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A bill that would give party delegates more say in how party nominees are chosen will be considered by the Utah House, despite opposition from a group that called it a "direct circumvention" of a deal struck last year to avert a ballot initiative.
The agreement last year between legislators and leaders of Count My Vote — a group that sought to do away with the existing party caucuses and replace them with direct primaries — left open the possibility that if more than two candidates are on a primary ballot, a winner could clinch the nomination with less than 50 percent of the vote.
So Rep. Mark Roberts' HB313 would send the decision back to party delegates if a candidate on the primary ballot doesn't get a majority of the vote, which Roberts said was one of the "unintended consequences" of last year's deal.
"I just envision some real confusion obviously for any [candidate] to come out of a primary with the leading vote-getter getting less than 50 percent," said Rep. Jack Draxler, R-North Logan. Run-off elections are unwieldy, Draxler said, and it is proper for parties to control the final decision.
But Rich McKeown, a co-chairman of the Count My Vote movement, said the intent of last year's deal was to let voters have the final say in who wins a primary election. And, he said, candidates — including former Gov. Mike Leavitt, another co-chairman of Count My Vote — win general elections often without getting a majority of the vote.
"We've been able to live with that," McKeown said. "I would suggest the compromise arrived at last year was targeted directly at allowing the public to make the final conclusion on this. This is a direct circumvention of that principle deployed when we negotiated that agreement."
The group gathered more than 115,000 signatures last year to put a measure on the ballot to do away with the caucus system, but withdrew the initiative after the agreement was struck.
Count My Vote has argued that the party delegates, chosen at neighborhood meetings, often represent the extreme views of their respective party, rather than the mainstream voters.
But Republican Party Chairman James Evans said he was alarmed that "some would think so little of any political party to think we're not in tune with what the public or the majority would want."
Rep. Rebecca Chavez-Houck, D-Salt Lake City, expressed concern that a candidate in a three-way race might only get 10 percent of the vote, but ultimately be the choice of the delegates and that would usurp the will of the voters.
Roberts said he was open to changing the bill so that only the top two vote-getters in the primary would go to the delegates.
The bill was approved by the House Government Operations Committee on an 8-1 vote and goes to the full House for consideration.
Twitter: @RobertGehrke