On Thursday, March 27th, I received this mailer from the Utah State Republican Party.
It contained a flier and a second small leaflet announcing “the Return of The Fabulous Five”,
and the donation instructions for The Fabulous Five PAC (below).
The flier says these five Republican members of the House of Representatives who joined the Utah Legislature in 2007 “will be at the forefront of a battle to retain their seats from others whose agendas call for more government intrusion, higher taxes and restricted freedoms.”
The “Fabulous Five” is comprised of (in order of their appearance on the flier):
It also says “Your attendance is sought at a special fundraiser to benefit the re-election of these patriotic and freedom loving men to office.” You can read the rest of the flier in the image above.
This mailer has raised concerns and has become visible in the press. The Deseret News ran an article on Saturday in the Utah County Edition entitled GOP flier raising a ruckus. The Salt Lake Tribune’s Political Writers’ Blog also posted about the topic on Sunday under the entry Trouble in paradise.
At issue is whether or not the State Republican Party violated the Party Officer Neutrality clause (7.2) of the Utah Republican Party Bylaws by sending it out and paying for the postage when four of the “Fabulous Five” are opposed for the nomination by candidates from within the Republican Party. Specifically:
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Jared Sepulveda (jws66m@yahoo.com) is running for the Republican nomination against Sumsion in District 56
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Lisa Shepherd (lisamshepherd@aol.com) is running for the Republican nomination against Grover in District 61
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David Starling (no web site or e-mail address listed) is running for the Republican nomination against Herrod in District 62
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Paul Newton (pnewton@backmantitle.com) is running for the Republican nomination against Sandstrom in District 58
I have not been able to located web sites for any of these candidates, and will amend this post to include them if they exist.
For your convenience I have included the Party Officer Neutrality clause of Bylaws below:
7.2 PARTY OFFICER NEUTRALITY
A. State Party officers, National Committee members, and paid staff shall assist and provide, without discrimination or restriction, equal access to Party information and services within their responsibility to all Republican candidates.
B. State Party Officers, National Committee members, and paid staff shall not publicly endorse or oppose any Republican candidate for partisan public office in Utah while the candidate is opposed by another Republican candidate for the same office.
How would you make the call?
With the disclaimer that I am not a lawyer, I wonder if a mailing label that says “Postage Paid by the UT State Republican Party” and a flier that says “Paid for by the Utah Republican Party” and calls for attendance at a fundraiser at a minimum constitutes a tacit public endorsement of candidates opposed by other Republicans. If so, someone in the Party made a mistake by doing this.
As a Party, I believe we all need to play by the same rules. What do you think? Please comment, and if you’re a Republican (or not) please let the Party know.
The excuse given by a party spokesman was that this mailing was supposed to go out before the filing deadline – before there would be any challengers – but that the party staff were too busy to send it out ontime.
That sounds like a pretty lame excuse. At this point I think the party should be throwing a fundraiser and funding a mailing for the Republican challengers to these “Fabulous Five” – level the playing field by giving them some free advertising – maybe they could put out a mailing adding the the “ferocious four” to the fab five at the current fundraiser and split the money 9 ways (equally).
Maybe if we had two viable parties here in Utah (especially Utah County) the Republican party activists would not have so much time to hand-pick their candidates.