- 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.”
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Redistricting Thoughts For Tuesday
December 5th, 2006 at 2:03 pm
great map drawing…did you use a computer program or what?
That is nice to get work from Mr. Becker. Do you really think that Ed Mayne is really that big of player? I think Patrice has a pretty good grassroots effort to GOTV on her own, and I would hate to see her just retire.
December 5th, 2006 at 3:13 pm
Dave,
I used the census data from 2000 and drew this map from that data by hand. I have a program that does the rendering but I like this map better because the lines are cleaner.
The Dem caucus isn’t actually commissioning such a map, of course; it was a comment made in jest. The Rs in the legislature would never have adopted it and Democrats were not even allowed to speak on redistricting in the House, much less propose amendments. I think Ralph just liked the maps I produced for the Rocky II campaign (the public ones, not our proprietary internals which I’m also proud of). I expect to work on the Becker For Mayor campaign next year, too.
Ed Mayne and Patrice Arent are both very big players and excellent campaigners. Mayne’s labor connections are formidable, national and local. I’d take either one over any congressman we’ve had since the great Wayne Owens.
By the way, I’ve enjoyed your redistricting coverage.
December 5th, 2006 at 4:02 pm
Brian, too bad you didn’t have that map available yesterday to present at the D caucus. I suspect there are members who would have loved to see this map over others presented. Great work!