Utah Republican Party Chairman Rob Anderson said Wednesday he is ending the party’s expensive, divisive lawsuit challenging the state’s new election law, SB54.
That brought howls from the party’s right wing — which says it may now try to oust Anderson. It hoped the suit would force a return to the old caucus-convention system, in which a few delegates may choose a party’s nominee.
SB54 allows candidates to qualify for a primary election by collecting signatures, by going through the caucus-convention system or both. The right wing says that dilutes delegate power. Moderates say the old system gave too much power to right-wing extremists and led to nominees outside the mainstream of politics.