Mar 2
Should Utah’s system for redistricting be changed?
March 2, 2009 | Categories: Redistricting laws and procedures |
When boundaries are drawn for legislative and congressional seats, controversy is not far behind. Do you have ideas about how to make the process more fair? Please share your suggestions using the comment feature.
Comments
10 Comments so far
To me, this is the biggest issue with voter turnout in Utah. The legislative districts, both state and federal, need to be redrawn and based solely on population. Age, race, religion, political affiliation or any other demographic should NOT be taken into account when drawing the lines. This will put each district in a position where the legislator will actually have to be responsible to their constituent because re-election won’t be assured.
I truly believe that more people would vote if they thought their vote meant anything. I realize that a good portion of the reasoning is that we no longer have a two-party system in Utah with such a high percentage of republicans. However, if that isn’t bad enough, the majority party then gerrymanders the districts to insure that even fewer democrats will be elected. I have voted republican most of my life, but the party has gone so far right that I can’t any longer support them. They are now far out of the mainstream.
If the districts were set up by a non-partisan committee, agreeing to not cross county lines (except in small counties where they are only combined with counties where they share contiguous boundaries, and that communities that are completely unlike in their political voting are not crammed together, we could have a good system in place.
In politics there will always be controversy. The present method of re-districting has been in place since Utah became a state, a hundred and eight years ago. It has worked well for us so far. The problem now seems to be that one party controls the legislature, this has not always been the case and these things change. The complaints come from those out of political power and this will always be the case.
I don’t like the way Supreme Court Judges are appointed and kept for life, but since President Obama will be choosing the next two or three I am not crying and trying to change the Constitution or the method of selection. In politics things change.
The only thing I agree with having this commission is the issue that we have gotten away from drawing the lines based solely on geography and population. If we craft “safe” districts for either party, we play to the extremists. Districts need to be drawn as whole and succinct as possible.
I think an commission not subject to outside interference would handle the process much better. Make them autonomous to avoid legislative, executive or even the possibility of judicial gerrymandering. I personally feel jilted that I vote in a district that is not relative in location at all. I am two blocks from the district line. The majority of my district is rural, but I’m in a distinctively metropolitan area. This state’s legislature colludes to keep themselves in power, rather than winning on the merits of their governance.
Districts should be set up strictly according to population after each census. The districts should stay the same until the next census.
The districts lines should not be set up by any elected official or party but rather by 3-5 people from each county. These people could be appointed by the mayors or the city councils for a one time term of one year.
The re-districting must be completed within one year, no extentions.
The districts should not overlap counties but all be contained within the said county and divided by the population in the said county evenly as nearly as possible.
The current systems allows too much power to the politicans, creates “safe” districts for those in office who have the power to re-district and is patently wrong and unfair to voters.
We need an independent commission. It is a conflict of interest for legislators to draw the boundaries of their district.
I hope redistricting will have a high priority on your agenda. Gerrymandering should be ended! Make districts contiguous. Eliminate partisian weighing. Utahns are intelligent voters and generally elect highly qualified candiates regardless of party affilication.
Utah is suffering greatly from being a one-party state. It suffers in progressive ideas and economic opportunity, and is generally accurately dismissed by the nation as a state where voters don’t even think as they march lockstep to the polls. I agree with the foregoing comments that the barest minimum requirement for redistricting is non-partisanship and a strict division by population and geographical continuity. I don’t at all blame people who don’t vote because there is really no choice—why bother? It is shameful that through political manipulation, most of the seats in the entire nation are “safe,” changing hands only when the legislator retires or dies. How absurd. It takes the life out of politics.
Besides redistricting, the state has massive problems with ethics among elected officials. I was told by a legislator with a straight face that Utah ethics works like this: if you say you’re doing it, it’s ok. Look at the time wasted in the legislature that should be spent working for the good of the state when pet projects take up precious days–often projects personally benefitting a legislator. The whole good old boy network around nuclear power (Tilton, Noel) or Noel’s many crazy bills supporting HIS notion that his ideas should prevail in use of public lands. There are others. Someone always brings up an appeal to the state to waste precious resources fighting Roe v Wade. The school voucher episode reminds me of the “hated” Muslim madrassas–isn’t it just a way to control the minds and hearts of children? Lobbying should be curtailed; gifts should be eliminated; legislators should have to take a course on civics reminding them that they serve all the people, not just large contributors or cronies or others of their religion, and instructing them in ways to make sure they do it. I am disgusted with Utah politics and with the blase attitude of many Utahns regarding what goes on.
There should be a non-partisan report issued yearly on how public officials have performed in promoting the public interest, and perhaps what the public feels they SHOULD have been doing that wasn’t done. This should be sent out the same way the election information booklet is distributed. It should be discussed on the neutral media (if that exists).
An enhanced program of civics should be mandatory in all schools, training students to discern what their self interests and responsibilities and the public’s interest is in current political situations. It should be a given that Democracy is not something to coast through–it requires effort and good faith to operate.
Obviously, I could go on and on.
I think redistricting must be taken away from the Legislature. Allowing legislators to redraw the boundaries may have worked in the past when gerrymandering was seen as disreputable and dishonest, but political culture has changed and it’s now seen as legitimate by far too many people, as long as one’s own party is the beneficiary. This has made elections less competitive nationwide, made state legislators and members of Congress much less accountable to their constituents, and undermined the legitimacy of the whole system of elections.
The problem is how to “bell the cat”. Redistricting should be done by an independent commission, but care must be taken to prevent commissioners from being appointed on the basis of political patronage, or from being influenced by the promise of future political favors. One possibility I’ve thought of would be to create a permanent commission with members elected by the Legislature on a secret ballot, which would monitor compliance with the state constitution and laws, report on how efficiently and effectively the government is being administered, and make recommendations to the Governor and Legislature on how to improve both. It would also be the commission’s job to redraw legislative boundaries after every decennial census, subject to the requirement that districts be compact and that counties, cities, and other political divisions not be divided among more districts than is necessary to insure equal representation.
Commissioners would be elected by majority vote in a joint session of the Legislature on a secret ballot for 7 year terms with one member retiring each year. Members could not have held public office for at least 5 years prior to their election, would be barred from holding public office for at least 5 years after the expiration of their terms, and would be barred from participation in partisan politics while serving on the commission. Thus, the commission would be loosely modeled after the Council of Censors provided for in the Pennsylvania Constitution of 1776 (primarily written by Benjamin Franklin), but would be a continuous, indirectly elected body, rather than a periodic, directly elected one.
The reason why such a commission should be indirectly elected on a secret ballot and members barred from holding public office for 5 years before and after their terms is to prevent the commissioners from being influenced by partisan considerations, or the possibility of being rewarded with future offices, and to prevent the commission from being used as a stepping stone to higher office.