A bill that would neuter the Count My Vote citizen initiative is being held in the Utah House, giving time for supporters of SB54 to negotiate with CMV leaders.
UtahPolicy was told Wednesday that Sen. Curt Bramble’s “compromise” legislation – CMV supporters don’t call it a compromise, but a devious effort to kill their measure – is being held in the House Rules Committee.
UtahPolicy has reported before that the Utah House would have to pass SB54 by this Friday, if bill supporters wished to give the Legislature a chance to override a gubernatorial veto while still in this 45-day general session.
Pass SB54 later than Friday, and any governor veto would have to be taken up later in a special veto override session.
The difference between an in-session veto override vote and a post-session vote could be critical, for legislators are usually more apt to favor an override when their blood is up during the general session.
SB54, passed by the Senate last week, has not yet been sent to a House standing committee as of Wednesday. That means no committee hearing could be held on it until Friday – in effect missing the opportunity for a gubernatorial veto override vote before lawmakers adjourn at midnight March 13.
That assumes, of course, that GOP Gov. Gary Herbert would veto the measure.
The governor has hinted several times that he doesn’t like the idea of SB54 “gaming” the system by moving to neuter the CMV initiative before citizens get a chance to vote on it come November.
Bramble’s bill says that if Utah political parties make certain changes in their candidate nominating system – in effect opening up their caucus/convention process – then parties can keep their delegate power to nominate candidates.
And the CMV direct primary would not apply.
Tuesday, House Republicans closed their normally open caucus for an hour discussion on SB54 and the CMV petition.
GOP sources told UtahPolicy on Wednesday that in the broad-ranging caucus discussion the general feeling is that Bramble, R-Provo – and his House co-sponsor Rep. Dan McCay, R-Riverton – go back to CMV leaders and seek some kind of real compromise.
It is unclear what that could be.
“We have been talking to anyone and everyone about this since 2009,” Rich McKeown, head of the CMV effort, told UtahPolicy Wednesday afternoon.
“But if their idea of a compromise is anything short of a direct primary, then it is not a discussion we would want.”
Early on in the CMV debate, petition leaders were considering a dual-track approach.
A candidate, for example, could chose to go the delegate-caucus-convention route. That route, however, would put the candidate at risk of being eliminated in his party’s delegate convention vote.
His campaign could end there.
Or, the candidate could gather the signatures of 2 percent of his party’s registered voters in his district – or statewide for offices like governor and U.S. Senate. If he got those signatures, he would not go before convention delegates, but would automatically go on his party’s primary ballot.
However, it turned out that CMV backers ultimately decided against the dual-track option.
Instead, they filed a petition that simply called for direct primaries – and any candidate that got 2 percent of his party’s registered voters to sign his petition would go directly to a primary.
Under the current CMV petition, no state or federal candidates would ever be voted on in a party convention (other partisan offices, like county offices, could still be voted on in conventions).
“Maybe a real compromise can be worked out,” said one GOP House member. “That would be best.”
Already, CMV leaders have said that should SB54 pass, and should Herbert sign it, or let it become law without his signature, or should his veto be overridden, then CMV will go to court to get SB54 struck down.
Count My Vote, backed by a number of well-to-do, and well-known, Republicans and Democrats, clearly has the financial backing to succeed in the difficult task of getting about 102,000 voter signatures statewide – with 10 percent coming in 26 of 29 Senate districts.
McKeown said that over the weekend “we went past the hallmark of 100,000 signatures gathered – we are making significant progress.”
However, this week an anti-CMV petition group filed a complaint with the Utah Elections Office claiming violations in the petition-gathering process.
Such luminaries as Mitt Romney and U.S. Sen. Orrin Hatch, who is retiring after his current term in office, have come out in favor of CMV.
CMV leaders have told UtahPolicy that they have come too far – spent too much money, had too many volunteers – to stop their petition drive now.
Various public opinion polls show CMV has about 2-1 support among Utahns over the current caucus/convention system.
By April 15, supporters say, they will hand in their petition packets and begin their fund raising and public information campaign to convince Utah voters to approve the petition in the November 2014 election.
After SB54 passed the Senate, CMV leaders said they would soon begin a public – media-driven – campaign aimed at getting the House to kill the bill.
But all 75 House members will face their party delegates this spring in their own party conventions. And it would be political suicide for House members to vote against SB54, and then go before the very delegates that SB54 would empower and defend any vote against the delegates.
“We’ve told (McCay and Bramble) that they do need 50 votes” in the House to go forward with SB54, said one House leader.
Otherwise, why go through all the public pain and suffering only if a Herbert veto of SB54 would be upheld in the House?
It takes two-thirds, or 50 votes, to override a gubernatorial veto in the House.
To his knowledge, no House head-counts on SB54 have yet been taken – although most certainly that will come.
The Senate passed SB54 with several more votes there than needed to override a Herbert veto – should it come to that.
