Brian’s Utah Weblog

I was pleased to see comments on the liveblogging posts yesterday. Every blogger loves comments, so keep them coming.

Yesterday “Legislative Witness” wrote,

It is important and I will be writing about it again.

Rob Latham favors Instant Runoff Voting and writes,

The example of Iowa’s extremely competitive races at every level from local to congressional prove that a bipartisan commission with prioritized, objective critieria for drawing districts can reliably deliver competitive districts that respect communities. Weaker reforms like bipartisan committees without prioritized, objective criteria can draw lines even worse than a partisan process.

The Iowa statute is the gold standard. You can look it up. (Search for “ch 42″ — the Iowa redistricting statute.)

Anyone who is interested in working for Instant Runoff Voting in Democratic Party convention elections, please contact me. Several folks have talked about organizing the change and I have started contacting some members of the Utah Democratic Party Rules Committee. Let’s not let the Republicans get ahead of us on reform. I need volunteers to make it happen, though. Call Brian at (801) 484-3026 or email brian at utahbrian dot com.

Also I’d like to invite Mr. Latham to join the Utah Democratic Party any time he wants to make a real difference. The Democratic Party is the natural home of libertarians and a very welcoming place.

• Utah House Democrats speculated in caucus yesterday that it might benefit us to send two Democratic congressmen to Washington if we do get a fourth seat. With Democrats in the majority in D.C. it makes sense. And it matches the voting preferences of Utahns who cast 43% of congressional votes for Democrats in 2006. One Democrat out of four would be 25% and two Democrats would be 50%; notice that 43% is much closer to 50% than to 25%.
• After the minority leader suggested maybe I could draw that two Democrat map for them, I could hardly suppress it. So here it is, the two Democrat map. Meeting all the criteria of the redistricting committee, the districts are equal size and contiguous. District 2 covers rural counties that already vote for Jim Matheson (yes, Jim is very popular in southeast Utah) along with South Jordan, Sandy, and the entire East Bench of Salt Lake above Highland and 1500 East. Matheson should win easily in 2 as he already wins comfortably in most of it and Jim could be reunited with his most loyal voters in Carbon County. I call District 4 the “Congressman Ed Mayne” district but I would happily take Congressman Patrice Arent if she could be persuaded. Notice that we take a bit of Ogden into district 4 to balance population and add a congressman with Hill AFB in his mandate. (Congressman Lou Shurtliff? I’d campaign for her.)
• It’s an ugly map, isn’t it? But not as ugly as the three district map we’re opertaing under now. That’s what partisan gerrymandering gets you.
• There were two very good comments under the last post from the liveblogging yesterday. Read them.
• Partisan redistricting is an ugly process. The new four district map was drawn under a mandate that it had to satisfy Washington D.C. Democratic leaders who want Jim Matheson safe and Republican leaders who want a fourth district leaning strongly Republican. Otherwise one party or the other will block the new fourth district. That means both parties had bipartisan goals. Therefore this is the kind of map and cooperative process you should expect from a bipartisan commission. Anyone who tells you that we don’t need reform because things went well this time is trying to mislead you; in 2011 there will be no Washington mandate, the gloves will be off, and bipartisanship will be out the window.
• Republicans scrambled against each other yesterday to draw Jim Matheson’s campaign out of their legislative districts. Apparently Mark Walker (R-Murray) and Greg Curtis (R-Sandy) think their opponents came within 20 votes of sending them home only because of the Matheson machine. Rep. Ralph Becker (D-SLC) says “let them continue to think that and we’ll have those districts in two years.”

It seems like the IE problems are ironed out and even the brand new IE7 bugs are under control.  Please let me know if you have any problems with the new look of Brian’s Utah Weblog.

If you are using Internet Explorer, isn’t it time to say goodbye to security holes, crashes, popup advertising, and convicted monopolists who have admitted stealing Utah jobs with unethical business practices?  It’s time to get Firefox!