SALT LAKE CITY, UT – A shakeup in Utah politics is in progress following Saturday’s Utah County Republican Party Convention. The Salt Lake County Sheriff will face a primary election for the first time since he was elected in 1990 and a four-term county prosecutor known for strong anti-porn views has been ousted by delegates of his own party.Utah County Attorney Kay Bryson, who has held the office of top prosecutor for Utah County since 1990, finished third in a three-man race at Saturday’s convention. According to reports in the Salt Lake Tribune, GOP activists moved to dump Bryson in favor of one of his deputy prosecutors, Jeff Buhman; Bryson received just 12-percent of the delegate vote.
Bryson had been criticized during his tenure for making personal “crusades” of certain cases, pushing ahead with investigations and prosecutions that struck even some of his own subordinate prosecutors as frivolous and/or unlikely to succeed.
In 1999, a jury acquitted the owners of Movie Buffs Video of all 15 obscenity counts that Bryson had brought against the video store proprietors. The Movie Buffs case, a misdemeanor case involving softcore porn videos rented from the store’s “adult room,” cost taxpayers $100,000 to prosecute, according to the Tribune.
After the Movie Buffs acquittal, Bryson pledged that he would not be deterred, and announced his intention to bring similar charges against other Utah County businesses renting or selling pornographic videos.
Bryson never made good on that pledge, which earned him criticism from conservatives in Utah, while the case’s price tag drew fire from government watchdogs who decried the whole episode as unnecessary, wasteful prosecution.
The vote effectively leaves Buhman the de facto lead prosecutor for Utah County, as there is no Democrat opposing him in the general election.
According to reports in the Tribune, Buhman began strongly criticizing Bryson the day Buhman announced his candidacy for the County Attorney seat, asserting that County Attorney’s office has seen a decline in both its reputation and efficacy under Bryson, leading to the departure of many prosecutors, and hampering the office’s relations with local law enforcement.
Bryson dismissed Buhman’s claims as negative campaigning and personal attack politics.
“It’s time to cut through the baloney,” Bryson said in remarks made at the convention. “It’s time to cut through the spin and cut through the personal attacks.”
Bryson’s appeal fell on deaf ears at the convention, apparently, where he received just better than one in 10 delegate votes.
State Senator Curt Bramble, a Provo Republican who assisted in the operation of Saturday’s convention, said Bryson’s highly publicized divorce – in which Bryson was accused of spying on his ex-wife – and low morale in the County Attorney’s office were what led to his demise, ultimately.
“Maybe we are just ready for a change,” Bramble said.
