Salt Lake City News

Repubs to Dems: Talk to the hand

Democrats Claim They Were Shut out of Utah’s Redistricting Process

By Tracy Medley, 11-27-06

Are Utah’s Republican legislators shutting their Democratic colleagues out of redistricting plans for the state’s fourth seat? It doesn’t take a magic eightball to know that all signs point to, yes. Last week, Greg Warchol of The Salt Lake Tribune wrote, “The process [of creating preliminary redistricting maps] crossed into controversy when Republicans barred a Democratic-drawn option from the public short list. The majority party's vote infuriated minority party committee members who say it puts the lie to Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr.'s promise redistricting would be nonpartisan and open.”

Democratic Rep. Jackie Biskupski of Salt Lake City, who walked out of preliminary meetings after the Dems map was summarily rejected told The Tribune, "They always say they want input from the Democrats. Why have Democrats on the committee if you are going to ignore what we have to say?" Biskupski along with her Democratic colleagues: Rep. David Litvack and Sen. Gene Davis had drawn their own map, with one district encompassing the whole of Salt Lake County. The Dems plan would have created one strong Democratic District, while maintaining the Republican integrity of the remaining rural districts. But, their map was dismissed before ever being presented to the public.

Not only was the Demo map rejected outright, but according to The Tribune, Biskupski claims that Democrats were excluded from committee meetings that would have given them any input on the final maps. Biskupski reiterated her frustration, "The governor said this was going to be a fair and nonpartisan process or he would use his veto," she told The Tribune. ''He can't pretend this was nonpartisan.''

For the Republicans part, they maintain that the Democrat’s map just didn’t make sense. Rep. Chris Buttars of West Jordan told The Tribune that the Dem’s plan was “terrible” and Rep. Sheldon Killpack of Syracuse told the same paper that the Demo-map, “would be a nightmare.”

A “nightmare?” Really?

Well, a nightmare is just what Utah’s beleaguered Dems are finding this whole process to be, though that’s probably not what Killpack meant.
Partisan gerrymandering is nothing new to Utah, but is it good for Utah? Salt Lake City Democratic Rep. Roz McGee says, no. The Tribune reports that McGee, who’s efforts to reform Utah’s redistricting process have been crushed twice by Republicans, plans to try again. McGee would like to see some of the politics removed from the process by appointing a non-partisan committee to draw new maps.

Republicans, who see no point in indulging non-partisanship, will most likely dismiss McGee’s attempts again.

The Committee in charge of the redistricting will hold several public hearings throughout the week.

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