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Some Thoughts on the Utah Caucus System

May 5, 2011 by 34 Comments

A little while ago, I attended a “Meet the Candidates” event sponsored by the Republican Women of Northern Utah designed to introduce state delegates to the candidates for Davis County Republican Party leadership positions in advance of the county organizing convention on April 22, 2011.  The meeting was generally what you would expect: conventional,  uncontroversial, and therefore largely uninteresting, though I did think a couple of the candidates distinguished themselves (no, I won’t say who, because I’m not a delegate and am therefore (almost) totally excluded from the process).

But I do want to take some time and comment briefly on a topic that was raised at the meeting,  and that remains a hot issue in Utah politics:  the future of the caucus-delegate system in Republican Party primaries.

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The Caucus System in Brief

For those who may not know, Utah’s caucus system determines how party candidates are selected for the general election.  At some point early in a general election year (usually toward the middle or end of March), people all over the state meet together for precinct caucus meetings.   Anyone can attend the meetings, but to vote in a Republican precinct caucus you have to be a registered member of the Republican party (not difficult because they’ll have registration forms waiting for you).  At the meeting, members of the precinct elect state and county delegates — these delegates are, in many cases, the sole determiners of the party’s candidates in the general election.  At the party convention, delegates vote for the candidate they want to represent their party in the general election.  The voting goes through multiple rounds.  If one particular candidate receives 60 percent or more of the delegate vote at any point, that candidate is, without any primary election, put on the ballot as his party’s official representative for that particular office.  In the event that one candidate does not receive 60 percent of the delegate vote, then he or she is forced into a primary against the candidate with the next greatest percentage of the vote.

One Party, Run by Delegates, with Republican Derivative Representation and Political Opportunity for All . . . or at least for all those inclined to seek election

Turning back to the recent candidates debate:  Once the meeting advanced into the question and answer phase, it didn’t take long for the caucus system to come up.  An individual (presumably a state delegate herself) asked each candidate if they would be willing to commit to work to preserve the current system.  There followed something of an amusing charade in which each candidate for party chair and vice-chair proceeded to swear (or profess their willingness to swear) on an electronic bible their everlasting fidelity to the caucus system.  A couple of the candidates even took some time to set out what they viewed as the system’s major advantages, which can be summarized briefly as: (1) the caucus system mimics our Republican form of government; (2) it helps keep big corporate money out of state elections; and (3) it opens the political system to those who are willing to work hard at the grassroots level even if they don’t have major funding and donors (i.e., significantly reduces bias toward incumbents).

As I was debating whether I should question any of these candidates on the viability of the system, someone else jumped in for me.  Pointing out that, despite the record turn-out at precinct caucus meetings in March 2010, participation was generally dismal, she argued that the caucus system is, itself, vulnerable to being co-opted by committed fringe groups.  She asked what each of the candidates would do to try and solve the problem of voter apathy.  The answers were, by and large, predictable and uninspired, and skirted what I think is the larger issue: given the lack of general grassroots participation in the delegate system process, is the caucus system really a legitimate and viable means of selecting party candidates?

The Caucus System: Theory and Practice

The theory behind the caucus system is fine.  In theory, people delegate their primary voting authority to individuals with the time and inclination to invest the effort to study the issues and candidates carefully, and the party ends up with the best slate of candidates as a result.  The ignorance and apathy of the average voter is excised from the process.  As something of a failsafe, a limited primary takes place if one candidate isn’t the overwhelming delegate choice.  The system ensures that potential candidates are not prejudiced by lack of money or name recognition — the idea is that anyone who puts forth the effort to connect with the delegates can get themselves on the ballot if they are right on the issues.  And it limits the influence that corporate money has on the candidate selection process.

In practice, however, it’s an entirely different matter.  Polls document that there is very little “representation” going on.  Very few people show up to their local caucus meeting.  Most who do tend to be more “extreme” (and I’m using that word to refer only to the distance of one’s positions from the center of the political spectrum) than those who do not.  The most extreme tend to run as, and often are selected as, delegates.

Once elected, these delegates don’t bother to consult the members of the precinct they have been elected to represent; they simply vote according to their own — again, theoretically — more enlightened political philosophy.  As a result, candidates who compete for the party’s nomination for a certain office move correspondingly father away from the political positions of the majority of the party’s members in order to appeal to the delegates.  They are then limited by the political commandment of “Thou Shalt Not Flip-Flop Too Soon,” in their ability to moderate later (and lack incentive to moderate given the almost total absence of a legitimate opposition party threat).  In short, the caucus system produces a slate of candidates who are often out of balance with the views of the party electorate.

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Problem with the System, of the Electorate?

One way to respond to this divergence of theory and practice is simply to suggest that it’s not a problem at all.  After all, one might say, this is not a problem with the caucus system, but with the electorate itself.  If people would be committed to participating in the process, the caucuses could not easily be hijacked by extremists.  Why abandon the advantages of the caucus system merely because people are too lazy to properly participate?

There is some force to this argument, which is well-articulated here.

But, in my view, the potential advantages of the caucus system become problematic in practice.  One should ask, just what is it that we’re saving?  As I see it, the primary advantage of the caucus system is that it mitigates the pro-incumbent bias that makes it so extraordinarily difficult to for a challenger to beat a party incumbent in the primary.  This can be a good thing when it helps keep the incumbent honest about representing his or her constituents.  But Utah’s caucus system often doesn’t help keep candidates honest.  Rather, it creates an unwarranted asymmetry for incumbents who do represent their constituents at large during the course of their terms.  These representatives, come primary time, are made to answer only to a handful of delegates that are often more extreme than the constiuents the representative may have been conscientiously representing while in office.

It’s time to confront the question:  If the reality of the caucus system is a slate of relatively extremist candidates who do not represent the political views of the majority of the party electorate, is it time to abandon the system?    Those who defend the caucus system do so, in part, on the ground that it mimics our national republican form of government (the classic appeal to the Founders).   Those who defend the caucus system on this ground should consider that there are two reasons the United States ended up with a representative, republican system over something more democratic and ask themselves whether those same justifications apply to Utah’s party candidate selection system.  The first reason for our republican government was the Founders’ fear of demagogues that would inflame the passions of the ignorant electorate; the second was much more practical — it was simply impossible to have a significantly democratic system, the logistics didn’t work in practice.

Today, the practical constraint is much mitigated.  And one would do well to ask whether the first concern is, in Utah, mitigated or exacerbated by the caucus system.  It strikes me as quite possible, if not probable, that a limited slate of delegate are more likely to be inflamed by an extremist demagogue than the “ignorant” public at large.  Finally, I think that the negative effects are exacerbated in a state, like Utah, that is overwhelmingly dominated by one political party, since the moderating influence of a legitimate opposition is essentially non-existent.

Summing Up

I’m not a strict democrat (in the little “d” sense of the word).  I think representative government is a good thing.  But I also think that the gradual move toward democratizing some aspects of representative government — including opening primary elections and having direct election of U.S. Senators (post on this coming soon) has been good.  It’s easy to take things to extremes, and I think that’s what Utah has done by stubbornly clinging to a system that fosters an extreme slate of candidates and penalizes incumbents for representing more than a party’s extreme wing.

Party primaries play an important role in making sure that candidates remain true to party principles.  It’s good for candidates to be held accountable to the views of the party, as well as the people, they claim to represent.  But the caucus system takes it too far, especially in a world where the political reality is one party dominance and poor participation — even in the years when the people are most motivated.

So, let the search for alternatives begin.  I have a post planned on this topic, but I’d be interested in your thoughts as well.  Use the comment form below and have at it :)


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About Curt Bentley

is an attorney practicing commercial litigation, non-profit law, and intellectual property law in Utah at his firm Bentley Briggs & Lynch. In his spare time, he attempts to impersonate a jazz pianist, gardens, and dodges rattlesnakes and stirs up other trouble while running on Utah's amazing trails.

You can learn more or connect with Curt on Facebook, Twitter, or Google+.

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  • John Wight

    First, can I chime in on the whole democracy v. republic question? Umm, we live in a democracy, teapartiers and Utah legislators notwithstanding. Our republic employs the same fundamentals of democracy that the Greeks invented and the Romans perpetuated in their republicanism. Whether a democratic form of government uses direct or indirect representation does not affect or negate intrinsic democratic principles. What the Utah Legislature did this past session is perpetuate a lingustice phenomenon knows as “Semantic Narrowing.” It sounds derisive, but in fact it is quite natural. It’s what happens to language. Apparently, we have a force among us that wants to narrow the definition of democracy to what used to be thought of as “direct democracy.”
    I find the argument for caucuses unimpressive. It seems to rest upon assumptions of “ignorant masses” and “enlightened, studied delegates.” My guess is that it’s just as likely that the “masses” have a learning very pertinent to microeconomics and their own civil liberties and that the “delegates” might simply have more leisure time. Maybe not. But we are only dealing with speculation and assumptions, and that is what the delegate’s argument seems to be resting on.
    While one delegate argues that Bennett’s ouster shows why the delegate-caucus system is best (he clearly voted on the wrong legislation, right?), another citizen of the “masses” wonders why Bennett should be proscribed from the party in which he clearly represents a majority of the voters. Which reasoning most appealls to a system “of the people, by the people, and for the people?” (By the way, Abe Lincoln was a Republican, living in a democratic republic.)

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  • admin

    John:

    I’m always up for a little republic v. democracy smackdown. :)

    The whole thing is totally ridiculous. We go on for a couple hundred years, happily living in a democratic country, only to find out a few months ago that we don’t live in a democracy at all. Silly, ignorant, me.

    It’s easy to dismiss all this as irrelevant posturing or just ignorant babbling, and that’s probably mostly what it is. But the anti-democracy attitude is quite prevalent in Utah politics these days. Whether it’s legislators thumbing their nose at their constituents with legislation like HB 477 or the 4 day work week override, or the supporting an ineffective and illegitimate caucus system on the ground that it’s true to republican, as opposed to democratic, values, or suggesting that some of the “decline” of the USA during the 20th Century is due to the direct election of U.S. Senators (the 17th Amendment crowd) — you’ll see it in a lot of Utah political discourse if you’ll look.

    I have no illusions about some of the negative things that accompany a broad-based, participatory primary election. I don’t pretend that it’s going to solve all our problems with voter apathy. But I’m convinced that it’s ultimately a better, and more legitimate, option than what we currently have.

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  • http://lawafterthebar.wordpress.com Daniel B

    Curt: good for you for taking on a controversial “tempest in a teapot” topic. It’s a perennial favorite in these parts.

    The caucus system has been around for a while, and while it has its pros and cons, it’s not going away anytime soon. If you want it to change, a significant benefit to the alternative–a straight open primary–will need to be articulated. Unfortunately, your argument fails to do so.

    Instead, your concerns seem to be balanced on the point that “Very few people show up to their local caucus meeting.” That’s the problem–not that the current system selects extremist candidates (which, actually, is all in the eye of the beholder. There are those who would point to any number of, for example, Congressional districts across the country and call the primary elected Representative there “extremist,” too, merely because extremism is more a statement of relativity that reality). If you would solve the problem–voter apathy–then opening the system to an open primary will only take that same problem and transfer it to the primary system.

    So, if we’re going to propose that a primary is “better,” lets see an examination of merits. Is “high participation really the goal? I don’t think we’ve ever seen evidence that high participation leads to better representation or governing. In fact, there are many who would point to George Washington and Abraham Lincoln (chosen as a result of a convention process, by the way, not a primary process) as evidence that informed selection of candidates really can result in better leadership.

    Of course, there are a lot of factors in addition to the selection process that lead to Washington and Lincoln, but the point is: let’s not put the cart before the horse. The point of elections and the selection of candidates is to represent the people and produce leaders who create greater good, not just to make sure everyone gives their input, whether or not they actually care or want to put in the time to show up.

    Whether the caucus system should stay or go is an open question, IMO, but whether I want my apathetic, uninformed, couch potato neighbor who won’t show up for an hour on a week night once every two years is not. Our democracy, or republic, or whatever you want to call it, was founded with the principle of public virtue–that principle of willful participation. And casting a vote alone for the candidates who have the best ability to get their name on TV, mail, and the press (aka–wealthy and well-funded)? That is not public virtue. That’s the equivalent of American Idol with legal results. Abraham Lincoln would never have survived that system, but we might have had a president who “represented” the majority of America–including the slave holding south.

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    • Paul Hollingshaus

      What’s your reply to all the “lazy, couch-potato types” who can’t attend and therefore have no voice in the selection of candidates who are at their jobs on a March evening at 7pm. What to you say to all the nurses, doctors, firemen, etc who are at their posts? Please tell me how they have a voice.

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      • Mike

        With all the various method that we have today, there is no excuse that a person cannot have time to cast his or her vote. The polls are open now more than just one day and if you are “always” 24 hours gone, vote absentee.

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        • http://www.utahpoliticalsummary.com/about/ Curt Bentley

          Mike,

          Thanks for the comment. Paul’s not talking about a general or primary election, he’s talking about precinct caucus night, where state delegates are selected. There are no polls or absentee voting. It happens on one night every two years. I suspect there is a way to give one of your neighbors a proxy if you can’t attend, but that doesn’t do you much good when you don’t even know who the candidates for state/county delegate are going to be…

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  • http://lawafterthebar.wordpress.com Daniel B

    That all said, I would like to see how you recommend we deal with the real problem: voter apathy.

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  • admin

    @Dan:

    I really don’t know. How do you convince someone to be invested in something? Education is always an easy (and legitimate) answer, but there’s got to be much more to it. I don’t think interest can be manufactured (see my somewhat cynical comments on your post about participatory democracy), though it probably can be facilitated by removing barriers. We’ve just got to figure out what those barriers really are and the extent to which they can be removed.

    The first thing I would say is that there is a difference between voter apathy — probably defined as something like disinterest in the electoral process — and civic participation. Broadly speaking, you can group people into 3 categories:

    (1) Those who do not vote or otherwise volunteer their efforts in their community;
    (2) Those whose civic participation is substantially limited to voting once a year; and
    (3) Those who do not vote regularly (or don’t bother to vote carefully) even though they otherwise involved in their community.

    The only thing that can be done with the first group is to try to convince them that they are the ones who create the communities in which they live. Civic and religious institutions can help here, as can invitations from neighbors and friends to be involved. Positive experiences help. Absent these things, this group is can be mobilized by an issue that affects them, but often back away once that issue has been resolved.

    The second group votes, the concern with them is making sure that they vote carefully and responsibly. The individual, the candidates, and the news media all bear some responsibility here.

    It is the third group of people that intrigue me the most. These people — the ones who participate in their community on a greater level than they vote — should be of foremost concern, because they suggest to me someone who is willing to work for their community but is simply discouraged (for whatever reason) about the actual electoral process. In your post you suggested that they may feel disenfranchised — I think there is some truth to that, and suspect that some of it stems from one-party dominance (and all its consequences) here in Utah. I would be very much interested to the extent that surveys or polling data could help us get at what it discouraging the people. I have a lot of theories, which are ultimately just speculation.

    Ultimately, this doesn’t do much to answer your question, but is simply a first shot at the problem, which I plan to address in future posting (don’t I always, though).

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  • http://lawafterthebar.wordpress.com Daniel B

    Ok, so, I wrote a long piece of “whine” but it’s not appearing. Did I lose it? Major fail on my part….all that waxing eloquent lost to history.

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  • admin

    I think I saved it — it had been relegated to the spam queue based on my proprietary algorithm that senses disagreement :)

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  • http://lawafterthebar.wordpress.com Daniel B

    If we’re talking systematic change, I don’t really hear anything useful in what you are saying. Extremists are those who show up, and those who show up control the world.

    “Extremist” is also a relative term (to where ever one person thinks they are, which is “moderate”), so I don’t know how useful it really is to the discussion. The opposition to the caucus system is being driven by the losers in the last election–Dems and Bennett supporters–so I don’t know that anyone will take changing it serious until a real substantive reason for changing the system is shown.

    “Because a primary involves more people” isn’t really that substantive. Good governing does not come de facto from high participation. It comes from electing good leaders. And some of America’s best leaders did not come from high participation–they came from informed selectors. Specifically, I would point to George Washington, who was selected by a psuedolegislative assembly of rebels before our country even existed, and Abraham Lincoln, who never would have beat out the likes of Salmon Chase but for a convention system. The greatest good in a republic cum democracy is not participation–it’s leaders with high levels of public virtue.

    So if we’re looking at systematic change, let’s also look at A) who’s pressing for it and why (the losers, because they lost) and B) what the results will be other than just increasing participation. Participation is good, but if it doesn’t lead to better governance, and I’ve yet to see an argument about why it does, than perhaps it isn’t really an improvement on what we’ve got.

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    • http://lawafterthebar.wordpress.com Daniel B

      AMENDMENT: What I say “I don’t hear anything useful,” I mean, “I don’t hear how what you are proposing really is useful to increasing good governance and participation,” just change to a primary.

      Just sayin’, since I realized I might have sounded a bit harsh.

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  • http://lawafterthebar.wordpress.com Daniel B

    Geez…I’m making typos all over the place. I’m just going to shut-up before I embarrass myself worse…

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  • admin

    Dan,

    Wow you’ve given me a lot to respond to, so this will be long. First of all, you’re absolutely right that “those who show up rule the world.” It brings to mind one of my favorite quotes, by Aristotle, via Bobby Kennedy:

    At the Olympic Games it is not the finest and the strongest men who are crowned, but they who enter the lists

    You’re also correct that “extremism” is, in all but the fewest cases, a matter of relativity rather than substance. When I use the word “extremist,” I’m referring only to that person’s distance from the political center ground (if such a thing can be ascertained, which I think it can), not to my normative assessment of the merits of their political positions.

    Finally, I get the sense that you’re right about the opposition to the caucus system being driven primarily (though not solely) by those it has disfavored and/or those it likely will disfavor. And one thing I’ve always found very interesting is that we don’t see more opposition to the system from incumbents, since it seems to me that a primary (no pun intended) result of the caucus system is to mitigate the normal heavy bias in favor of incumbents. A lot of incumbents seem committed to a system that would be likely to work against them, which may be another reason to recommend it — though I suspect that there are other considerations at play (i.e. you fail to change the system and alienate the delegates).

    I approached the issue from what I thought was a practical standpoint. The reality of our system is minimal participation — in precinct caucuses especially. My question was, given that reality, is the caucus system really a legitimate means of selecting party candidates? I don’t think it is, because it results in a slate of candidates that are, according to polling data, out of step with the people they represent. The caucus system, if the polling data is to be believed, punishes some people for representing their constituents. That’s not what republicanism or democracy is supposed to be about.

    In fact, this is one issue on where the whole idea of republic v. democracy has some bite to it. You say that “[t]he greatest good in a republican democracy is not participation — it’s leaders with high levels of public virtue.” This statement brings to my mind the following question: If the “people” desire a stupid leader, or say, a Blagojevich without any public virtue whatsoever, at what point does/should the fundamentally democratic nature of our government assert itself? This is an age old question that I’m sure we can talk around but never answer. At some point along the way, republicanism can move close to the line of guardianship. At what point do we say, let’s turn this over to everyone — the “apathetic, uninformed, couch potato neighbor” included — and let them have their say directly? I think the goal of a candidate selection process for a political party is to select the candidate that most closely reflects the positions of the party members he or she is to represent. What we have right now are a series of gate keepers — admittedly enabled by people’s failure to participate, but gatekeepers nonetheless — that prevent that type of decision.

    Drilling down even in the most republican of systems, there comes a point at which you have to elect the first representative, and you have to do it democratically for it to be legitimate. Who ordained that it should be at the precinct level rather than the primary level? At my caucus meeting, which lasted quite a long time, each person running for state delegate was given 1 minute to tell us their qualifications. Almost everyone got cut off. Most of what I heard is that they had been attending a Constitution class for the last year, and they really hated Obamacare. Now maybe this was a problem of administration more than anything else, but I suspect it’s what happened in quite a few places when you compress the average person’s candidate selection process into 3 or 4 hours of one day. At least a primary spreads the pain over a few weeks :)

    As far as history is concerned, I’ll be frank and say that I don’t know much about how Washington became President. But my sense is, he would have been President, convention system or not, so long as he was willing. As far as Lincoln is concerned, perhaps if it hadn’t been for indirect election of Senators, we would have had him for a U.S. Senator in 1854, I don’t know. But although it was the quirks of the convention system that made him the Republican candidate for President, it certainly was not because delegates were more enlightened than the general public, it was simply a happy accident due to the conflicts over the other candidates. In that respect, we’ve had good and bad accidents with conventions throughout history.

    We have an electoral college on a theory of republican representation and distrust of the general electorate, but we’ve, as a practical matter, abandoned it in favor of a strange form of block voting democracy where the electors just rubber stamp the will of the people of the state — I suspect because, nationwide, we would simply not tolerate the idea that in a presidential election our vote could be rendered meaningless by someone appointed to vote pursuant to a more enlightened view.

    You say that a direct primary will be the equivalent of “American Idol with legal consequences.” Isn’t that what we already have now, just on a much more limited scale? We elected as Senator a man who ran on almost nothing more than his stated Constitutional expertise. That’s a political form of American Idolism. Now Mike Lee is a smart a capable guy, but ran his campaign as a campaign is normally run. That’s the way it’s done, and It’s really what electoral politics is. It’s what it’s always been. Sometime we get lucky. Sometimes we’re really unlucky.

    The direct participation of more people may not lead to better governance. But, as Lincoln said, ultimately, legitimate government is “of the people” and “by the people” as well as “for the people.”

    I’ll stop now, as this has gone on way too long. :)

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    • http://lawafterthebar.wordpress.com Daniel B

      Ok, so I’ll break up my comments to make them direct to your different point:

      RE: This statement brings to my mind the following question: If the “people” desire a stupid leader, or say, a Blagojevich without any public virtue whatsoever, at what point does/should the fundamentally democratic nature of our government assert itself?

      First, I’m not sure what this means. Second, I think what you are getting at is the question of whether there should be checks on what the people want. Maybe…maybe not. But I don’t think ANYONE wants a Blagojevich. However, with an open primary where “he who has the gold” will win, that is a real possibility of what you will get. An open primary is won or lost on how good your television advertising is, how one does in a debate (again, on television), and has little to do with how well the candidate actually represents the people.

      Having watch several (five) convention cycles now, it is clear that is it occasionally messy, leans towards the wings of the party (on both sides–even Matheson had a challenger who was…well, lets just say she didn’t have a snowball’s chance in a general election), and is based on the whims of the 3500 delegates (or fewer, as state leg and senate districts may be), but it does yield a decision by a group of individuals who have actually interacted with the candidates, evaluated them, and voted on them. And ALL candidates, not just those rich enough to buy TV advertising.

      In this sense, Utah really is American. It’s a place where anyone can succeed in politics–as long as they show up. Everywhere else, it’s an elitist’s game. (which is ok, as long as the elitist is who you want governing)

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      • http://lawafterthebar.wordpress.com Daniel B

        RE: “’ll be frank and say that I don’t know much about how Washington became President. But my sense is, he would have been President, convention system or not, so long as he was willing.”

        Washington, a war hero from the Seven Years War (aka the French and Indian War in our fifth grade history books), was embittered by the treatment he got at the hands of the British relative to their own subjects, especially with regards to land he had been granted and surveyed in the west. Further, as a member of the Virginia House of Burgesses, he was privy and a participant to many of the discussions regarding the disenchantment of the colonists with British practices towards the colonies (read: “Taxation without representation, et al”). When George Mason started organizing the militia, George Washington assisted. When the Continental Congress needed a military leader, Adams and Co. saw to it that Washington was chosen over Hancock, Washington effectively became the only executive in the disparate colonies and acted as such during his tenure as commander-in-chief. After winning the war in near Fabian style, he was the only choice to lead as the first president.

        RE: Lincoln. He was never a best choice for President due to the high popularity of other candidates. He was, like many of Utah’s convention winners over the last decade, only the second choice. However, when you hate your opponents first choice, second choice candidates can soon garner a majority, which Lincoln did.

        An accident? A quirk? No, not at all. It was the rules of the system, a true compromise. He was elected because he was what the most delegates could agree upon. He was not an accidental president but a compromise president.

        APROPOS: We might be two countries today if not for his selection. His opponents in the convention were far more extreme than him.

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        • http://lawafterthebar.wordpress.com Daniel B

          RE: Extremists — Note that if you look at who has won the full convention vote (with a majority, but not necessarily the nomination since that requires 60 percent), it is generally the more moderate of the candidates. If you go one step further and look at who has won the primary AFTER the convention, it is usually the more conservative of the two.

          So…draw your own conclusions from that, but I see in that piece of data that the primary voters are not so moderate as your premise seems to suggest.

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          • admin

            This is interesting. I will watch things carefully this next cycle, because I don’t expect changes in the system by then. Hopefully, this time I’ll be one of the delegates. :)

            Whatever decision is made, I hope it’s made after fair consideration of the important aspects of each alternative. And I’m not necessarily averse to some modifications of the current system as an effort toward a compromise that tries to keep some of the good of both alternatives.

            Finally, you’re right when you say that, ultimately, the problem is voter apathy, and regardless of the system, we need to direct our best efforts toward getting people more invested and engaged in the electoral process.

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      • admin

        I don’t think anyone wants a Blago, either. What I was trying to convey was that, at some point, the people’s will needs to prevail — in other words, it’s a “what if they did” question. The idea that enlightened representatives make choices for an ignorant electorate is great up to a point . . . until it becomes clear that those enlightened representatives are habitually disengaged from the people themselves. That’s what I meant by saying, at some point, the fundamentally democratic nature of our republic must assert itself.

        In this sense, Utah really is American. It’s a place where anyone can succeed in politics — as long as they show up. Everywhere else, it’s an elitist’s game.

        [I]t does yield a decision by a group of individuals who have actually interacted with the candidates, evaluated them, and voted on them.

        These are the only things that gives me pause about abandoning the caucus system, because they are true (to a point). Traditional barriers (money, name recognition) are removed (or lessened) by the caucus system. Other barriers (moderation in political viewpoint, or actually representing the majority of party members in the case of an incumbent) are thrown up. So some people are excluded. For example, I refer you to the following tweet recently from Connor Boyack: “Kirk Jowers attacks the current caucus system because he has political ambition and knows he wouldn’t make it out of convention. #utpol”

        And the fact that delegates actually get to speak with, and meet, the candidates does have some significance. But here, too, there are tradeoffs. If I am not a delegate, I make my representation decision over the course of two hours on a Wednesday night (and, in my case, based on 1 minute speeches by people I don’t know).

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        • http://lawafterthebar.wordpress.com Daniel B

          Just to be clear: That wasn’t my comment about Kirk Jowers. I’m concerned that by quoting it when replying to me you might be inadvertently drawing a connection between my comments and that one…

          For the record, I think Kirk is a smart, stand up guy, and I think he’d be a wise policy maker.

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          • admin

            Yes, I do want to make that absolutely clear. That was a quote from a tweet by Connor Boyack. In fact, I’ve removed the blockquote to eliminate the confusion.

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          • http://lawafterthebar.wordpress.com Daniel B

            I know you cited the right guy…just, well, just being careful.

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  • admin

    P.S. I’m glad to see you apparently don’t think that Lincoln was a tyrant…

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    • http://lawafterthebar.wordpress.com Daniel B

      Best president ever. Bar none. (Except maybe Washington, but I think he had a more difficult job than George did…I’m just sayin’)

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    • admin

      I know people have great love for Washington. I respect him. But I have genuine affection for Lincoln. In my mind there’s no question that he’s the greatest President this country has ever had or is likely to have.

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  • Noah Fence

    Dan wrote>> Participation is good, but if it doesn’t lead to better governance, and I’ve yet to see an argument about why it does, than perhaps it isn’t really an improvement on what we’ve got.

    Dan, not trying to offend you and your basic core belief, but those are the same words used to defend tyranny.

    And we watched it in our precinct — people don’t show up for the March meetings because after attending the first one, you watch and listen to the “anointed ones” discuss openly with each other about having had phone discussions about who should be, repeat should be, voted in as their delegates…pre-arranged…and then you watch “their friends” vote for only those who are allowed to become “candidates” — it’s a total joke, a total fraud, that’s why people don’t bother to attend their precinct caucus. We had people from our precinct say to our face that they were so afraid that we “Ron Paul kooks” would try to become candidates, that they made sure it didn’t happen by having the officers of the precinct call each other and decide who would be allowed to be delegate candidates and who would vote for them.

    Then, when the rights of the individual is taken from them through the caucus/convention method of choosing who gets to be put on the ballot, their attitude becomes “why bother” and you get the apathetic voter or non-voter, regardless of how much other involvement they have in the community.

    Your above tyrannical statement, that the public is not good enough to make a “careful” or “educated” choice and that’s why it’s better to keep the caucus/convention system to make that decision for them, is the exact reason why Utah has voter apathy.

    Others with your viewpoint also point out that the caucus/convention system “assists” candidates to keep their campaign budgets “down” to $150,000 and avoids state candidates from spending millions of corporate-donated funds on campaign costs in only the bigger 6 counties of Utah, leaving out the “little rural voters.”

    Those come under scrutiny as separate issues, with long-overdue campaign reforms, and “allowing” more candidates/statesmen with a long track record of integrity in being good, honesty, and wise.

    Get the tyrannical system out of the way, implement educating the constituents, let the voters SEE the corruption is gone and that THEIR personal vote really does matter, and voter apathy will be a thing of the past.

    Stop taking away liberties in the name of “protecting” the voters from themselves!

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    • http://lawafterthebar.wordpress.com Daniel B

      I’m not saying we should discourage participation–let me be clear, so as you have no excuse to tangentalize my opinion: I’m saying we should evaluate the change to increase governance, not participation for participation’s sake. Already 100% of individuals have the opportunity to be involved, with no substantial barriers to entry other than that they must invest more time and effort. Your change to a primary does not in any way suggest that our state will, in the end, be better governed. Instead, the argument seems to boil down to: “The current system elects individuals who are, relative to me [Bentley] extremists.” However, it doesn’t explain how an open primary would be any different or any improvement.

      Don’t mischaracterize my argument by false association. A lot of arguments have been used to defend tyranny–that does not mean they have any relationship to this discussion, about which tyranny has no part.

      Or are you suggesting you oppose the caucus system because it is tyrannical? If so, just say rather than implying that it is–falsely–why I may support it.

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    • http://lawafterthebar.wordpress.com Daniel B

      RE: “allowing” more candidates/statesmen with a long track record of integrity in being good, honesty, and wise.

      Would you suggest that our current president has said track record? Maybe you could provide some examples of how a primary would provide this. Primaries don’t–they allow a win to the person who can best fund attractive television target at what voters want to hear.

      If you have other reforms, as you noted in the above referenced paragraph–argue those rather than just the demise of the caucus system in the vacuum of more persuasive policy recommendations.

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  • http://lawafterthebar.wordpress.com Daniel B

    I can’t speak to your precinct, but I fail to see why those who have spent time in preparation to the meeting campaigning for a position should not win. That’s called democracy. If someone else wants to win, why should they expect that they can do zero preparation in advance and have the support of their fellow citizens?

    As for “taking away liberties in the name of “protecting” the voters from themselves,”…

    Really? Isn’t that a bit of a mischaracterization, again? Not once have I said that the caucus system should NOT go–I’ve merely said that you provide poor arguments for a change that amount only to the whining of losers.

    Losers become winners when they realize that you have to garner support for a victory in advance of an election–including when that election is the caucus meeting.

    Bob Bennett failed to produce that support. Mike Lee and Tim Bridgewater did.

    Does that make them extremists? I guess that depends on where you see yourself in the spectrum.

    As per the “discernible” center that you assign most voters: I don’t think it is as clear cut as that, nor do I think your fuzzy reckoning satisfactorily demonstrates where you are finding it. Name five extremists in Utah’s politics and why, and I think you could just as easily find evidence of the contrary. Disagreement on a policy does not make one extremist–it demonstrates a difference of policy.

    On the other hand, both parties produce candidates that are further to the left or right before convention, and both parties’ candidates move from the there to the middle during general elections. Clinton did it, Reagan did it, Lee did it, and Obama did it. It’s not a bad thing–it’s the nature of politics. It does not make them extremist, nor does it mean that the parties are “protecting voters” from themselves. It means that the parties are assuring that they are selecting a candidate that they believe will best represent the interests of the members of the party (which, as a big tent party, means you have a lot of interests and groups).

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    • admin

      It may be true that the term “extremist” has just a little too much of a negative connotation to be of much use in this whole discussion – even when defined as merely distance from the political center. I thought Granato did himself little or no favors in the last election simply by repeating over and over that Mike Lee was an “extremist.” When he started talking specific policy (like bringing up the 40% immediate cut of the federal budget), then he got some traction.

      The problem that I have, and I think a number of people have, with the caucus system, is that, as a practical reality, it produces candidates that are out of step with the members of the party they are to represent. That’s the substantive reason to abandon it (or significantly alter it).

      Ultimately, it all comes down to whether you view the evils of a direct primary-type election (focus on name recognition, importance of fund raising ability) to those of the caucus system (slate of candidates out of step with the majority of the electorate, decided by few people over the course of a couple hours one night).

      Let’s both be honest: each of these problems comes as a result of the general laziness of the electorate. If people took the time to inform themselves about party candidates, the evils of a direct primary would be much mitigated, just as the evils of the caucus system would be much mitigated if everyone showed up and participated.

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    • admin

      Wow, this is getting way too long :)

      Just a comment on your point that the candidates always move to the right (or left, as the case may be) during a primary and then back toward the center for the election. That’s very true, and happens in both direct primary and caucus-convention systems. It’s part of the purpose of a party vetting and determining its own candidates, we want to keep them honest members of the party, in line with the party platform. But the end result of Utah’s caucus system is often not a candidate in line with the party, but someone meaningfully dis-aligned — away from the center of even that party’s platform.

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  • utah_1

    One of the principles of those wanting to gut the neighborhood election caucus meeting and convention system we have in Utah, is this: ” A system that provides inherent advantages to those who are incumbent, wealthy or famous is not acceptable.”

    The problem is their proposals would do exactly that.

    The Caucus System in Utah is the best way to make sure grass roots movements can work over large amounts of money. It is the only way someone with $100,000 can go against someone with $2,000,000 in election funds.

    There were about 120,000 republicans in Utah that went to the neighborhood caucus elections in 2012 to elect the 4000 State Delegates. Add to those numbers the democrats and the primary elections. Certainly the municipal elections didn’t do any better in
    voter representation.

    Bypassing the Caucus / Convention System will NOT create more participation. There are 4000 state delegates that spend countless hours vetting candidates to be on the ballot. They are selected by those that attend the neighborhood election caucus meeting. You just have to attend.

    The current system does not protect the incumbent, wealthy or famous. I think that is a good thing.

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