This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2015, and information in the article may be outdated.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.

The biased news media, with the help of the special interest group Count My Vote, have spent well over a million dollars and have run countless news articles designed to attack and destroy our very successful Utah Caucus System, a system that Utah has used since its statehood in 1896.

Every time I hear our governor speak about Utah, he says things like, "Utah is the fastest in the nation for job growth, and has the second-lowest unemployment rate in the country." He talks about the numerous awards and accolades Utah receives year after year.

Gov. Gary Herbert, Lt. Gov. Spencer Cox and Attorney General Sean Reyes all publicly state that they support the caucus system and that it is the reason they were each elected. In fact, they all have said on many occasions how it levels the playing field to attract the best candidates, not just those who have the most money or name recognition. That caucus system does not include a signature path around the delegates and convention or an open primary where non-Republicans can vote to choose candidates in a Republican primary, as SB54 mandated. Fortunately, a federal judge recently ruled the "Open Primary" as unconstitutional.

Our top elected officials support the caucus system, but the liberal media and their CMV friends want to destroy it. When CMV realized that they were short of the required signatures to get their deceptive initiative on the ballot, they enthusiastically agreed to a compromise with the Utah Legislature, which was concerned about the possibility of CMV passing, and destroying our caucus system. Hence, SB54 was born. If CMV had enough signatures, why would they agree to a compromise and stop their signature campaign? I find it very questionable that CMV never released an official or any vote tally. If they had the votes, why would they agree to a compromise instead?

SB54 was a compromise between the state of Utah and CMV. The UTGOP was not a part of this compromise and did not ask for it. Our legislators knew that SB54 stunk because many of them, like Sen. Todd Weiler, said they had to "hold their nose" to vote for it. SB54 turned out to be a mess, and much worse than CMV advocated. The UTGOP had no choice but to make a legal challenge against the unconstitutional mandates of SB54. Just imagine that a special interest group or the state of Utah decided to dictate how your church, club or business chose its leadership or how to operate. Would you just shrug your shoulders and say, "Oh well, it's now the law." Or would you defend your constitutional rights?

Gov. Herbert and many of our legislators now realize that SB54 was a mistake. The governor said in our recent State Central Committee meeting that if he knew then what he knows now he would have vetoed the legislation.

The CMV attack on our caucus system was nothing more than a deceptive plan by a handful of disgruntled party insiders who know that the only way to get their more liberal candidates elected is to bypass the delegates, the representatives of hundreds of thousands of Utah Republicans.

Who are the party bosses? They are the thousands of Republicans who attend their caucus meetings every two years, who elect about 4,000 delegates to represent them in our Republic. They also consist of the UTGOP State Central Committee, voted by the delegates. The news media ignores the fact that thousands of Utahans have instructed us to protect our constitutional right to choose our candidates according to our governing documents, and not the dictates of a special-interest group. The news media ignores the fact that James Evans, chair of the UTGOP, is following the will of thousands of delegates and the State Central Committee.

Americans want refugees who come here to be vetted to ensure they are who they say they are. In that same vein, the Utah caucus system delegates vet the candidates to ensure they are who they say they are and that they support the party platform and principles.

Our caucus system is the reason for Utah's success because it gives every candidate for office the opportunity to run, not just those with money and connections.

Hopefully, the Utah Supreme Court will agree with U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia in Democratic Party v. Wisconsin, who stated, "A political party has a First Amendment right … to choose a candidate-selection process that will in its view produce the nominee who best represents its political platform."

Phill Wright is the Utah Republican Party's vice chairman.