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Local politics State

An Open Letter to James Evans

The chairman of the Utah Republican Party sent a letter to precinct chairs last week. Unfortunately in that letter, Mr. Evans crossed a line that any elected person whether public official or party officer should never cross.

Mr. Chairman,

You’ve crossed an important line and I am disappointed by you and anyone among the leadership of the Utah Republican Party who felt that the letter you sent to precinct chairs last week was acceptable.

Obviously it is reasonable that you should communicate with precinct chairs. Certainly it is wise that you should inform them of items that you feel are adversely affecting the party that both you and they have been elected to support. Naturally we should expect and even want you to offer suggestions and encouragement for them to make a positive difference on issues of concern. Despite these truths, the paragraph that you requested the precinct chairs to read at the caucus meetings was out of line.

I see nothing wrong with you pointing out the disproportionate ratio of male to female delegates in past conventions. I also have no problem with your efforts to encourage women to run for delegate positions, to invite precinct chairs to do the same, and to share your concerns and the corresponding statistics with caucus attendees. The problem comes in your overt request that caucus attendees elect more female delegates.

I don’t mind if we do elect a higher proportion of women as delegates than we have in the past – my problem with your request isn’t the desire for more female delegates. My problem is that you would publicly express favoritism on intra-party elections. That is completely unacceptable for a party officer.

Our job as caucus attendees is to select the best people we can to represent us as delegates at the state and county conventions. Having more women running for those positions gives us more options to evaluate which is a good thing. Giving us the information regarding the 4 to 1 ratio of men to women in past conventions is useful information so that we can make an informed choice regarding who we send as delegates. Requesting that we elect more women is inappropriate as it is our job, not yours, to determine who in our individual precincts will best represent us – regardless of gender or gender ratio.

I appreciate your desire to make the party and the party conventions the best they can be but there is no excuse for crossing the line into telling party members how they should be shaping the party with their caucus votes.

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culture Local politics State

Thoughts on Caucus System Reform

Curt Bentley has an excellent post in which he discusses the issue of reforming the caucus system. I really appreciate the methodical approach he has taken to examine the issue. I completely agree with each of his guiding principles and while I suspect I am more comfortable with the caucus system in its current form than he seems to be, I also want to see it strengthened through some reforms that will make it better at promoting voter participation and issue-centric campaigns. I agree with his assessment of what the caucus system does well and with his conclusion that dumping the caucus system entirely is not the way to go. As for his assessment of what the caucus system doesn’t do well, I have some thoughts I’d like to share and I sincerely hope that Curt and others will share their feedback on those thoughts.

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Local politics State

Strengthening Our Caucus System

Caucus meeting
Image by Cherie Priest

I really appreciated Paul Mero’s take on efforts to change our caucus and convention system. Unlike Mr. Mero, I’m not well enough connected to be invited to take part in private meetings regarding how to change Utah’s caucus and convention system. On that particular issue that is the largest of our differences.

Like Mr. Mero I have been annoyed at the misinformation that I have seen spread by and among delegates with extreme positions on a number of issues – HB 166 among them. Like Mr. Mero, I have tried to pay attention to the efforts to change the caucus/convention system but I have not found those proposed changes to warrant any particular support from me. The core of where my views align with those expressed by Mr. Mero are summed up in the following quote:

Yes, I’m sure some delegates have stated that they don’t want increased participation in the political process. But, to be fair, most of those voices are more concerned about how blissfully ignorant most Utahns are about the world around them than those voices are about consuming political power. So, yes, these delegates do believe they are better informed and for good reason – most of them are! Not all of them have the right answers, for sure. But it’s a bit disingenuous of my friend to chastise any serious citizen for wanting her candidate to be elected or her policy to become law – for heaven’s sake, that’s exactly what everyone wants!…

If reformers want their candidates elected to office, they should make a case that appeals to the most responsible citizens who take time to engage in a democratic process that has served this state since its founding.

Categories
culture politics

Please Don’t Vote

It’s not exactly the message you would expect to hear on election day. For those who know me it’s not a message they would ever expect to hear from me. As I drove to work this morning after casting my vote I got thinking about how destructive an uninformed vote can be. I won’t claim that there is a definable standard of what constitutes being informed. I think that is a decision that must be left to each potential voter, but for those who know they are not informed (those that can’t even see past the party label enough to recognize the party platform for example) not voting just might be your patriotic duty.

Categories
life Local politics

Thwarted

I had planned on participating in last night’s caucus meetings, but life intervened and I was not able to. That being said, I am still interested to learn what happened in those caucus meetings for my precinct (Lehi-08). I would love to know the outcome of the Republican and Democratic caucuses, especially the Democratic caucus I planned to attend. If anyone was at one of those, or knows how to get information on who was elected to positions in either party in this precinct please let me know.

Categories
politics

Thoughts On Caucuses

The following snippet from a comment this morning (thanks Scott) really got me thinking.

{Republican} Caucuses are the domain of grass roots Republicans. They are dominated by politically informed people that consider themselves conservatives. Primaries are far more open.

One of the things that I have long thought would improve our country was if people had to invest themselves more to participate in the political process. It’s a  tough balance to strike – even in my mind – because the process should be open to any who want to participate, but if the threshold for participation is too low voters will not take their participation seriously (less than 50% participation in most elections is evidence of that to me). Caucuses require a time commitment and therefore the people who participate in them don’t take their participation lightly.

I’m not declaring that all our voting should be through a caucusing process, but I am wondering if we might learn something from this to help find a way to raise the threshold for participation (especially in primaries) enough to make people take their role seriously while keeping it low enough that anyone can participate who is so inclined.

Thoughts?