The Independent View: Utah Republican Party Challenge to New Election Law Fails

A federal judge, U.S. District Judge David Nuffer, on Friday refused to block, SB54, a new Utah law that will change the way candidates are nominated in next year’s election.

SB54 was passed as a compromise between legislators and organizers of the Count My Vote movement, a group led by former Gov. Mike Leavitt and other high-profile Utahns. The group argued the existing system of letting party delegates pick candidates at their nominating conventions disenfranchised broad swaths of voters, depressed turnout and produced candidates who did not represent mainstream Utah.

Rather than simply allow candidates to get a spot on the primary ballot by gathering enough signatures from voters, as Count My Vote had sought, the bill created a dual-track system, where candidates can get to the primary ballot through the party convention or through the signature gathering.

Later, Nuffer said, the party may be able to show it might be harmed by the law, but now there are paths it could take where it wouldn't be burdened and it would be premature to block the law. The trial on the party's legal challenge will still go forward and the judge has said he hopes to have the case resolved early next year.

State GOP Chairman James Evans said the party will consider the changes, but the decision will ultimately be up to the delegates. In a statement to the court, Evans argued the party doesn't have enough time to adopt the required changes. "I can state with certainty that the party cannot adopt the monumental amendments required to alter the basic structure and function of the party to make it consistent with Senate Bill 54's requirements in time to meet the deadlines imposed," he said.

Assistant Attorney General David Wolf pointed out that other parties have already made the necessary changes to comply with the law including The Utah Democratic Party.

Marcus Mumford, representing the Republican Party, argued that the political parties have a First Amendment right of association and should be allowed to make their own rules when they do. But in passing SB54 last year, the state required the party to make major changes to its bylaws, changes the party's governing body has repeatedly rejected.

Just because the party has refused to comply, doesn't mean it is being denied a constitutional right and doesn't exempt the party from complying with the law, the judge said.

"Laws change, regulations change all the time, why would the tradition … you have prohibit the law from changing?" Nuffer asked. "A self-imposed barrier, an internal constraint, I don't believe can create irreparable harm."

He compared it to a corporation that might be forced to change its bylaws to comply with a state law and said the state can regulate parties as long as it is done constitutionally.

But Mumford argued that the signature-gathering component takes away the party's ability to control which candidates represent the party and strips the party of its ability to communicate its values to voters.