Joe Levi:
a cross-discipline, multi-dimensional problem solver who thinks outside the box – but within reality™

Where Does Joe Levi Stand on the Issues?


The Role of The Party

To answer this question we first must understand who “The Party” is.

“The Republican Party” is not the President, it’s not our Senators or members of Congress. It’s not our Governor or State Legislature. It’s not even the Chair or Vice Chair of the Utah Republican Party.

“The Republican Party” are those people in our neighborhoods who voluntarily affiliate around a core set of values – values which are specifically written into the Planks of our Platform. It is they who are “The Republican Party”. They meet in a neighborhood Caucus to elect neighborhood representatives – Delegates – who will represent them.

  • Before the elections, these Delegates are tasked with the job of researching those candidates who wish to run as Republicans during our elections.
  • After the elections, these Delegates are the conduit through with the concerns of the neighborhoods reach the elected officials and are reported back to the neighborhoods.
  • Delegates “hold the feet (of the elected officials) to the fire”, to make sure those elected officials are upholding and defending the values in the Platform, and are responsive to their voices of their constituents – the People in our neighborhoods.

We the People

Others are elected to help coordinate and make sure the voices of the people in the neighborhoods are represented:

  • Precinct officers,
  • Legislative District officers,
  • Senate District officers,
  • County Party officers,
  • State Central Committee members,
  • and lastly, Party officers.

All of these positions are elected to support the Republicans in our neighborhoods and to defend the values in our Platform.

Delegates and other officers are not elected with the task of simply “electing Republicans”. Rather, Delegates are elected to be the voice of their neighborhoods. Prior to the general election, their fiduciary duty is to their neighbors, not to any particular candidate. After the general election, their duty remains to their neighbors, making sure those who were elected continue to hear the voice of the People even after the election.

Party Officers are tasked with making sure the Delegates have to tools, training, and resources they need to effectively do their job.

Second Amendment

“… being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”

That seems pretty self-explanatory to me. I am a graduate of MAG-40, the citizen’s self-defense course taught by Massad Ayoob. I carry current permits to carry a concealed firearm issued by Utah and Arizona. You’ll rarely find me unarmed. I would rather have my tools of self-defense and not need them, than need them and not have them – or be in any way prohibited or restricted from them.

Right to Life

While I believe in freedom of individual choice, that doesn’t make someone free from the consequences of their choices.

A person’s a person, no matter how small

The U.S. Constitution provides Equal Protection Under the Law and the Declaration of Independence boldly states that all of us are created equal and that we are endowed by our Creator with unalienable Rights: Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness. To secure these Rights, Governments are instituted among us. The Fifth Amendment provides that “No person shall be … deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law…”

As such, a pre-born person is just as protected under these concepts (not to mention those of basic morality) as are any of us.

Both men and women have the right to choose whether or not to engage in activities which may result pregnant – but that choice must be made before either of them engages in those activities. Abortion should never be used as “birth control”. For those women who had their choice removed (whether by rape or incest or by medical necessity), it is my opinion that abortion may be considered. As a husband and father, my deepest condolences go out to any woman who finds herself in such a difficult situation by no fault of her own. I do not envy the choice she must then make. In those situations, I would urge the mother to hold the ending of the life of her unborn child as the last possible recourse.

Caucus & Convention System

“The Party” isn’t our legislators, it isn’t our elected officials, it isn’t even our Party Officers. The Party is made up of the individual people in our neighborhoods and communities who voluntarily affiliate under a shared set of values (the Planks in our Platform). That is who the Party is, and that is who this whole organization needs to support.

It’s their voice that we have to keep relevant. It’s their voice who we have to keep important in politics. It’s their voice that our Founding Fathers set up a system to protect. The Constitution itself answers the question in Article IV § 4: “The United States shall guarantee to every state in this union a republican form of government…” Utah’s Caucus and Convention System is the closest system to the Republic our Founders envisioned for us — it’s also the last in the nation.

The misleadingly named “Count My Vote” group (funded by out-of-state special interest groups and the ultra-rich) and the poorly written “compromise” called SB54 are tools by which the voices of our elected neighborhood representatives – the Delegates – are eroded.

A Republic, if you can keep it…

Utah’s Caucus and Convention System is how we keep that voice where it belongs, and that is with the People in our neighborhoods.

Not only do I support our Caucus and Convention System, I have a record of fighting for it and teaching about it. I will continue to fight for it. The system itself is important, but it’s the voices of our communities which the Caucus and Convention System supports and amplifies which is vitally important for our leadership and elected officials to uphold and actively defend.

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