A group dubbed the Fair Boundaries Coalition announced it will file an initiative petition with the Lieutenant Governor's Office on May 6 to put an independent redistricting commission to a public vote in 2010.
"The governor forced our hand," Coalition founder Marcie Smith West said, referring to last week's announcement that Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr.'s Commission on Strengthening Utah's Democracy had suspended its study of Legislative redistricting.
"We were disappointed," West said of Huntsman deferring to state lawmakers on the highly political process, which some have said allows representatives to choose their voters instead of the other way around.
The Utah Constitution specifies that drawing voting boundaries is the job of the state Legislature following each 10-year Census.
Because the Constitution cannot be amended by citizen initiative, an independent commission would act in an advisory capacity with lawmakers retaining the final say.
In the recent Legislative session, two Democrat-sponsored bills urging revisions to the redistricting process failed to emerge from the powerful Rules Committee.
West, a Democrat, said the Coalition is nonpartisan, boasting Republican, third-party and independent members as well as Democrats.
Merrill Nelson, a former Republican lawmaker from Grantsville, has joined forces with West.
"My primary concern is that legislators are drawing district boundaries to meet their own personal needs," said Nelson, an attorney. "It's a natural impulse to consider what it will do to you and your district."
West cited the bisecting of Tooele, Moab and the tiny town of Randolph as prime examples of illogical boundary-setting.
And Nelson objected to the carving of Tooele County into four state Senate seats, while none of the senators live there.
Nelson believes that building districts based on population centers and shared interests would better suit the aim of democracy.
"Since the governor and the Legislature won't act on this, it leaves it back with the people," Nelson said, noting that several neighboring states have already switched to independent panels.
The Coalition will need at least 94,000 voter signatures by April 15, 2010, to land the measure on the ballot.
2001's redistricting combined eight Democratic lawmakers into four districts, giving the Republican-dominated Legislature a stronger grip.
". . . gerrymandering is significantly more effective at changing election outcomes than other methods of election theft, which are usually effective only in close elections."
Source: www.fairboundaries.org
