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SALT LAKE CITY — Utah GOP Chairman Thomas Wright concluded in a report released Tuesday that "backroom dealing" was not to blame for the 2nd Congressional District race taking a chaotic turn at the party's state convention last month.
Wright said in the report, requested by confused delegates at the April 21 convention, that he supports Chris Stewart as the party's nominee for the seat and found no evidence that any of the 10 other candidates in the race conspired against Stewart or broke any laws.
Stewart won the nomination amid a series of charges and countercharges made during convention speeches, beating former Utah House Speaker Dave Clark in a third round of voting with just more than the 60 percent of the vote needed to avoid a primary.
Reaction to the results
In a statement, Stewart said he was satisfied by the report and grateful to Wright and his staff for their work. "We are now looking forward to the general election and, if we are successful, going back to Washington D.C.," the pilot and author said in the statement. His campaign said he was not available for further comment.
His Democratic opponent, Jay Seegmiller, said he's not sure how the campaign will be affected by the report. "It's something they have to sort out on the other side of the ticket," he said, calling the convention brouhaha "much ado about nothing."
Seegmiller, who won the legislative seat held by then-GOP House Speaker Greg Curtis four years ago, said since the convention, he has been contacted by Republican delegates who wanted to know more about his candidacy.
"They said they were just fed up with all the shenanigans, so they were looking to learn more about me and see if they were comfortable maybe going in a different direction," Seegmiller said. "We'll see if this takes legs and we get more from it."
Wright said in an interview that the controversy hurt several candidates, including Stewart. "He has to live with this kind of controversy on the side of his victory," the party chairman said. "There's no winners in this."
Neither Clark nor his campaign manager could be reached for comment. "Dave was hurt," Wright said. "To miss the primary by such a few amount of votes after something like this happens, that's a difficult loss."
Details of the findings
The report said the uproar started when one of the candidates, Eureka Mayor Milt Hanks, told delegates during his first-round speech that he was approached by four other candidates — Clark, Cherilyn Eagar, Howard Wallack and Chuck Williams — to join an "ABC" or "anybody but Chris" effort.
At the convention Eagar, Wallack and Williams had all withdrawn from the race before the second round of voting, and Williams called Stewart a "liar" from the stage, suggesting he was behind Hanks' allegations.
In interviews with Wright, the report said Clark, Eagar, Wallack and Williams "emphatically denied" the conversation Hanks described in his convention speech. The report said Hanks couldn't recall who among the four asked him to campaign against Stewart.
(Eureka Mayor Milt) Hanks apologized in the report but said he "spoke what I believed to be the truth based on conversations I had with other candidates" ...
Hanks' microphone should have been cut off, the report said, "when he began naming candidates and making subjective, inflammatory accusations," but the official running the first round of speeches in a side hall said it happened so fast he had no time to react.
Wright said in the report that Hanks "believed what he said to be correct when he said it. I believe he acted according to his conscience but did not consider the full impact his actions would have on the elections or on the reputations of these individuals and their families," and acted irresponsibly.
Hanks apologized in the report but said he "spoke what I believed to be the truth based on conversations I had with other candidates" even though he acknowledged he did not have "proper documentation" and did not "verify my suspicions were true before making accusations during my speech."
The report said Hanks had received a copy of a letter to GOP delegates that surfaced before the convention raising questions about Stewart's military background and connections to the controversial "Temple mailer" in the 2010 U.S. Senate race that initially appeared to be an attack on former Sen. Bob Bennett but was actually aimed at now Sen. Mike Lee.
"Despite considerable time and energy on the part of myself and my staff, I have been unable to ascertain who is responsible for the letter," Wright said in the report. He said the letter was in violation of federal election laws because it did not include a required disclaimer about who authorized or paid for it.
The Republican chairman went on in the report to "strongly encourage anyone who has information that would be helpful in determining who is responsible for the letter to contact the Federal Elections Commission."
The report also calls for future convention planners to review rules governing candidate conduct, including whether candidates whose names are mentioned by opponents should be allowed rebuttal time and whether candidates who do not campaign should be allowed to give a speech at all.
