Layton • A vocal minority of Utah GOP leaders managed Saturday to preserve a possibly illegal bylaw that will boot out of the party any candidates who gather signatures to qualify for the ballot — instead of qualifying only through its traditional caucus-convention system.
That bylaw threatened to knock the party and its candidates off the 2018 ballot for not allowing the dual path to the ballot mandated by state law. Former Party Chairman Rob Anderson avoided that by declaring the bylaw illegal and refusing to oust any candidate. That led conservatives to try to remove him, and he chose not to seek reelection.