Author: Scat

UTGOP Chair Caught Lying To State Central Committee

At 2:50pm on January 26th, Tyler Moss, a resident in Davis County, sent an email to UTGOP Chairman, Rob Anderson, resigning his seat on the SCC (State Central Committee) due to “a service position in [his] church that will be taking quite a lot of [his] spare time.” A few minutes later he received a call from the Chairman.

There are two conflicting accounts of what happened next:

  • Tyler Moss: “That same day, on January 26, 2018, I received a phone call from Rob asking me to postpone my resignation until later on in February because his wife, Kathleen, would then be able to receive a seat on the SCC. I asked Rob if I needed to submit my resignation to anyone else within the Utah Republican Party (i.e. staff or secretary, etc.), and he told me that he would get in touch with me to handle my resignation. Several weeks later, on February 16, 2018, I received an email from Rob telling me to re-submit my resignation. I asked him if he would handle it or if I needed to send it to anyone else  (i.e. staff or secretary, etc.), and he agreed that he would take care of it, at which point he forwarded my resignation to the staff members of the Utah Republican Party as well as to Teena Horlacher, the Chair of the Davis County Republican Party, on February 16, 2018.” (as told by Tyler Moss in a statement provided to the Davis County Republican Party [DCRP] Chair, Teena Horlacher, upon her following up after the resignation was finally forwarded to her on February 16th)
  • Chairman Rob Anderson: “I’ve never intervened or done anything with respect to Davis County other than accepting the information I have received in a contested replacement in Davis County. Tyler Moss, because of our friendship, which is not close, he emailed me and said, ‘I am going to resign.’ I said, ‘great, call your uh…’ I actually called him on the phone and said, ‘great. Call your uh… call Teena, the county party chair,’ and uh, I hung up. That was the 26th. If you remember the 27th of January was a State Central Committee meeting a discussion that, uh, that their replacement list has my wife was the next one on the list and so that is something that has gone on between my wife and, uh, the Davis County Republican Party and I’m not going to comment on that just based on that’s an ongoing…” (a quote from Chairman Anderson transcribed from a video recorded at the February 24th SCC meeting during an Executive Session that was leaked and posted on the YouTube channel of Daryl Acumen)

Later, Moss made an additional clarifying statement to Horlacher:

  • “The only other thing I’d add to my prior statement is that I felt pressured into following Rob Anderson’s directions, when acting as the Chair of the Utah Republican Party, he called so that I would postpone my resignation and then informed me that he would get back to me when the time was right to do so. This is my very first term being a member on the SCC, and the very first call I received from the UTGOP Chair. The additional pressure and influence stemmed from the fact that, in part, he called me the very same day I submitted my resignation, and within only minutes thereafter. All I wanted to do was to resign from the SCC due to my personal conflicts and other time restraints, and he told me that he, as the Chair of the UTGOP, would let me know when the right time was to do so. He mentioned that his wife was the next one up for my seat, but he did not say anything about Neka Roundy not getting the seat if I were to postpone my resignation. I had no idea of the intentions of Rob’s request, or the ramifications that Rob was attempting to employ. I had no intent of getting into a conflict over my SCC seat. I only want my seat to go to the person who it rightfully belongs. I should also note that I do not have any knowledge of how the selection process goes when a member of the SCC resigns from his or her seat, and thus, I have no opinion as to whether my seat should go to Neka Roundy or Kathleen Anderson.”

Following this revelation, and Moss’s request that his resignation take effect on January 26 (his original resignation date), the seat was offered to Neka Roundy. Roundy was the next eligible person by order of election who was not already a member of the DCRP SCC.

Kathleen Anderson, wife of the UTGOP Chairman, challenged Horlacher’s ruling, making her disdain and frustration public on social media. In one post she writes:

  • “As some of you know, up until Feb 3rd, I was the President of [Utah Federation of Republican Women], which is (was) an auxiliary of the UTGOP. As President, I was also an SCC member. I was informed, tonight, after several email exchanges this week with DCRP Chairwoman, Teena Horlacher, that even though current DCRP SCC member, Tyler Moss, is resigning, she is skipping over me as the next alternate. Although Tyler notified the UTGOP Chair of his resignation on Jan 26th, the correct person to have received notification would have been the DCRP Chairwoman, who he did not contact until February 21st at 2:55pm. Tonight at 10:30pm, Teena contacted Neka Roundy and offered her Tyler’s spot, instead of me, who was next in line pursuant to the delegate vote. I think Teena is acting with a personal vendetta towards me which seems par for the course, to be honest. I’d love a Big Tent ruling. How can anyone have faith in any election when this sort of shenanigans takes place?” (This post was made in a Facebook group titled Utah Big Tent Republican on February 21st at 11:09pm.)

Anderson also made it public that she was filing an Ethics complaint with the DCRP Ethics committee against Chairwoman Horlacher. (At the time of publishing this article the Ethics complaint has not yet been heard by the Davis County Republican Party Executive Committee. When that does take place the Executive Committee will go into a private, Executive Session, to hear the complaint and finding of the Ethics committee. We will update this story as more information becomes available.)

(Video evidence has been received showing the following.)

On February 24th, at a Special SCC meeting held at Entrata in Lehi, the group went into an Executive Session to discuss issues and concerns privately. Video footage was later leaked and posted to the YouTube Channel of Daryl Acumen. We have included audio from a small portion of that meeting at the end of this article. About two minutes after Chairman Rob Anderson made the statement, “I’ve never intervened or done anything with respect to Davis County,” he was addressed by UTGOP Secretary, Lisa Shepherd, who had received a copy of the statement from Mr. Moss, shown above.

She said, “Tyler Moss is an attorney and he said he didn’t want to go that route but he has submitted an email that says that you colluded with him to not fill that seat, to not give the information to Teena, to not forward it to the Secretary, so that your wife could be replaced in that seat at a future time.” Chairman Anderson was then asked a very straight forward question, “Mr Chair, we need to be straight here and to tell the truth. Did you collude with Tyler Moss?”

Utah GOP Chair Rob Anderson say’s: “I did” to colluding

Click Play to Listen:

Click Play to Listen to his Full Response:

Utah Republican Party Chooses Heavy-Hitting D.C. Lawyer Gene Schaerr To Bring SB54 Battle To Supreme Court

The following press release was made today regarding the hiring of Gene Schaerr to represent the Utah Republican Party. Mr. Schaerr will take the reins in the GOP effort to overturn SB54, by filing with the 10th Circuit for an en banc hearing. Pending the outcome of the en banc hearing, if necessary, Mr. Schaerr will also represent the Party in soliciting the U.S. Supreme Court to grant a writ of Certiorari, so the matter will have a chance to be heard by the nation’s highest Court.

Marcus Mumford has done a phenomenal job as Utah GOP counsel, but is not licensed to appear in front of the U.S. Supreme Court. However, his continued strategic involvement in the case is considered crucial to the overall success of the litigation.

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Contact:
Don Guymon
for Constitutional Defense Committee – Utah Republican Party
Phone: 801.574.9461
Email: donguymon@gmail.com

Statement from Utah Republican Party
Constitutional Defense Committee
Attorney Gene Schaerr Agrees to Assist Utah GOP
in Constitutional Challenge to SB 54

Monday April 2, 2018–Salt Lake City, UT.

Don Guymon, spokesperson for the Utah Republican Party Constitutional Defense Committee (“CDC”), released the following.

On Tuesday March 20, 2018 Utah Republicans learned that a split decision by a 3-judge panel of the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals had ruled against the Utah Republican Party’s First Amendment challenge to SB 54, the controversial Utah law, “Count My Vote” (CMV), that dictates how Utah political parties must nominate their candidates for public office.

Media attention has emphasized the Court’s 2-1 decision against the Party. Less attention has been paid to the substance of the decision and to Chief Judge Timothy M. Tymkovich’s remarkable dissenting opinion, which explains how SB 54 and CMV are in direct violation of the First Amendment. He further warned that “this scheme” appears designed to allow outsiders to “hijack the Party’s platform.”

Chief Judge Tymkovich also warns that the new law essentially means an end to local, neighborhood-driven politics in Utah. “In effect, the new procedures transform the Party from a tight-knit community that chooses candidates deliberately to a loosely affiliated collection of individuals who cast votes on a Tuesday in June.”

Contrary to several recent public statements from SB 54/CMV supporters, this challenge is not over. A 2-1 decision, in which a respected Chief Judge, like Judge Tymkovich, writes a thorough and deep dissent, gives the Party a real chance to challenge the result and make sure the Court’s decision is consistent with the U.S. Constitution.

Today, we are pleased announce that renowned constitutional attorney Gene Schaerr has formally agreed to assist the Party by taking the lead in seeking further review of this decision. The Party will soon be filing a petition with the Tenth Circuit asking all current members of the Court, not just the 3-judge panel, to weigh in.

Mr. Schaerr is known for litigating before the United States Supreme Court and several U.S. Circuit Courts of Appeals (including the 10th Circuit). Schaerr earned his law degree from Yale, and bachelor’s degree from Brigham Young University. He previously clerked for United States Supreme Court Chief Justice Warren Burger, and also for prominent Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia. See more on Mr. Schaerr online at Gene Schaerr Bio.

The Utah GOP is seeking what is formally called “en banc review” of the recent 2-1 split decision, because at its core, as Judge Tymkovich points out, SB 54/CMV “violates the First Amendment.” He also wrote, “The background of this case should caution us as to the perils of allowing states to impose procedural changes of this magnitude on unwilling political parties.”

The history of this challenge is worth reviewing. SB 54 was passed by the Utah Legislature during the 2014 session. The Utah Republican Party immediately filed suit and won the first portion of our constitutional challenge, overturning an onerous stipulation requiring the Party to allow non-Republicans to participate in nominating our candidates. While we have not yet prevailed on the current challenge, which seeks to further protect First Amendment freedoms, Judge Tymkovich’s recent support should be heartening to all Constitution-minded Utah citizens. As Judge Tymkovich wrote last week, Count My Vote is a government mandate that “will generate different candidates…among whom are many persons who only nominally associate with the Party. Count My Vote understood that.” Such governmental interference in a private, voluntary association’s selection of its representatives is a flat violation of the First Amendment, as understood by those who wrote and ratified it.

Thanks to the generosity of Party donors, no new Party resources are being spent on this legal challenge, and all prior legal debts related to this legal fight have been resolved. This enables us to keep the principled fight for every Utah citizen’s First Amendment freedoms alive, so that every Utah neighborhood has a real and meaningful voice in Utah politics.

Finally, it has been noted that the Utah Republican Party is deeply divided by this issue. This should come as no surprise. That was the aim of SB 54 and the small group of well-funded Count My Vote supporters. As Chief Judge Tympkovich noted, “this law is likely to cause divisiveness within the Party’s ranks,” and “[f]ueling intra-party strife endangers an association’s very existence[.]”

We call on all well-meaning citizens, including those who may have supported SB 54 and Count My Vote without understanding their First Amendment infirmities, to join with us. The best way we can move beyond the “divisiveness” and “strife” is to repeal or overturn SB 54 and return Utah politics to our neighborhoods and our founding principles.

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