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SALT LAKE CITY — State lawyers say the Utah Republican Party should be held in contempt for telling two different courts it would comply with Utah's controversial election law and then saying the opposite in court documents.
In a federal court filing Thursday, assistant Utah attorney general David Wolf points out that Utah GOP attorneys told both the Utah Supreme Court and a U.S. District Court judge they would abide by the state high court's ruling on the legality of gathering signatures to get on the primary election ballot.
Wolf argues the judge should require the party to honor those statements or be stopped from making further claims or sanctioned for contempt.
The filing is the latest in the back-and-forth legal battle over a new law passed as SB54 that allows candidates to seek nomination for elected office through a petition, party convention or both.
The Utah Supreme Court last week rejected the state GOP's assertion that political parties and not candidates decide how to access the primary election ballot.
State Republican Party attorney Marcus Mumford told the court in a hearing that if it decides the law means the party must allow both, it "would have to figure out a way how to change our constitution and bylaws to conform (with) the state law.”
Another GOP lawyer, Christ Troupis, told U.S. District Judge David Nuffer in February, that the party wanted the state Supreme Court to answer the signature collecting question "so that we can comply with the law, whatever the law requires."
The Utah GOP told Nuffer in court papers Wednesday that it won't comply with the state high court ruling but will continue its fight to choose nominees who best represent its platform and preserve its free association rights.
RELATED: Utah GOP tells court it won't comply with controversial election law
The Utah Republican Party doesn't intend to comply with the state's controversial election law, even after the Utah Supreme Court rejected its arguments that political parties and not candidates decide how to access the primary election ballot.Nuffer canceled a hearing in the case scheduled for Friday, suggesting that he might issue a decision sooner than later.
The Republican Party says it will only recognize candidates who win at least 40 percent of convention delegates.
Wolf contends that runs directly contrary to the Utah Supreme Court ruling that the choice of which nominating method to use belongs to the member, not the party.
The state also disputes that the Republican Party's bylaws ban or penalize members for gathering signatures to get on the ballot, saying such language is "conspicuously" absent. The party has said it would revoke the membership of candidates who rely solely on petitions to get on the ballot.
In its court response, the Utah Democratic Party wants the Utah Lieutenant Governor's Office, which oversees state elections, to revoke the Republican Party's "qualified political party" status. A qualified political party must allow both signature gathering and the convention route to get on the ballot.
In that unlikely event, only Republicans who collect signatures would get on the ballot, rendering GOP nominating conventions to have no effect.
