Posted on 09/10/2001 9:45:15 PM PDT by Utah Girl
GOP state leaders expect legal challenges from Democrats over this year's redrawing of Utah legislative and U.S. House seats.
Democratic lawmakers may have some big money guns in their legal corner.
"We've been told by local and national Democrats that the Democratic National Committee has a fund out of which they will help pay" for federal court challenges to state legislature redistricting, said Utah House Speaker Marty Stephens, R-Farr West.
"In states where Democrats are in the minority (in the state legislatures and so didn't draw the plans) the DNC feels it has nothing to lose, and so will sue," Stephens added.
In Utah, Rep. Jim Matheson, D-Utah, has already said that he will raise money himself to pay for a court challenge if he feels Republicans in the Legislature and GOP Gov. Mike Leavitt unfairly and unconstitutionally push his district out of Salt Lake County and into rural Utah.
Several GOP-drawn plans that would do just that have been presented to the Legislative Redistricting Committee.
Meanwhile, Utah Democratic Party officials have warned they, too, may sue if Republicans carve up current Democratic-controlled state House and Senate seats too drastically.
"I don't want to sue," said House Minority Whip Patrice Arent, D-South Cottonwood, who is on the redistricting committee and a private attorney. But Arent said the DNC has offered financial aid to states "where Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act was not followed." Arent said she and other Democrats want to make sure that the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, guaranteeing equal protection to all, is not violated by the Republicans redistricting actions.
A legal paper trail is already being laid.
Last week, Arent and Rep. Jackie Biskupski, D-Salt Lake, asked that the minutes be changed from a previous meeting to correctly reflect discussions on minority make-up of districts, and they and other Democrats on the redistricting committee asked staff attorney John Fellows sharp questions on the matter.
On Thursday, after Rep. Glenn Way, R-Spanish Fork, acknowledged it wasn't hard to redraw GOP-heavy legislative districts in Utah County where all the House members are Republicans, Fellows questioned Way on the record to clearly show that Way had not considered any partisan matters in his redistricting work.
Arent, who used to work for the Legislature and for former Democratic Attorney General Jan Graham, has asked several times why racial data gleaned in the 2000 Census was purposefully purged from the Legislature's computer base used to redraw congressional and legislative boundaries.
Fellows says the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled it unconstitutional to redraw districts "exclusively" along racial lines. Fellows said, however, racial data could be treated just like any other community, and their interests taken into account in drawing a plan.
However, by removing all racial census data from the state redistricting computer programs, state GOP officials can say no racial interests were considered at all.
"When we went to the National Conference of State Legislatures (this spring) we found out we are one of the only states not to include racial data" in redistricting work, said Arent. That is simply wrong, she said. "We will only sue if the law is violated and process unfair."
Deleting the racial data upset some Democrats in the Legislature, who say Utah is already dominated politically by whites. They say the law allows for accommodations to ensure racial minorities ? mainly Hispanics, the only group with large enough numbers in some areas to make a statistical impact ? have a fair say in choosing their legislators.
"We're being very careful, legally. We're dotting all our I's and crossing all our T's. We expect to be sued," said Stephens.
Utah has already appeared in federal court twice this year, with two separate lawsuits against the Census Bureau contending the Beehive State should have another congressional seat instead of North Carolina. North Carolina beat out Utah for another representative by less than 900 people.
Judges ruled against Utah in the first lawsuit over how the bureau counted ? or didn't count ? LDS Church missionaries from Utah who are serving overseas. Attorneys for Utah filed an appeal of that decision to the U.S. Supreme Court as well as filed a second lawsuit over what the state calls "phantom" residents who were added in the domestic count, a process that helped North Carolina's population much more than Utah's.
A decision on that lawsuit has not yet been handed down, but attorneys say whoever loses the case will likely appeal it to the U.S. Supreme Court.
Sword
I know Winston Wilkinson (the black gentleman running for Congress against Matheson). He is a great guy. He's fairly conservatively sound and has extensive national political experience. I think he'd have a great shot to defeat Matheson.
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