Public Testimony – please leave a comment

To those who are involved in redistricting:

Inasmuch as citizen input has been invited into the redistricting process I submit my two-bits worth:

From one source I learned of the assumption by some that the redistricting process would begin by the division of the state into four United States Congressional Districts and that other redistricting would follow. It seems to me that such a sequence invites mischief.

I would begin with the State Senate determining the number of senate seats appropriate for the expeditious conduct of its business. I believe that 29 is larger than necessary and that a number between 15 and 25 would be preferable. For an example I will assume 17.

I would then have the House of Representatives consider three times the number of senate seats as the number of house seats. In my example there would be 3 x 17 = 51 house seats.

I would then set the number of members of the Board of Education to be the same as the number of Senate seats. Thus, in my example the number would be 17.

I would charge the State House of Representatives, exclusively, with dividing the population of the state into cells of equal population the total number cells being devisable by the number of seats selected for each body with the four United States House seats counted as one body. In the example, the number of cells would be 4 x 51 = 201. That is, 204 can be divided by each of the whole numbers 4, 17, 17 and 51.

I would then charge the State House of Representatives, exclusively, with assembling House Districts with each containing four contiguous cells. I believe the House would be the political body least likely to indulge in mischief because each member’s first concern would be the four cells contained within his or her House District.

I would then charge the Senate, exclusively, with determining which three contiguous House districts would be contained within each Senate District. The same determination would apply to School Board Districts.

The allocation of the four United States House of Representatives seats is not resolved as cleanly, but the problem is lessened by the fact that each Utah State House district contains 4 population cells.

Yours truly,

J. Allen Kimball
Salt Lake City
10 May 2011

[This comment submitted by letter and distributed to the committee at the 5/20/11 Public Hearing.]

I saw on one of the early pages that we shoud try to get good districts without trying to favor a particular candidate or party. I agree but doubt the legislature does. Last time there as the idea that all districts sould be both urban and rural , which was really a ploy for diluting some salt lake vote but aslo deleted rural representation. Salt Lake County should not be split up more than is absolutly necessary for the numbers needed and then cities should not be split up.

I hope we can follow county and city lines where possible. In some cases, that won’t work because of numbers. The Congressional Districts will likely be even population wise within 1 person. They have agreed to be within 0.1%. The Rest of the districts (House, Senate, State School Board) will be within 3.5% of the equal population target.

The question is, if you start from scratch, and you like who is representing you, would you be upset to find out they won’t be, and you will have two other incumbents vying for your
vote? You could end up with no incumbents with everyone new vying for the seat.

Either you start from scratch going with new boundaries, or you keep as many districts as you can and make them larger or smaller to match the population targets. Doing that will totally eliminate some districts. In the past they have kept as many existing districts as possible. What do you want this time?

The census numbers will drive the final boundaries. Sometimes that means the person across the street will be voting for someone different than their neighbors.

A few of the lines will not make sense, even if the maps start from scratch – due to fact the US Census Blocks (the smallest pieces in the puzzles) are in shapes that don’t make sense and have populations from 0 to over 1000.

So, should we start from scratch, following county and city lines where possible, or keep as may existing districts in place as possible?

Based on the number of desks on the House Floor, I think 75 is as many as we should have. If you took 75 divided by 3 you get 25 Senators. If you changed the number of senators, you would need a constitutional amendment, where you can change the number in the House between 58 and 87 without one.

Article IX, Section 2.   [Number of members of Legislature.]
     The Senate shall consist of a membership not to exceed twenty-nine in number, and the
number of representatives shall never be less than twice nor greater than three times the number of
senators.

There is a lot that needs to be worked out, but I think most people would be willing to start over from scratch if it meant fairer boundaries in the long term. The only thing I can say with certainty right now is that the pie-shaped map is unfair to both the rural and urban areas. Both have separate interests and deserve to be represented as such. It would be completely unfair to draw these boundaries in such a way that all four representatives could be from Salt Lake County and know nothing about water rights, agriculture, etc. On the flip side, we could end up with four representatives who know nothing about the complexities of urban life. In talking to people and reading their comments, this plan is extremely unpopular and should be taken off the table immediately.

Following Sumsion’s logic and applying it to a scenario of redrawing the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives districts, the U.S. Congress would have  boundaries redrawn into slices running east-west and north south across the entire United States. Let’s see… that could put New York City into a ‘stripe’ district with extreme southern Arizona, or Northern Idaho into a stripe with Atlanta Georgia.  That ought to work well.  Guess which constituents would be heard and how well they’d agree.  The constitution of the U.S. is a good model to follow on a smaller scale.  Allow the people to have a voice with their specific concerns through a combination of population based representatives and equality based senators.  Our senators (ostensibly) represent our state as a whole.  Our representatives should be elected with the most populated areas having representation as well as the least populated areas having representation.  It makes more sense to me to draw boundaries that allow equal representation based on population.  Something like 55% of Utahns live in urban areas.  The urban area of the Wasatch Front should get two of four districts.  The rural areas should get the other two.  In that way, there would be balance between the voices of urban and rural citizens and between liberal and conservative citizens and no voices would be silenced by gerrymandering.  

I support this plan.

I agree – the 4 way split (pizza pie) does not offer any advantages to voters that I can see. So far community leaders have been consistent about wanting to keep counties from being split when possible including Salt Lake, Davis, and Utah County so far.

While the Sumsion plan is transparently an attempt to divide and conquer, I believe that a doughnut plan (the one I proposed below) with the Wasatch Front as the hole in the doughnut, would actually allow two rural representatives to be unified voices for the counties most affected by federal land management, BLM, and natural resources.  If all four districts include part of the Wasatch Front, then all four districts will have urban constituents who either really don’t understand the issues that their rural counterparts must deal with (such as water rights and grazing rights), or who actively oppose the desires of those rural counterparts.  And all four districts would have rural constituents who don’t understand the issues that their urban counterparts must deal with (such as air pollution and mass transit), or who actively oppose the desires of the urban counterparts.  That would, in the end, make the work of the representatives more difficult and less effective. People need and want representatives who share and understand their lives and can really represent them.  The Sumsion plan guarantees that all four districts will have representatives walking a tightrope between polarized constituencies and never being able to take a strong stand on anything.

If you’re going to go with a doughnut hole approach (rather than the pizza slices), Utah County is a more logical place than Salt Lake.

Read today’s article in the Provo Daily Herald:
http://www.heraldextra.com/news/opinion/article_eae22e5f-011c-5ac4-8676-7c114f44baac.html

I refer to the article in the Standard Examiner of June 6, 2001 concerning some redistricting plans by Rep. Froerer. I generally support what he proposes for North Davis County with a couple of alterations. First, the portion of Roy contained in District 13 should be left in District 12. Sunset could be added to District 13 to make up for this change. The move of Sunset to oDistrict 13 would affect District 14. This could be made up for at least in part by including all of Clearfield to its Southern city limits in District 14. The loss to District 15 will be made by expected growth in West Layton and West Kaysville.  I would appreciate having Syracuse have its own district. Having half of the city represented by a Kaysville resident was ridiculous.

Also, it appears that the Northwest portionj of Davis county could have its own senator. Clinton, West Point, Sunset and Syracuse merit their own senator. Portions of Clearfield west of Main Street could be added to this senate distrcit to make up any population shortage. Again, our current senator represents Layton, not Syracuse. Just read the paper to see that. Layton has two senators.

Several people I’ve talked to have mentioned that they would like to see the map proposed by Rep. Sumison as shown here: http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/news/51856820-78/county-lake-salt-utah.html.csp, as well as any other maps that are being proposed or considered by the committee. Can those be made available on this site so that we can provide legitimate feedback?

Absolutely.  The map in that Trib photo is “Sumsion Plan A” (link = PDF), presented at the public hearing in Lehi on May 20th.  As we get rolling we’ll post more and more maps on this site, (with the highly zoomable GoogleMaps viewer and associated KML files).

You can also go to the committee page, choose a meeting,  and click on ‘Related Materials’ in the far-right column.  You’ll find maps and handouts there. If you want to comment on a map that isn’t featured on this site, just  reference it and post feedback right here.  Thanks!

Please know that I consider most efforts of the legislature to generally be to the overall benefit of the citizens of Utah. When the legislative body gets roughed up in the media is is usually for doing something silly and most citizens can see that for what it is, something silly. I do not, however, consider Gerrymandering to be something silly. It is unfair to many and brings shame to to your otherwise dedicated work.
Please don’t cut up geographic areas for political purposes.
Thank you,
Ray Walton

To be fair to all Utah residents Redistrict Alphabetically instead of Geographically

How about one Super-District for Utah?
http://www.fairvote.org//utah-redistricting-avoid-controversy-with-a-statewide-plan-for-house-seats

along the lines of one person one vote we need to make sure that we stay true to that pledge by making sure people who DO vote are 100% legal resident citizens! (IE) if they have a green card and or visa’s to be in the country long term that they are current and not expired! this will help with the Actual true population count on census that is used to determine how an area is broken down to voting districts!! once we get that under control then we can have true voting districts!!

by alphabetically do you mean the counties??

Congressional redistricting: 

Perhaps it would be useful to create 4 Congressional districts centered on major cities: St. George, Provo/Orem, SLC, and Ogden.  Each of these ‘centers’ should then include suburbs, rural, industrial, and large, open areas we consider ‘tourist attractions’.  While SLC’s population exceeds maximum for single District, and may need to be divided, I think the objective ought to be a distribution that allows for the two major political parties to have influence. I attended Utah Citizens Counsel’s webinar and suggested that the above would be the most representative of their four concepts (http://www.utahcitizenscounsel.org/?page_id=325), attached.  Something close to this would be the most representative of Utahns.  State redistricting: We thought we lived in district 66, only to realize a year ago that our Spanish Fork address and development, the eastern edge of the city, belongs to district 65, dominated by the city of Mapleton.  Instead, our area ought to be redrawn as part of district 66 (no slam on Rep Gibson ).   Tom 

I like this idea.  I’m especially concerned that whatever is done is fair.  Utah has close to, if not, THE lowest voter turnout and much of that is because people feel disenfranchised by the current system.  This issue continues to be swept under the rug, so surprise me for a change and do the RIGHT thing.

Creating congressional districts is difficult with the need for balanced population numbers. Another factor that should be considered is accessibility within the district. The area in each district should be contiguous and not require long commutes outside of the district to reach other areas within the district. A representative should not have to travel through another representative’s district any appreciable distance to reach another area of his or her district. In the northern part of the state this should be simple. Box Elder, Cache and Rich counties are contiguous with good roads between them. Davis, Weber and Morgan counties enjoy a similar benefit. Since Weber adjoins Davis county, a logical connection would be combining these northern counites into one district. If the combined population exceeds the desired total, which it might, I, or one, would have no problem splitting the southern portion of Davis County off to reduce the total to the desired amount. Bountiful and North Salt Lake have always had more in common with Salt Lake City than they have with the northern part of Davis county anyway.  Tooele county should be part of a district that lies contiguous and is easily accessible, meaning Salt Lake county. Access from northern counties is difficult unless one goes through Salt Lake county.

I oppose the “pie” idea of having each district have a portion of Salt Lake county. Besides being a bald-faced attempt to “get” a certain Democratic representative, another nightmare could arise. If part of Salt Lake county were in each slice of the pie, people from a small area, Salt Lake county, could dominate outlying areas. The result would be urban representatives represesenting Utah to the exclusion of suburban or rural interests.

 One thing that I do expect to happen is that boundaries will be adjusted to let a certain Representative actually live in the district he represents. This is required for the State legislature; why it was ever allowed for Congress is unfathomable.

All I want is for Westpoint Community to be back in District 23, not District 20. We love Becky Edwards, but there has been much damage and disenfranchisement done by grouping us with Davis County. We have no real voice in either county now.

I read Waddoups’ statement this morning in the Trib saying he was responding to the request for a “doughnut” by making it a Republican one in southern Salt Lake County, an amusing joke to him.  He has been my senator for his entire career and not once have I felt represented.  He has never voted for anything I agree with, and he knows my opinions since I contact him about them.  By trying to ram this one through, not only is he ignoring thousands of voters, but again, I will never be represented in the Legislature.  Is it up to me to move or should the Legislature make attempts to represent ALL their constituents? 

Dear Redistricting Committee,

Please reconsider the plan to combine Salt Lake’s Rose Park neighborhood into a Davis County district. I live in Rose Park and have lived in Bountiful, and I strongly feel that those two communities have vastly different populations with vastly different needs. By taking Rose Park out of a Salt Lake district, you are essentially rendering my vote and my neighbor’s votes useless. It seems to me that Utah will still have a Republican supermajority whether or not you eliminate one or two Democratic seats, and doing so just because you can is small-minded and petty. I understand population increases in some areas and decreases in others may necessitate losing some Democratic seats. But plus consider the communities first. Rose Park is a west-side urban mostly low-income ethnically diverse neighborhood. If it needs to be combined into another district, please combine it with a neighborhood with similar needs and challenges. You are not in danger of being out-numbered by Democrats, so what is there to lose by being fair?

Thank you.

>> “That contributes to Provo being split among FOUR SENATE DISTRICTS in
Waddoups’ map. But it avoids forcing Dayton and Valentine into a primary
election against each other.” (emphasis added) SLTrib, June 19

Keeping
communities together. . . . or protecting incumbents.  Wow, talk about
shouting from the mountain tops that the King Michael [Waddoups] doesn’t
give a flying rodent copulation about the voters.

Keep communities together.  Period.

When I was a young child, I remember hearing my grandmother’s church
congregation sing, “Do what is right, let the consequence follow. . .” 

In my never-humble opinion, I don’t think members of the commission are familiar with that song.

David S. Saari, Ph.D.
Sandy UT

Dear Salt Lakers,

You cry “No gerrymandering!” then, in the same breath, you call for a doughnut hole map that would benefit
your favored point on the political spectrum (urban liberal democrat, in
this case) to the detriment of other communities. That is, of course, the very definition of gerrymandering.

Own your hypocrisy. 

Can we please keep communities together?  At the rate some of our legislators are going, we won’t want to vote incumbent anyway.

If we want to encourage more civil discourse within our state, as many Utah leaders have claimed they desire to do, then a good place to start is by ensuring that everyone has a voice. Nothing leads faster to animosity than a strong and justified sense of disenfranchisement. The pizza slice approach to redistricting will disenfranchise liberals and moderates in Salt Lake County. It will also have the impact of diluting the vote of our state’s least LDS and most urban voters.

I urge members of the committee to act in fairness to preserve the natural constituency group of Salt Lake County voters. To do otherwise risks fueling the fires of incivility.

Many non-LDS Utahns feel disrespected and marginalized by our state’s power structures. President Gordon B. Hinkley did so much good to repair past damage and lay a foundation for better communication and cooperation across the “religious divide” of our state. Over the past few years, however, I have felt a sliding backward–whether in online posts, letters to the editor, or passing comments one hears in public, people are lashing out on both sides. It is so counter-productive, and I find myself in the middle, apologizing to friends and family on both sides of the “divide” and trying when possible to be a bridge.

Redistricting plans that dilute Salt Lake County will move us all in the wrong direction. More than anything we have seen in years, these plans tell us that non-LDS/non-Republican voices are not needed or wanted. This is not only bad for Democrats, but also bad for Republicans and bad for Utah.

I understand the feelings of those leaving frustrated posts, but I challenge them to make an attempt to solve the problem before they complain.  Having submitted more than one proposal myself I can verify that it is no easy task to EVENLY divide the state into districts. 

My first effort to find a solution was based on feedback from meetings in which counties would very much like to remain in the same voting district.  Unfortunately, that isn’t 100% possible.  Salt Lake County is far too big and must be broken up to get such an even split as required by the governing rules.  Other counties will need to be broken up as well.  If you live on or near the county line, it may be that your neighborhood ends up with the county next door to meet the requirements of redistricting. 

Fundamentally there is either going to be a small district that covers a portion of Salt Lake County for one of four congressional districts or Salt Lake County is going to be divided four ways and we will also divide each of the other most populas counties to try and make that work.  The same goes for every map we draw, it will be based on evening out the population base of the districts, school board, house, and senate.  It is all based on dividing districts into equal portions rather than only groups of similar neighborhoods.  There is going to be some conflict in how we divide up Urban areas.

I applaud the redistricting committee for opening the tool to all citizens.  It gives everyone a chance to make suggestions, and try and solve this challenge.  We are a long way from finished and I challenge citizens to make an attempt to solve the challenge as a suggestion.  Plans that look to serve a small group or neighborhood stand out because of all the problems it causes the rest of the map. 

Regards,

Dave Maughan

On Sen. Waddoup’s Quote in the Deseret News Article:”The
map would also put Salt Lake City’s Democratic Rose Park into a
district dominated by conservative Davis County areas —and put Sens. Luz
Robles, D-Salt Lake City, and Dan Liljenquist, R-Bountiful, in the same
district.“They are totally different. I’m very disappointed he is
trying to put them together,” Robles said. “I’ve been getting emails
complaining about it not only from my area, but also Davis County.”Has
he looked at the actual people or the numbers lately? No notice from
him for the additional more than 100 Republicans that we have registered in the past year
and a half since I have been Leg 20 District chair for this neighborhood. No
acknowledgement that in the 2010 Elections, there were more Republicans
than Democrat turnout for our four districts! Our four precincts are
disgusted and tired of being disenfranchised from both Davis County (who
we have NOTHING in common with) and from Salt Lake County (How much
help can four “Democratic” precincts get from the county party, do you
think?) As Leg Chair, I have repeatedly initiated contact with Luz
Robles and she has never even Responded, so I am forced to go the Dan
Liljenquist anyway and our concerns and problems don’t even come up for
him because he is in Davis County (Can we say Soccer Complex?) We are
being treated like pawns, rather than a community with real interests!

I attended the Tooele redistricting meeting last night.  I appreciate the committee’s taking the time to meet with us.  I wonder why the committee begins with a discussion of population shifts in current legislative districts.  It really is irrelevant what the numbers used to be, or how they have shifted from area-to-area, or who holds the current seat.  Focus should be on a clean slate, dividing the state into 29 or 75 districts, regardless of current incumbents.

I oppose the Senate 1% Plan presented last night because it again divides Tooele County.  Considering its sliced-and-diced treatment of 10 years ago, Tooele County deserves to be kept whole.  With a population of nearly 60,000, Tooele County is the 7th largest county in the state and deserves a resident senator.  All we ask regarding the senate map is that you allow us to retain our entire county in tact, then add 35,000 from any direction you wish, or even multiple directions, to reach the 95,000 needed for a senate district.  Retaining our full 60,000 in tact is more important than where you get the remaining 35,000.

I also oppose the Webb House Plan presented last night because it unnecessarily divides Grantsville, connecting part of Grantsville with Box Elder County and the other part with Juab County and points south.  Tooele County has sufficient population for one full house district and two-thirds of a second district.  By dividing the two-thirds, you make it virtually impossible for Tooele County to have more than one house member.  The better configuration would be to create one complete district of 36,000 from Tooele City, Stockton, Rush Valley, Dugway, and Erda, and then leave the rest of the county (24,000) in tact to create a second district with parts of Salt Lake, Davis, or Box Elder County.  Again, keeping the rest of the county in tact is more important than where you get the remaining 12,000 for the second district.

Making informed and intelligent Comments: I encourage everyone to use the tool and try to make a map. Even if you don’t succeed, you will come to understand that it is not easy to make this work. Some of the comments below would not have been made if they had done this.

I have no problem with religious individuals so long as they do NOT use their religion as an excuse to hurt other people.  FAR TOO MANY Utahns self-identify as Christians but they do not abide The Golden Rule.  They force their personal preferences on the rest of society using an arrogant “we know best” political process.

If Mormons and their ilk were in the minority, would they want the politically powerful majority to slice up their communities to deny them fair representation?  Why do hypocrites (who claim to follow The Golden Rule but in reality do the opposite of what The Golden Rule teaches) want to slice up their neighbors communities to consolidate political power.

Do people who claim to follow The Golden Rule want communities kept together, or do they want incumbents to draw districts that favor incumbents regardless of what the voters want (keep communities together)?

Until such time as the Mormon leaders denounce such blatant anti-equality, anti-Golden Rule, anti-Christian, unethical behavior, I have NO respect for the LDS organization (as an organization).  Of course self-deceived hypocrites will deny that their behavior does not meet the expectation (commandment) of The Golden Rule. FAR TOO MANY Utahns are self-deceived.

The current Republican Party redistricting proposals perpetuate the unethical behavior of self-deceived hypocrisy.  In MY family, we call a flat-nosed garden tool a flat-nosed garden tool.  Sometimes the truth hurts.  When will community leaders, religious leaders, and real Christians confront this behavior DIRECTLY?

In my never-humble opinion, Nathan Rasmussen’s proposal http://www.redistrictutah.com/maps/congress-rasmussen-ursplit is a step in the right direction.  It looks “odd,” but read his comments before completely dismissing his idea.

David

The “Cox Plan 1″ for the house gerrymanders Representative Sandstrom into Val Peterson’s district.  I would advise taking away some of the Southern end of what is now district 58 and adding the “Heather Ridge” area back into the same district it has been a part of.

I’m curious why committee members, in creating their respective proposals, generally seem to work outward from cities to the state line.  Perhaps this is why we currently have some weird districts like LD55 and SD13 and SD17.  Or perhaps it’s because, in creating such districts, they didn’t sufficiently value the principle that districts be reasonably well-connected internally by transportation routes.  In my proposals, I suffered fewer such problems, perhaps because I worked inward from the state line along major transportation routes to cities.  I’d recommend this technique, in general, to others.

I agree.  Rules require districts to be almost-equally-populated, and allow only a small percentage of variation, which, in the case of representative districts, is often on the scale of a single precinct.  This fact sometimes necessitates either division of certain cities and/or neighborhoods, despite their resident’s wishes, or strange gerrymanders to avoid such division.  In fact, any time someone alters a district boundary to please some people’s special interests, it causes “ripple effects” that will potentially displease other people’s special interests.  Of course, it’s impossible to please everyone’s special interests, especially under present rules, but I hope that this committee’s work, when it’s complete, will both maximize satisfaction and minimize dissatisfaction.

I’m pretty sure that each Utahn county (of 29 total) used to elect a single state senator, but this was ruled to be unconstitutional for some reason, which is why we Utahns now elect our state senators from 29 equally-populated districts.  I think that this was a poor judicial ruling, since counties ought to mean something to our state government (just as states ought to mean something to our federal government), but I don’t know what to do about it.  Perhaps this prescribed number should altered, yes, but this would require a state constitutional amendment.  In any case, at least for me, it seems rather trivial to quibble over whether 20 is better than 29, but I’ll respect others’ rights to fret about it if they so choose.

As for myself, I recreated all four of Utah’s U.S. Congressional districts from scratch.  As for Utah’s state-level districts, I readjusted its existing districts from its edges inward along major transportation routes to its cities—but, within these cities, especially for representative districts, such adjustments became so great that I may as well have started such work from scratch.  In all cases, for better or for worse, I paid minimal attention to where current public officeholders live but, instead, I focused primarily on natural terrain and political jurisdictions and transportation routes and population centers.  I’m not perfectly pleased with any proposals that I’ve submitted so far, but I hope that some will find them helpful.

Whenever you ask politicians to refuse to act in their own self-interest, they’ll likely disappoint you.  But it’s good to ask, anyway, in this case.

I agree that “accessibility” is important.  I’ve seen several districts, both current and proposed, that bring together different areas that people can’t drive between easily (if at all) without passing through other districts, if not through another state, which doesn’t make much sense to me.  I considered both natural barriers and artificial highways very seriously in every one of my submitted proposals.

None of the pdf downloads will download.  They just leave a blank screen.  Why could these not be shown like the others that are submitted online?

It would be helpful if we could take an already submitted map and work from it instead of redrawing the whole state to submit a proposal.

Gerrymandering ensures a result where the total number of elected representatives is disproportionate to the total number of votes. It has nothing to do with where the lines are, but how certain (generally out-of-power groups) are diluted. Currently, that is what is being done. So even though Utah has a decent little democratic population in it’s urban areas, this is not reflected in a similar percentage in our representatives.

I think that’s all that our urban voters want, and it strikes me (a suburban conservative) as being rather fair.

I fail to see any hypocrisy.

I think Rep. Davis has done an excellent job keeping people with similar needs together.

David,

I posted this same comment under the “Sumsion Utah County House Plan” post.

You can use submitted maps by other users as a template by opening the desired plan in the “Shared Plans” “Everyone” folder and performing a “Save as….”  Plans presented by the Redistricting Committee at public meetings do not necessarily appear in the online tool.  It is up to the legislator who drafted the map as to whether it is posted in the online tool.  Also, some of the plans presented at public meetings are not statewide/complete plans.  These are not posted because they do not satisfy Committee criteria.

Chris (Legislative Staff)

You are right the definition of gerrymandering is the support of special interests over community interests, BUT the donut hole plan is not done in support of Matheson – period!

This map represents the common interests of the largest urban center of Utah as well as the largest population center on the Wasatch front. Historically many urban areas tend to lean left in elections. Redistricting is supposed to be about numbers, population shifts, not about incumbent security.

If you are truly worried that the Dems might be protecting Matheson, then please take a look at the many examples in the current media about the way the rep legislative maps are attempting to protect their own incumbents, or at least the ones they like! It’s pretty
transparent.

Maybe you’ll find it necessary to “own your hypocrisy” yourself.

Examples of gerrymandering on the republican legislative side are actions that are “announced” to be in support of a incumbent politician (job security), actions that are transparently special interest such as supporting land deals, oil/gas/drilling deals when the legislature in question is a developer, realtor, or simply beholden to his campaign contributors.

Rally
this Friday at 9:00 am at the National Governors Association
Conference. National media will be there! Tell Gov. Herbert your opinion
about transparent redistricting and GRAMA! Bring civil signs. March to
Grand America! It your chance to be seen and heard for a better Utah.
Location: Matheson Courthouse (meet before 9am)Time: ‎9:00AM Friday, July 15th
 

Thank you for holding the Cache Valley meeting. One comment, please turn off your phones. It is inconsiderate to spend your time using your smart phones rather than giving your full attention to those who attend hoping to learn and give their opinions.

The legislators on their phones are tweeting about the meeting. But I agree with you it’s rude.Audio recordings and minutes are placed on this website for public review post meetings anyway. The first time I noted the twitter feed it was actually several legislators on the committee and in the audience just talking to each other! And making comments about the audience members who were making public comments – now that’s just plain rude!

I like it.  I’m married to Joni, but that has nothing to do with it.

Grand County needs to be in one state house district.  We are a small county and we are currently divided down Main st.  Which makes no sense.  Not only do we not know who represents us the state reps. don’t either and therefore never come to Grand Co. for anything.
The Mclff Plan A seems to be one of the few that keeps Grand Co in tact. 

I would favor the Gene Davis Plan I for the congressional districts.

Thank you Committee for allowing so many of us to have some sort of say or small influence in the redistricting process.  I have submitted maps in all categories except School Board.  I have enjoyed the dialogue with people who have both agreed and disagreed with my maps. In regard to the Congressional maps, several are quite good.  But without exception, none of the good maps include an artificial ‘donut hole’ whose purpose is to segregate or isolate one elitist urban segment of our population from all the others.  In asking for a special donut hole district, democrats are asking for unfair preferential treatment in favor of their candidates and special, artificial, discriminatory isolation intended to protect them from having to compete in a district that is a representative reflection of the state’s electoral makeup.  It’s understandable why they would ask for such a thing, but granting them such special consideration or treatment is manifestly unfair and discriminatory to the rest of us.  Utah is comprised of urban, suburban and rural populations and a mix of conservative and liberal political pursuasions.  Every congressional district should reflect this diversity.  Thought should also be given to making each district as geographicly balanced as possible.  It is certainly unfair to candidates if one has only to drive across town to visit his State Delegates and only has to attend one or two county conventions, while another has to drive hundreds of miles to visit his State Delegates and try to juggle a dozen or more county conventions, some of which are held on the same night. I urge the Committee to reject any map which contains any of these exclusionary,elitest, protectionist donut hole districts and opt instead for districts that are fair to all candidates and are proportionally reflective of Utah’s diverse, dynamic geopolitical demographics.  Two such maps  are;  (1) the map submitted by Joni Crane, and (2) my map entitled ‘Steven Clark, Amended U.S. House Districts’.  There are a number of other maps submitted that also do a good job of creating balanced districts.

I strongly disagree and so do a majority of citizens who attended the field meetings hosted by the Redistricting Committee across the state. An analysis of public comments at the first 11 meetings from Lehi 5/20- Price/Moab 7/9 reveals that 71% of citizens favored an an “donut” district for the densely populated urban Wasatch area. Rural voters stated that they wanted a representative in the US Congress who supported their districts needs without having to balance conflicting needs of the same district’s urban voters.

71% of citizens also asked that their city/county be kept intact. Salt Lake County’s population is too large to be one district, so two is necessary. A four way (pizza) split is not necessary and only 6% of citizens supported that plan.

We don’t have any data as to how many of these citizens are Democrats, Republications, or independent unaffiliated voters (which is the largest group of registered voters in UT, bigger than the Rebuplicans and Democrats added together).

Plus, the RD Committee has agreed to drawing new district maps with political bias, ignoring incumbency issues, and other special interests. Thus I believe it is inaccurAte for you to state that the “Democrats are asking for unfair preferential treatment in favor of their candidates”.

No, citizens are asking for an urban district that does not split SLC and only divides Salt Lake County once.

Redistricting Committee,

I think the most important thing to keep in mind is to keep communities together. The “pizza” plans do not achieve this. They dilute everyone’s vote by putting citizens from different regions into one district.

21st, I think you are playing fast and loose with questionable statistical quotes.  I would request that you post both the statistical model broken down county by county and meeting by meeting, and the official RC published release of the statistics you are quoting.   I followed nearly all the meetings in central and southern Utah and did not once see the statistical outcome you suggest (71% in favor of democrat-leaning donut holes).  The two meetings I thought would most likely support such a concept were Carbon County and Grand County.  I followed the tweet lines on those very carefully and the tweets said almost unanimously that the opinions in these two democrat-leaning counties were quite evenly divided between donut holes and pizza slices.  In other central and southern Utah counties it wasn’t even close.  There was little appetite for donut holes and great demand for pizza.  I can only conclude that if your 71% were to hold true, the statistical weight must have been swung in the urban, democrat leaning areas where Democrats are seeing the hand-writing on the wall and have turned out in some numbers trying to protect their preferentially drawn isolationist districts.  I am not aware that the RC has published any statistics on meeting attendee preferences for either donut hole or pizza slice districts.  I shall ask Sen. Okerlund and Rep. Sumsion about that today. I also question your assertion that the majority of rural voters favored donut hole configurations.  I’m the Sanpete County Republican Chair.  There was certainly no opinion expressed in favor of such a configuration here, including by the Sanpete Democrat Chair who spoke to the RC immediately following me.  I would point out the map drawn by Joni Crane, Uintah County Republican Chair, that rejects the donut hole concept.  I have spoken to other county chairs and not one of them favors democrat-leaning donut holes.  Why are you democrats so afraid to run in a district representative of the state’s actual body politic.  The solution to your problem is to start winning the heart and minds of the electorate with ideas, policies and programs that appeal to the majority, not to try and isolate yourselves inside discriminatory, unfairly preferential and non-representative districts that are manifestly unfair to the rest of Utah’s citizens.  Respectfully submitted.

I agree with you Mary.  My plan, ‘Steven Clark Amended U.S. House Districts keeps Grand County in one congressional district as does my Utah Senate Districts I plan and my Utah House Districts III plan.  In fact, with the 69th district boundaries more fairly drawn I would expect it will not be long before your representative will come from Moab or Blanding because the district will no longer be dominated by Price City.  The 69th district is a southeast Utah district and should be represented by someone actually from the southeastern area.

Maura, while the concept is laudable the implimentation in only four districts is impossible without being manifestly unfair to one or more districts.  By favoring one ‘community’ geographically or idilogically you automaticly disfavor and disadvantage the remaining districts.  When one district is 15 miles in diameter and another nearly 400, you’ve unfairly burdened candidates in the larger district(s) with unsurmountable campaign challenges compared to their urban counterpart in the 15 mile district.  When you require three candidates to campaign in districts that contain a diverse cross-section of of the state’s population while allowing the remaining candidate to only have to campaign to his idilogical peers in a district custom crafted so he/she cannot lose, you unfairly discriminate against the other three districts.   We have a statewide ‘community’ here in Utah, and until our population grows to the point that we can fairly separate urban from rural, liberal from conservative, chocolate lovers from vanilla lovers, we should be ethically and morally bound to make all our districts as geopolitically representative of the state’s body politic as possible.

Chris,
May I make a suggestion that would make it much easier for people to analyse these maps?  It would be very helpful if the district tags in the published maps showed the district number the same as they are shown in the mapping software that created them.  The way it is, people cannot look at the map and tell what the district number is.  With the way the district boundaries have to be pushed around, especially in the more densely populated areas, if all you’re looking at is the submitted map, you can’t identify for certain which district is which.  Just a suggestion.  Thanks, Steve

Steve,

Unfortunately, I don’t think we are able to include district number on the district tags.  We can only include population, deviation, and deviation percentage.

Chris (Legislative Staff)

sanpeteman,

The statistics I posted were the result of an analysis completed by myself on behalf of RepresentMeUtah.org, posted on our website and the RedistrictUtah.com website, and utilized in numerous press releases. The data was not completed by the state salaried legal or political analysts available to the RD Committee, but by a volunteer (albeit one trained in research and statistical analysis). That said, the analysis was quite simple really.
The data comes from the public comments published in the minutes of the RD Committee field meetings which are available on the website le.Utah.gov. The twitter feed comments were not taken into account.

I added up the total number of public comments for each meeting from 5/20 Lehi to the most recently published minutes 7/13 Ogden/Logan. Total for these 14 meetings is 220 comments.
The majority ~ 67% ~ of the total comments from the public were in support of a variation of one of the “donut” type plans that supports keeping SLC intact and only splitting Salt Lake County once due to population requirements (not 4 ways). Additionally, included in this statistic are comments that were of a similar nature: citizens stating that that supported keeping cities and counties intact, with fair, competitive, non political boundaries.
As my original post indicated only 7% (15 comments total in all 14 meetings) were specifically pro “pizza” plan, ie, the four way map plan for US Congressional seats.
26% of total public comments were assorted comments neither pro nor con, mostly consisting of questions to the RD Committee about the map software, the redistricting process, and different map plans.
These numbers/percentages have been adjusted from my original post to include meetings in Price, Moab, Logan, Ogden. The minutes from the final field meetings have not yet been published by the RD Committee.
Please check the minutes yourself if you feel I am playing “fast and loose” with the statistics. It’s a public record.
The minutes of the Price and Moab meetings indicate that by a show of hands the ‘pizza” map was preferred over the “donut”map. However, these meetings were quite small with only 18 comments total for both meetings, and there is no mention of a comment by the Sanpete County Republican Chair or the Democratic Chair at either meeting according to the published meeting minutes.
And I will object to you comment about “why are you democrats so afraid…”. I never mentioned democrats or republicans in my post. And you assume erroneously that I am a democrat. I am not.
I also believe your commen t(again directed to Utah democrats) “that the solution to your problem is to start wining the hearts and minds of the electorate with ideas policies and programs that appeal to the majority, not to try to isolate yourselves inside discriminatory, unfairly preferential and non representative districts that are manifestly unfair to the rest of Utah’s citizen’s” is more correctly said about the single party system in Utah ~ the Repulicans. The super majority party of the Republicans fail to realize that times have changed and the urban Wasatch front is full of progressive independent voters, democrats, and moderate republications who care about preserving our public lands vs. big energy profits, improving education vs. “protecting” our children from real science, history and sex education, and moving forward into the future versus reversing civil rights that were protected 50 years ago.

The number of unaffiliated registered voters in Utah out number the total of registered democrats and republications added together. Contact the Lt. Gov. office if you want to confirm these statistics. Who represents these voters?

Respectfully submitted,
Sue Connor R
RepresentMeutah.org

Sent from my iPad

Thanks for the numbers Sue.  I think it’s safe to say that the minutes apparently do not reflect actual events at the meetings.  I was one of the major presenters at Sanpete and Debra Fraser, the Dem Chair was also.  Statistics can be tricky.  Without delving deep into the demographics of the commenters, I’d be willing to bet that the majority of those commenting in favor of a donut hole were people who live inside the donut hole and have a partisen motivation for creating it.  If there was strong attendance at a SLC meeting with a preponderence of liberals that prefered a donut hole and if the comments were evaluated cumlatively from a statistical base of all meetings, it could skew the overall statistical result to look like much more of the state prefers donut holes than actually do.  I dont’ know if that has been the case or not, but I suspect that scenario is true.  However nothing can eliminate the basic geographical unfairness of a tiny donut hole district compared to the three vast, far flung, diverse counterparts.  How is it fair to ask all the other districts to campaign in politically diverse districts when one district is contrived to favor a single political pursuasion?  How is it fair to ask other candidates to campaign in vast rural areas interspersed occasionally with larger cities and towns, each of which comprises a local media market, cover up to a dozen or more county conventions and deal with distances of many hundreds of miles to cover their district when one preferrential district involves one or possibly two county conventions, one media market and can be driven border to border in under a half hour, even in heavy traffic?  How is it fair to ask three representatives to represent rural, suburban and urban constituencies while the fourth only represents a highly-selective  urban population?  You are right, Sue that the Wasatch Front has developed substantial populations of ‘progressive independent voters, democrats and moderate republicans.’  Ideally Each Utah district should be levened with a representative component of each.  But if you try to carve out districts that only represent particular individual political proclivities you discriminate against Utah’s body politic as a whole.  As I said in another comment, if you carry the donut hole theory out to it rediculious end, why not a district for redheads or motorcycle riders or horse-lovers.  The AARP certainly should have it’s own district, wouldn’t you agree?  As I said, that’s rediculious.  Representative means representative, both politically and geographically.  And Utah’s congressional districts should each be a representative reflection of the State’s actual electorate, not a divisive partition of disparate political interests acting as warring camps of self-protectionists. 

@ Ric Cantrell I apologize for my error in stating the legislators had software that contained political info including incumbents addresses. Thank you for the correction.  But can you please clarify further. Since the beginning of this process the legislators have referred to their own software and the price tag $30,000 was communicated to our advocacy group. If this is incorrect, please let me know.

The idea that this software contained different info than the public software, meaning political info, has been discussed pretty openly among citizens, possibly due to the fact that legislators have frequently stated at public meetings and in the press their concerns about incumbents, their districts, their re-election plans, their competition concerns, and their desire to NOT be “re-districted out of office”.

It seems important to correct this misperception for the public, and for the sake of the RD Committee. How do they get all this info not the software. Personal research, legislative staff research?  And more importantly, why is it even being discussed in the public meetings or the private caucuses when in fact the procedures and principles agreed to in April stated that “no partisan political data” could be utilized in the redistricting process?

Thanks for your time.

Waddoups and Obstructionist Redistricting

Utah Senate President Michael Waddoups criticized Utahns who responded to the Legislative Redistricting Committee’s invitation to participate in the redistricting process. Citizens were asked at public meetings throughout the state to submit maps and feedback to the panel’s website (RedistrictUtah.com).

Waddoups’ recent comment: “Frankly, the amount of input we have gotten so far, it’s been the same people over and over again. They’re broken records.” (Deseret News, Aug. 7) Ouch!
Here are some facts, available on the committee’s own website, that refute Waddoups’ assertion. Over 200 individuals from Logan to St. George to Moab and in the urban Wasatch Front responded to the legislators’ invitation to voice their opinions for public record at meetings hosted statewide for this very purpose. One need only to review the public meeting minutes posted on http://www.le.Utah.gov to clarify that different individuals from various local areas spoke up at each meeting.
An analysis of public comments reveals that a majority of them — 67 percent — favored a variation of the “doughnut hole” maps which supports the urban and densely populated Wasatch Front and only splits Salt Lake County once (instead of four ways). Representatives from four different citizen groups were present at most of the meetings, advocating for fair,transparent and nonpartisan redistricting.The themes were consistent, but the comments were by no means “repetitive.” News stories and new maps prompted new questions throughout.

Perhaps Waddoups, a Taylorsville Republican, perceived these comments as “repetitive” because he was hearing multiple citizens support a fair, nonpolitical redistricting that keeps cities and counties compact and intact. Rather than acknowledge that or challenge it with his own data, he chose a strategy all too common with politicians: He disparaged the source (Utah citizens), ignored the public record, and inserted his own opinion, which has no logical foundation and little public backing. There is no data to support Waddoups’ negative opinions, his lack of civility toward Utah voters, or this final comment: “What the public really wants is for the boundaries to be determined by the legislators they elected and trust.” Can Waddoups cite a survey or a poll? Any objective data whatsoever? How does he explain the numerous citizen calls for an independent, nonpartisan commission to make redistricting recommendations?

The public meeting data indicate that only 3 percent of citizens showed support of the committee, and a mere 3 percent seemed to favor “pizza” plans, variations of a four-way split for U.S. congressional districts. There may be many more voters in Utah who support the work of the committee and the concept of four districts with an urban/rural mix, but those individuals did not speak out at the hearings, nor did any advocacy group produce polls to support these ideas.

Waddoups is out of touch with the data and with citizens. He characterized the congressional and Utah Senate maps as “basically done. I think what you’re seeing is pretty much what we want.” Waddoups said that the GOP Senate majority has spent “the last two months’ caucuses looking at maps.” Caucus meetings are private.

So, was the invitation for public input and the $100,000 spent on software to allow the public to submit maps all a big waste of time and taxpayer money?

Sue Connor is a psychologist at the University of Utah. She readily admits to being one of the “broken records” at the RD Committee public meetings and invites Utah citizens to attend the next one, Aug. 19 at 9 a.m. at the Capitol (House Building), and to follow the redistricting process on Twitter @RepresentMeUtah or @SpeakUpUtah. And sign our petition for fair redistricting at http://www.speakuputah.org.
© 2011 The Salt Lake Tribune

The media is reporting that many legislators favor a “pie” type of alignment for the congressional districts. They must think that they will somehow benefit from such an arrangement; maybe they want to be elected to Congress.  However, the reality is that such an alignment mixing rural and urban areas likely would result in the urban areas dominating and the voice of the rural areas being lost. This would be a distinct disadvantage ot rural Utah. Also, the principle I advocated earlier of contiguity and accessiblity within the district would be lost. The “pizza pie” apprach should be thrown out with the pizza box.  I also do not understand why so many of the proposed plans advocate splitting the Northern part of the State. Cache, Rich, Weber, Box Elder and at least part of Davis County should be in one district. It only makes sense. Maybe that is why so few like the idea. It makes too much sense. Why do hear “Fool on the Hill” in my head every time the Leigislature meets?

You’ve got it wrong, Brent.  By including a representative rural population component in each district means that no candidate in any district can afford to ignor rural issues.  With the population demographic what it is, all districts will be dominated by the more urban/suburban populations anyway.  When you isolate rural into just a single district you give the other representatives the option of not paying attention or giving any priority to rural issues.  When all districts have a rural component that could cost the politician the next close election in his district, you actually give rural four voices rather than just one.

Your assertion, 21st, that only three percent of people attending the RD meetings favored the ‘pizza’ plans is an outright fabrication.  There were meetings where the support for pizza plans far out-stripped support for donut plans.  You are citing skewed numbers where, as would be expected, urban meetings generated a lot of urban dwellers showing up supporting left-leaning urban donut hole districts.  Believe me, there are vast numbers of Utahns who find the exclusionary, elitist, discriminatory donut hole district concept to be absolutely abhorent and unfair.  You are throwing your contrived, questionable statistics around as if they had some sort of scientific or statistically correct basis when, in fact, they have neither.  The commenters were neither an accurate statistical reflection of Utah’s body politic nor constituted any sort of representative statistical universe from which you can extract your erronious statistical conclusions.  The process was vulnerable to organized special interests ginning up urban attendance and dominating the conversation in those urban meetings.  Their numbers would dramatically skew the statistical universe from which you draw your conclusions.  I can say with absolute confidence that the spurious statistics you quote are nowhere near a true reflection of the political mind or will of the  electorate of this state.  Respectfully…  

21st, The Republican Party purchased such software this census cycle and does a political analysis of submitted maps.  I have no doubt the Democrats are doing the same, either through their own software or by taking advantage of software owned by other state parties or the DNC.  It’s only a thought, but perhaps George Soros or some other rich benefactor helps them.  There is no question that the Democrats are analyzing and promoting the maps that favor them the same way the Republicans are.  It would be a perfectly logical and normal thing for either a Republican or Democrat legislator to ask their party how a particular map would affect their district or the state.  I can tell you with absolute certainty that the Republican party never vetted, commented on or in any other way tried to influence the drawing of any of my maps.  I invited them to do so after I submitted each map, and, guess what?    I’ve not heard a thing from the party about any of them.  So much for the nefarious intentions of those dastardly Republicans.  

Maybe you have a point. However, the urban areas would elect people from their areas; those in outlying areas won’t matter to a urban-based candidate as long as he or she has enough urban votes to get elected. This is likely to happen most of all where part of Salt Lake County is in each district. The rural interests would still be ignored. It would be much better to include areas such as Logan and Ogden in one district of mixed suburban and rural. Provo/Orem could be included in another such district as could the Cedar City /St. George area. Also, contiguity could be maintained.

Hey if you mention Soros, do I get to mention the Koch brothers, or is that just empty angry rhetoric that distracts from the actual issues of partisan politics in the redistricting process! Great that the Reps never asked you any questions about your handling of incumbents re your map, BUT they have been mentioning incumbents and maps and districts from the very beginning of the process as if they have conveniently forgotten their own principles for fair redistricting.

Their principles and their statements to the public are so inconsitent that many would in fact call them “nefarious”.

This is a worthy request. However, if they don’t divide some communities
we will end up with unequally populated districts – which will
disqualify our maps faster than you can say “Reynolds v. Simms, 1964.” 
We can, however, try to keep most together.

Also – when you can’t sleep some night… It’s worth pondering how we
define community — Spacial proximity?  Economic similarity?  Use of
transportation corridors (or communications corridors)?  Religious,
ethnic, or political grouping? How a person defines “community” seems to
effect which maps make sense to that person.

In the end, this is what a legislature is for.  104 elected
representatives, each with different experience and priorities will distill thousands of public suggestions
and work to find something on which most people can agree.  (Maybe
“agree” is too strong a word.  “Dislike less” may be a more realistic
goal.)

Hey, you still owe me an apology for stating in one of your prior posts that I was playing “fast and loose ” with the statistics! NOT! Check them out for yourself! And I clearly said they were from the public comments from the redistricting meetings. Numbers are better facts than the anecdotal reports of “lots of people like the pizza maps” which is being tossed around the RD meetings as if it were a fact!

During several of the southern Utah meetings, the RD Committee asked for a show of hands re “pizza vs donut” maps, and the “pizza” hand count won, but at other meetings in moie urban districts the “donut” map won.

Not my fault that lots of republicans did not show up for the public meetings and voice their preferences for the public record. You had the same opportunities to rally your troops for these meetings as the Dems did.  As you may have noticed the attendance at meetings was pretty poor overall, so I’m not sure there was much “ginning up” of urban attendance and “dominating the conversation”. Citizens who wanted to speak were given a chance.

If you had wanted an “accurate statistical reflection of Utah’s body politic” I guess you would have had to work harder to “get out your voters”.  The argument of “broken record” community groups doesn’t work either since they represent a very small portion of the public comments at each meeting (3-4 comments max) with many more comments from other citizens of the local community. Not really what I would call “dramatic skewing”.

If you are so sure that the “vast” numbers of voters find the “donut hole” maps “abhorent and unfair” then conduct your own poll or survey. It’s easy and inexpensive to do. RepresentMeUtah.org has completed one survey of 270 people in addition to the evaluation of the type of public comments made at public meetings across the state. The Salt Lake Tribune had a survey company complete a similar survey about maps with similar results to my numbers. Prove your point, or keep your unfounded opinions to yourself.

And though you end your comments with “respectfully”, the continued accusation that I am “fabricating” statistics or skewing them, etc, is not respectful. Cut it out unless you can point out an actual error in my analysis. This public citizen finds this kind of name calling, disparaging of the opponent by making up falsehoods about them to be unethical and unfair. Is this they way you want to represent Utah republicans, Mr. Clark.

Sure.  What’s fair is fair, 21st.  As for me and a lot of other Utahn’s, we’ll take the Koch brothers over Soros, Sean Penn and the other Hollywood leftists every time.  That aside, brace yourself for a big dose of political reality:  Redistricting is a ‘political process’.  The decision-makers in this process are all seated incumbents who have a vested interest in the outcome.  I have a representative in my own county who strongly opposes my map because the only way he can keep his seat is to keep his district divided between four counties with the majority population base in his home county.  It is just plain a political fact that if someone submits a map that doesn’t respect incumbent boundaries, that map is not going to go anywhere.  It’s neither unethical nor unwise to respect incumbency when the incumbents are going to make the decision on your map so long as your boundaries are not illogically or unreasonably drawn.  I haven’t seen a single map that proposes gerrymandering two non-contiguious widely separated communities of interest together down a narrow highway corridor that ignors natural or logical Utah House or Senate boundaries.  In fact, the only gerrymandered districts I’ve seen are the tiny, blatently left-leaning donut hole (congressional) districts that ignor the state’s geopolitical makeup and give left-leaning candidates in those districts an artificial advantage no conservitative could ever hope to overcome.  I had two principals in mind in regard to incumbents when I drew my maps:  (1) to keep incumbents within their current districts; and (2) to keep at least 50% of an incumbent’s current constituency within the boundaries of the new district.  That’s just a political reality, 21st.  It’s neither unprincipaled nor against the spirit or intent of the RD Committee rules so long as you avoid blatent, illogical gerrymandering. I’m quite proud of the fact that I succeeded in that while staying withing the spirit and intent of the Committee rules. Had I districted a number of people out and decimated constituent populations, how many votes do you think my maps would have gotten?  All those affected politicians would be lobbying their collegues hard to reject any such boundary constructs. I don’t know how you see it, 21st, but when incumbents are the ones making the final decision on the final map boundaries, it’s just not a very good or very wise idea to propose booting a bunch of them out of their jobs with your map.  And that, my friend, is political reality.  Respectfully…

Hey 21st.  Calm down.  Have a nice cup of Chamomile Tea, put your feet up and relax.  I’ve intended no insult in my comments, in fact, I’m rather enjoying our little political discussion.  I know a little about statistics and statistical sampling.  I’ve used both in my business activities for over 40 years.  I’ve commissioned polls, I’ve written polling dialogues, I’ve conducted polls and had my polling conclusions reviewed by University statistics departments just to verify that my polling was non-advocative, objective, and operated in a correct and representative statistical universe.  Additionally, I’ve had my polling conclusions reviewed at the highest levels to assure I was not drawing conclusions that were not actually reflected in either the poll’s statistical universe or polling result.

I do wholeheartedly agree with you that the public was largely apathetic to the RD meetings.  That’s a shame.  I don’t think most people understand the importance of the process or what it ultimately means in their lives.  This fact contributed significantly to trying to draw any general population conclusions from the pittyfully small overall turnout at the RD meetings.

My objection to your citations is that you are apparently trying to draw or infer general population conclusions from a non-representative, skewed statistical universe that provides no foundation for such inferred general population conclusions. 

Do you think for one minute that the Representatives and Senators who will make the final district boundary decisions are only listening to the comments made at the RD Committee meetings?  I’ve had conversations with many of these Representatives and Senators and I can tell you for a fact that is not true.  They are listening to all their constituents.  Can you even tell me with a straight face that the majority of Utahn’s favor the creation of a single left-leaning, preferential donut hole congressional district that excludes rural populations and precludes any chance of a conservative winning in that district?  That defies both logic and reality.  While I know you would like that to be true and argue strongly in favor of such a conclusion, wishing cannot make it so.

Here’s another political fact.  The decision is now largely out of the hands of the public and in the hands of our duly elected Senators and Representatives.  What’s going to happen on the floor of the two chambers may bear little resemblence to how we think the maps should look today.  Like it or not, the fact is that our Republican-loaded legislature will not ultimately disadvantage itself in the RD process anymore than a Democrat-loaded legislature would do so if they were in power instead.    

Again, respectfully… 

Brent, How would that be different from what we have today?  The urban/dense suburban populations dominate their districts now.  The fact is that given the population requirements for each district, you can’t get fair, balanced, representative districts without including a significant urban/suburban population component in each unless you discriminate against rural by making one or more districts exclusionary to rural interests. 

Jason Chaffetz lives in Alpine, his district includes a large urban/suburban population yet he does a great job of representing rural interests as well.  Mattheson represents both urban and rural yet I hear little complaint that he ignors rural interests.  There is complaint about his politics but not that he ignors rural.  The same can be said of Rob Bishop with the urban population of Ogden in his otherwise mostly rural district. 

With these good examples, why should anyone conclude that the new district must be exclusively an urban district.  That position demeans the future representative by concluding that he or she is incapable of representing fairly a diverse geopolitical constituency and denies rural its potential for broad-based congressional representation.

Respectfully… 

Dear Redristricting Committee,

Please allow the population of Utah County to dictate a new Congressional District instead of gerrymandering you currently propose.  We are unique in many ways from any other County in the State and should be allowed our own voice in Congress.

John D Chamberlain

Dear Redistricting Committee

Please allow he population of Salt Lake County and Salt Lake City to dictate a new Congressional District instead of  thegerrymandering you currently propose. We are unique in many ways from any other County in the State and should be allowed our own voice in Congress.

Sue Connor

I don’t see how it helps the “religious divide” to make neat and tidy enclaves for each group. Wouldn’t it make sense to divide things so that moderate democrats and republics, weather Mormon or not, have to appeal to a broad group of people to get elected? I’d rather have the pizza model than have the echo chambers where wingnuts on both sides can dominate the process through the primaries! I think that’s the only way to make any progress.

As a moderate republican, I’m all for gerrymandering for Mattheson!  He represents my worldview (and that of a large number of Utah citizens) quite well. But my version of “gerrymandering” for Mattheson is to keep away from the doughnut, where he would be swamped by Claudia Wright et. al, who want a radical leftist in that seat. Only the rural democrats, moderate republicans and independents saved Mattheson’s hide last time. The question is weather we want to try and find four moderates or three Right-wing nuts and one Left-wing nut. To avoid that, we should make a system where moderates who represent the majority can win.

As a resident of Rose Park and Westpointe for almost 40 years, I am disgusted at the thought of being grouped with Davis County. This divide will seriously impact our community and I feel that has not been taken into consideration. Our children will be taken out of the schools and community groups that they belong to or have their hearts set on belonging to at some point. My children will not qualify for the gifted programs in education that they currently attend if grouped with Davis County. Our West Little League Football may cease to exist if all of these little football players are sent to Davis County.  Our students who have pride in attending West High who all of a sudden find themselves now living in Davis County.  What happens to them?  How far will they have to travel to attend high school? Our Rose Park community needs to remain in Salt Lake County. Please do not divide us. Please do not send us to Davis County.  We do not belong there.

Dividing the town of Moab into two districts for the state house is criminal.  It is hard enough for people who are political junkies to understand all of the layers of government but now the average voters have to figure out which district they are in when lines meander around worse than the Colorado River.  And as someone mentioned about another district, there should at least be a road from one part of the district to another.  Have you ever tried to drive from Moab to Wasatch county, especially in the winter?  With Grand County’s total population just topping 10,000, it seems that we could all be in the same house district. 

Dear Committee:
Mr. David Garber suggested a map that makes a lot of geographical sense in the way that he linkined geographic regions together into districts for a Northern Utah district, a west-central Utah district, an east-central district, and a southern Utah district.  It appears to be a map that would sensibly link high-density areas with neighboring low density areas in each district without splitting up a district, thus making more travel-sense for a congressman and more representational-sense as well since many concerns would be shared in the suggested districts.
Sincerely,
Mr. Bliss Tew- Orem

The suggestion for a district map that I wrote about below (by David Garber) is found at this website: http://www.redistrictutah.com/maps/congress-garber-cds-d

It looks geographically wise in the continuity of the geographical design for each district.

One more comment, this one regarding State Legislative distrcits. If Utah is to be a Republican form of government, it would sure make more sense to return to Utah State Senatorial districts that were simply a district for each of the 29 counties so that counties are represented on an equal basis in the Utah State Senate.

As we see in the federal republic, each state, no matter how large or small in population or geography has equal representation in the senate. So too should each county in the state of Utah have equal representation in the Utah State Senate.

I strongly believe that communities should be kept intact as much as possible.  Also, it is unfair to all to combine rural and urban areas as each has their voice compromised.  Rural Utah – outside of the Wasatch Front and possibly the Wasatch Back should make up a single district so that they will have one strong voice in congress who can represent their viewpoint. The populated areas should have the remaining three districts centered around Salt Lake City, Provo-Orem and Ogden/Davis County.
For the Utah Senate neighborhoods should be kept intact so each neighborhood individual has a good chance of knowing their Senator. Again, rural and urban interests should each be in their own Senate District. That way people with like-minded views will be represented by a Senator who shares that view.
Thank you.

Other Metaphorical Miracles ……

[... old blogs and new, and here are some new ...]…

It’s silly to think that Dems don’t have a voice in Utah.  Jim Matheson has done a fine job of keeping his seat regardless several changes to the districts.

Please stop dividing cities in half.  Cities need a unified voice. They can’t do this well if they have little power because their votes are split between several representatives. A perfect example of this in in Sumsion_06.  Why would you use Redwood Road as a boundary (Which splits Saratoga Springs into 3 districts!) instead of the city boundaries.  Are you trying to ensure that not one of our representatives pays attention to our residents?

Also, all senate districts should have a balance of urban and rural to ensure that these areas receive equal attention. The doughnut plan is a terrible idea where a representative doesn’t have to pay attention to rural issues and urban issues, as well as federal land issues.  It is very short sighted.

Whoops I meant Sumsion_19

Dear Redistricting Committee – I hope you notice how many of you comments are “cut and paste” identical. I also believe that the Sumsion 6 map is fair and equitable. Our largest population area (Salt Lake County) would benefit from having 4 Reps who are concerned about it. Likewise, the more Reps who have a rural element in their districts, the more experience Reps will have to represent the rural interests. It is impossible to create a population based map without dividing communities but I believe the Sumsion 6 map does as well as it can. It has 0.00 variances and is supported by the principals expressed at all your rural meetings. Equitable distribution of land and population. Also keep in mind that in your comment periods in the rural areas you did not allocate time for all present to make comments. In Uintah your committee “specifically asked” how many in the room were in favor of a “Democrat donuthole” the answer was LOUD and CLEAR, in a room with over 100 people, one hand raised. So that should count for 100 public comments.

Thanks for the time you have spent on the redistricting issue. I made my own map so know it is not easy.

Respectfully,
Joni Crane

PS ( We have been represented in Utah for the last 10 years as if 1/3 of our voters are Democrats, we have been OVER REPRESENTED. It is only fair that we have a FAIR CHANCE for Republicans to be fairly elected in all 4 districts)

Dear Committee, 

As a Republican and a tax payer my hope is that you will do everything in your power to Gerry Mander the Democratic control of any and all districts, State and Federal out of existence.  The existing East Bench districts in Salt Lake County give to much power to the minority party and should be corrected.  Are my statements politically correct?  No, but I believe they express the sentiments of many of those who fear retaliations for expressing an opinion.   

I actually like Ronald Myatt’s post… I am not to PC

I believe that the population of Salt Lake County is such that more than one congressperson should represent the whole.  It needs to be divided and a portion needs to be in each of the other three districts encompassing the part of rural Utah not covered by a single northern district.  I believe this will give three congresspersons responsibility for the rural population that always seems ro be left out.

And I need to add a few more thoughts:  I have to agree with R Myatt.  I also looked at the population numbers that were followed in making up the districts – pretty darn equal in population size so that each person has the same “representation” in each district.  Putting “like” ethnicity or cultures in one district may not be feasible without drastically lowering the population numbers in one district and increasing the numbers in another or by creating such twisty curvy districrs that determining district lines would be fairly impossible.  Yes, Utah’s population has grown in 10 years so we gained another congressional seat, but we have also experienced population shifts within our state.  The population in the southwest corner of Salt Lake County is growing.  There is still much land to be developed into beautiful communities such as DayBreak – thus more families will be moving west.  The west side of Utah Lake is more heavily populated now than 10 years ago.  In another 10 years, the district encompassing the west sides of Salt Lake and Utah Counties may grow smaller in land area and the district encompasing Salt Lake City proper and the east side communities may grow larger in areas.  Obviously this would occur to accommodate population shifts.  Change is inevitable, and as Obama will tell you, the man who rules writes the rules.

Any redistricting that puts one congressperson over one huge rural disrict would be impossible to adequately serve.  The “Fair Boundaries” suggestion is ludicrous – and even more so now that it’s “designer” is actually known. 

Your people travelled throughout the state getting input for redistricting.  The majority of people did not want their counties broken up as you did in the past. People favored the donut hole approach over the pizza slice.  The elected officials vowed to redistrict in favor of fair representation rather than the skewed representation of the past.  This country is based on government of the people, by the people and for the people.  So do the job for the people.  See if you can be a fair state this time. 

Yeah, but in order to even get re elected in UT he has to vote with the majority in DC too often, thus he is a very very conservative democrat and votes WITH the Republican delegation from UT as often as against them. He  does not do a “great job” of representing the democrats in UT.

I vote for the more equitalbe doughnut hole method.   This puts communities with like interests and concerns together.  

Thank you,

Russ George

I am very disappointed in the map that has been proposed, which divides Utah into four ridiculous looking districts.  This is the epitome of gerrymandering, drawing districts that are not compact and divide communities.  A prominent example is as the “finger” that extends from Tooele county into East Salt Lake County. 
The idea of having both rural and urban components so that the rural areas can be better represented flies in the face of reality.  In such districts, the urban voters outnumber the rural ones, so the urban issues are given greater importance.  If the rural areas are to be truly represented, a district needs to be made where they are the majority or a significant minority.   Then, their representative will be obligated to give thier issues a priority.
It is clear that the object of the current proposal is so that Utah’s delegation can speak for Utah “with one voice”.  This is a basic premise of Utah politics, dissent is not tolerated.  However, this premise is entirely contraty to the philosophy and foundation of a republican government.  This, to me, represents a certain dishonesty by our “representatives”.  I fear such dishonesty does not go unnoticed, and may have larger consequences than are currently recognized.   For example, see the comments of “David from Sandy” and put that on a larger, national scale.
And to be honest, I expect this comment will be ignored, because it runs against the feelings of the committee.

As a fellow elected official, I know it is difficult to make public policy decisions that also take into consideration political interest.  But that is the reason you get paid the big bucks.  I feel as though the Matheson proposed district is pretty difficult and defies lines of community interests.  In many ways, you have combined the most diverse interests in the state Of Utah into one ball, politically, geographically and public policy interest.  I would hope that you might try harder before Monday to develop a little more compact effort so that our Congressman has difficulty in fairly serving our interests as Salt Lake County residents.  The way our lines are drawn now, it will be a wonder if whoever represents the district will suffer from schizophrenia.

Randy Horiuchi
Salt Lake Countu Councilman

Why is this not being done by an independent redistricting commission?

Dear Committee,

This is a last minute plea to vote for a redistricting that is more fair to the populus and pays attention to cities and interests instead of relying on political incumbants boundaries. Dividing areas, including district 2, into the funny area that it is- from a portion of the city to the corner of Utah, is extremely unfair to the populus.

However, since I doubt that anything will change to the map since the lines were drawn and mostly decided upon long before public imput was completed…

This unbalance is of concern as it appears to be a blatent attempt to break up the minority party’s strong hold (blatent as you’re dividing Salt Lake into four sections when the previous division of two didn’t work). Even though, under any system due to population fluxuations, it is likely the Democrats of Utah would loose a seat, it’s uncouth to blatently use your power to take it. That is not a government for the people, or even by the people. It’s a blatent disregard of power and a scary misuse of it at that.

Additionaly, the pizza is of concern as there has been some funny voting highlighted in Paul Rolly’s columns concerning Southern Utah elections- where a town had more register votes from it than the entire population… . I’ve tried to find the link, I have failed. Normally I would exclude this as it bad form to reference something without decent citation, however, time is limited for hunting for an outmoded link.

My wish for the future is to have an independent redistricting commission in the future which will get ride of these kinds of politics- and if either party looses a seat it is not due to obvious gerrymandering of the dominant party.

 About 3/4 of Utahns are urban, not rural.  A pizza plan that attempts to make urban residents a minority in every district except for district 4, dominated by Utah County, where Republicans are safe, is a spit in the face at urban Utahns.  At least, it is a spit in the face at urban Utahns who may not always vote Republican.  Are Republicans in Utah county really the only urban Utahns who deserve representation?  It is obvious that the need to keep “rural” Utahns in the majority in all districts except for 4 is a thinly veiled code for the need to make sure that rural areas, where Republicans dominate polls, outnumber urban Utahns where people occasionally vote Democrat.  If they vote. These gerrymandered districts, designed to prevent competition, also prevent people from bothering to vote.

I have a solution that is fair and easy. Keep the lines where they are. Give the new seat to the booming Herriman/Daybreak area. They have grown immensly and should get the extra seat. By leaving the lines where they are, no one is upset and no more time or money is wasted on this issue. Danell Robb danellrobb@yahoo.com

Attention Mormons:

What part of The Golden Rule do you NOT understand?

The concept that every district must have a mix of urban, suburban, rural, and uninhabited rocks is completely illogical nonsense.  Rural areas are best served by a district that incorporates the largest percentage of rural voters possible.  Do not be deceived by Republican Party double-talk.  There is one and only one reason for the urban, suburban, rural, and rocks mix:  To carve up northeastern Salt Lake County to make sure that no member of the Democratic Party wins a congressional election.

Is this how YOU want to be treated?  Is this what your neighbors requested (demanded) in the public hearings?  Read the comments:  Keep communities of interest together.

For a state that puts so much emphasis on traditional and religious values, why do you allow your elected representatives to ignore completely the widely respected Ethic of Reciprocity, also known as The Golden Rule?

Do you want to be treated with respect?  Then YOU need to get off the sofa and tell your elected representative to stop protecting their fellow incumbents and start showing some respect for the independent, moderate, and progressive voters who do not want their communities of interest to be hung, drawn, and quartered.

David

Your suggestion violates the constitutional principle of equal representation.  Some states had county-specific representation in their state senates, but this arrangement was ruled unconstitutional.  The federal Senate gets to violate that principle because the Senate was created explicitly by the Constitution for that purpose.

Shirley, you jest.  Fairness is so un-Utahn.  Go back and take a long, hard look at the 2000 redistricting process.

Great resources Guy! Thanks for the information and additional resources.

The “pizza slice” approach is based on a foolish assumption that all
four congressional representatives will pay attention to the issues near
and dear to a tiny minority of rural voters in their districts.

Follow the votes!  Follow the money!

Approximately 2,084,000 Utahns live in Weber, Davis, Salt Lake, and Utah counties.  That is about 75.4% of the total.

The remaining 680,000 Utahns (24.6%) live in “rural” areas.

Do you really, really think that congressional representatives are going
to give 170,000 Utahns the attention they need and deserve compared to
the potential votes and especially the potential campaign contributions
from the 521,000 potential voters in the urban and suburban precincts?

Wake up and smell the Postum-like morning beverage.  The “pizza slice”
approach is the worst possible scenario for Utahns living in rural
areas.

Utah’s approximately 680,000 rural residents NEED and DESERVE their own
district and a member of congress completely focused on their issues.

(These numbers will be posted elsewhere.  Apologies in advance for the duplication.)

Map seems nice