The Caucus-Convention system is how political parties in Utah ensure that candidates who desire to run for office are committed to the party platform and are qualified.  How does it work?  A precinct is a neighborhood that comes together to elect officers and delegates.  Officers administer the precinct, coordinate with delegates, and help govern the county party.  Delegates represent their neighbors at conventions to select candidates for the general election ballot.  Why delegates?  Without a delegate system, a candidate running for office must communicate with 38000+ Republicans.  This high number means that candidates will engage voters through mass media, which usually allows only superficial communication at a soundbite level.  If you were running for the state house of representatives, you only need to talk to 139 delegates instead of 9500 voters.  Candidates spend more time with fewer people, allowing for a thorough investigation. 

 

The Republican caucus meeting is a mass meeting where every registered party member in a neighborhood can participate.  If you are a pink Republican, you and your pink neighbors work together to elect pink delegates who will choose pink candidates at the convention.  If you are a green Republican and wonder what those pink Republicans are thinking, you can work with your green Republican neighbors to elect green delegates.  The beauty of the neighborhood caucus means it reflects the majority philosophy of the neighborhood, but only if YOU show up to caucus.  Caucus is the answer to money driven, superficial soundbite campaigns. 

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Let's dive a little deeper.

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Ghandi suggested that "politics without principle" was one of seven things that he believed would destroy our society.

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Republicans want a government dedicated to protecting our right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. The principles in the Constitution are the cause of our freedom and standard of living.  

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To realize this goal, we need to elect officials dedicated to protecting the cause of liberty.

 

This means we need to elect liberty-minded candidates.

 

Citizens with similar ideas and principles band together in groups to promote their common desires for good government.  We call these groups “political parties” and the principles they stand for a “platform.”  

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How should parties choose candidates to represent them?

 

One way is for party leaders to choose the candidates.  This is easy and efficient - a small group makes the decision.  It is vulnerable to influence from the outside.  Thankfully, we do not have this system in Utah.

 

Another way is not to have any party candidate selection mechanism at all - anyone claiming to be a member of the party can run.  This is also easy and efficient, but it comes with high cost as candidates must communicate directly with a large pool of voters, and the only way to do this is through mass-media.  This means a candidate must either be independently wealthy or backed by someone else’s wealth to run for office.  If a candidate is supported by outside money, they are loyal to that money, not the party or the electorate.  The ideas a candidate can communicate through mass-media are limited to very basic sound-bites. We have this system in Utah, known as SB54, named after the law the legislature passed creating this option.  Any registered Republican can file for office, pay to collect signatures and completely bypass any Party evaluation process, and in Utah, as long as their is an “R” by their name on the general election ballot, they will likely get elected.

 

Both of these methods are easy in concept but have definite risks to the platform.  We need a system that allows regular citizens to run for office that does not require personal or outside wealth and provides for deep evaluation of candidate ideas and principles to ensure that the candidate will be true to the party platform.  

 

Fortunately, Utah has a superior method in selecting candidates to represent them.  

 

The caucus-convention system relies on a dedicated group of party members to deeply research and evaluate candidates and select them at the convention.  These party members are called delegates and they are chosen by their neighbors at a caucus meeting.  For example, there are 108 county delegates in House District 5.  For a candidate to talk to each delegate for 15 minutes would take 9 evenings at 3 hours each.  That is a better process than some Facebook posts, tweets, short radio and TV ads and a direct mail piece.  A delegate pledges to spend the time needed to read campaign literature, attend events and meet with the candidates personally to inform their decision.  

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The Party exists to facilitate the caucus-convention system so delegates can represent their neighbors in selecting candidates that will protect and promote our platform.  

 

Cache County is currently 100% Republican in all elected offices.  I want to keep that percentage where it is, but I am nervous that California is coming to Salt Lake and Salt Lake is coming to Cache County.  We need to articulate our principles to keep Republicans in the party, and convince principled Independents and principled Democrats to vote for our candidates.

 

To do this we must kindly and logically defend our platform principles and hold our elected officials accountable to the platform.  We need school board members that respect parents rights and supports a system that teaches our children reading, writing and arithmetic while leaving the social experimentation out.  The woke agenda is already being taught to our children in public schools. 

 

"[W]e shall not prevent the gradual advance of totalitarian control if we do not succeed in defeating the philosophy which produces it."  F.A. Hayek

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Visit the Precinct Portal for more information on how Caucus meeting works:

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