SALT LAKE CITY — Rep. Jason Chaffetz, a top campaigner for former GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney, said that despite Romney's opposition to the Confederate flag, it should be up to South Carolina whether it continues flying.

"Mitt Romney still has an important voice," Chaffetz, R-Utah, said Monday. "But I don't live there. Mitt Romney doesn't live there. The people of South Carolina are going to have to figure this out."

Romney condemned the Confederate flag in a tweet Saturday as a "symbol of racial hatred" to many that should be removed to honor the victims of a shooting that left nine people dead last week at an historic black church in Charleston, South Carolina.

His strong words have sparked discussion about the flag, including among the field of GOP presidential contenders who'll face their first test of support among Southern voters in South Carolina next year.

Utah GOP Chairman James Evans, who is black and grew up in South Carolina, said Romney's stand is "appropriate and I think his words helped to galvanize a new debate about action regarding moving the Confederate flag."

Evans said the history of the Civil War battle flag is complex, seen as a symbol of Southern history by whites but also "misused as a symbol of hate," as Romney pointed out.

"I think he made that statement through the lens of an American responding to this tragedy. I don't think it had anything to do with whether it would help or hurt the Republican Party," Evans said. "He was rising above politics."

Chris Karpowitz, co-director of the Brigham Young University Center for the Study of Elections and Democracy, said Romney's decision not to run a third time for the White House may have given him the "freedom to be the Republican he's maybe always wanted to be."

Romney's coming out so strongly against the flag helped others in the GOP speak out, Karpowitz said. Monday, leading South Carolina Republicans joined the calls to remove the flag, including Gov. Nikki Haley.

"I would be reticent to attribute all of this movement to Mitt Romney. But he took an early stand," Karpowitz said. "The combination of that and just the enormity of the tragedy itself has caused people to take a hard second look at the symbolic meaning of the flag."

Chaffetz had little to say about the impact of Romney's statement because he said he's staying out of presidential politics as the chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.

Related:

SC governor: Removing Confederate flag will defy race hatred

South Carolina's governor declared Monday that the Confederate flag should be removed from the Statehouse grounds as she acknowledged that its use as a symbol of hatred by the man accused of killing nine black church members has made it too divisive to display in such a public space.

"I spent nearly 100 days on the road with Mitt Romney and am still sorely disappointed," he said. "But I have a new role now. I'm now the chairman of the oversight committee, so I have no intention of endorsing a candidate."

Chaffetz said he does not plan on attending the 2016 National Republican Convention in Cleveland where the party's presidential candidate will be formally nominated and won't run to be a Utah delegate to the convention.

"Congress is supposed to be the check and balance on the administration, whether it's a Republican or a Democrat or somebody from the Whig Party, it doesn't matter," he said. "I want to keep my shirtsleeves clean."

Chaffetz said if he was in South Carolina making the decision about the Confederate flag, he would look for a new symbol for the South.

"I think its time has come and passed. I think we can understand the history," he said. "But if it's going to be so harmful to so many people, if it were left to me personally, I think I would move on and come up with something else that's not so hurtful."

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