PRESS RELEASE

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Oct 22, 2024

Lyman Files Appeal to U.S. Supreme Court

SALT LAKE CITY — Phil Lyman has filed an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court. Lyman, the Republican convention winner and write-in candidate for governor, is appealing the decision by the Utah Supreme Court to dismiss, without ruling on its merits, his petition for extraordinary writ of declaratory and injunctive relief. The original petition, which was filed on August 1, 2024, names Governor Spencer Cox, Lieutenant Governor Deidre Henderson, Utah Republican Party Chair Robert Axson, and the Utah Republican Party as respondents. The petition contests Lyman being forced to a direct primary held on June 25, 2024, after already receiving the party’s nomination through the convention process.

As the petition explains, Lyman argues that Governor Cox and LG Henderson ignored the rulings of previous cases on Senate Bill 54 (SB54). According to those rulings, the state Republican party’s internal processes were not impacted from the 2014 senate bill — the party could still nominate their candidate through the caucus and convention system. According to the party’s constitution and the nominating convention rules, if a candidate receives 60% or more of delegate votes during the party’s convention, the party does not participate in the primary for that office, and the convention winner advances directly to the general election. In such a case, no signature collection candidates may force a primary. As such, there should have been no Republican primary for governor because the threshold for such a primary — two candidates qualifying via convention — was not triggered. 

“We have decided to appeal this decision to the U.S. Supreme Court because we believe the Utah Supreme Court’s dismissal was frivolous and misconstrued the previous SCOTUS ruling on New York State Board of Elections v. Lopez Torres,” Lyman said. “There is enough history of litigation surrounding SB54 to support an appeal to SCOTUS. We look forward to the next steps in this process.”

Lyman’s SCOTUS appeal comes on the heels of the news that, per the legislative audit still in progress, incumbent Governor Cox likely did not gather enough signatures to meet the legally required threshold of 28,000 with his ballot nomination petition, the very petition Cox and Henderson claim allowed them to force Lyman to a primary. 

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Read the filing here.