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Twenty years after earning distinction as the last Democrat elected from Utah County, Tim Moran died Friday at age 95.

The Spanish Fork native served in the Utah House for 12 years until 1996, when he was defeated by a Republican challenger.

Moran and his Senate counterpart, Eldon Money, were the last two Democrats serving from Utah County both from Spanish Fork. Moran won his final two-year term in 1994, while Money won his final four-year term in 1992.

Before his election to the House, Moran served four years on the Spanish Fork City Council and 12 years as mayor. He was a professional educator, ending a 35-year career as principal of Brockbank Elementary School. Services are set for Friday at 11 a.m. at the Spanish Fork LDS 12th Ward Chapel, 310 E. Center St.

Utah County Democratic Chairman Josh Hogan acknowledges that a generation after Morans defeat, it may yet be awhile before the next Democrat wins election in the biggest GOP bastion in a Republican state.

"Its going to be a long battle," Hogan says. "You need to change a lot of hearts and minds."

Hogan says the largest challenge is convincing people "Were not who you think we are."

His message is simple: "Our focus is to improve education, support livable wages and demand government transparency, and it certainly wouldnt hurt to do that in more breathable air."

Hogan praises the quality of candidates running on the Democratic ticket this year, including Zach Lewis, who is running for the House District 66 seat once held by Moran, but now occupied by Rep. Mike McKell, R-Spanish Fork. "Hes a promising young man just graduating from BYU law school," Hogan says of Lewis.

The party leader concedes he wishes he had a candidate in the Utah County Commission Seat A race where newcomer Greg Graves defeated incumbent Gary Anderson to claim the Republican nomination earlier this month.

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Services slated for Tim Moran, last Democrat elected in Utah County

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As bans against gay marriage crumble and public opinion on the issue shifts rapidly, some Republicans are pushing the party to drop its opposition to same-sex unions, part of a broader campaign to get the GOP to appeal to younger voters by de-emphasizing social issues.

This month, the Nevada Republican party dropped statements on marriage from its party platform, making it the second state party in the nation to do so after Indiana's GOP quietly jettisoned its plank in 2012. A gay-rights group last week launched a $1 million campaign to get the national party to remove from its platform a definition of marriage as between a man and a woman, while a group of major Republican donors is pushing for the GOP to become more supportive of gay rights across the board.

"There are people with sincerely held beliefs on both sides of the marriage issue, and that seems to be where the party is heading," said Jeff Cook-McCormac, an adviser to the American Unity Fund, which has been financed by wealthy donors such as hedge-fund billionaire Paul Singer to push the GOP to back gay rights. "The Republican Party in Nevada is doing something that I think we're going to see a lot more of, which is appealing to the things that unite Republican voters across the country bread and butter issues."

But social conservatives warn that if the GOP abandons its core moral principles, it may also lose loyal voters.

"It is very much a mistake for the GOP to step away from marriage. The rank-and-file Republicans, mainstream Republicans, very much believe marriage is between a man and a woman," said Chris Plante, spokesman for the National Organization for Marriage. "For the GOP to give in to elites, to promises of money, and to progressives within the party is the wrong thing. It's bad politics. Marriage is a winning issue."

The greatest test will come in Nevada, a swing state where the state party also dropped its opposition to abortion during its biannual convention on April 12. The push arose from Clark County, home to libertine Las Vegas and three-quarters of the state's population.

"Younger people believe they're getting screwed by the Democrats on fiscal issues, and screwed by Republicans on social issues," said Nick Phillips, the Clark County party's political director. "Take that away, and you've got a party you can get behind."

The state has no organized bloc of socially conservative voters. The state's Republican governor, Brian Sandoval, supports abortion rights, recently decided to drop the state's defense of a lawsuit challenging its gay-marriage ban, and is so popular that no significant Democrat is challenging him for re-election this year. But there is still some bitterness over the platform within the party, which has been riven for years by infighting among rival conservative factions.

"If they come up with a totally neutered, watered-down platform that stands for nothing, they're going to disgust the base," said Ira Hansen, a Republican Nevada assemblyman. "They alienate them and humiliate them and then expect them to vote."

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Republican Activists Push Party on Gay Marriage

BOSTON Three political action committees that state investigators said were under the direction of a top Massachusetts Republican official have agreed to pay $17,500 after making excess campaign contributions.

The Office of Campaign and Political Finance said Tuesday that Chanel Prunier, elected Republican National Committeewoman for Massachusetts last year, effectively controlled the three PACs.

Prunier said she doesn't agree with that interpretation.

The PACs include Prunier's Massachusetts Republican Municipal Coalition PAC and two others the Massachusetts Independent PAC for Working Families and the Catholic Citizenship PAC. According to a Republican Party website, Prunier founded the Massachusetts Republican Municipal PAC in 2005 to support candidates for local office and build the Republican farm team.

State campaign regulators said that while the three PACs were organized by three individuals, they operated as "affiliated committees" under the direction of Prunier. Campaign finance laws prohibit affiliated PACs, which are defined as two or more PACs that are "established, financed, maintained or controlled" by a single individual.

Investigators said they found 25 instances during 2012 in which an individual candidate received contributions from two or three of the PACs that exceeded the $500 donation limit.

In total, the PACs made about $24,000 in excess contributions, according to investigators.

The campaign finance office also concluded that Prunier had "significant influence" in determining which candidates the PACs would support and "drafted or provided input into fundraising letters" for the three PACs. There were also instances in which contributions to individual candidates were made on the same day and in the same amount by more than one of the PACs, the office said.

Prunier said she doesn't agree that all three PACs were under her direction, but decided it was better to pay the fine and move on rather than wage what could have been a costly fight.

"In general I disagree with the OCPF interpretation of the regulation," she said in a telephone interview. "The PACs were definitely not controlled by any one person. In some cases my political action committee supported a different candidate than the other PACs."

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Republican official cited for excess contributions