Letter: Time to put an end to gerrymandering in Utah
Steve Griffin | The Salt Lake Tribune
Former SLC Mayor Ralph Becker, right, and Jeff Wright talk about the formal launch of the Better Boundaries initiative, which will ask voters to create an independent commission to redraw political districts . The pair spoke from the Cicero Group offices in Salt Lake City Thursday July 20, 2017.
I moved to Salt Lake City in 1998 and have lived in the same house for 20 years now. However, thanks to the blatant gerrymandering of our one-party Legislature, I have now lived in three congressional districts and may live in a fourth one after the 2020 census if we don't rein in this bare-faced grip on power.
Congressional districts are intended to have roughly the same population and residents who share common interests. But Salt Lake County is split into three congressional districts that also encompass large rural districts. Do farmers and city folk have common interests?
Proposition 4 is needed just as much today as it was when President Ronald Reagan endorsed a nonpartisan redistricting commission.
Kermit Heid, Salt Lake City
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