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| Photo: DonkeyHotey |
Written by Tracie Sullivan
A recent attempt by several Republicans to change the local party leadership during the Iron County Organizing Convention on April 11 failed as the Tea Party coalition swept the delegation vote by nearly 60 percent. The group campaigned unsuccessfully at the convention on a message of inclusiveness and a commitment to bring the party together. However, many have wondered if the group’s loss came as a result of candidates not taking a hard line against the recent Count My Vote campaign, an issue which also arose at the recent Utah GOP Executive Committee meeting on Wednesday, April 22.
Of those who won, Ryan Nelson was elected county chair, garnering 89 of 156 votes cast; Brian Jones was elected county vice-chair, with 88 of 155 votes; Beth Stephenson was elected county secretary, taking 98 of 156 votes; and Spencer Grant was elected county treasurer, collecting 91 of 156 votes. Candidates Jennie Hendricks and David Staheli were elected to the State Republican Central Committee.
The organizing convention is held for the party to elect candidates who will make up the Iron County Republican Party’s Executive Committee. According to the Party website, there were 157 delegates credentialed out of 210 county delegates. This year, however, six candidates pooled their voices and resources together to run as a group against the current leadership who largely subscribe to the Tea Party principles.
Craig Isom, Suzette Sorensen Bulloch, Annette Klassen, Gary Howe, Katherine Ross, and Donna Law all ran as candidates on the same slate for county chair, vice-chair, secretary, treasurer, and the two at-large seats for the Central Committee. All of them were unsuccessful in their bids.
Prior to the election, the group released a public statement saying that part of the reason they decided to run was “to reach out to every type of voter: disenfranchised, busy, involved politically or not, young and old, men and women; everyone, knowing that every voice and everyone’s participation count.”
The message may have backfired on the candidates, however, resonating as a theme which many felt was too closely aligned with the Count My Vote campaign, a bi-partisan effort led by former Gov. Mike Leavitt and several other prominent Utah Republicans to abolish the state’s caucus system which determines the party’s nominees and whether there will be a primary.
Count My Vote argues that the current system often produces candidates with fringe views and alienates mainstream voters, denying them an opportunity to have a voice in selecting the candidates.
Iron County delegates followed the group’s pleas to involve more voters in the process by demanding to know where each of the candidates stood on various issues, specifically Count My Vote.
Suzette Bulloch said that while she doesn’t agree with Count My Vote any more than her opponent, she didn’t feel it mattered in the position she was running for as vice-chair.
“As the executive committee we’re not a voting body,” Bulloch said. “It doesn’t matter what any of us think about common core or Count My Vote. It wouldn’t have been my job to make decisions on common core or Count My Vote. So where I stand on these issues has nothing to do with the position I was running for. As an executive committee, all we do is organize the conventions and other events. We work to increase voter participation and listen to the people, but we have nothing to do with these other issues.”
Regardless, after vetting the candidates on their positions, the delegates overwhelmingly opposed those who did not carry a strong message against Count My Vote.
“It was narrowed down to where the candidates stood on the issues,” said Blake Cozzens, former chair of the Iron County Republican Party. “Those candidates who carried a strong message of where they stood on the issues won. Most rural Utah voters hate Count My Vote because they know it will kill the chances of someone from rural Utah winning an election, so this issue and where the candidates stood on the issue was important to the delegates.”
Craig Isom, a precinct chair and state delegate, was quoted in Iron County Today as saying he believed the Count My Vote initiative became the predominant focus of the speeches at the convention. Isom was unable to be reached by The Independent.
“This slate of candidates is not against the caucus system and is not doing this because of Count My Vote, for instance,” Isom said. “That’s not our purpose; and yet those that prevailed said staunchly and firmly, ‘I am absolutely against Count My Vote.’ I’m not against involving more people, whether that comes in the form of Count My Vote or something else … But that was how the battle lines were drawn in the convention.”
“I just hope, if nothing else, we move the meter on being more inclusive,” Isom added, “being gentler, more measured and more supportive of those who ultimately get into office.”
Ryan Nelson, the former secretary for the Iron County Republican Party, said he agrees with the message the group carried and believes the Party leadership needs to work on involving more voters in the process but remain strong in their principles.
“My speech at the convention included things about how we need to be more inclusive, we have to be open to communication, to debate, and to new ideas,” Nelson said. “But we have to maintain our principles. We have to stand strong on what we believe is right and what is true. It’s a fine line to walk because we have to stand by our principles while still making sure everyone has a voice and that they feel they have been heard, even if we don’t agree with what they’re saying.”
The debate of inclusiveness isn’t unique to Iron County but suggestive of a larger issue brewing within the party for several years on both the state and national stages.
“You don’t have to look any further than recent elections to see the divisiveness,” Bulloch said. “Look at what happened between (Sen. Evan) Vickers and Casey Anderson. Evan almost lost at the convention by one vote. That’s how close it was. But at the polls it was a completely different story.”
Paul Cozzens, father to Blake Cozzens and an active Party member known for strong conservative values that closely align with Tea Party principles, said the reason for this is because the delegation is traditionally more conservative than the average voter who tends to lean more in the middle of the political spectrum.
Several national polls taken in recent years have shown the party is divided, and the issue became even more apparent at the state level about two years ago with the launch of the Count My Vote campaign.
In 2014, the state legislature tried to strike a balance by agreeing to a compromise in the form of Senate Bill 54 which, when introduced in 2016, will allow candidates a chance to bypass the convention system by gathering enough signatures to land their name on their primary ballot.
The party leadership has filed a federal lawsuit against the bill, arguing it is unconstitutional for the state to mandate how the parties—which are private organizations—nominate their candidates.
The timing for the Iron County group’s message came within just two weeks of a similar debate among the Utah GOP Executive Committee members who met Wednesday, April 22, to determine how to comply with SB 54.
Utah Republican Party Chairman James Evans proposed the idea of creating a committee to certify members and help screen potential candidates before they could be eligible for the party’s nomination. The plan, however, drew fire from some GOP members who argued it would give a small and elite group all the power in determining who gets to be a candidate.
Evans told The Independent that the idea is only being discussed at this point but is one way the party could protect itself from having candidates run on the Republican ticket who didn’t espouse the party’s principles.
“We haven’t decided yet what to do moving forward,” Evans said. “There are people who want to make a big deal of this whole thing, but we are just now starting to discuss and debate on what to do moving forward with SB 54.”
Evans added that under this plan, if the candidate refused to be interviewed, they would be ineligible for the Republican nomination because the law says the candidates have to be party members.
“We can’t reject a candidate though because they don’t agree with the party’s platform—only if they refuse to be interviewed,” he said. “Then we would be able to reject them as a candidate.”
There was also a proposal put forward to charge a registration fee to participate in the interviews. Evans suggested around $10,000 per candidate but he said the leadership shot that figure down.
“We are only in the beginning stages of discussing this,” he said.
