This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2017, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
The battle for the heart of the Utah Republican Party continues, even if it looks like the combatants already lost their minds.
On Feb. 4, after years of fighting and litigation, the party's State Central Committee voted to drop its lawsuit over a Utah law that allows candidates to get into a primary election and earn the party's nomination by gathering signatures on a petition, rather than going through the party convention.
But that may be short-lived if a group of never-say-die conservative activists get their way.
Those central committee members are trying to drum up enough support to force Utah Republican Party Chairman James Evans to call an emergency central committee meeting to retract the Feb. 4 vote and to continue the lawsuit challenging SB54.
The Utah GOP already lost before the Utah Supreme Court, lost nearly all of a case before the U.S. District Court, and voted to abandon its appeal before the 10th Circuit Court because it had run out of money.
But cats can't be herded, and now Utah County GOP Chairman Craig Frank says he believes enough members of the central committee — they need backing from 46 to call the meeting — support the emergency measure and thinks they could actually force the 180-degree turn to continue the lawsuit.
Frank said that, since the Feb. 4 meeting, there have been discussions that, with the case already before the appeals court, it didn't make sense to abandon the fight with the litigation so close to a resolution.
The move is being driven by the same Republican faction that spearheaded an effort to add language to the Republican Party bylaws that — based on a plain reading of the new rules — would require the party to challenge the eligibility of any candidate who goes the signature-gathering route, even though that is contrary to the law and the ruling from the Supreme Court.
Frank said the group has an attorney who has agreed to handle the rest of the case free of charge if he gets to use his own legal theories and arguments.
Frank wouldn't say who the attorney was, but a source has told me it is Morgan Philpot, a former state legislator and congressional candidate who was also part of the legal team that won the acquittal of Ammon Bundy last year in Malheur refuge standoff.
Evans, however — the state GOP chairman — has directed the attorneys for the party to file a motion to dismiss their appeal, based on the Feb. 4 vote.
Under the party rules, if 46 members call for an emergency meeting, Evans has to convene the meeting and he says he will.
Assuming it gets that far — and that's a big if — the only hope for the fight-to-the-death conservative faction is that turnout for that meeting is poor and their numbers can win the vote to continue the lawsuit.
If they do that, the few dozen committee members could override the decision by 70 percent of the 186-member central committee and move ahead with the litigation.
That is, if the case isn't already dismissed before they get that far.
Twitter: @RobertGehrke