SALT LAKE CITY (AP) - Utah lawmakers said that that they won’t interfere with a special election to replace outgoing U.S. Rep. Jason Chaffetz this year. But they believe Gov. Gary Herbert stepped outside of his constitutional role and into the Legislature’s by deciding the election’s timing and process.
Republican and Democratic lawmakers discussed the power struggle Tuesday during unofficial meetings but they didn’t take any action.
Lawmakers contend that Utah’s executive branch can only set the date of an election and it’s the Legislature’s role to decide things like how political parties can pick their nominees and how long candidates have to file.
“I think one the things that was troubling from our perspective was that it seems like the governor was just going ahead without making an attempt to get legislative input,” said Democratic state Rep. Brian King, of Salt Lake City.
The U.S. Constitution and Utah law say that if a U.S. House seat becomes vacant, the governor will call a special election. But the law offers few additional details.
Utah lawmakers considered passing a more detailed law earlier this year but failed to do so before adjourning in March.
Chaffetz, a Republican in Utah’s 3rd Congressional District, made a surprise announcement in April that he wouldn’t run for re-election and a month later announced he’d leave office June 30, citing a desire to be with his family.
Herbert, a Republican, contends that he has the legal authority when calling for an election to spell out the process. His office and state elections director Mark Thomas reiterated that Tuesday.
Legislators said that while they have legal concerns, they won’t interfere because the process to replace Chaffetz is already underway. Democrats picked their candidate at a convention on Saturday, and Republicans will settle on their nominee in a primary election next month.
But Republican House Speaker Greg Hughes, of Draper, and other lawmakers said Tuesday that they worry that if a political party or candidate files a lawsuit, as one newly-formed third-party has threatened, the entire election could be called into question. They also said they worried that Utah law is so vague that even though Chaffetz submitted a letter to the governor saying he intends to resign, it’s not legally binding and he could change his mind.
Legislative leaders say they’ve received no indications that might actually happen and Chaffetz told The Associated Press in a text message Tuesday that he still intends to resign June 30.
Legislators said they didn’t have any plans for how they’d change the law beyond making a resignation letter legally binding. Earlier this year, GOP legislators had considered a plan that would only allow candidates to become nominees by winning the votes of delegates, generally a more conservative group, than by gathering voter signatures and competing in a primary election.
Utah law currently allows both routes for regular elections, something that’s been a long-running dispute within Utah’s GOP between moderates and more conservative members.
Hughes said lawmakers asked Utah Attorney General Sean Reyes for a legal opinion in May about the governor’s powers, but Herbert’s office blocked the opinion from being released.
Herbert’s spokesman, Paul Edwards, said the governor’s office blocked the release by claiming attorney-client privilege because of worries about the potential for lawsuits.
Hughes and other legislative leaders said the attorney general works for them too and they have a right to see the opinion, but didn’t have any immediate plans for their next steps.
Reyes’s spokesman Dan Burton declined to comment.
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