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SALT LAKE CITY -- The lawmakers who will redraw virtually all of Utah's political boundaries have promised to go about that important business with a commitment to fairness and transparency. It's a promise they must be held to.
The state's legislative, congressional and state school board districts are assessed and redrawn after each census report, to ensure that populations are equally represented. The process works best when political considerations are kept at bay. When they intrude, strange things happen. Strange, as in Congressional districts with ink-blot boundaries that lump communities as diverse as Monticello, Midway and Murray into the same district.
This time, the boundary-drawers must create a fourth Congressional district for Utah, offering an even greater opportunity, and temptation, to gerrymander. The last redistricting, in 2001, was criticized for appearing to have been the product of political maneuvering aimed at ousting Utah's lone Democrat in Congress.
But in fairness, it is a complicated task and no possible outcome can conceivably please all parties. At some point in the deliberations, relatively arbitrary decisions will have to be made to avoid gridlock. Also in fairness, it is difficult to accuse the majority party of stacking the deck entirely in its favor. As a matter of fact, the ratio of Republicans-to-Democrats currently in the State Legislature is nearly identical to the ratio of Republicans-to-Democrats among registered voters.
KSL believes two guiding principles should frame the process. First, districts should be defined with an eye toward geographic and demographic commonality. Second, the process must be entirely open to public inspection, and participation.
There is no more important labor our state government will undertake this year than to define its own precincts -- and if Utahns approve of the process, they are more likely to be satisfied with the results.
Email: cpsarras@ksl.com
