New here? The Checks and Balances PAC — which also files under the name "Rule of Law PAC" — was created in December 2025, explicitly to defend judicial independence in Utah. Days later, the 2026 legislative session produced a package of bills that let the Attorney General, Governor, and Legislature redirect pending lawsuits to a new panel of hand-picked judges. This PAC spent 2026 funding primary challenges against the legislators most responsible for that package.
1. What Is This PAC?
The PAC's Statement of Organization names two officers: Chair Alexandra Dorius, a paralegal, and Treasurer/CFO Caroline Morris, a student — both based in Millcreek, at the same address as the PAC itself. It was created December 24, 2025, just weeks before the 2026 legislative session began.
PAC Leadership
- Chair: Alexandra Dorius (paralegal)
- Treasurer/CFO: Caroline Morris (student)
- Both based in Millcreek, UT.
2. Who It Targeted — and the Pattern Behind All Three
Kelly Smith
Received $14,627.99 in-kind signature-gathering plus $8,000 cash — over a third of her entire campaign. Brammer chief-sponsored SJR005 and Senate-sponsored HB0366, the bills that built the case-transfer mechanism. Smith did not clear the delegate threshold needed to win the seat outright at convention, forcing a primary.
Scott Stephenson
Received $6,264.84 in-kind signature-gathering plus a further $1,000 cash. Teuscher was HB0366's own House primary sponsor. Stephenson is separately the longtime head of the Utah Fraternal Order of Police, and draws most of his own money from police/labor PACs — this donation is not his main funding source. Won only 37.5% of the convention delegate vote against Teuscher.
Chris McConnehey pattern confirmed
Received $4,000 from Checks & Balances PAC. Filed in the PAC's own records as "Chris Mcconey" — a misspelling; public filings confirm this is Chris McConnehey. Lost badly at convention (29% to opponent Gloria Vindas's 71%) — yet won the June primary convincingly, 62.4% to 37.6%. His own campaign filing shows Checks & Balances wasn't his only outside help: a separate PAC, CMV PAC, gave him $12,750 total across two payments — over triple what Checks & Balances gave him. CMV PAC turns out to be Count My Vote, the well-known Utah election-reform organization chaired by Rich McKeown (Leavitt Partners co-founder), which explains the pattern above: its entire mission is subsidizing the signature-gathering path onto the primary ballot.
Former House Speaker Gregory Hughes gave him money personally, as did Rep. Raymond Ward and Rep. Karen Peterson — Peterson's $500 personal gift followed the next month by $1,000 from her own PAC, Elevating Local Leaders, is a confirmed, repeatable pattern she also used with a separate HD-59 candidate. A $1,000 gift from a "Bonnie Beesley" is a plausible match to a $10,000 donor of the same name to a separate PAC ("Education First") that also drew a $100,000 gift from Gail Miller — not yet confirmed as the same person. Separately, All In For Utah PAC gave him $5,643.55 in-kind: its Chair, Owen Fuller, also runs Gov. Cox's "Disagree Better" initiative, and its Treasurer, Dan Hemmert, is the new MIDA Executive Director — the PAC's one named donor, Scott Anderson, is the same Zions Bank figure already confirmed giving $50,000 to CMV PAC.
Kelly Smith isn't charted above — her own reporting describes her as failing to clear the convention threshold outright rather than a specific delegate percentage, but the same underperform-then-compete pattern applies to her race too.
The real pattern may not be "judicial independence" alone. All three funded candidates underperformed specifically with their own party's convention delegates — Smith couldn't clear the threshold to avoid a primary at all, Stephenson took only 37.5% of delegates, McConnehey took only 29% — yet all three were either competitive or outright winning once the race reached the broader primary electorate. HD-38 has no apparent connection to the judicial-power bills that are this PAC's stated purpose, which suggests its functional strategy may be backing delegate-disadvantaged candidates generally, with judicial independence as its founding cause rather than its only funding criterion. Three data points is a real pattern worth naming, not proof of a rule.
3. The Better Boundaries Tie
The PAC's single largest donor is Better Boundaries Accountability, which gave $23,100 across two separate payments — $15,000 during the Convention period and $8,100 during the Primary period. This isn't a coincidental overlap in cause: Better Boundaries has fought Sen. Brammer by name since 2025 over a separate bill narrowing Proposition 4's redistricting fairness standard, and the same case-transfer mechanism this PAC was formed to oppose (SJR005/HB0366) was used by the Attorney General and Legislature to move the state's own Prop 4 redistricting lawsuit — the one Better Boundaries has litigated since 2018 — to a friendlier panel of judges.
In other words: the group that lost a legislative fight and a venue fight against the same legislator is funding the PAC working to defeat him at the ballot box. Full detail on that chain lives in the SD-21 race case file, linked below.
4. The Fine
Stated plainly: the fine landed on the PAC that was actively working against Brammer's re-election, in a case Brammer himself pushed for. He and Teuscher — the two legislators this PAC was actively funding challengers against — jointly asked the Lt. Governor's office to investigate the PAC over its late disclosure filings. The PAC was fined $1,000 in June 2026 as a result.
The PAC admitted fault, citing health issues, and filed its overdue report the same day KSL contacted it for comment. Smith told KSL she was initially unaware "Rule of Law PAC" was an alternate name for "Checks and Balances," then confirmed the connection once informed.
Worth being precise about who targeted whom here. Brammer and Teuscher didn't single out Smith, Stephenson, or McConnehey directly — they singled out the PAC, by filing a disclosure complaint against it. That complaint triggered the investigation that exposed the PAC's full donor and expenditure ledger, which is how all three funded candidates ended up publicly connected to this story. Smith and Stephenson at least have a direct opponent relationship to the two legislators who filed the complaint. McConnehey does not — he's swept into this story purely because he shares a funder with Smith and Stephenson, not because anyone he's actually running against triggered anything.
For balance: Sen. Brammer's own campaign finance reports separately carry 17 deleted transaction entries across the 2024–2026 period — a disclosure-process issue worth weighing on both sides, not just the PAC's late filing.
5. Transaction Explorer
Every transaction found in this PAC's Convention and Primary period reports. Search by name, or filter by type.
| Date | Type | Name | Amount | Purpose | Notes |
|---|
6. Worth Asking
- Is this PAC functionally backing delegate-disadvantaged candidates who poll better with the general primary electorate — using judicial independence as its founding cause rather than its actual funding criterion? All three candidates it funded underperformed specifically with convention delegates before winning or competing in the broader primary.
- Does this same convention-vs-primary dynamic help explain why Utah's signature-gathering law (SB54, 2014) exists in the first place? Count My Vote — the organization behind that law — funds candidates today who show exactly this pattern; worth considering whether the same underlying dynamic (candidates viable with primary voters but not convention delegates) was the real driver of that reform a decade ago, not just its consequence now.
7. Research Status
Resolved since first publication:
- UNIPAC ($5,500, 3/18/2026) is UINPAC — Utah Investment Network PAC, a letter-transposition typo in this PAC's own records. Full detail in its own case file.
- Peczuh US ($2,605.54) is Peczuh Printing and Paperbox, an ordinary small family print business in Price, UT — not mysterious.
- Why were Smith, Stephenson, and McConnehey "singled out"? They weren't, by their opponents directly. Brammer and Teuscher targeted the PAC itself — filing a disclosure complaint because it funded their own primary challengers — and that investigation exposed the PAC's full ledger, which is how all three funded candidates became publicly connected to this story. McConnehey has no opponent relationship to either legislator at all; he's swept in purely by sharing a funder.
- Will Terry / Will Terry LLC — a genuine multi-PAC hub, not a coincidental name overlap. Will Terry gave the PAC $3 personally (1/9/2026) while Will Terry LLC was separately paid over $9,500 in "PAC Admin" fees. A separate PAC's own Statement of Organization confirms Will Terry (occupation "Consultant") as the Manager of DRAIN THE SWAMP PAC, also known as RESTORE TRUST PAC (Washington, UT) — which separately received $5,700 from UINPAC. He is a professional PAC administrator working across at least two committees in this network.
Still being checked — not yet confirmed one way or the other:
- Is the convention-underperformance pattern real or coincidental? Three candidates is a real signal but a small sample — worth testing against any further Checks & Balances PAC activity that surfaces, or against other PACs with similar "independent judiciary" branding.
- Jake Hunsaker/Huntsaker received a $3,000 "Donation" from the PAC (3/10/2026). Separately confirmed via Ballotpedia: a Jake Hunsaker (matching spelling) won the HD-48 primary in 2026 after also running a convention-underperforming race for US House in 2022 — a second data point for the pattern above, if this is the same person. Not yet confirmed against this PAC's recipient due to the spelling difference.
Sources
- Utah Lieutenant Governor's Office, disclosures.utah.gov — Checks and Balances PAC Statement of Organization, Convention Report, and full raw itemized contribution/expenditure exports
- KSL.com, "Republican lawmakers question political group over late financial disclosures"
- Salt Lake Tribune, "Checks and Balances PAC fine for not disclosing money behind attacks on Sen. Brammer, Rep. Teuscher," June 17, 2026
- UtahPolitics.news (Bryan Schott), "Utah's legislative primaries are drowning in PAC cash," June 18, 2026
- Ballotpedia and BallotReady — Chris McConnehey, Utah House District 38 candidate filing
- Better Boundaries (betterboundaries.org) — organizational history and mission pages
