“Bring it on,” says Speaker Lockhart.

Speaker Becky Lockhart ain’t afraid of the big bad wolf. Or Jim Dabakis, either, for that matter.

By the time you read this, you’ll also be able to read the Robert Gehrke’s intrepid reporting about the Utah Legislature‘s Special Session Monday on redistricting.

I can’t wait to see what juicy tidbits he has found.

Meanwhile, as the Legislature gathered for its constitutional duty of redistricting Utah, forces gathered to fight anything that the Utah Legislature passes. And I do mean “anything.”

“This is a lawsuit waiting to happen,” said soon-to-be-former Mayor Peter Corroon. I think what he meant was, “We have been waiting for this to happen so we could begin our lawsuit.” No matter what comes out, Democrats have been planning to sue for months, if not years.

Gerrymandering, they are screaming, and I do mean screaming. All forty five of them (see on right all that turned out for the protest today). They see Republicans drawing lines to maximize Republican representation in the state House and Senate, pitting Democrats against each other by merging districts, and, of course, the coup de grâce: putting Representative Jim Matheson in a district he can’t win in. It is scare tactics extraordinaire, and it flips the meaning for the word completely on its head.

In truth, what their complaints amount to is one thing–they want gerrymandering to benefit them.

Meanwhile, the Legislature is moving forward with the most open redistricting process in Utah history, following the legal guidelines established by courts, and doing the best it can to make each district as representative of the population as possible. Speaker Becky Lockhart, on Friday, explained:

But despite the easy sound bites from political party hacks, radio talk show hosts and editorial boards, we don’t draw arbitrary lines. We can’t. The population deviations between districts have to be extremely small. There may be philosophical differences, but what is drawn will be legal because we are using sound principles established by both state and federal court precedent.

As a result, some Democratic-leaning districts will have to be combined. Conversely, some Republican districts – more than the Democrats, in fact — will also have to be combined. Friends from the same side of the aisle will likely have to run against each other, because in the end the numbers reign supreme. Equal representation demands that district boundaries will shift to where the people have chosen to live.

We’ve been elected as legislators to make tough decisions. We look at all sides, hear all arguments and do some serious soul-searching. And though the Legislature is constitutionally mandated to draw districts, we have involved the public at every turn.

In other words, it’s going to be difficult for any lawsuit to succeed because of a few simple reasons:

A) The guidelines for redistricting are fairly restrictive. “One man, one vote,” means that each district must be almost exactly the same size as other legislative districts. That deviation is plus or minus .1% for Congressional districts and 3.5% for legislative and school board districts.

B) Districts have to be contiguous and reasonably compact. In a state like Utah, with the majority of the population clustered in a few areas in the north of the state, these means that districts must be either all rural, all urban, or a mix.

C) The 2010 population census has to be used. With lots of growth in the south end of Salt Lake Valley, northern Utah Valley, and other areas of the state, this will mean that legislators in older areas will find themselves sharing a district with one or more of their legislative associates. LaVar Christensen, Ross Romero, Pat Jones, Chris Herrod, and Stephen Sandstrom are just a few who are likely to find themselves facing this scenario.

If you put letters behind those names, you would notice that they are both Republican and Democrat. Neither party is immune from the negative effects of redistricting. In other words, no one is getting everything, or even some, of what they want.

Back to the critics and the spin.

First, there was the so-called “Fair Boundaries” crowd. Billing themselves as an “independent group,” non-partisan, their credibility went out the window when the Salt Lake Tribune reported that the maps they submitted were actually drawn by Todd Taylor, senior adviser and until recently Executive Director of the Utah Democratic Party. Speaker Lockhart, ever the realist, goes on:

But even with huge public input and a thoroughly transparent process, calls continue for a so-called “independent commission” from groups who quite simply aren’t getting their way. When their arguments are not convincing, they claim we aren’t listening. This is just not true.

Aside from the fact that these groups are deceptive in their purpose, it’s a ludicrous idea that there is even such a thing as an “independent” person or commission when it comes to political lines. Everyone has a conflict. And I, for one, would rather have an elected official accountable to the people be making the decisions rather than someone who will make decisions and then disappear into the night.

First printed in March 1812, this political cartoon was drawn in reaction to the state senate electoral districts drawn by the Massachusetts legislature to favour the Democratic-Republican Party candidates of Governor Elbridge Gerry over the Federalists. The caricature satirises the bizarre shape of a district in Essex County, Massachusetts as a dragon. Federalist newspapers editors and others at the time likened the district shape to a salamander, and the word gerrymander was a blend of that word and Governor Gerry's last name.

Todd Taylor probably wishes Fair Boundaries’ part in blowing his cover would disappear into the night.  His participation did more to hurt the cause of an independent commission in redistricting than anything else the Fair Boundaries crowd could have done. It’ss hard to believe the Democrats would support Fair Boundaries if they didn’t think it would help the Democratic Party first and foremost.

Which brings us back to the beginning: do Utahns (or rather, Democrats) actually know what gerrymandering is?

According to Wikipedia (the lowest common denominator for all of us), gerrymandering is “practice that attempts to establish a political advantage for a particular party or group by manipulating geographic boundaries to create partisan, incumbent-protected districts.” (And no, it’s not based on a guy named Gerry Mander. It’s from an amalgam of Gerry and salamander…see the graphic at the above at left).

Redistricting does not  de facto equal gerrymandering. By stating that they want a district that combines and protects Democratic voters in north-eastern Salt Lake County in one Congressional district, for example, Democrats are not asking for a fair district–they are asking for a “partisan, incumbant-protected district[.]” They are asking for protection of Democrats.  They have flipped the whole idea of redistricting on its head and bent it to mean its exact opposite.

Meanwhile, as the Legislature draws maps that divides the state to as closely as possible keep communities together (ostensibly, the “communities of interest” standard that you may have read about in the press), they are trying to match the demographic and population shifts across the state.

I have news of Democrats–those shifts are, and have been shown to be, in favor of Republicans.

In other words, Utah is becoming more Republican, if that’s even possible, and by becoming more Republican, Democrats have bigger problems than just drawing lines that protect incumbents.

Check out this graphic from Adam Brown’s “Utah Data Points” blog:

While Democrats are down about 5% since 1982, Republicans are up 4%. While there are fluctuations, the trend is that more Utahns are self-identifying as Republicans.  In fact, with the exception of Kane County, every county in Utah has shifted to the right. With fewer real Democrats in Utah, it strains at credulity that Democrats’ problem is redistricting, rather than just failed policies. This doesn’t mean, as Brown says, that they can’t win, but it may mean that redistricting should result in more Republican representation

Will redistricting be perfect? No. Just a few hundred yards from my house, three Congressional districts meet at one intersection to split my town–Holladay–into three sections. Does that divide a “community of interest?” Without a doubt. Is it bound to happen? Definitely. Cities and counties are not equal in size, make-up, interests and shape. But the law requires that certain guidelines be followed.

The Utah Legislature has done a fantastic job traveling the state, soliciting comment, and building a redistricting plan according to guidelines that, at the end of the day, they will be responsible to the voters for. Because when it is done, these legislators will need to return to their home districts–those that still have them–and explain why they voted the way they did.

Last–the lawsuit. Having substantially followed the guidelines of the law, the State of Utah will now need to face a lawsuit by the disgruntled. Unable to win on the power of their policies or rhetoric, the Democratic Party of Utah, or others supported by them (much like Fair Boundaries), will sue. This lawsuit will cost the taxpayers of Utah, but it will, in the end, be settled upon maps that have been established according to guidelines that protect the maps from redrawing by courts.

“Bring it on,” says Speaker Lockhart in response to the legal threats. I’d put my money on her.

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