GOP letter says no to automatic delegates

The sometimes emotional issue of automatic delegates within the Utah Republican Party is getting a new group of opponents — and they are not party dissidents but party insiders.

Two state Republican senators, a former gubernatorial chief of staff and a former U.S. House candidate have written an open letter to state GOP delegates and other party activists decrying the common practice of county party bosses appointing some delegates to their county and state conventions.

"Depending on circumstances," says Jason Chaffetz, former chief of staff to GOP Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr., "automatic delegates could make up from between 5 percent and 10 percent of the delegates."

Most delegates are elected in neighborhood party caucuses every two years. But party leaders have steadfastly agreed over time to give GOP officeholders and some party officials a delegate ticket, both to county conventions and the state Republican Convention.

The appointment of automatic delegates "is just wrong. We need to get the principle of how our party works right," said Chaffetz, who was Huntsman's campaign manager in his 2004 election and served as his chief of staff for the first 18 months of the Huntsman administration.

All delegates should be elected, the letter says.

Chaffetz sent out the delegate-warning letter with Sens. Tom Hatch, R-Panguitch, and Howard Stephenson, R-Draper. Also signing the letter was Tim Bridgewater, who twice lost GOP primaries in the 2nd Congressional District. Later, Bridgewater volunteered as Huntsman's public education adviser early in the governor's administration.

Bridgewater believes that automatic delegates — mainly GOP state legislators — may well have cost him the convention nomination in 2002, where he nearly got a 60 percent vote over then-state Rep. John Swallow, R-Sandy, which would have let him avoid a primary contest. Bridgewater then lost a primary election to Swallow.

Ironically, the four insiders' concern about automatic delegates has been the main battleground of GOP dissident Mike Ridgway and his cadre of supporters.

Ridgway, who was stripped of his Republican Party offices last year by party leaders for his constant intraparty bickering, has for years complained that party insiders should not be appointing their "friends" and/or GOP officeholders to some county and state delegate slots.