This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2015, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.

For those tracking the Count My Vote/Senate Bill 54 saga, we're back at square one, if we ever left it.

At this point, it looks like further court battles are ahead unless the Legislature can somehow act quickly to revise the law to the satisfaction of both Republican Party leadership and the Count My Vote insurgents who pushed SB54 on them in the first place. Not likely.

U.S. District Judge David Nuffer still must rule on the party's lawsuit against the state over who gets to be candidates for office on party primary ballots. Before SB54 was passed in 2013, a candidate's only path to the primary was through the party's caucus/convention system, which meant that 2,500 or so GOP delegates statewide have effectively been choosing the state's elected leaders, with affirmation from a thin turnout of voters in November. Under SB54, candidates submitting petitions with enough signatures are put on the ballot without having to rely on delegates.

Nuffer tried to toss the whole mess to a mediator, but that didn't work. So now he is indicating he's not inclined to force the GOP to throw open its primary to non-party members, and that is all the opening that Utah GOP leaders needed to declare victory.

The Utah GOP thinks it has drawn a tight little circle around SB 54 to smother it. Ignoring legislative intent, they reduce it to this:

• The judge rules that the party can require candidates to be Republicans.

• The party says that to be a Republican, you have to follow party rules.

• Party rules say candidates have to go through the caucus/convention system, therefore no petitioners should be placed on the ballot without going through caucus/convention.

Assuming the Legislature doesn't intervene (and it would have to do so quickly to have an effect next year), there likely will be GOP candidates who choose the petition route to get to the ballot. If the state allows them, the party likely will sue the state. If the state accedes to the party and keeps them off the ballot, the candidates likely will sue the state.

So we may be helping some lawyers get billable hours, but Utah appears no closer to solving this than it was before the Count My Vote people started gathering signatures.

It's worth remembering that SB54 only passed because legislators knew that if they didn't make a deal, the Count My Vote people would get enough signatures to put it on a referendum for the public to vote on.

And that is exactly what should happen now. The party bosses will fight any effort to improve our democracy. Time to start the referendum drive again.