Utah State Senator Michael McKell (R-Spanish Fork) has introduced SB 194. It is an omnibus election law bill, with a provision that changes how vacancies in the legislature are filled. Currently when a legislator does or resigns, that legislator’s party has the right to replace him or her. Recently the Forward Party gained a state legislator in Utah, because a Republican representative had changed his affiliation to show himself a member of the Forward Party. Then, that legislator had resigned, so the Forward Party was permitted to choose his replacement.
Under the bill, the outgoing legislator’s party when he or she left the legislature would not matter. Instead what would matter is the outgoing legislator’s party membership when he or she had last been elected. If this bill had been law earlier this year, the Forward Party could not now have a state legislator.
What fascist duopoly to thwart legislator rights?
What’s fascist about it? The voters voted for party A, so it makes sense if party A gets to replace. What would make even more sense would be if they could immediately replace any legislator, say if they switched parties.
The voters voted for Candidate C.
They did not vote for Peter Perry, Party Puppetmaster to Pick a Pusillanimous Partisan Puppydog.
They voted for a party. I always vote for a party, never for candidates. I don’t pay any attention to individual candidates. Usually, I don’t even know who they are. I’ve heard of a few of them here and there, but not most. Many of the ones I ever even heard of I don’t know enough to know whether I like them better or worse than whoever they are running against. I know they all lie frequently.
I always vote the straight party ticket, and personally I think it would be better if that was the only way to vote with no individual names on the ballot at all. Then there would be no question that the winning party can replace officeholders at will, with or without a vacancy. And it really seems like jumping the gun for them to name their officeholders without even winning an election.
@AP,
Do you recall who you voted for in the 2026 general election?
Heck no. I just recall I’ll be voting Republican and I’m not going to bother looking at the names neither.