledgeable people in control don’t always serve the best interests of society but pursue, rather, their own selfish interests to the detriment of society as a whole; we call that oligarchy. But, all things being equal, it is better to have informed people in control than ignorant ones. For that reason, if for no other, the caucus/convention system is worth preserving.

Over the years, I have heard reasonable, well-meaning individuals advocate scrapping the caucus/convention system in Utah and going to direct primaries like most other states—usually when they are frustrated with the results the current system is producing. But the direct primary system has some serious disadvantages compared to the caucus/convention system. One is the cost of campaigns. For a candidate to have any realistic chance to win, he or she must either be independently wealthy and willing to part with a lot of that wealth in pursuit of the office, or must be plugged into a well-oiled political machine that will come up with the money to pay for all the advertising. Under the direct primary system, the mass media gain greater influence over the outcome of elections. (In case you hadn’t noticed, the mass media are not particularly friendly to conservative candidates.) And because of the heavy reliance on mass media under the direct primary system, the campaigning is inexorably driven to the lowest common denominator of sound bites, innuendo, disinformation, and scare tactics. Campaigns become not unlike what we are already distressingly familiar with in nonpartisan balloting on initiatives and propositions: The special interests that stand to make a lot of money if the measure passes pour lots of money into propaganda touting the proposal, while the lack of money and coordination among the far greater number of people who stand to lose small amounts individually (but large amounts in aggregate) gives the appearance of lack of opposition, so the measure passes handily. The candidates who spend the most money win; competent, decent ideologues without the cash need not apply. And, of course, if ideology is important to you, direct primaries aren’t very appealing, because primary voters are generally less ideologically oriented than delegates are.

There is, however, one very real and pervasive problem with the caucus/convention system, and that is its susceptibility to being overtaken by a small minority—whether that be an extreme ideological faction, an overambitious party boss, a special interest group, or a good ol’ boy network—and thus its tendency to produce entrenched political machines. The peril is especially acute where one party enjoys a natural decisive dominance over the other. Where there are two viable parties competing for voters, they tend to keep each other in check and to keep each other honest. But when one party is dominant, party leaders have tendency to become king-makers who determine who gets elected to public office. It doesn’t take long for office-seekers to figure out that if they want that coveted office, they’ve got to cut deals with the party bosses. An incestuous relationship develops between the dominant party and government that enriches and empowers party leaders and public officials at the expense of an almost helpless public. Corruption and legalized plunder become rampant. This is the very reason why the caucus/convention system has been scrapped and replaced by direct primaries in so many states.

Take a look at the political landscape in Utah. Is one party overwhelmingly dominant? Answer that question, and you will realize the great danger we face from our caucus/convention system. That peril is even more grave as the result of a 1994 U.S. Supreme Court case that determined that political parties are private organizations, not unlike social clubs, whose internal rules are immune from government meddling. Over the course of the decades prior to that ruling, states had enacted statutes governing the internal affairs of political parties under the theory that there was a direct public interest in maintaining integrity in the internal workings of the parties. These laws were designed to curb the abuses that inevitably popped up under the caucus/convention system. But with the Supreme Court ruling, those laws were null and void, and political parties were given carte blanche to do as they please. Unscrupulous party leaders quickly recognized (whether consciously or intuitively) the bonanza thus afforded and rushed to take advantage of their enhanced powers and ability to set up political machines.

What are the telltale signs that your political party is becoming—or already is—a political machine? Some of the more readily recognizable ones are the following:

• The same relatively small clique of people holds the top party offices year after year.
• Party office regularly becomes a springboard to public office.
• The number of appointed delegates and officers keeps increasing.
• Debate in conventions is severely curtailed.
• Party leaders become secretive and partial in dispensing information to candidates, delegates, and the public.
• Party officers show favoritism—usually toward incumbents over challengers from within the party.
• Incidents of cheating and vote fraud proliferate.
• The party loses touch with the public.
• Purges start happening within the party.
• Party leaders increasingly resort to smear tactics in combating people who challenge them.
• Party leaders freely make, break, change, and reinterpret party rules according to their whim instead of proper protocol.
• Corruption abounds.

Do you recognize any of these taking place within the Utah Republican Party or the Utah County Republican Party? If so, you have reason for alarm—and to take action to reverse the trend. As a guardian of our liberty, the caucus/convention system should be preserved, but it requires eternal vigilance on our part to make sure that that very system does not become perverted into an instrument of our enslavement. Get involved now to rectify any abuses you see cropping up in our party.

Here in Utah County we have a long, fine tradition of a Republican Party that is decent and honest, that stands for correct principles. Let’s make sure it remains that way.