The Utah Legislature repeats the claim they hold the “power” to draw the redistricting maps. I see it more as a duty on behalf of the public. If viewed as power, that power has been abused every 10 years as they slice and dice the Salt Lake City area to ensure there is no unified voting block to represent the citizens of Utah’s capital city and surrounding area.
I understand that with 1.1 million people, Salt Lake County does need to be split between two congressional districts. However, there is no justifiable reason to split us into four separate districts. Let’s not pretend we don’t know why they insist on that.
The Utah Legislature is like a child who simply cannot resist the lure of a cookie jar. In this case, it’s the temptation to turn this civic duty into a hyper-partisan power grab. If you want to gerrymander Utah, it’s no secret that you do that by putting a target on Salt Lake County. Take the east side of downtown, The Avenues / University area, and send us into northern Utah’s 1st District, then a sliver here and a notch there and now the work is done.
Does the Utah Constitution give the Legislature this duty? Sure, but I’m not sure it supersedes the will of a majority of Utahns who voted to pass Proposition 4 in 2018 requesting an independent commission.
Was the intent for that to be used for one party or another to effectively place their thumb on the scale of our elections to sway the outcome? I highly doubt it and I hope that is not the “Utah Way.”
Matt Adolphson, Salt Lake City
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