ALAN CHOATE - Daily Herald | Posted: Monday, September 25, 2006 11:00 pm
A proposed plan for adding a fourth congressional district in Utah would place all of Utah County in the 3rd Congressional District -- and potentially make that district even more Republican than it is now.
State leaders unveiled a map last week that would remove west Salt Lake County from the 3rd District and split it between the 2nd District and the proposed new 4th District.
In turn, a slice of Utah County currently in the 2nd District -- which is represented by a Democrat, U.S. Rep. Jim Matheson -- would be moved to the 3rd District, which has elected Republican U.S. Rep. Chris Cannon since 1996.
"We love the district we have," said Joe Hunter of Cannon's office. "That being said, if you look at the map the governor and the legislative leadership came up with, it really is close to Chris' original district" before lines were redrawn after the 2000 Census.
Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr., Senate President John Valentine, R-Orem, and House Speaker Greg Curtis, R-Sandy, unveiled the map last week.
It is not in its final form; the 3rd District, for instance, is about 40,000 people short of parity with other districts, so it's possible areas will be added to it, said Huntsman spokesman Mike Mower.
Congress must approve the plan, which is part of a package that would add congressional seats for Utah and the District of Columbia. There's a lot of negotiating going on, Hunter said, but "I think you're going to see fairly quick action on it, which means hopefully by the end of the year."
Said Mower: "We're cautiously optimistic there'll be a yes vote. That's why we were anxious to get a map out to show that we'll treat any redistricting fairly."
The concern was that Republican Utah leaders would try to draw Matheson out of his seat.
What happened instead was an example of "packing," said Christian Burridge, a Democrat who is challenging Cannon in this year's election -- that is, Democratic precincts would be concentrated in one district.
That would make it hard for a Democrat to be competitive anywhere else in the state, he said, and could make races more polarized.
"You get the extreme right and the extreme left. The moderates are left out," Burridge said. "And it's not competitive. It's incumbent protection."
Besides Salt Lake County, though, the map does a good job of not splitting counties, he said.
Burridge actually lives in the area of Salt Lake County that would be incorporated into the new 4th District. He also noted that another Democrat, Bill Orton, represented the 3rd District even when it didn't include areas of Salt Lake County that tend to vote blue.
"I think Democrats like me and Bill Orton could win in a district like that," Burridge said.
Hunter said "the jury is still out" on whether the 3rd District would become more Republican.
Should the plan pass, Alpine, Highland and American Fork -- all reliably Republican -- would be part of the 3rd District, but GOP-friendly voters in West Jordan, South Jordan and Riverton would be gone. So would Democratic-leaning voters in West Valley City and Taylorsville.
"We haven't done any analysis as far as counting heads," Hunter said. "It clearly would be a Republican district -- there's no doubt about that."
This story appeared in The Daily Herald on page A12.