Yes We're Disappointed

By Kelli Lundgren

To the press, the public, and the Legislative Redistricting Committee: Yes, members of RepresentMeUtah! are very disappointed in Utah's redistricting final maps. But we are not surprised.

Following this process has been eye-opening to our optimistic agenda. This is what we've learned:

1. Redistricting is performed by elected officials to protect themselves and political agendas, and, in Utah, to tighten up the one-party rule while the other party looks on. "Leaders choosing voters" still applies to Utah's process in 2011. Even the press analyzes the process in terms of its affect on incumbents. Most of Utah's citizens already gave up on fairness years ago, except for thirty or so of us "Don Quixote-types."

2. Pertaining to RepresentMeUtah!'s repeated requests to keep communities together: Are we insane? Probably. Ignored? Definitely. Of course gerrymandering had to be performed to protect Republican incumbents, candidates and agendas. Republican committee members discarded fair submitted maps because they minimized community, city and county divides without consideration for incumbents.

3. Damn legal system. The Legislative redistricting committee fortunately had to listen to citizen and local leader requests to keep Rose Park, Glendale, and basically northwest Salt Lake County together after proposing to dilute portions of the common interest community into the boundaries of a favored Republican incumbent in North Salt Lake. Good for citizens. Bad for Republicans. The Republican legislators had to accommodate keeping the community together to protect themselves from a lawsuit on the subject.

4. Damn legal system, again. New proposed committee boundaries divide grocery store parking lots, city blocks, etc. because one-person-one-vote tolerances need to get down to one or zero persons. If they don't, in a lawsuit, a judge may otherwise pick Fair Boundaries' "down to zero" map that only protects city and county boundaries, instead of incumbents and political agendas.

5. I think that when my dog does his duty in our backyard he is temporarily in another House district. My city, Cottonwood Heights, is divided into two U.S. Congressional Districts, two Utah Senate Districts, and three House Districts.

6. It would be naive of anyone to believe that Republicans on the Legislative Redistricting Committee did not use voting history to dilute the 1.05 million diverse votes in Salt Lake County into other urban and rural counties on the U.S. Congressional maps. We actually saw one pizza slice map that remarkably diluted Democratic votes across the board into Republican votes and showed the stats. The map and its analysis had to be removed from consideration because of legal implication, but similar maps are still in the running for the final cut.

7. 53% of the public wanted the doughnut hole approach (Salt Lake Tribune). The plea was ignored. RepresentMeUtah! even analyzed the committee's "translated" meeting notes from public meetings around the state, that even after remarks were watered-down for legal reasons, we found 67% of public and city leader comments were pleas in favor of the doughnut hole approach, dividing urban and rural.

8. Yes, we have a plan to continue our fight for fairness and democracy.

9. By the way, many of the six remaining U.S. Congressional maps now split Utah County East to West... it must be for another Tea Party candidate to proclaim their candidacy. Sandstrom or Herrod, perhaps? Don't be surprised. Republicans leading the legislative redistricting committee "sacrificed a House district" and put both men in one. There is probably method to their sacrifice.

10. An independent commission that does not protect incumbents needs to be pursued. This current redistricting process is the biggest slight to democracy in all states, but in Utah in particular, where one party rules and the other looks on. Utah's majority party continues to strengthen its rule through redistricting by picking its voters.

11. This process is one big gerrymander; one further disenfranchisement of voters, one further dilution of undesired votes by Republicans. Stay tuned to the Wall Street Journal as I suspect it will use Utah once again in 2011 as its excellent example of redistricting's disenfranchisement of voters.

12. Yes, RepresentMeUtah! members are disappointed, but we're not naive. I can only guess we all have some type of optimist gene that says we can do something to improve the process.

13. However, there's still a lot of potential, perhaps even legally. And of course, if we can somehow stir the emotions of 1.2 million Democratic and Independent voters to get out and vote next year, we may be able to counter the Republican gerrymander, and eventually blow these boundaries right out of my backyard.

Kelli Lundgren

Utah Base Senate Map Needs Work! By Kelli Lundgren

Utah’s new base Senate redistricting map doesn’t pass muster. It unnecessarily divides cities, counties and communities for incumbency protection.

For example, the Senate created a “thumb” district extension of Tooele County into west Salt Lake valley to secure an incumbent residing in Salt Lake County. (See base Senate map.) This resulted in taking a swath of residential Tooele County and giving it to Box Elder County, which has no direct transportation link.

The Senate secured incumbents in Weber and Davis County, discussed as an important measure in Sept. 7th’s Legislative redistricting meeting. The committee rationed this as one reason why it had to take Stansbury Park from Tooele, or it would mess up boundaries for other northeastern incumbents.

Also egregious: when you count the total population for Utah County, it needs 5.5 Senators. It’s getting eight. The Senate has pulled in populations from four perimeter counties, including Salt Lake. Incumbent protection is involved once again.

The reality is: minimizing city and county divides means you can’t play politics, and redistricting, as it is, is all about serious politics.

Utah voters vote 60% Republican and 40% Democrat on average. 73% of our legislators are Republican. With the greatest off-balance in a two-party system in the nation, Utah Republicans control just about every string of Utah’s political puppet.

In redistricting, the Democrats ask for what they want, wait in the hallways for an outcome, and then find out with the rest of us what Republicans have decided.

Waiting with Utah’s Democrats for a redistricting outcome are: RepresentMeUtah!, other political activist groups, many rural and urban citizens, and municipal leaders; all that have requested to keep communities together. A $100K software program for public input and an around-the-state road trip now seem an awful waste.

Senator Stuart Reid said the legislators are the best and most knowledgeable people to draft the maps now. Senator Michael Waddoups told good government groups off the cuff at Sept. 12th’s meeting we’re not listening to you anymore. Did he ever listen in the first place?

Good government groups like the base map for the House. (Utah Base House Map.) Its areas are fairly compact and keep several communities together. Also, we have seen the House use comments and concerns from citizens from the road trip, such as putting Cedar City back together in one district after proposing a split down its main street; keeping representation of Rosepark in Salt Lake County and not diluting its votes into Davis County. This certainly doesn’t mean that incumbency was not considered in the House map. I am certain it was. But the House has at least thrown Democrats and citizens a bone and listened to some of our comments. There's some hope.

RepresentMeUtah! believes that political systems in every state should ignore incumbents when drawing new boundaries. As Utah citizens, RepresentMeUtah! members are not counting safe seats for Democrats and Republicans. We believe that if new boundaries preserve county, city and community borders as much as possible, given one-person-one-vote parameters, democracy is better served. Voter-reflective representation, which is well needed in Utah, is better achieved.

If an impartial redistricting process were to be performed, politics would need to fly out the window. Democracy would take its place.

Redistricting’s squash of democracy is not unique to Utah. Yet in all other states, two parties duke out new boundaries and come to a compromise. In supermajority Utah, Republican legislators have the final say.

September 22nd should be interesting as it is the final public meeting and we will be looking at maps of four new U.S. Congressional districts. Utah’s three congressmen are invited to attend and submit maps. That’s when high drama begins. Oh wait, it already has!

Doughnuts or pizza anyone?