Emery County Republicans host dinner

By Phil Fauver

The Emery County Republican Party held their Fall Dinner at the Orangeville Community Center.
Everyone was welcomed by Emery County Republican Party Chairman Bill Dellos. After which The Pledge of Allegiance was given by former Commissioner Kent Petersen. The National Anthem was sung by Mark Debry of Ferron and Sam Singleton provided an invocation and a blessing on the food.
While the group was enjoying their juicy rib-eye steak dinners, catered by Kent and Julie Wilson, Emery County High School’s Men’s Choir under the direction of David Bird entertained.
Keynote speaker James Evans the Utah Republican Party State Chairman said he is on a mission to visit Republican events in all the counties of Utah and is enjoying visiting different parts of the state.
James Evans started by discussing the Caucus Convention System and the proposed changes. Mr. Evans said, there is a citizen’s initiative called Count My Vote going on and what they propose is to eliminate political parties from nominating candidates for political office.
If the proposed Count My Vote passes candidates for federal, state and county offices would have to get the signatures of two percent of the registered members of a party to get on the ballot. The party with the smallest number of registered voters would have a big advantage. The Republicans have the highest number of registered voters in the State.
Ten people could be running for County Recorder and the political party’s highest vote getter in the Primary would be the party nominee. That nominee could go to the general election with only seven percent of the vote. That is the proposal for all political parties and elected officials. If that initiative passes and becomes law political parties will no longer nominate candidates.
The biggest down side for rural counties is that there would be no need for a candidate running for Governor, US Senate or Congress to even come to a rural county. They would only have to campaign between Ogden and Provo to get enough votes to win the Primary.
The way it is now, anyone running for statewide office has to visit every part of the state that they would represent to put together enough delegate votes to get the nomination.
The beauty of our current system is that it forces our elected officials to pay attention to every part of the state. With the proposed Count My Vote initiative Rural Counties won’t matter anymore as far as votes, because they can get all the votes needed on the Wasatch front. If it is a tight race maybe the candidate will go to St. George to get those votes.
Mr. Evans said, we think that would be a huge disservice to many parts of Utah. If this initiative were to pass the unintended consequences are too great. Maybe in 2018 another group of millionaires will get together and say we don’t like this, we want to try something different. We do not need that kind of instability in our nominating process.
The Count My Vote people are essentially saying they want to go to a direct primary without a Caucus Convention System. You could be a registered Democrat and get the Republican nomination because there will be no requirement to affiliate as a Republican.
In a direct primary those candidates with the most money who can advertise their position enough so the voters recognize their name will win. Special interest money will determine the candidate and so you would have a special interest system.
In the Caucus Convention System it doesn’t matter how much money you have. The delegates at the convention will decide if you would be the better choice. In the current system you know a Republican candidate shares your values. The party makes sure the nominated candidates share Republican values.
With the Count My Vote proposal you are not required to be a registered Republican to get signatures to run as a Republican in their proposed Direct Primary System.
We recognize there are some concerns in our Caucus Convention System and we have for the past year been addressing those concerns.
We are working to improve the Caucus Night experience and are working to set up a web site for each precinct caucus so you will be able to register for the meeting ahead of time.
We are doing everything that we can to make people aware of Caucus Night and invite everyone to attend. We want to have a good representation on Caucus Night.
James Evans announced Caucus Night will be on March 20th the State Republican Convention will be on April 26th 2014. The Caucus System looks out for the interest of the average Utah voter. Evans said I want to thank Bill Dellos for inviting me down to Emery County. Thank you all for listening to me.