Republican PAC Issues Resolution To Censure Romney

SALT LAKE CITY, Utah – A political action committee on Monday announced a resolution to censure Sen. Mitt Romney in response to his votes to convict former President Donald Trump.

In a statement, the Platform Republicans PAC wrote that Romney’s votes were “unjust and unethical.”

The Platform Republicans, it should be noted, is not part of the official Utah Republican Party.

The Utah GOP has already stated it is not censuring Romney. In a statement released Feb. 16, the Utah branch of the Republican Party stated that “our senators have both been criticized for their vote. The differences between our own Utah Republicans showcase a diversity of thought, in contrast to the danger of a party fixated on ‘unanimity of though.'”

“There is power in our differences as a political party,” the Utah GOP wrote, “and we look forward to each senator explaining their votes to the people of Utah.”

Romney was the sole Republican vote during Trump’s 2020 impeachment trial. In 2021, Romney was also joined by a handful of other Republican senators in voting to convict the former president for his role in inciting the Jan. 6 riot at the Capitol.

According to the Utah Platform Republican’s website, the PAC “raises money to support Utah House and Senate candidates who stand firm for the principles and values of the Utah Republican Platform.”

“We are compelled to speak out because of the harm that Sen. Romney has done to the Republican brand,” the PAC’s director, Larry Meyers, wrote in a statement. “We hope that other Republican leaders will follow us in holding him accountable.”

According to the Platform Republican’s statement, its board of directors “… unanimously voted to censure Sen. Romney because the Utah Republican Party has not issued a censure and because hundreds of thousands of Utah Trump voters need to know that some Republican leaders support censuring Romney.”

A censure vote from a political action committee does not carry any legal consequences.

Even a vote from the nation’s senators to censure one of their own could amount to nothing more than condemnation or denouncement.

According to senate.gov, “A censure does not remove a senator from office nor does it deny to a senator his or her rights or privileges.”

However, penalties beyond censure are possible with enough votes from the country’s highest legislative bodies.

Article I, Section 5 of the United States Constitution states that “Each House [of Congress] may determine the Rules of its proceedings, punish its members for disorderly behavior, and, with the concurrence of two-thirds, expel a member.”