This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2011, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
They gathered in the Capitol on Monday hating not only the pizza, but also the way it was delivered and who appeared to be delivering it.
With chants of "Just say no," the angry crowd stood within audible distance of both the state House and Senate chambers at the kick-off of the legislative special session called to deal with political redistricting maps.
They complained bitterly that lawmakers prior to the special session never seriously took public input into account and the process would simply result in gerrymandering by a Republican majority.
"We asked for a doughnut, expected a pizza and were given instead a plate of scrambled eggs," Salt Lake County Mayor Peter Corroon said to cheers. "This is downright rigged, and everybody knows it."
The plans slicing up the state's most populous county and combining the pieces with large swaths of rural Utah have been nicknamed pizza slices, while proposals that would create compact urban districts surrounded by a large rural one have come to be known as doughnuts.
It was enough to give Glenn Wright of Fair Boundaries a case of political heartburn.
"These maps could've been drawn last June as much as they listened to the public," Wright said.
But Julie Dole, chairwoman of the Salt Lake County Republican Party, said the protesters were missing the point — that public input was taken and that the reality was that the math was going to leave some unhappy.
"It's mathematics," she said. "I'd like to have kept Salt Lake County together, but with us being half of the population, it just can't be done."
And Ivan Dubois, the Republican state party executive director, stood nearby to "fact-check" the rally and took exception to the charge that the Legislature was using gerrymandering tactics. He said using that word was simply a way "to scare people."
But Corroon had another word for what was being done. He said on several occasions it was "un-American."
"This is a lawsuit waiting to happen," he said.
To mark the occasion, protesters were served pizza and doughnut holes — a tongue-in-cheek reference to the shorthand of Republican-favored pizza slices and Democrat-supported doughnut hole approach.
Kelli Lundgren, head of Represent Me Utah, said she paid for some of the pizzas that were served and that the Utah Democratic Party paid for part as well. Several protesters who stood on the steps holding signs also held pizza boxes and doughnut boxes to make their point and to urge lawmakers to vote against a pizza slice map.
"Every no vote is a yes for democracy," she said.
At the end of the rally, which featured several speakers, Jon Hansen held up a redistricting map and crumpled it in his hand to the cheers of the crowd.
Then a group of folk singers from the locally based group Peaceful Uprising sang "Ain't Gonna Let Nobody Turn Me 'Round," a protest song from the civil rights era.
Several lawmakers watched with bemused expressions from above during the rally.
The special session is expected to continue Tuesday.
Twitter: @davemontero