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SALT LAKE CITY — A bill that would require candidates to choose between competing for delegate support through their political party's caucus and convention system or gathering voter signatures passed its first hurdle Friday.
Under a two-year-old compromise with backers of the Count My Vote ballot initiative that would have done away with the party nominating system, candidates can use both methods to get on a primary ballot.
The sponsor of HB447, Rep. Marc Roberts, R-Salem, told the House Government Operations Committee that "having it both ways currently, to a certain extent, disenfranchises caucus goers."
Roberts said delegates invest a lot of time vetting candidates before deciding who to support at a nominating convention. But if a losing candidate at convention also has gathered signatures, they still end up on the ballot.
Candidates who competed at convention against someone who also gathered voter signatures, he said, told him it "was arduous and frustrating to have to run the race twice."
But Rep. Dan McCay, R-Riverton, the House sponsor of the 2014 compromise legislation known as SB54, said the issue was considered and abandoned out of fear "nobody would choose the caucus/convention system. The risk would be too high."
Weber County Republican Party Chairwoman Lynda Pipkin said delegates to last year's nominating convention "were upset. They were angry. They were depressed. They wondered why they wasted all this time."
The candidates who took both routes "have no respect for the delegates," because they’re going to be on the ballot anyway, with or without our support," she said. "Some might say it might make more candidates bypass the convention with the signature path. I say fine."
Roberts, who said he prefers the caucus and convention system, said he can see both perspectives. "I think this will continue to be a divisive subject within the party," he said.
The committee voted 7-3 to advance the bill to the full House.
