Tribune Editorial: Time for Utah to set the rules for special elections

The special election in the 3rd Congressional District was one of Utah’s biggest stories this year. Voters eventually chose Rep. John Curtis to represent the district, but the race began with the governor and Legislature sparring over procedure.

After former Rep. Jason Chaffetz announced his resignation, the Legislature wanted the governor to call a special session in order to define how the special election would be administered for the vacant House seat.

Utah law provides that when a House seat becomes vacant, the governor “shall issue a proclamation calling an election to fill the vacancy.” The United States Constitution requires this framework. But federal and state law do not go further to provide rules about how the state should administer that special election. And when a vacancy is created outside of the typical election cycle, the dates and rules provided by law do not match up.

Under Utah law, only the governor has the right to call a special session, and he did not call one in May. Instead, the state Elections Office unilaterally set a timeline and applicable rules for the special election. The Legislature complained that the executive branch was making law.

The governor was reticent to call the special session because the Legislature had indicated it would create a process that would bypass the signature gathering aspect of new election law and allow political parties to fill vacancies via the convention route only.

At the time, we agreed with Gov. Gary Herbert’s decision to set the abbreviated timeline. The Legislature was responsible for the incomplete election law in the first place, and the governor’s timeline did not sacrifice the integrity of the process. Most importantly, the governor’s plan protected the Legislature’s own election law creation of convention and signature paths to the ballot.

Calling a special session to tweak election law when the election had already begun, essentially, would have been a mistake.

But now, the Legislature wants to fix the law during the upcoming general legislative session. And that is its right. Reps. Dan McCay and Jeremy Peterson have opened bill files that lack specific details about how to fill a House seat, but do make clear that the executive branch cannot set an election calendar that does not match up with existing code.

Of course, to become law, the governor would have to sign such a bill. The struggle for power over vacant political seats is not over.