By Pamela Manson

| The Salt Lake Tribune

A bipartisan push is on to increase participation at political caucus meetings in Utah.

Rep. Kraig Powell, R-Heber City, and Sen. Karen Mayne, D-West Valley City, are sponsoring a bill that would ban public bodies from meeting at the same time major political parties are holding their neighborhood caucuses. The goal is to reduce scheduling conflicts and boost turnout.

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The exception is this: Governmental bodies could meet under emergency circumstances.

HB90 also would require the lieutenant governor to publicize the date and time of the neighborhood caucuses.

Democrats plan to hold their caucuses March 13. Republicans and the Constitution Party will meet two days later on March 15. Other parties will announce their caucus dates individually.

Neighborhood caucus attendees vote for county and state delegates. Those delegates then attend state and county conventions, where they choose their party’s candidates for every office that is up for election in November.

Some critics claim the nomination process is controlled by relatively small groups of party members. Consequently, those groups select candidates who are further to the left or right than mainstream Utahns, they say.

Utah Republican Party Chairman Thomas Wright said it’s not hard to get someone to attend a meeting. But it is difficult to get the word out about when the caucuses are and what happens there. His party plans to spend $300,000 this year to publicize caucuses. He predicts a "big bounce" in attendance, from 58,000 at the Republican caucuses in 2010 to 100,000 this year.

"Most Utahns haven’t known enough about them to go and participate," Wright said. "I think anything that creates awareness that the meeting is going on will help."

Utah Democratic Chairman Jim Dabakis thinks HB90 is a good idea, although he insists his party has not been taken over by extremists. The Republican party, he says, is another story.

"The very core of our form of government is this caucus system," he said, "and anything we can do to get people out to those caucus meetings is critical."

Dabakis added that he’s appreciative Republicans are including the date of the Democratic meetings in their caucus publicity campaign.

Legislators are not the only ones trying to boost attendance. Earlier this month, top leaders of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints asked, in a letter read in LDS worship services, that no evening meetings be held on caucus dates.

And in January, the West Valley City Council passed a resolution that the city will not hold council, committee or other meetings on caucus nights. The resolution calls on other governments, religious organizations, businesses and community groups to adjust their schedules to avoid conflicting with the caucuses.

pmanson@sltrib.com Twitter: @PamelaMansonSLC