Utah Republicans are considering a 'purity test' for potential GOP candidates

The radical right wing of the Utah Republican Party’s Central Committee is at it again.

This time, apparently, the group within the 189-member governing body of the party (which ranges around 50 people) wants to make it a rule that they get to decide who is a real Republican, and they'll decide who can run as a Republican candidate under the party banner.

If adopted, a new proposed bylaw apparently says the party itself – and the State Central Committee is the official governing body of the party – may conduct “purity tests” to see who meets the standard of being an “official” party member and be an “official” party candidate.

The group has called a special meeting of the Central Committee for this Saturday at 10 a.m. in the headquarters of Entrata, the group’s new financial backer.

Here is the proposed bylaw change, submitted by Layne Beck, a CC member from Cache County:

Currently, as far a voting goes, you sign up with your local county clerk as a Republican.

If you do so, you can vote in the closed Republican Party primary.

Currently there is no “test” for you to become a Republican. A voter decides that himself.

And you run as a Republican candidate when you sign up to do so with the county clerk, or for high office, with the Utah Elections Office, which is run by the state.

A federal court judge in Utah has already ruled that the state, not the party, controls access to the state-run, taxpayer funded, primary ballot/election.

That decision was part of the party’s failed lawsuits against SB54, a 2014 law that says a candidate can take a dual pathway to the party primary – gathering voter signatures, or going through the party delegate convention, or both at the same time.

But the judge also opined that a party itself can decide its own membership – the state doesn’t do that.

Party Chairman Rob Anderson told UtahPolicy.com on Sunday that he has no comment on what the Beck bylaw change may mean.

Anderson said he will meet with the party attorney and the parliamentarian to see what impacts they see.

However, UtahPolicy.com talked to other leading Republicans – who didn’t want to be quoted so as not generate the ire of the radicals – who said in practice the new bylaw could have far-reaching, and harmful, effects.

Let’s just use one example:

Mitt Romney, GOP governor of Massachusetts, Republican Party presidential nominee who overwhelmingly won the 2012 Utah presidential vote, is now running as a Republican for the U.S. Senate here.

If the proposed bylaw was adopted by the party Central Committee, the CC could decide whether Romney is a real Republican, or not.

The party COULD NOT keep Romney off of the primary ballot this June – that is a state Utah Elections Office decision.

But the party Central Committee could vote on Romney, decide he is not a real Republican, and thus not officially endorse him.

Now, the party could decide to accept whatever names of Republicans are sent to it by the county clerks.

In that case, no matter what the bylaw says, the party wouldn’t really decide membership, the individual does when he or she registers as a Republican with the county clerk – part of the voter registration process.

If that were the case, then perhaps the bylaw change is insignificant – a paperwork requirement for party headquarters, telling leaders they would keep a database of all “Republicans” in the state.

But if that “official” party membership list can be changed by the governing body of the party – the Central Committee – then things get very dicey.

As one long-time Republican told UtahPolicy.com: “If you want to ruin, destroy, the Utah Republican Party from the inside, this is exactly how you do it – let some (inside group) decide who can be a member and who can not.”