Get Ready for More Safe Seats
Both parties are making district maps that guarantee a win for anything but good ideas
Every ten years, we take a census of our population and where we live in the United States. Then the state legislatures use the results of the census to draw district lines for members of the House of Representatives, the state legislatures, and other jurisdictions for elections. For at least the last two decades, we have had huge fights over where the lines should fall. This decade continues the trend.
I see it here in Utah, as the governor just signed off on the new maps. A ballot initiative that was passed by Utahns a few years ago created an independent, non-partisan commission to draw district lines. The legislature, with GOP supermajorities in both houses, quickly passed a law that kneecapped that commission to make sure that only the legislature has the final authority to draw the lines. The governor did not sign off on the map created by the non-partisan, independent commission.
Notice also that Utah has for decades been a deep red state. The GOP has had a trifecta here for 30 years. Demographics have been shifting and liberals are moving in, but not enough to move the needle yet. I’ve looked at the numbers and Democrats are growing their numbers here because of a decades-long migration. The…
