Potpourri — One Week After 2006
- There are still four close races being counted in Salt Lake County. Results haven’t been released to the public but Republican and Democratic lawyers are watching ten thousand or more absentee, provisional, and paper ballot votes be counted. The deadline for the official canvass is two weeks from election day so it will be one more week before we know whether districts divided by 25 votes (Duckworth), 32 votes (Walker), or 46 votes (Curtis) will swing. Even the county auditor race is in question (344 votes countywide).
- The legislature is gearing up to speculatively redistrict so that Congress might consider adding a congressional seat to Utah. Remember from last time that these guys proved they can’t be trusted. They can’t even stick to the one-man-one-vote rule. From the 2001 House redistricting (using 2007 party control),
House Districts Average Population Ideal Equal Size 29,776 Actual Republican Districts 29,639 Actual Democratic Districts 30,177 This is systematic, far too large and persistent to be by chance. Republicans controlled the process and determined to draw larger districts around Democrats as part of their strategy to expand Republican power and shrink accountability to voters. The difference in size is enough to add up to two new Republican ‘representatives’ even without widespread dishonest gerrymandering by the Republicans. Senate numbers are similar,
Senate Districts Average Population Ideal Equal Size 77,006 Actual Republican Districts 76,518 Actual Democratic Districts 78,293 No wonder Congress doesn’t trust these stooges to draw new lines.
- While pollwatching last week my wife Amy watched a polling place in a church. Right in the voting room there were posters calling for social justice, stories on the walls praising champions of our moral duty to look out for the downtrodden, a petition to repeal the rest of the regressive sales tax on food, sign up sheets for opportunities to care for children and needy families, and calls to love our neighbors and forgive our differences. The Republican Party should officially complain about polling in churches because it turns out God is a Democrat.
November 14th, 2006 at 9:21 pm
I hate to reveal my ignorance, but I can’t figure out what you’re saying with these figures. What do the “Republican districts” and “Democrats districts” represent? No problem if you don’t want to respond, but I’m sure it’s something interesting if I can just figure it out.
November 14th, 2006 at 11:45 pm
If you make a list of all the Utah House districts in the state, the average population is 29,776 (for 75 districts).
But if you make a list of the Democratic districts, the districts represented by Democrats in the House, the average population is 30,177 (for 19 districts). That’s because the Democratic districts are just plain larger than the districts represented by Republicans.
Districts which send a Republican to Capitol Hill average 29,639 residents (for 56 districts).
Does that make sense, Voice?
November 14th, 2006 at 11:59 pm
Yep - got it. Thanks! (And it was indeed interesting.)
November 17th, 2006 at 11:17 am
You are right that Jim used to live in the Aves when the original 4th seat plan was passed. Matheson was planning to move where he did earlier, but my father counseled him to stay put until after 2001 so that they wouldn’t take away all of the Avenues from the Second and force Jim to take out Bishop or Cannon.
November 30th, 2006 at 6:15 pm
[…] Utah’s Democratic Party wants to avoid being gerrymandered into an even tinier minority in the legislature. Last time in 2001 Republicans squeezed eight Democrats together into districts where they would have to run against other Dems to be reelected. The few Democratic leaning districts they left were drawn larger than the Republican leaning districts to minimize the number of Democrats elected. […]