Republican State Convention

Rise and Shine - We arrived at the Convention at 7:a.m. It was located at the soon to officially be the Utah Valley University in Orem. There were lots of people outside handing out all sorts of stuff, mostly papers, about the different candidates. We went into the McKay Events Center and checked out a few of the booths and then went to get our credentials, in the next building over.

For my district, the first order of business was the Senate 13 caucus at 9:a.m. So after we got our credentials we spent the time checking out the candidates booths, eating, visiting the suites and hospitality rooms, and listening to part of the Military speech at the Shurleff/Leavitt suite.

We got to the Senate Caucus, but the House Caucus that was before was going overtime so we just hung out and chatted with other delegates.

In the Senate Caucus, we got to hear J. Lane Henderson and Mark Madsen. Then after the viewing of empty ballot boxes and some instructions from the Election Judge we were able to place our vote and head over to the main meeting.

The meeting was run by Stan Lockhart. We sat in there according to our county. The first part of the meeting went something like this: welcome, prayer, post the colors, pledge of allegiance, singing of the national anthem, call to order, preliminary credentials report, adoption of rules, Stan's report, awards presentation, pedometer check, resolution to support David Archelletta to win the American Idol, and final credential report (3298 delegates = 95%).

Next we split into our Congressional Districts. We stayed where we were for ours. Here we listened to the candidates running for the U.S. House of Representatives (Stone Fonua, Joe Ferguson, David Leavitt, Jason Chaffetz, and Chris Cannon. We then had to go back up to the level where the candidate booths were and head to the balloting section to place our ballots in the boxes.

After this the general session resumed. We were introduced to the "I can" campaign. We heard from our National Commiteeman, Fred Lampropolous. Then we heard from the candidates running for governor, treasurer, National Committeeman, and National Committeewoman. In there somewhere we received the results of our Senate 13 race. Mark Madsen received 97 votes (70%) and J. Lane Henderson received 41 votes. We also received the results for our first round with the U. S. House of Representatives (Stone 4, Joe 49, David 220, Chris 338, and Jason 469). Then we placed our votes for the state races, national committee people, national delegates, alternate national delegates, and the elector delegates. We also were to place our second round ballots for U. S. House (Stone and Joe were removed from the balloting because they had the fewest votes).

We came back and listened to Senator Bob Bennett, Senator Orrin Hatch, Patty Johnson and Mark Shurtleff. We had an acclamation of candidates. Then we started in with the party business. Starting with the 2 constitution amendments and 1 bylaw amendment. Somewhere in there we were given the results of the ballots. Winners without a primary were: Jon Huntsman, Jr. for governor, Bruce Hough for National Committeeman, and Enid Greene Mickelsen for National Committeewoman. We were told to go to the state website to see all the elected national delegates, alternates and electors. The results of our District's U.S. House race were: David 161, Jason 529, and Chris 356.

We then placed our third round votes for the U.S. House (David was removed because he had the fewest votes). We came back and a motion was made to adjourn the meeting even though we hadn't finished with the party business (9 resolutions and 4 platform changes). Motion was passed and meeting was adjourned.

This is my basic rundown of what happened.