Sources tell UtahPolicy.com that a strange strategy is appearing among some SB54 haters, and it may be the final assault within the Utah Republican Party over the dual-pathway candidate law.
At first blush the strategy is counter-intuitive: Force the party to become, under the SB54 law, a Registered Political Party, or a RPP, instead of a Qualified Political Party, or a QPP.
Every political party must make that choice the September before a general election year, SB54 says.
Here is a summary put together by the Utah Elections Office of how SB54, the 2014 compromise law that details how a candidate can get to a party primary, works.
By making the state GOP a RPP, its candidates can ONLY make a primary ballot by gathering voter signatures.
A RPP Republican Party would not allow any candidates to be forwarded by state convention delegates; voter signatures is the only route to a primary.
Now, that is just the opposite of what SB54 haters want; they want ALL party candidates to come only to the convention and be advanced by delegates, which in turn are picked in election year March neighborhood party caucuses.
So why in the world would SB54 haters – who rallied around the so-called Gang of 51 state Central Committee members – want to do away with convention delegates powers?
Here are some of the possibilities – all of them rather sly ways of undermining SB54 from party hardliners:
= If the state Central Committee makes the party a RPP it could be another way for the SB54 haters to sue in federal court. In other words, after losing their federal court cases all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, this could be away to get back into court and try killing SB54 again.
= Taking away the convention route (still allowed under a QPP, but not under a RPP) for candidates could anger state delegates so much that they, in turn, would badger Republican state senators and House members to repeal SB54, thus making the convention route the only way for future GOP candidates – the goal of the haters.
= Becoming a RPP would still allow state delegates to vote unofficially on candidates in convention – the convention favorite wouldn’t, however, have standing in a primary election. But a convention endorsement could give the delegate-approved candidate (who would have to take the signature route) a “bump” in the primary race, for he or she would have the official party stamp of the delegates and could use that in their primary election campaigning.
“I am the official Republican Party delegate endorsed candidate for governor,” one of 10 or so GOP candidates could brag in TV and radio spots next June.
And if a convention-endorsed candidate wins the GOP primary, well, that is almost as good as delegates giving the candidate the nomination in convention – which is what the haters want in the first place.
All of the above is speculation put forward to UtahPolicy.com by GOP insiders who like SB54 and want to keep it Utah law.
Newly-elected party state chair, Derek Brown, and Republican Gov. Gary Herbert, a SB54 supporter, both say the debate over SB54 inside the Utah Republican Party is finished.
If there is to be arguments over the dual-pathway candidate law, that should come in the GOP dominated Utah Legislature, where any change to the law would have to take place without federal court action striking down the law.
By the end of September, all Utah political parties must formally tell the Utah Elections Office whether they wish to be a RPP or QPP for the 2020 election cycle.
Accordingly, at the next Utah Republican Party State Central Committee meeting, in mid-September, the 185-member committee must vote on whether to be a RPP or QPP for next year’s elections.
The SB54/Gang of 51ers will have to show their hands then, UtahPolicy.com is told.
Will the party be a QPP, as it was in the last election cycle? If so, candidates can take the signature route to the primary, the convention route, or both at the same time.
Or will it become a RPP, and then open avenues of continued SB54 fights within the party elite?
