Rep. Sylvia Andersen was bounced out of office Saturday by her own GOP delegates, while controversial state Sen. Chris Buttars was given his party's nomination in the Salt Lake County Republican Convention.
There will be no GOP primaries in Salt Lake County Republican legislative races.
While Andersen's defeat at the hands of former Rep. LaVar Christensen may have been a shock to her and her supporters, the big news was the victory by Buttars — who was given up as politically dead earlier this year after a horrible gaff on the floor of the Senate, when he made a remark many considered racist.
Buttars, R-West Jordan, didn't mince words Saturday speaking to the 200 or so Senate District 10 GOP delegates. After surviving first-round balloting, Buttars told the delegates: "I will stand for all the things I stood for" before.
Buttars received 60.2 percent of the second-round of voting — winning the nomination outright by a few votes. Any candidate who gets 60 percent of the delegate vote wins outright, avoiding a late-June primary. Defeated by Buttars in the final round of balloting was Gary Armstrong, who had told delegates they would never be embarrassed by him — a clear reference to Buttars' problems.
Buttars made news in February when in a floor debate over a school bill he said: "This baby is black ... it is a dark ugly thing."
Buttars apologized immediately, but the Salt Lake Chapter of the NAACP still demanded that he resign. Buttars refused, and said he would run for re-election. Buttars defeated three GOP challengers Saturday. Buttars has also criticized gay and lesbian groups and fought against high school clubs for homosexual students.
"We will be campaigning against Buttars for sure," said Jeanetta Williams, president of the Salt Lake NAACP branch, after learning about the convention results Saturday afternoon.
"I think in November there will be a different outcome. People in the district are saying they do not support Buttars," she said. "We are going to make sure people get out there and vote. Buttars does not stand for anything the NAACP stands for."
Utah GOP national committeewoman Nancy Lord, who has opposed "superdelegates" in the party before, said that Buttars avoided a primary because he was an automatic delegate in his own district, so he likely cast the deciding vote.
District 10 delegates were hit with an anonymous mailer Thursday and Friday, criticizing Buttars' actions and saying he couldn't win re-election. Asked by the Deseret News where the mailer could have come from, Buttars said: "This is the same ghost PAC of the national gays — that was an ugly thing to do on Friday when (I) can't reply."
Buttars said the state election office will look into where the mailer came from. The mailer says it was paid for "by Senate District 10 Citizens for Fair Taxation" — but there is no such group registered with the state elections office. The mailer quotes an earlier Deseret News poll of Senate District 10 registered voters that found 67 percent of respondents saying Buttars shouldn't be re-elected; even 54 percent of District 10 Republicans said someone new should serve.
After an anonymous mailer was sent out against some GOP candidates several years ago, the Republican-controlled Legislature made it against the law for any group to send out anonymous political material. All such groups must register with the state before spending money on Utah campaigns.
Buttars will now face Democrat John Rendell in the final election. District 10 is heavily Republican and Rendell will have an uphill fight.
Andersen, a freshman legislator seeking her first re-election, told the Deseret News last week that she thought she had a fair shot at eliminating Christensen Saturday by getting more than 60 percent of the vote. Instead, Christensen got 70 percent, ending Andersen' legislative career. Andersen said Saturday she will support Christensen. But last week she told the newspaper that Christensen wants to return to the House for his own personal political reasons, perhaps running for Utah's new 4th congressional seat in 2012.
Interestingly enough, Andersen had the endorsement of a number of her House and Senate GOP colleagues, including Reps. Steve Urquhart, R-St. George; Becky Lockhart, R-Provo (wife of GOP chairman Stan Lockhart); Lorie Fowlke, R-Orem; Sens. Wayne Niederhauser, R-Sandy; and Curt Bramble, R-Provo; who stood with her during her caucus speech.
Christensen has a combative personality and bumped heads with some of the legislative insiders in his previous state House service. Christensen gave up his House District 48 seat in 2006 to run against U.S. Rep. Jim Matheson, D-Utah, losing that race.
Now Christensen will face former Democratic House member Trish Beck, who held the Sandy seat before Christensen defeated her.
With a convention battle over, Sen. Mike Waddoups, R-Taylorsville, is setting his sights on Senate leadership.
On Saturday, he said he plans on running for Senate president to "swing" the power away from Utah County. He said if he's elected, omnibus bills will be a thing of the past.
"I'm asking for your vote today to send me back so that sort of a bill doesn't happen again," Waddoups said, referring to a a move by legislators this past session to roll a dozen money-linked school bills in SB2, some of which had been voted down earlier in the session, into the schools' $2.5 million budget. "Send me back so I can run to change things as a leader in the Senate."
Delegates also hand-picked their candidates for county races on Saturday.
Salt Lake County Councilmen Michael Jensen and Mark Crockett and newcomer Steve Debry were unopposed at convention, but two Republicans fought to fill outgoing Republican Marv Hendrickson's District 6 seat on the council.
Realtor Max Burdick won the nomination over Robert Warnick, a veteran politician in local politics. Burdick will now face Democrat Roger Harding for the District 6 seat, which stretches through parts of Sandy, Cottonwood Heights and Midvale.
Political rookie Michael Renckert also won the nomination for county mayor. Renckert will face popular Democrat Peter Corroon to run the state's largest county.
Salt Lake County GOP chairman James Evans asked county residents to go to the party's Web site — slcogop.com — to learn the truth about what is happening with Utah Republicans. He said the news media is prejudiced against the Utah Republican Party, giving Democrats good press while trying to harm Republicans.
"We know that the media is not going to give us a fair shake," Evans said.
Contributing: Deborah Bulkeley
E-mail: bbjr@desnews.com; ldethman@desnews.com