Salt Lake City and Salt Lake County will likely lose a couple of Utah House seats in this year's legislative redistricting because, as a whole, the county and city didn't grow as fast as southern areas of the state.
With the final 2000 Census numbers now released, the once-a-decade battle over congressional and legislative district redrawing begins.
House Speaker Marty Stephens, R-Farr West, and Senate President Al Mansell, R-Sandy, are picking committee members for the joint group that will redraw boundaries for the 75 Utah House seats, 29 Senate seats and three U.S. Congressional seats.
Legislative Democrats will have a place at the table, but they will make up less than one-third of the committee's members because they hold less than one-third of the seats in the 104-member Legislature.
The major political battle will be over Democratic freshman U.S. Rep. Jim Matheson's 2nd Congressional District.
While Utah has sued the Census Bureau to get a fourth U.S. House seat, it's unlikely a federal court will order that fourth seat before legislators must complete their redistricting work in a special session this fall.
Utah believes the bureau's refusal to count LDS Church missionaries overseas as Utah residents cost the state a fourth seat, losing out to North Carolina by fewer than 1,000 people. Any court decision there would likely impact Utah U.S. House races after 2002, when the new redistricting would take effect.
Stephens says a preliminary look at the demographic shifts within Utah likely means Salt Lake City will lose two of the 13 House districts that are wholly or partly in the city limits. And those are nearly all Democratic seats.
Likewise, Salt Lake County — by far the state's largest county in population — could lose two House seats, possibly one to Utah County and another to Washington County.
Salt Lake County now has 33 seats out of 75.
Redistricting is a numbers game. But personal and partisan politics play a big part.
Stephens told the Deseret News several weeks ago that legislative Republicans would listen and be fair to Democrats. But much of the end result would be partisan, Stephens admitted.
The state Republican Party is even putting off its 2001 organizing convention until Aug. 25 to give party leaders time to come up with their own party redistricting plan they can submit to the convention for approval and then pass on to their legislative members before lawmakers set the boundaries in a special session.
Democratic state chairwoman Megan Holbrook said during the 2001 session that she hoped Republicans wouldn't harm Matheson too much. But it was only a hope, she added.
Historically, GOP lawmakers have listened to GOP U.S. House members in how congressional boundaries are drawn.
In 1991, Utah had only one Republican in Congress, Rep. Jim Hansen. But Democratic Reps. Bill Orton in the 3rd District, Wayne Owens in the 2nd District had little say in how the GOP-dominated Legislature redrew their boundaries. And as a result Democratic areas in both men's districts were removed.
Hansen is now in this third decade in the House, chairman of a powerful House committee. And he will certainly have a say in redrawing his northern and southwestern district.
Ten years ago, Hansen floated the idea of having each congressional district have a piece of Salt Lake County.
If Matheson's eastside Salt Lake County district is to become more Republican, then Hansen's 1st District and Rep. Chris Cannon's 3rd Districts must become more Democratic. But considering the two conservative Republicans have not had a serious re-election challenge in the 1990s, they may not object to that too much.
Matheson lives in the Avenues in northern Salt Lake City, a rather Democratic area. It's possible that his home could actually be placed in the 1st or 3rd Districts by the Legislature. But as Holbrook points out, the U.S. Constitution doesn't require a U.S. House member to live in his district, only to live in the state he represents.
"A lot of people don't realize that," she said.
A number of state House and Senate members may be fighting over how their districts are redrawn. House Majority Whip Dave Ure, R-Kamas, has liberal-leaning Park City in his district. Ure has been challenged by a Park City Democrat in recent elections, but Ure has always prevailed. But as House District 53 changes, Democrats predict that within 10 years, they will hold it.
One idea being considered is to push Park City down into an eastern Salt Lake County district, either conceding the seat to Democrats or trying to strengthen the district's GOP base with eastside Salt Lake County conservative areas.
Sen. Mike Dmitrich, D-Price, has the dubious distinction of having, geographically, the largest state Senate district in the nation. It runs, in a horse-shoe shape, from Price, around eastern and southern Utah, all the way to the outskirts of St. George in far southwest Utah.
To make more sense out of that district, there may be pressure to give Cedar City its own state Senate seat and somehow break Washington County up into two Senate districts.
E-MAIL: bbjr@desnews.com