This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2016, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.

A little sleight of hand pulled by Ted Cruz supporters at the Utah Republican Convention earlier this year may have cost the delegation a prime hotel slot in Cleveland, where the GOP kicks off its national convention Monday.

The intrigue began in April when Enid Mickelsen, the Republican national committeewoman from the state, let it be known she wanted to be one of two Utah representatives on the convention's Rules Committee.

There still were three candidates in the running for the presidential nomination ­— Cruz, John Kasich and Donald Trump — but the Cruz people were essentially calling the shots.

Mickelsen had earned a great deal of respect from Republican National Committee (RNC) leaders for her hard work, particularly during the convention site-selection process. So she had the clout to move her state's delegation from Akron, a 25-minute bus ride to downtown Cleveland, to a hotel near the convention.

She shared her sentiments with Allyson Bell, chief of staff to Sen. Mike Lee, one of the leaders of Utah's Cruz movement, and was led to believe that, along with Lee, she should be able to win the second slot on the Rules Committee.

But behind the scenes, the Cruz forces were working to ensure their candidate's supporters would be in the key positions at the national convention to help him pull off the nomination. One of the most critical slots was on the Rules Committee, where convention protocol could be manipulated in the Texas senator's favor.

So when the vote came for Rules Committee representatives, the winners were Lee and his wife, Sharon. Mickelsen believed she had been misled and made sure Lee knew that.

"If you beat me fair and square, I can live with that. But being deceptive is another matter," she told me Friday when asked about that episode.

But Mickelsen had the last laugh.

The RNC, showing her much more respect than her own state's delegation, installed her as chairwoman of the very Rules Committee she was locked out of by her Utah colleagues.

Then, on Thursday, when the committee met to set the rules for the convention, Mickelsen presided over the process, and the Cruz folks, trying to pass new rules that would unbind the delegates already committed to Trump and open the door for a Cruz coup on the convention floor, were snuffed out.

Lee himself was in line to speak to the proposed rule change to unbind the delegates when someone called for the vote and the motion fizzled.

Adding insult to injury, Mickelsen decided not to call in her chits from the RNC to move Utah to a better hotel location, so welcome to Akron, Beehive State delegation.

If it's any consolation, though, the Utahns did set up a side trip to the Kirtland Temple, the first one built by the Salt Lake City-based Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints .

Meanwhile, Gov. Gary Herbert is not the delegation leader and will not be the one casting Utah's votes on national television. That honor goes to Phill Wright, Utah chairman of the Cruz campaign.

Wright, vice chairman of the state GOP, was a vocal opponent of the controversial Count My Vote compromise passed by the Legislature and signed by Herbert.

So not only did the delegates slight Herbert by putting him in second place at the state convention — although he later won the primary — they also deprived him of the spotlight at the national convention. prolly@sltrib.com —