Utah 2020 Redistricting

[politicallefty]

I haven't followed this topic and didn't look through the other maps since I wanted to draw one from scratch. If I was going to draw a fair map, this is what I would draw:



I think it pretty much speaks for itself. Only two counties are split: Salt Lake (which is necessary) and Utah. What I found out and really like is that this naturally creates a nice northern district. The five counties in this UT-01 only deviate by 328 above ideal (which is the largest deviation in this map). I also think a compact SLC district within Salt Lake County makes by far the most sense. I also felt combining the remainder of Salt Lake County with most of Utah County (including Provo and Orem) for a compact urban/suburban seat made the most sense. UT-04 is not perfect from a COI standpoint, but there's always going to be a problem on a 4-district map and I felt this is the least problematic on that aspect.


I was looking over the draft maps on the Utah commission site. It's amazing how awful most of them are. The one I like the most (in part because it's most similar to what I drew) is Public Submission: TD (2). The one problem is that it doesn't put Box Elder in the northern district.

[politicallefty]

One of my primary goals with this map was the creation of a SLC district entirely within the county. Once you start splitting counties like that, it ruins the rationale I was going for. I also liked that the northern seat was just five counties and no splits, a very coherent and logical district. Current Supreme Court precedent would likely allow for such a tiny deviation with that goal in mind. I'm not disputing your reasoning, just explaining mine.

I'm also not crazy about having Park City in the large UT-04, but no Utah map is going to be perfect. On your Utah Gerrymandering Bingo post, I only hit two squares. My map doesn't put Park City with Salt Lake County and it puts Park City and Vernal in the same district.

[politicallefty]

As I expected, the commission was useless. Although I'm sure you say it coming Stuart98, it's not a good feeling when you feel government fails you. It's probably the main reason I've never invested myself too much in the actual affairs of government. I will always hope and try for the best, but my idealism died with the 2010 midterms.

[politicallefty]

If there's such a concern for having a mix of urban and rural representation in each district, why not consider map SH2? It achieves that goal, only splits SL County once, and is much more fair from a partisan standpoint.

Reasons the legislature didn't adopt my map are in bold.

Unfortunately, the reasons are that they did not benefit the Republican Party.

[politicallefty]

But you cited the exact perfect alignment - Davis-Weber-Box Elder-Cache-Rich is a perfect seat. Being 328 people above ideal just means a teeny-tiny split into Davis from Salt Lake (if you are actually going for perfect population equality, outside of maybe Iowa you'll always have to split counties) - or, alternatively, accepting districts that are very close in population but not 100% equal: There's no legal basis on which a 328-person deviation could ever be challenged.

Instead, the maps tend to rely on weird violations of what you cited above. For example, there are multiple commission maps that mostly look reasonable but put Tooele with the northern counties for no good reason (e.g., Orange 3-3, the best one IMO, or Purple 4-1 and Purple 2-3 (both of these have other weird stuff going on too)).

Purple 3-3 is the only one that draws a basically sane rendition of northern Utah, but then does weird things with the southern two districts. (I sort of understand; they seem to be trying to keep suburban Salt Lake County and Utah County in separate districts, presumably to favor incumbents.)

I drew the same district you're talking about in my map on page 4 of this topic almost two years ago. The map I drew had only two county splits, which is very good for a 4-district state. One of the splits was necessary on account of the county being significantly larger than a single district (Salt Lake). The other split was Utah County, which allowed for a compact urban/suburban Republican seat consisting of the leftovers of Salt Lake County and most of Utah County. I'd have to agree with you that a deviation of 328 would be sufficient to avoid any constitutional challenges considering that SCOTUS has permitted very small deviations when there is a strong rationale (such as avoiding county splits). In this case, the deviation is less than 0.04%.

[politicallefty]

But you cited the exact perfect alignment - Davis-Weber-Box Elder-Cache-Rich is a perfect seat. Being 328 people above ideal just means a teeny-tiny split into Davis from Salt Lake (if you are actually going for perfect population equality, outside of maybe Iowa you'll always have to split counties) - or, alternatively, accepting districts that are very close in population but not 100% equal: There's no legal basis on which a 328-person deviation could ever be challenged.

Instead, the maps tend to rely on weird violations of what you cited above. For example, there are multiple commission maps that mostly look reasonable but put Tooele with the northern counties for no good reason (e.g., Orange 3-3, the best one IMO, or Purple 4-1 and Purple 2-3 (both of these have other weird stuff going on too)).

Purple 3-3 is the only one that draws a basically sane rendition of northern Utah, but then does weird things with the southern two districts. (I sort of understand; they seem to be trying to keep suburban Salt Lake County and Utah County in separate districts, presumably to favor incumbents.)

I drew the same district you're talking about in my map on page 4 of this topic almost two years ago. The map I drew had only two county splits, which is very good for a 4-district state. One of the splits was necessary on account of the county being significantly larger than a single district (Salt Lake). The other split was Utah County, which allowed for a compact urban/suburban Republican seat consisting of the leftovers of Salt Lake County and most of Utah County. I'd have to agree with you that a deviation of 328 would be sufficient to avoid any constitutional challenges considering that SCOTUS has permitted very small deviations when there is a strong rationale (such as avoiding county splits). In this case, the deviation is less than 0.04%.

I personally would agree with you as well. But unless the specific legislature has previously received the OK to go a tiny bit above 0 deviation, states don't want to. Basically, because the 5-county grouping just slightly doesn't work, its a problem. Mappers prefer to avoid microscopic-cuts when possible for the issue of representation seen in VA-07 and Albemarle. So the typical mapper then seeks to expand their cut, in this instance probably into Davis, in exchange for another community, in this instance probably Summit.

And thats just the simplest example of roads screwing with things.

It also depends on what the constitution and laws of the respective state say as well. I don't actually know what that is for Utah. If they prioritize keeping municipalities intact, that would work in support of a very small deviation.