Was Todd Weiler’s creepy voicemail an extortion attempt, or just one gigantic mis-understanding?

What is Extortion?

Utah Criminal Code Section 76-6-406 shows that extortion occurs when an official takes action against someone in an attempt to exercise control over his or her property. So in order to know if Todd Weiler extorted Entrata owner Dave Bateman, we need to know what his motive was in leaving the voicemail included above. If Todd Weiler’s voicemail was politically motivated, this is a clear-cut case of extortion.

Todd Weiler’s Motive

Why would Senator Todd Weiler want to extort David Bateman for political reasons? First, watch the video to the right to learn that Weiler is an outspoken proponent of SB54, a law that forced the Republican Party to permit candidates to gather signatures to access the primary ballot, and bypass GOP Convention.

In fact, Weiler was such a huge proponent of SB54 that he was publicly accused of telling donors not to donate to the GOP by former GOP Chairman James Evans. Why would he tell donors not to donate? Because if the Party has no funding, the Party can’t litigate the SB54 lawsuit. Minutes from GOP State Central Committee meeting from November 21, 2015 show that Weiler was aggressively seeking to end the SB54 litigation, and was scaring off donors. The minutes read:

“Senator Todd Weiler has been harming the party’s fundraising efforts. He has stated that general funds that the party raises are going towards the lawsuit, despite the party having been abundantly clear that this is not true: funds that go toward the lawsuit are completely separate from general funds . . . We most certainly do NOT have a budget shortfall due to the lawsuit as Senator Weiler has claimed.”

Ok, so Todd Weiler clearly had a motive to attack a donor who stepped forward to fund the SB54 litigation. If he could scare off Bateman and his contributions by attacking him politically, perhaps he could keep the SB54 suit from being funded.

How Did Dave Bateman end up in Weiler’s Cross Hairs?

On November 1, 2017, Utah GOP Chairman Rob Anderson announced he would unilaterally drop the SB54 lawsuit just 45 days after the State Central Committee voted to continue the lawsuit, and after Anderson campaigned for Chairman promising State Delegates that he was “not A Count My Vote candidate”. Anderson’s unilateral move was made just a month and a half after a motion failed during the September 9, 2017 State Central Committee Meeting to drop the suit.

Keep in mind that Todd Weiler became close personal friends with Chairman Anderson’s wife while they were in college. Many report that Chairman Anderson entered politics at the behest of Todd Weiler, and that Anderson may actually be doing Weiler’s bidding in his role as Chairman.

Dave Bateman learned about Chairman Anderson’s attempts to unilaterally drop the SB54 lawsuit, citing a financial motive. The financial motive stated by Anderson was laughable to Bateman, because the Party wouldn’t incur another dime of legal cost while waiting for the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals to rule on the case.

A win from the 10th circuit meant that all the GOP’s litigation costs would have to be reimbursed by the State. Bateman compares the situation to a lottery ticket. The ticket had been purchased. “Rob Anderson wanted to toss the ticket in the trash without scratching off the sliver cover to find out if we won.” says Bateman. Knowing Anderson’s motives weren’t pure, he stepped up and offered to (a) pay the litigation costs going forward, and (b) attempt to settle the bank debt owed by the Party to its attorneys (which he has since done).

Bailing out the Party from its legal debts, unwittingly placed Bateman in the cross hairs of Utah Senator Todd Weiler, who was attempting to block funding to the Party.

Weiler Attack on Bateman Begins Just A Week or Two After Bateman Announces Intention of Donating

Within just a week or two of Dave Bateman offering to pay for the Party’s legal debt, Weiler’s attack kicks into high gear. Weiler invites a woman who works for Bateman’s company to join him at the Buckshot Caucus Suite at a local Jazz game. The woman invited by Weiler is a manager at Entrata, who Bateman’s ex-girlfriend reported to. Weiler knew her because his son baptized the woman on his mission some years earlier. The woman who Weiler tried to use to carry out his extortion attempt, said the following regarding the encounter with Weiler at the Jazz suit:

This audio clip dispels the false statements Weiler made to the Police and in the media. Weiler’s attempt to harm Bateman were unquestionably motivated by Bateman’s donation to the Utah GOP. This audio provided to the police shows the following:

• Weiler’s family friend at the Buckshot Caucus Suite at a Jazz game was questioned aggressively about Bateman. She told Todd Weiler at the game that once Bateman and his girlfriend broke up, Bateman’s girlfriend was moved to a different team. That’s when the lightbulb went off for Weiler that maybe he could use both these women to initiate a legal attack against Bateman.
• Weiler tried to initiate communication with Bateman’s ex-girlfriend to convince her to bring allegations against him. Bateman’s ex-girlfriend reported to police that she was not looking for an attorney, nor did she ever even respond to Weiler’s $1,000,000 offer. Instead she warned Bateman that political figures in Utah were trying to do him harm and get her to sue him.
• Weiler’s family friend was urging Bateman’s ex-girlfriend to change her behavior and not go on a trip with him, otherwise she wouldn’t get her million dollars.
• Weiler’s family friend told Weiler that “They are in a good place”, yet Weiler tried to encourage the fraudulent lawsuit anyway.
• Weiler’s family friend refers to Weiler’s questioning at the Jazz game as “Hungry Attorneys”.

Weiler Makes False Statements To The Media About Extortion Attempt, Further Maligning Bateman

Weiler Lie #1: When Bateman released the voicemail recording of Weiler’s extortion attempt to the media, Weiler jumped into high gear to smear and paint Bateman in a false light. His first lie is telling the media that Bateman went to the home of Weiler’s family friend at 2 am in the morning and demanded her phone. Listen to Weiler’s false allegation on the Rod Arquette Show:

However, Bateman has produced a text message to the right shows that Weiler’s family friend actually sent Bateman a text message containing the voice mail at 12:56 am, and has notified this to the police. Bateman never visited her home uninvited as Weiler claimed, and he never demanded she hand over her phone.

Weiler Lies #2 & #3: Weiler claims on the Rod Arquette show “I didn’t just happen to run into someone. A close family friend sought me out in January for legal advice because her co-worker was searching for an attorney to file a sexual harassment case against Dave Bateman.“

After Weiler says the woman reached out to him, he admits that he actually invited her to the Buckshot Caucus Suite at a Utah Jazz Game.

These audio clips demonstrate the following:

• First, Bateman’s ex girlfriend confirmed to police that she was NOT looking for an attorney, and she never had any intention of filing a sexual harassment claim against Bateman.
• Second, Weiler’s close family friend confirmed that during her first conversation with Weiler on the subject she told Weiler “They are in a good place” and even referred to Weiler and his associates as “Hungry Attorneys”.
• Third, Weiler himself admitted inviting this woman to the Buckshot Caucus suite on January 20, 2018, but has the audacity to state that she “sought him out” to help a co-worker.
• Fourth, Weiler was baiting the ex girlfriend with a million dollars to alter her behavior and not go on a trip with Bateman, even though the woman refused to talk to Weiler even a single time.

Weiler Lie #4: Weiler went on to make further false attacks on Mr. Bateman’s character. He wrote to Utah Policy, “I have never met Mr. Bateman. A family friend of mine who works for Entrata told several other people and me at a social event on January 20 that Dave Bateman had had an affair with one of her co-workers. When the affair ended, her co-worker’s job hours and duties were changed.”

First, Bateman claims to have over 100 witnesses that he met his ex girlfriend at Lake Powell over Memorial Day in 2017, months after his divorce was finalized, and years after his initial separation. Second, Bateman and his ex-girlfriend were dating exclusively long before she ever came to work for Entrata.

If Weiler really was providing legal advice to someone looking for it, client-attorney confidentiality requirements would never allow him to go public like he has with these ridiculous and false allegations about the very woman Weiler is purporting to be protecting. These public statements are evidence that no one ever sought him out or engaged him to help with legal representation.

Weiler then includes in his comments to Utah Policy “I am troubled that Mr. Bateman would release a voice message that confirms he was traveling to Europe with a subordinate as it does not reflect well on Entrata, Mr. Bateman or the woman involved. It could also open up claims of other employees who are not treated the same at work as this woman.” In typical Weiler fashion, not only does Weiler continue to lie about Bateman, but he also makes a call to investors at Entrata to go after Bateman, as well petitions other women at Entrata to make contrived allegations. The evidence is overwhelming that Weiler was attempting to use these women to make a political attack on Bateman, not to help them as Weiler suggests.

Here are Bateman’s comments about what took place on the Rod Arquette show:

Other People Weiler Harassed Start To Come Forward

Campaign Manager Reports Weiler’s Attacks On Female Political Opponents

When the news about Todd Weiler broke, people started coming out of the woodwork to report other political attacks Weiler has made against them. The first was a campaign manager right on Rod Arquette’s show, who had witnessed first hand “the deceitful and manipulative ways” Todd Weiler uses to win his campaigns, including attacks based on women’s gender. Weiler’s tactics resulted in this campaign manager calling Weiler a “liar to his face.”

Old Roommate of Weiler’s Calls Weiler a Thief, Creeper, & Scumbag

A former BYU roommate of Todd Weiler stepped forward and shared the following statement:

“I know you don’t know me, but I have been following you. I am a disenchanted Republican disgusted with the Utah Republican Party. Todd Weiler is a nasty human being. We roomed together at BYU with a mutual friend. This was about 1989-1990. No one likes him. He did weird stuff and was [a] thief. I was the poorest guy in the apartment (his family had money from back east), and he constantly stole my food. My female friends thought he was a creeper. One weird dude. Good luck to you man. He is a scum bag.”

Former Female Student Reports Weiler Made Rude Comments About Her Physique

A former associate of Weiler’s reached out and reported that he yelled extremely offensive and demeaning comments about the woman’s physique inside a crowded cafeteria. Compare this report with Weiler’s claim that his motivation for encouraging a woman to sue me was because he has “zero tolerance for that type of behavior [sexual harassment] in the work place.”

Former Political Opponent Reports Weiler Attacked Her As a Mother

A former female who challenged Weiler for his Senate seat some years ago reported the following:

• Weiler spread rumors that the woman was neglecting her children because they helped her with her campaign while going door to door to meet neighbors
• Weiler started a whisper campaign against her, saying she was crazy, home schooled her kids, was against public school, and even accused her of having an eating disorder
• Weiler approached the woman’s high-school age daughter and made her feel uncomfortable while backstage at the State Convention.
• Weiler contacted the parents of her kids’ soccer team to make negative comments about her.
• Weiler made contact with her estranged sister who lived in another state, presumably to harass her and dig up dirt on her.
• Weiler’s friend warned her that Weiler had the money and influence to bring down her life.
• Weiler trashed her name so bad that she believes she could never run for any office in Utah again.
• Reported that Weiler and Carrie Dickson collaborated to cheat at Convention to keep her from winning (she lost by one vote).
• Other Buckshot Caucus members posted nasty things about her online.

Weiler Creates a Surreptitious Online Identity to Troll Mike Lee, Female Republicans, and Others

During the 2010 election cycle, Todd Weiler admitted to creating a fake online profile, called “GOP Hack” to say nasty things about candidates in the 2010 election cycle. His primary target was Senator Mike Lee, but others were attacked by him.

Weiler Commits Illegal Acts By Leaking Classified Government Documents To Attack Jonathan Johnson During Gubernatorial Campaign

During the 2016 election cycle, Todd Weiler posted the following document into multiple Facebook groups to attack Johnathan Johnson in his race against Governor Herbert. The only difference is Weiler didn’t take time to scrub out the last four digits of Jonathan Johnson’s social security number, or his date of birth. Weiler was trying to insinuate that Johnson wasn’t really a Republican because he forgot to check “Republican” on his driver’s license application (or voter registration card).

Apparently releasing this voter registration data is a class B misdemeanor (Utah Code 20A-2-104-4-A-VI-D&E), not to mention a violation of privacy and criminal laws that prevent the disclosure of classified government documents. Police confirmed the only place the document could have been obtained was either from (a) The County Clerk’s office or (b) Spencer Cox’s Office (Herbert’s Running Mate, and fellow Buckshot Caucus Member). What penalty did Weiler receive for releasing this information? Zero, zilch, nada. After confirming the document was indeed a classified government document, the investigation was closed, no questions asked. Apparently if you’re in the Utah Senate, criminal laws don’t apply to you.

Given Weiler’s history of political attacks against people, do you really think his attempt to get Bateman’s ex-girlfriend to make sexual harassment allegations against him were anything but politically motivated? If you believe Weiler’s motive was political, the Lehi Police disagree with you and found “no evidence of extortion whatsoever”, much like in the case with Jonathan Johnson.

We were all in disbelief when Utah GOP Chairman & Buckshot Caucus Member Rob Anderson revealed his intention to bankrupt the Party. Many suspect it was to create a new Party under the name “Republican Party of Utah” registered by CEO Taylor Morgan of Count My Vote. Despite Rob Anderson “fighting [him] at every step”, Dave Bateman stepped forward and eliminated over $400,000 of Party debt to keep the Party solvent and out of bankruptcy. This angered the Buckshot Caucus members who were squarely advocating for the death of the Caucus-Convention System.

Within 10 days of Bateman’s agreement to pay off the Party’s debt, Rob Anderson’s close friend, Senator Todd Weiler attempted to contact Bateman’s Ex-Girlfriend promising her $1,000,000 if she would bring sexual harassment claims against him. She was appalled and refused to even talk to him. Listen to the voice mail he left in an attempt to seduce this woman into participating in the scheme. The police briefly opened an investigation, and quickly closed it, stating their was no extortion even though there is a mountain of evidence to the contrary. Senator Weiler must have a lot of “very well connected friends”.

Plan B… Dissolve the State Central Committee With New Governing Documents At Convention

Now that Anderson’s intentions of bankrupting the Party “looks unacceptable” because Bateman paid off the debt, Anderson might be moving to Plan B—to sneak a new Constitution and Bylaws in front of the State Delegates at the nominating Convention on April 21st. If he tries it, delegates need to be informed and ready to vote “No”.

Anderson Says He Might “Introduce an Entirely New Constitution and Bylaws” at Convention

In his message to the left, Anderson first expresses his plan to shut down discussion and productivity in State Central Committee Meetings, which he has done. On December 16, 2017, Anderson made robocalls, emails, messages, and Facebook posts to tell members of the State Central Committee and told a special State-Central Committee meeting was cancelled when it was not, and was properly held, recognized, and ratified.

On February 24, 2018, when the road conditions were more than acceptable, Anderson encouraged members of the State Central Committee to stay home and not attend. He promised to excuse absences of those who did not attend, and in so doing, violated Party bylaws which grant him no such authority. Anderson also scheduled facilities for State Central Committee meetings at venues with hard-stop time constraints preventing important party business from being conducted. A bylaw proposal has even been submitted making it nearly impossible to ever again call a special meeting without the Chairman’s support.

Second, Chairman Anderson wrote “We might try to introduce a entirely new [Constitution & Bylaws] for vote at the nominating convention.” Wow, scary, but there’s more.

Chairman Anderson Is Denying Access of Bylaw and Constitution Amendment Proposals To Delegates & the Constitution & Bylaws Committee

The deadline to submit new Constitution and Bylaw amendment proposals was last Thursday, March 22, 2018 at 5pm. It was reported publicly that access to amendment proposals was revoked from the Chair of the C&B Committee, Janice Legler, just hours before the deadline preventing her from seeing any final submissions. As of this morning, despite repeated requests, all members of the C&B Committee are still being denied access to the Amendment submissions with the Convention just weeks away. Even if there is no nefarious plan to swap the C&B, the C&B Committee and delegates need time to adequately vet amendment submissions. Whichever way you cut it, withholding the proposals is harming the Party.

A State Central Committee member reported that Rob Anderson wanted to sneak through a wholesale change of the Constitution and Bylaws while serving as Chair of the Davis County Party a couple of years ago, increasing the likelihood that he might be planning this tactic.

Anderson Conducts a Witch Hunt Over “Immaterial” Formatting Changes of Bylaws

Ready for things to get wacky? On January 4, 2018 Rob Anderson sent an email to State Central Committee Members announcing a witch hunt into Party Secretary Lisa Shepherd, claiming she’d made unauthorized changes to Party bylaws. Here’s the investigation summary. Of course the C&B Committee was never asked to participate in this secret investigation carried out by Anderson. Anderson even engaged an outside legal firm (Snell and Wilmer) without approval from the SCC or the C&B Committee to conduct the expensive secret investigation.

The investigation resulted in the finding that although Lisa Shepherd “asked [Chairman] Mr. Evans if she could make changes in the formatting and capitalization”, and was given permission, “Ms. Shepherd’s changes to the Bylaws, albeit immaterial were not within her purview as Secretary.”

Why would Chairman Anderson conduct an expensive third party legal review of Ms. Shepherd’s “immaterial” changes and smear her to the entire State Central Committee for trying to do her job well? Why not just revert the changes, and push the formatting changes through in a proposal at the Convention? Perhaps his goal was to smear Secretary Shepherd at Convention like he did to the State Central Committee. Or Maybe the Chairman’s goal was to create some case to use these “immaterial” modifications to seed doubt among the State Delegates that the Bylaws weren’t legitimate. That might just lay the foundation for a quick, unexpected, vote to completely replace the governing documents at Convention with a version delegates don’t have time to vet. Maybe, just maybe, that new version would eliminate a State Central Committee?

Also included in Snell & Wilmer’s report on the matter, Rob Anderson’s own attorney Stewart Peay drew the conclusion: “The State Party Constitution nor the Bylaws grant to the State Party Secretary nor the State Party Chairman the unilateral authority to change the Bylaws, including changes limited to formatting and capitalization.” This finding of Anderson’s own attorney makes the following all the more paradoxical:

Anderson Fraudulently Modifies Bylaws & Sumbits Counterfeit Version to Lieutenant Governor Cox’s Office

Following the February 24, 2018 State Central Committee Meeting where the membership forfeiture bylaw was passed by a super majority of the members present, the Chair of the C&B Committee and Secretary Lisa Shepherd signed, certified, and published the new bylaws to the party website. The certified Bylaws were sent to the Lieutenant Governor’s office. Subsequently, Chairman Anderson downloaded the Bylaws, removed the certified signatures from the document, and proceeded to manually alter and modify the document. He removed the membership-forfeiture bylaw from the document, as well making other small formatting changes. Click here and scroll to page 11 to see the changes Rob Anderson unilaterally made to the certified bylaws published to the Party website, with zero authorization from delegates or the State Central Committee.

Anderson then sent the fraudulent and counterfeit version of the Bylaws to the Lieutenant Governor Cox’s Office (also a Buckshot Caucus member), who incredulously accepted them, and ignored the certified Party bylaws he had received earlier. Anderson did all this after his witch hunt into Secretary Shepherd wherein he publicly chastised her for making simple formatting changes to governing documents.”

Anderson Has No Problem Deceiving Delegates

Hopefully we’re all interpreting this wrong, and Anderson abandoned has plan to dupe delegates into ratifying fraudulent versions of the Constitution and Bylaws during the Convention; however, this is no time for complacency. We were all deceived last Convention when Anderson called people “fear mongers” who accused him of being the Count My Vote candidate. Fool me once, shame on you…. You know the rest.

Anderson Demands Buckshot Caucus Elites Run The Convention

Perhaps its coincidence that Rob Anderson threatened the GOP Executive Committee (according to members present) that he would cancel the Convention if Buckshot Godfather Kurt Bramble wasn’t in charge of credentialing, and Buckshot Member Accused of Extortion — Senator Todd Weiler wasn’t in charge of the Rules Committee. The Committee negotiated with Anderson to drop Weiler, but keep Bramble on the credentialing committee.

Former Legislator Warns That Two Buckshot Members Will Attempt to Swap Out Constitution & Bylaws

It’s probably also worth mentioning that State Central Committee member Don Guymon posted in a public forum that Matt Throckmorton, former C&B Chair and State Legislator, had heard that two prominent members of Buckshot Caucus were attempting to covertly substitute new Constitution and Bylaws during the Convention this year.

On March 26, 2018, Rob Anderson was interviewed by Kurt Manwaring who later published the interview, quoting Anderson who referred to the delegates, the SCC, and Republicans who oppose him as children who “lobby, plead, cry, beg, [& throw] temper-tantrums”. Anderson thinks he’s the parent and makes the Rules. I hope all of us are bold enough to kick and scream, until Anderson starts respecting delegates, State-Central committee members, our governing documents, and all Utah Republicans. He thinks he’s big Poppa and gets to make the rules. If he tries to pull off the Constitution & Bylaw Changeroo on April 21st, let’s be ready to show him “who’s daddy”.

My name is Dave Bateman. I’m the CEO of Entrata—a local software company I started while at BYU 15 years ago. I’ve never been very political, but advocates of the Caucus System reached out to me a few months ago and asked me for my financial support to protect the GOP from bankruptcy, and to help preserve Utah’s Caucus System. I’m happy to report that I negotiated down, and just paid off the last portion of the GOP’s $400,000 in legal debts last night, leaving the Party on firm footing financially. That’s not why I’m emailing.

I believe Count My Vote’s signature-gathering path will cause generational harm and corruption to Utah’s political environment. I’m emailing you to share a small glimpse of the corruption already occurring, which is what we can expect for generations in Utah if Count My Vote succeeds.

Distributing and Distorting My Private Divorce Court Documents

Because I bailed out the Party, those advocating for Count My Vote have come after me and my family aggressively. I went through a difficult divorce a couple of years ago, which my family is still fighting to recover from. Mysteriously, my “private” court divorce documents were somehow flagged as “public”, which only a Judge or Court clerk can do. Subsequently, a man named Daryl Acumen (who is a strong advocate of Count My Vote and appears to be a close confidant of GOP Chairman Rob Anderson) somehow obtained my private divorce court documents. The documents contain confidential information about my children and my finances, and sent them to a reporter named Ed Wallace. Despite sending a cease and desist letter reminding Daryl Acumen that distribution of these private documents is illegal in Utah, he continues to publish distorted information from the documents online.

Soliciting My Employees to Falsely Accuse Me of Sexual Harassment

Count My Vote advocates have formed a group called “Buckshot Caucus”, of which GOP Chairman Rob Anderson, Rep. Mike Mckell, Senator Kurt Bramble, Lieutenant Governor Spencer Cox, and Senator Todd Weiler are members, among other prominent political figures in Utah. The group recently reserved a suite at a Jazz game and a member invited one of my employees to attend. My employee was approached in the suite by someone who was later described to me as a “political attorney”. The attorney asked her to participate in a scheme to solicit an employee of my company into making false sexual harassment claims against me. In return, the attorney allegedly promised the person who made the fraudulent claim a million dollars. I’m so thankful both employees who were solicited refused to go along with the dastardly plot and came forward to warn me.

Members of the SCC are Being Attacked

The media is in bed with Count My Vote because they will make millions from primary-election advertising if Count My Vote succeeds. The media is mischaracterizing those pushing to restore the Caucus-Convention System as a small group of fringe extremists. The legislature passed SB54 to protect their own incumbencies and ensure their re-election. Does it not seem sketchy to anyone that the State legislature decided to change the rules on how they themselves get elected? Yet the legislature who created this disaster joins in on mocking the State Central Committee for protecting their first amendment rights. Now, I can admit this video is kind of funny. What’s not funny is they ended the legislative session early, and didn’t have time to vote on a bill to protect QPP status for Republican candidates before adjourning; however, they had time to make this video and have a party to celebrate the conclusion of the session.

The legislature, just like the media has been pushing an absolutely false narrative. I’ve contacted 140 of the approximately 170 members of the SCC. 101 of those 140 SCC members reported they are in favor of a single-path Caucus-Convention System. Every vote taken to attempt to restore the Caucus-Convention System passes with a super majority of support, whether it’s an emergency meeting or a special meeting. 120 out of 128 SCC members voted overwhelmingly in November to continue the SB54 litigation. 73.9% of 850 delegates who answered a survey I conducted want a single-path Caucus-Convention System. 80.9% of 1,000 2016 Caucus Attendees surveyed are also in favor of a single-path Caucus-Convention System.

A member of the State Central Committee reported after the February 24 SCC meeting that his job was threatened if he continued to fight to save the Caucus-Convention System. Members of the SCC who voted on February 24 for the new bylaw have also been subject to electronic communications harassment. Count-My-Vote-affiliate Daryl Acumen has set up a process to bombard State Central Committee members’ email accounts with so many emails that they haven’t been able to communicate effectively during the weeks leading up to Caucus night. Acumen has spread lies all throughout the Utah GOP membership about actions recently taken in the meeting. During this same meeting, Chairman Anderson called for a closed-door Executive Session, wherein no recordings are permitted, nor are members allowed to even share the contents of the discussion outside the meeting. However, Chairman Anderson’s Assistant Executive Director Peter Simonsen secretly recorded the meeting from the Chairman’s lectern while he was standing there. The video was subsequently leaked to Daryl Acumen for use in his harassment of SCC members.

Why the SCC Made the Bylaw Change

The recent bylaw change was necessary to effectively litigate SB54. The Party bylaws have never allowed candidates to gather signatures. However, the existing bylaw needed an enforcement mechanism or it was meaningless. A bylaw change was made so candidates who violated the bylaws, after signing an agreement not to, would forfeit their membership until one day after the general election. Party attorneys cannot litigate against the encroachment of SB54 effectively without this. Moreover, any organization has the right to 1) define their rules and processes, and 2) to define them—especially a political organization.

Count My Vote is terrified of this new bylaw, because it is SB54’s death knell. News articles were run to suggest the change would somehow interfere with Mitt Romney’s campaign, which is patently untrue. While the new bylaw was bold, it was only implemented in the 1st and 2nd congressional districts in 2018. These districts were chosen because no one had yet declared intent to gather signatures during this election cycle. Unlike the false rhetoric from Chairman Anderson, the bylaw was implemented carefully to not bring harm to candidates, or change the rules on anyone mid cycle.

Rob Anderson Unilaterally Edits Party Bylaws Himself, and Submits to the LG Office as the Official Party Bylaws

After a super majority of State Central Committee members on February 24th voted to implement this new bylaw change, the Party’s Constitution and Bylaw’s Committee Janice Legler certified and signed the new bylaws. Officer Lisa Shepherd did also, and emailed the bylaws to the Lieutenant Governor’s office, as the Party is required to do by law. The new certified bylaws were published to the Party website utah.gop. This is where things start to get weird–and I mean weird.

The LG’s office refuses to accept the bylaws from anyone besides Rob Anderson, stating “We will need to receive these bylaws from him.” No one in the Party ever remembers the LG’s office refusing to accept bylaw changes from the Party secretary.

Outrageously, Chairman Anderson edits the certified party bylaws himself and submits a fraudulent and uncertified copy of the bylaws to the LG’s office omitting the new bylaw passed by a super majority of the SCC. See Anderson’s edits here Brazenly, Anderson apparently also made edits to elements of the bylaws changed as far back as 2015. The Chair clearly does this in an attempt to thwart the Party’s attempts to litigate SB54.

While the LG is in Buckshot Caucus, to be fair, the referenced correspondence was with Justin Lee, the Director of Elections, not Spencer Cox.

Chairman Anderson Breeches Contract with Me

Chairman Anderson committed to me that if I paid hundreds of thousands to support the Party, he would not interfere with the SCC’s efforts to litigate SB54. He deceived me just like he deceived the delegates at Convention last May when he promised them “I am not the Count My Vote candidate.” Chairman Anderson fought me at every step from paying off the debt, but finally signed the agreement. Then he brazenly breaches his contract with me in every way conceivable—even breaking State Law by creating and transmitting counterfeit bylaws to the LG’s office. Here is the language from the contract Rob Anderson personally signed with me:
“No UTGOP officer, committee, or employee shall, without express direction from the SCC, move to dismiss any part of the Litigation or act in any way to delay, impede, circumvent or limit the Litigation or other efforts to repeal and/or overturn SB54.”

We Cannot Tolerate These Actions, We Must Come Together & Fight This
Please consider running to become a County delegate this year if you’re a proponent of the Caucus-Convention System. County delegates selected this year will vote to elect a new State Central Committee next year. We have to get organized or we will lose this fight. Please visit KeepMyVoice.org to volunteer to be part of the coalition to preserve and protect the Utah GOP’s First Amendment Rights.