Lawrence Rey Topham has been disqualified from running for the U.S. Senate because he filed to run for two elective offices this year.

Under Utah law, only Orrin Hatch can do that.

You might remember in 2000 when the Utah Legislature made an exception to the law against filing for different offices in the same election year so Hatch could run for president and for re-election to his Senate seat.

But that's the only exception.

Topham filed at the Utah Lieutenant Governor's Office for the Senate race as a Republican. He also filed at the Salt Lake County Clerk's Office as a Personal Choice Party candidate to run for county clerk.

Both the Clerk's Office and Lieutenant Governor's Office tried to contact him to inform him of the conflict. He hasn't responded, so he was disqualified from the Senate race.

Perhaps he was hard to contact because the address he listed on the candidate filing form was 603 E. South Temple. That's the Governor's Mansion.

It wouldn't be the first time Topham got confused about his address. He was once arrested for criminal trespass and resisting arrest when he attempted to enter the state Capitol at midnight, claiming he was the secretary of state and was there to "seize the Capitol."

A perennial candidate, he has attempted to pay his filing fee in silver in the past and once claimed his opponents in the Salt Lake City mayor's race had filed illegally because they paid their fees with checks instead of silver.

Loyalty goes just so far: A former Republican Party officer who argued that only certified Republicans should be allowed to participate in Republican precinct caucuses has turned to Democrats for help in his quest for justice against the GOP.

Mike Ridgeway, who was expelled from the Salt Lake County Republican Party Executive Committee and the State Central Committee, was escorted out of his precinct caucus, which was held at State Republican Headquarters, last week by a Salt Lake County sheriff's deputy.

Salt Lake County Republican Chairman James Evans said Ridgeway was removed because he became disruptive. Ridgeway claimed party officials were purposely concealing where the caucus would take place to keep him from attending.

So the man who has argued for Republican purity in the caucuses called Salt Lake City Mayor Rocky Anderson and Salt Lake County Mayor Peter Corroon for help.

He wanted to know what jurisdiction a Salt Lake County deputy sheriff had at a political headquarters in Salt Lake City. Anderson said he thought it was odd, particularly when a party held a caucus at party headquarters in an apparent attempt to keep someone out.

Corroon called Sheriff Aaron Kennard for clarification.

Kennard advised him that the deputy was off-duty and had gone through proper channels to contract on his own time to work as a security guard for the party.

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Paul Rolly welcomes e-mail at prolly@sltrib.com.