Fair Boundaries Initiative Will Correct Egregious Gerrymandering
Op-ed in Salt Lake Tribune
by Merrill Nelson
Rarely do Utah voters have the opportunity to make as significant an improvement to state government as that presented by the initiative petition to establish an independent redistricting standards commission.
Support for such an initiative comes from no less a political luminary than former President Ronald Reagan, who signed a similar petition in his home state of California in 1981.
The Utah legislature has proved beyond a doubt that it has no intention on being fair in establishing voting districts and in supervising their own ethics. The only way the state will see progress in these two important issues is to put the issue to a vote of the people through the initiative process. The legislature has done everything it can to prevent initiatives, wanting all power to itself while ignoring the will of the people. We must have fair boundaries, not gerrymandered to the advantage of one political party, and we must have ethics reform. Bipartisan citizens have put together these two initiatives and we should all sign them as soon as possible.
He stated that “[p]rotecting the integrity of our electoral system and the voting franchise…is of concern to all Americans.” He was concerned that partisan and self-interested gerrymandering of political boundaries “could damage fairness at the polls for a generation …attacking the heart of our system of representative government.”
He also noted that partisan reapportionment “effectively disenfranchises large numbers of…voters” and is “unfair” not just to the minority party, “it’s unfair to the people.” He exhorted the voters to “opt for fairness” over power-politics: “And that’s exactly what this drive is — an appeal for fairness.”
Reagan concluded that the time has come “to take reapportionment out of politics and have it done by a blue-ribbon citizen committee on the basis of what is good for the people, not just the party that happens to be in power.” He declared, “I will sign these petitions and …ask all fair-minded citizens…to join with me.” (See http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=44282)
Utah is now at the same crossroads that California faced in 1981. Our state Legislature has refused to consider legislation that would regulate its power to draw legislative and congressional boundaries following each decennial census. Legislators are free to draw boundaries that benefit their own re-election and their own political party, without regard for the best interests and equal representation of the voters.
Incumbents rush to fill their own districts with the required number of voters, whether near or far, including as many voters of their own party as possible, and excluding other incumbents and voters of differing views. The result is gerrymandered lines that jump over lakes and mountains, split communities, cross several counties and disenfranchise voters, while perpetuating a 90 percent re-election rate for legislators over the next 10 years.
Some glaring examples of unfairness include the splintering of Tooele County to fill the legislative districts of distant incumbents from other counties; the clustering of legislators in certain counties, while leaving other areas unrepresented; the division of Moab into two districts; and the splitting of Park City to prevent its representation by the minority party.
The Fair Boundaries Initiative — endorsed by prominent members of both major parties, independents, major newspapers and other organizations — establishes a blue-ribbon citizens’ commission to draw political boundaries in a fair and impartial manner. The commission will form districts around population centers and communities of interest, following natural and political-subdivision boundaries, without regard to incumbents’ addresses or the political affiliation of voters.
The Legislature will retain the power to accept or reject the commission’s plan, but if legislators reject the impartial plan and revert to their own partisan gerrymandering, voters will see the drastic difference and respond accordingly at the polls.
We join our voices with that of President Reagan and call on “all fair-minded citizens” to “take reapportionment out of politics” by signing the initiative petition to create an independent redistricting commission.
Please act now to get this initiative on next year’s ballot. For directions on the locations of petitions throughout the state, see the Fair Boundaries Coalition Web site at fairboundaries.org.
Merrill Nelson, a Salt Lake City attorney, is co-sponsor of the Fair Boundaries Initiative.