Utah Republicans ready to rumble

Utah's 3,500 Republican state delegates, a conservative lot, will have a chance to show their political colors today at the state GOP convention.

In addition to selecting party nominees for governor and Congress, delegates at Sandy's South Towne Expo Center will also accept or reject resolutions and amendments dealing with everything from water fluoridation and jury responsibilities to blasting President Bush and reopening the now-closed Republican primaries.

Meanwhile, don't expect much controversy at the state Democratic convention across the valley at the Salt Palace, said state Sen. Ron Allen, D-Stansbury Park, the Democrat's platform committee chairman. Democrats don't want to give the majority Republicans any ammunition to use against them come November.

Republicans, however, historically like to mix it up in convention over government philosophy and national and state issues.

Attorney General Mark Shurtleff, an automatic state GOP delegate and the state's chief law enforcement officer, will ask today's state Republican convention to strike language from the party platform that says juries not only decide guilt or innocence, they also have the right to find an otherwise guilty person innocent if the law violated is "unjust."

That power is not recognized by judges.

While Bush will be the Republican Party's presidential nominee this year — certainly he'll carry Utah like every other GOP presidential nominee has for 40 years — state delegates still may slap their leader around a bit.

One resolution to be considered today says Bush's "No Child Left Behind" education program teaches that a "globalist government is superior to a sovereign United States."

Another says "No Child Left Behind" should be rejected by Utah state government and removed from public education programs by 2005. In the 2004 Legislature a Republican-sponsored bill would have banned Utah's participation in NCLB, but the Bush White House sent out education officials three times until the bill was gutted.

Yet another resolution says major parts of Bush's USA Patriot Act are unconstitutional and should be repealed. It goes on to say that Bush himself, under the guise of homeland security, has issued several unconstitutional executive orders that should be overturned.

To fight against these Bush-approved actions, the Utah Legislature should, as Alexander Hamilton wrote in the Federalist Papers, "erect barriers against the encroachment of the national authority," the resolution says.