Why caucus is the GOAT

I had an experience in 2016 that changed my life. I heard a letter from the First Presidency of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints read over the pulpit in sacrament meeting urging participation in something called the caucus. I had never been to one before, and neither had most of my neighbors. I immediately organized a voter education night as soon as I had found a neighbor who had extensive experience and could bring the rest of us up to speed.

As I attended for the first time, I found it consisted of opportunities to connect with people locally to represent me in deciding who ends up in government offices! A question began to emerge as to why we hold multiple elections each year even for the same office. Have you ever wondered about this? Why do we hold a primary followed by a general election for the same office? It is a very interesting question. I don’t know that many people have though about it, but it might hold a key to restoring our republic.

Time does not allow for me to unpack every lesson I have learn by participating in the caucus for the last 10 years. However, please let me share briefly 10 of the most important lessons I have learned:

1. Delegated elections like the caucus result in better informed voters and better candidate choices for public office. When you attend a caucus meeting, you have direct access to the people you are considering voting for to represent you. You can ask them questions in person, and there is a high likelihood you already know those neighbors. If you are elected as a delegate, You can also ask your questions–again, in person–of the people running for public office. I have done this on dozens of occasions and asked questions at candidate meet and greet events of our current Senator John Curtis, and many state and County elected officials. This is a completely different dynamic from what you get with only primary and general elections, where the only information you can get about a candidate is second hand, through curated press conferences and choreographed debates, filtered through the news media or through the grapevine on social media.
2. Delegated elections are an indispensable check on government overreach. Being able to access and vet candidates directly promotes accountability between the elected and the electorate. Few things make politicians vulnerable to ignoring what you have to say more than treating you just like another number. If they could put a name to a face and know what you stand for, that makes a powerful difference when they are in office. Many times I have phoned my state senator and talked face-to-face with my house representative and they have given me the time of day because they know that my approach is thoughtful and that they are beholden to me and other delegates like me for their tenure in office. My neighbors who want to get the attention of these public officials know they can depend on me to raise the visibility of issues they are concerned about. It is a game changer.
3. Delegated elections are a core principle of constitutional government. The caucus is patterned after the electoral college at the federal level. This is described in Article 2, Section 1 of the United States Constitution and in Federalist Number 68. The advantages of that indirect, republican method of election apply to the caucus as well. Thomas Jefferson referred to the caucus style of self-government as “Ward republics”.
4. The caucus is under attack. Many of those in power in offices of government over us are doing their worst to crater the caucus system from the inside and erode it from the outside. They are doing this because they do not want the accountability or the discernment that the caucus brings. Caucus brings transparency to government. Those who would rather work in the dark do not want that light to shine.
5. Direct primaries are not original to Utah’s electoral mechanisms. The primaries we participate in today were added to Utah’s election systems several decades after Utah became a state. What we call the caucus was the “OG primary”, later displaced from public memory by a popular vote primary. James, Madison and Federalist number 10 highlights the deficiencies of using and all popular vote system, which is why the Constitution implemented different election methods for different offices. Caucus is the last remaining vestige of such diversified election methods.
6. SB54 is a pay-to-play lever to nullify delegate votes. Many Utahans were rightly disturbed when they saw Republican nominees getting edged off the ballot by more left-leaning candidates in state and national races in 2024. This is the effect of Utah’s SB54 signature gathering law by design: it substitutes blue candidates in the place of red ones, thereby disenfranchising the electorate. SB54 triggers the popular vote primary based on signature gathering, which is ordinarily done through paid gatherers. Candidates with deep pockets can therefore spend their way onto the general election ballot without having to persuade any rational voters to join their cause.
7. Constitutional elections were non-partisan. Importantly, the original United States Constitution did not segment the voting population by parties. This is a vital observation and it is necessary to overturn this pattern in order to enable full expression of electoral preference to thwart the designs of dishonest people who misrepresent their positions in order to gain power and authority over us. They use the parties to do it. If you doubt that, again, look at the 2024 elections and the vote laundering that shifted the election from red to blue! How did that magic trick happen? The ability to pool voter preferences across different parties is necessary to prevent our march into oblivion. If this sounds cryptic, please study the words of the founding fathers and Vladimir Lenin’s pamphlet, One Step Forward, Two Steps Backward.
8. The national parties and federal government have been complicit in the erasure of delegated elections. Congress voted in 1913 to ratify the 17th Amendment, which abolished legislative elections for the Senate, thereby erasing the benefits of bicameralism. The national parties have further extorted the states into adopting bound elector laws, which force delegates in the national electoral college to reflect the popular vote in their state, nullifying the delegate vote, and completely erasing the benefits so painstakingly enumerated in Federalist number 68 for the highest office and land. Imagine government officers nullifying your vote! (Actually, you don’t have to imagine it, they’ve done it!)
9. Our state government has made numerous attempts to abolish the caucus. SB54 is just the tip of the iceberg here. Direct primaries were introduced into our electoral system in 1937 by the National Progressive Movement. Utahans opposed this restriction of their liberties so boldly that in 1946, the state was compelled to readmit the caucus, but they still gimped it by gluing the direct primary as a post filter stage onto the caucus, with a threshold of 80% of the delicate vote required to avoid a direct primary.
10. Activism in both major parties can be leveraged collectively by foreign powers to implement the communist dialectic. If this sounds opaque, bear with me. I will refer you again to the writings of the founding fathers on this subject and the known tactics of Communism, which always implements controlled opposition through two-party systems and a pattern of radicalization followed by normalization alternately through the parties. George Washington described this effect in his farewell address, and predicted that it would be the cause of foreign wars and internal dissensions, and the destruction of our nation if we were to allow it. It is worth taking a very serious look into why the Republican majority across both houses in the state of Utah and in the governor’s seat has so predictively and repeatedly resulted in such liberal and Progressive policies over the years. Can anyone account for it other than to admit, honestly, that election methods rather than party labels are the primary determinants of the loyalties of those elected?

If you wish to restore republican government, I implore you to attend caucus tomorrow night, March 17th at 7:00 p.m.

Please go to precinctportal.org to find your caucus location.

I did a live stream a few nights ago on preparing for caucus; you can watch it here.