Brian’s Utah Weblog

The Democratic House caucus is holding an open meeting discussion of redistricting process and the new legislature. Sentiment in favor of a bipartisan redistricting commission is as universal with Litvack (D-SLC) and Biskupski (D-SLC) telling the story today.

Republican caucuses are expected to be more divisive but also closed to the public.

Biskupski is telling us about what is probably happening in the Republican caucus with pieces of West Valley switching from the Map L plan into district 2 while more of Taylorsville moves into district 4. Part of the idea may be to put Senator Mayne (D-West Valley) into district 2 to prevent him from winning in 4, as he and Rep. Matheson (D-UT2) are the only Democrats expected to be able to win in 4. (My map shows that Mayne is already in 2 under Map L, but just barely.)

Much scoffing is done toward the idea shared by Republicans and the Democratic HQ staff that the reason Mark Walker or Greg Curtis were in close races was Matheson coattails. There was much angst over losing Matheson coattails among Democratic leaders last week and now Republicans are trying hard to push Matheson out of their legislative districts.

Rep. Shurtliff (D-Ogden) observes that the current map trimming is about political prospects but that in hearings the Republicans emphasized that political data should not be considered in the map drawing.

Rep Clark (R-Dixie) has come to visit the Dem caucus and offered either to bring to the floor the public map L or a modified map L with various adjustments favored by Republican legislators who don’t want Matheson campaigning in their districts.

It is suggested that with Democrats in the majority maybe we should draw a new map that could send two Democrats to Washington. Biskupski says there is no such map presented. Rep. Becker (D-SLC) suggests maybe I could draw such a map. I’ve drawn it up just for fun, Rep. Becker, but it’s even uglier than any map we’ve seen yet.

Rep. King (D-Price) is reluctant to support the bill since the Carbon County folks really want to keep Jim Matheson. He proposes that if he votes for it he’ll need to claim temporary insanity.

Democrats are now speculating whether voting aye or voting no on any bill here will result in a stronger position before the public to advocate for a bipartisan commission bill before 2011.

The decision is that map L will come to the floor. But no one knows yet what the Senate will do.

The House is discussing fixing the scheme for taxes on boats and watercraft.  And now recessing for two hours for lunch.  Recess until 1:30 pm.

Now I’ve abandoned the languid pace of the Senate for the House, where they are organized enough to have started discussion and the traditional seating respects the history and traditions of Western Civilization.

So far they’re proposing some redistricting principles and then rumor has it the Senate will adjourn so that the Republicans can decide what to do about redistricting in closed caucus. The House Republicans will probably soon do the same.

Whispers indicate that Senator Waddoups (R-Taylorsville) wants the rest of Taylorsville in the new district and possibly some more of his district, too. Waddoups lost a leadership race in the Senate and may be marginalized by his erstwhile opponent, President Valentine. If a fourth congressional seat opens, Waddoups may want as much chance to take a new job as he can.

Just now the news is that the Senate has convened.

I’m here at the Utah Senate temporary gallery waiting for the session to start, watching Senator Arent charming the press.

One thing that strikes me about the temporary chamber (the Capitol is undergoing a seismic retrofit) is that the Democrats are sitting on the right. It’s been like this since the first general session in the temporary chamber in two years ago.

The more progressive caucus in popular assemblies has seated itself on the left and the more reactionary has been on the right for over two centuries. When I interned at the Illinois General Assembly it was so. When I traveled East to lobby Congress it was so. In our Utah Capitol building it was so. When I as a tourist visit the Colorado chambers or the Massachusetts chambers or any other chambers it is always so.

The first time it happened, the world changed. On the 20th of June in 1789 the Spirit of ‘76 spread to Europe and the various representatives of the different social classes of France declared the people’s sovereignty over the king. They had been run out of royal chambers by the king and convened in a tennis court. When they took an oath to stand against the king in the name of the people they organized themselves with the radical revolutionaries on the left and the less radical revolutionaries on the right.

But in 2005 for some reason we did it differently.

The Deseret News has produced a great set of campaign finance articles this year. The latest one came from Lee Davidson and Bob Bernick today.

Remember that in Utah campaign cash can be converted to personal use with simple accounting. When a legislator accepts large contributions to his campaign account and doesn’t need them to campaign, he can take the money for his own consumption. That practice was forbidden on the federal level after 1992 because Congress noticed that it was tantamount to bribery.

I am astonished again that it takes only $26,050 to put you on the list of top 20 contributors in Utah. Corporate welfare collecting industries regularly filch millions from taxpayers with the cheerful help of our legislature. The return on investment for greasing the palms of Utah legislators must be astronomical.

I don’t agree with the definition of “special interests” as anyone except an individual inside a lawmaker’s district. I contribute to lots of campaigns outside my district for purely idealistic reasons. Most of the donations listed in the article today were from corporations and professional lobbyists who are certainly special interests.

If Curtis is thinking of a U.S. House seat, he’ll be mighty disappointed.  National elections have strict rules against taking corporate contributions and that means state campaign funds can’t be mixed into
federal campaigns.  Not one penny of Curtis’ $265,000 could be — legally — spent on a race for Congress.

That will be a problem for most Utah Republicans running for Congress.  Very often they have to dip into their own bank accounts because they’re so unfamiliar with asking people for money.  Corporate lobbyists just hand them checks or funnel more money to them through the state Republican party. Later on the corporate lobbyist gets paid back with millions of your tax dollars in corporate giveaways.  It’s a cozy system and it has almost completely replaced traditional fundraising in Utah.

Ethan has started using WordPress so it’s time for me to do a small redesign.

Firefox users should see new style tomorrow.  Those of you using backwards and outdated browsers like Internet Explorer will have to wait a bit longer for everything to work.  Shouldn’t you upgrade to Firefox and say goodbye to popups, viruses, window bloat, and the other ugly side effects of Internet Explorer?

Charlotte thinks there’s nothing wrong with Christmas that a little more commercialization couldn’t cure.

I spoke to Rep. McGee about her proposal for a bipartisan redistricting commission in 2011. She says that she will be reintroducing her constitutional amendment resolution in the 2007 legislature. I’ll write again next week about some ways we can make the proposal better, including structuring it as a law rather than a constitutional amendment so that we need only half plus one rather than two thirds support in the legislature.

Bob Bernick wrote a very good piece about Utah interim redistricting in the Deseret News.

Utah’s fourth seat just got much more likely in the past day when Congressman Silvestre Reyes (D-TX) was appointed to chair the very important House Select Committee on Intelligence. Hearty congratulations from Brian’s Utah Weblog to Congressman Reyes. The unexpected promotion of Reyes from third in seniority to chairman over Congressmen Harman and Hastings changes the internal Washington politics of the D.C. seat and the fourth seat in Utah. For the first time, this fourth seat is reasonably likely to happen, though I’d still guess the odds are less than even.

Vote in the fourth seat poll in the right hand column of the Brian’s Utah Weblog main page. Rumor has it that the RNCC might want to make some last minute edits to the map.