Lyman lawsuit calls for removal of Gov., LG, and demands he be put on ballot

SALT LAKE CITY — A new lawsuit from Republican candidate for governor, Rep. Phil Lyman, R-Blanding, demands both Gov. Spencer Cox and Lt. Gov. Deidre Henderson be removed from office. 

In the suit, Lyman asks that the president of the state senate, currently Stuart Adams, be appointed to serve as governor until January next year.

“He’s claiming that the governor and the lieutenant governor have engaged in what we call ‘malfeasance in office’,” said KSL Legal Analyst Greg Skordas. “He’s sued four individuals — Spencer Cox. And that is to have him removed effectively. Deidre Henderson, lieutenant governor, to have her removed effectively.”

 

The petition, filed with the Utah Supreme Court, also demands Lyman, not Cox, be listed as the official Republican candidate for governor on the general election ballot come November.

The petition also names Robert Axson, the chairman of the Utah Republican Party.

“And the reason he’s sued Axson, is to have Axson ordered to put him on the ballot,” said Skordas. “And he sued the Utah Republican Party for the same reason.”

Lyman represents himself in the lawsuit.

Earlier this year, Lyman won at the Republican Party Convention but lost in the primary to Cox. The Blanding representative wants the primary results set aside; he says the election was conducted improperly.

Lyman filed other lawsuits concerning this election. He sought an unredacted list of those who signed Cox’s ballot petition. Earlier in the election, he also filed a lawsuit to make sure his running mate could get on the ballot.

Gov, Lt. Gov. react to Lyman lawsuit

Rep. Lyman’s attempt to undo a democratic election rather than honor the will of the people is not just sad, but dangerous,” campaign spokesman Matt Lusty said. “It’s the kind of action you see in a banana republic and not the United States of America. Half the candidates in the primary election lost. In our proud American tradition, almost all of them did so with grace and poise. We encourage Mr. Lyman and his camp to do the same.”

“Our campaign also invites Mr. Lyman and his running mate, Natalie Clawson, to accept the election results, stop misleading citizens about Utah’s laws for ballot access (laws that Mr. Lyman voted for), and help unite the Republican Party and its members by supporting the GOP ticket as it moves to a general election against a liberal Democrat opponent.”

“By not doing so, Representative Lyman only demonstrates that his motives are to divide the voters in Utah – especially within the GOP – for selfish gain. This hurts the conservative movement in our state and costs taxpayers money. The Cox-Henderson Administration is committed to continuing to build a prosperous future for all Utahns. This future is bolstered by the conservative principles that Governor Cox and Lieutenant Governor Henderson have embodied during the last three and half years.” — Matt Lusty, Cox-Henderson campaign spokesman

Current Utah Republican Chair reacts to lawsuit

Current Utah Republican Party Chair Robert Axson says Lyman has the right to pursue legal action if he feels wrong.

“That’s part of the American process, and there’s nothing about that that shouldn’t be equally fair for everybody,” Axson said to Jeff Caplan’s Afternoon News. “So, more power to him, but as it pertains to the merits of the case with the party, I think those will quickly be found to be nothing of substance there.”

When asked about Lyman’s claim that the 60% threshold at the GOP convention means he should automatically be on the ballot, Axson deferred to state law.

“The Utah Republican Party has fulfilled all of our obligations under our own party bylaws and rules, as well as complying with state law,” said Axson. “State law requires that we certify the results of our convention.”

“Our convention, April 27, was a Saturday. Two days later by close of business on Monday, I had certified the results,” he continued. “We certified our results in that, as it pertains to the governor’s race. It certified that Phil Lyman was the sole candidate to advance, as a result of his performance at the convention and with delegates. And we did that.”

“There’s no certification process that the party has and no involvement in the primary itself,” Axson said. “And so, that’s where any questions that he may have, or any wrongs that he feels that he has received, under state law, would be between him and state law to be adjudicated by the court. It has nothing to do with the Utah Republican Party.

Simply put, the Utah Republican Party cannot decide whether there is a primary election anymore, according to Axson.

Related: 2024 Utah GOP convention winners struggle in primary election

“That is completely facilitated by state law,” said Axson. “Currently, state law says that the parties can advance candidates to the ballots and onto the primaries where they’re required through our convention and we did that in all of our races. We had some folks that advanced and they did not have any challenges. So they are on to the General Election ballot.

“You have others that were advanced to a primary through the convention, and then you do have some, in the category of where Phil Lyman is, where he was the sole winner at convention and so he was certified by the Utah Republican Party as the person who won our convention. Completely separate from that, state law, SB54, allowed for a signature pass to gain access to a primary election,” Axson said. 

“And so that is completely dictated under state law and I don’t have the ability or the authority to ignore it,” Axson said. “The courts have said as much: That we have to comply with that, that the states get to set election laws — whether we like it or not, whether we agree with it or not. It’s a function of state law. And so this is an issue where, again, I certify my results at convention, but there is no certification process or access process that I provide to the primary.”

Related: Gov. Cox forced into primary at convention, criticizes caucus-convention system

Axson says the Utah Republican Party has complied with its party rules and state law and will comply with any court order that compels the party to do something. 

Axson didn’t directly answer if he agrees with Lyman’s arguments, but told KSL NewsRadio he did not think the Utah GOP’s “inclusion and/or being named as defendants in this case are warranted.”

“I think we have followed through with the rules and the laws as we are required to,” said Axson. 

Axson did not comment on Lyman’s call to remove Cox and Henderson from their current posts.

Current Sen. Todd Weilder reacts

“I’m a little bit gobsmacked at this for a variety of reasons,” said Sen. Todd Weiler, R-Woods Cross, told KSL at Night. “If you read the statute, and I have recently, you can only challenge to say either that there were votes cast for Phil that weren’t counted for him, or that there were votes counted for Spencer Cox that shouldn’t have been counted. So his lawsuit goes like 1,000 miles beyond that. And so I expect for that reason that the Supreme Court will summarily kick this out.”

Weiler says it’ll get kicked out because Lyman didn’t keep the lawsuit within the confines of a true election challenge.

“He’s going way back,” Lyman said. “He wants to overturn Senate Bill 54, which created the signature path back 10 years ago, and that’s already been upheld by the Utah Supreme Court and by the Utah District Court federal court and by the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals and so he’s just like thrown in the whole kitten caboodle.”

“We have, basically, three different court opinions upholding the legitimacy of Senate Bill 54, but Phil Lyman thinks — because he’s a losing candidate — that now he has some type of super special standing where now he can get Senate Bill 54 thrown out,” said Weiler.

Former Republican chair reacts to the lawsuit

Former Utah Republican Party Chair Carson Jorgensen, who ran against Lyman and Cox at the GOP convention, also reacted to the lawsuit.

“There’s nobody that fought harder against coming up with a fix for SB54 than I have,” said Jorgensen to Jeff Caplan’s Afternoon News. “We worked with the legislature extensively, we tried on multiple fronts to come up with the solution and the compromise. I can’t help but think there’s already precedent out there and the judge is just gonna see it, and we’re gonna go on our way — I don’t see this making a difference.”

When asked, Jorgensen told KSL NewsRadio he couldn’t think of other instances of a similar issue happening.

“I can’t think of other instances,” said Jorgensen. “But again, this is kind of for the court to decide. I just think this is the wrong avenue. But is the system broken? One-hundred percent. We have the worst of both worlds right now.”

“Party rules cannot supersede state law,” Jorgensen said. “That’s just the end of it — our rules fall second to state law. We cannot break state laws with our party constitution or a rule.”

Jorgensen says if Lyman is suing for transparency, then he’s all for it. 

“And if this lawsuit was over that and making that information public, yes, I’m all for it,” Jorgensen said. “This game that politicians are playing right now of ‘hide the information’ or that somehow ‘this information is proprietary to the government and it belongs to them’ is absolutely asinine.”

KSL at Night hosts Leah Murray and Taylor Morgan contributed to this article.

Read more: 

• Lyman seeks unredacted list of those who signed Gov. Cox’s ballot petition
• Spencer Cox cruises to win in GOP primary; Phil Lyman says he won’t concede
• Colby Jenkins refiles challenge to state law over mail-in ballot deadline
• Rep. Celeste Maloy talks Republican National Convention, primary election recount