UtahPolicy is being told that one or more of the GOP candidates that are eliminated in the June 17 delegate special convention may sue to get their name(s) on the Aug. 15 primary ballot.
And that could throw the whole special election to replace U.S. Rep. Jason Chaffetz into a whirlwind.
Which, in turn, could result in a special legislative session to fund the cost of a new primary election, with lawmakers putting a new special election process in place.
The central issue in the court fight?
Chaffetz’s seat was not officially vacant when candidates were eliminated in the June 17 convention.
“There is now no vacancy,” said one Capitol Hill source.
And that is true.
GOP Gov. Gary Herbert and Lt. Gov. Spencer Cox (the state’s election officer) went ahead with an early-May special election writ – or call – with Chaffetz still in office.
Chaffetz says he will resign on June 30 – which allows him to stay in office for a while as chairman of the House Oversight Committee and have some fun in this crazy Washington, D.C. show that seems to be ongoing.
“Some of the candidates,” eliminated by GOP 3rd District delegates in the June 17 convention at Timpview High School, “may want a second bite of the apple,” UtahPolicy is told.
And they may be entitled to it, some on Capitol Hill believe.
But don’t count Herbert and Cox in that number, they have advice from attorneys in the Attorney General’s office that the path they are pursuing is legal.
However, that decision could ultimately be up to a judge, or the Utah Supreme Court.
The internal politics has both GOP and Democratic legislators (but as usual in Utah, it’s the GOP leadership that matters) opposing Herbert’s special election path to replace Chaffetz.
Herbert was determined to keep the necessary dual-path candidate provisions of SB54 – you can collect voter signatures, appear before delegates, or take both routes at the same time to a party primary ballot.
And Cox’s Utah Election Office special election schedule does that.
Meanwhile, the regularly-scheduled, off-year organizing convention of the Utah Republican Party, amended their internal rules to say in a special election only ONE candidate will come out of the convention, instead of the typical two candidates (should no one get 60 percent of the delegate vote).
That means from among the dozen GOP candidates that are going just the delegate route; only one will come out June 17 (50 percent of the delegate vote plus one).
Maybe – and the odds could be a lot greater than “maybe” – one or more of those defeated GOP convention candidates could ask a judge to put their name(s) on the Aug. 15 primary.
Or maybe a judge, or Utah Supreme Court justices, would rule that since Chaffetz’s seat was not vacant when a convention vote took place, it’s not a valid selection process.
And then what?
Well, all candidate selections would have to come after Chaffetz actually left office – after an official vacancy in the U.S. House occurs.
Tanner Ainge has had his 3rd District signatures validated – that means he’s on the Aug. 15 GOP primary ballot unless a judge rules otherwise.
Provo Mayor John Curtis turned in more than 15,000 signatures on Monday.
If Curtis gets his signatures validated, too, then he will be on the Aug. 15 ballot – no matter how Curtis does in the convention, because he is taking both routes at the same time, as SB54 allows.
Assuming Curtis does make it, we would have THREE Republicans on the Aug. 15 primary ballot – with the possibility that the greatest vote-getter doesn’t have 50 percent of the votes.
Of course, if one of the GOP convention candidates – defeated in the convention – can get a judge to put his/her name on the Aug. 15 primary ballot, we could have even greater chance that the ultimate GOP nominee to replace Chaffetz would not have primary majority voter support.
This seat will stay in Republican hands, no matter what. It is very, very unlikely a Democrat could win Utah’s 3rd District.
In any case, whether a judge intervenes first or not, you can bet Republicans in the Utah Legislature will rewrite special election law in the 2018 general session – for they are unhappy that Herbert refused to call them into special session this spring/summer to deal with the issue.
