Congress unlikely to act on Utah/D.C. bill

Next week, a special legislative committee will begin taking around the state three U.S. House redistricting plans.

On Dec. 1, GOP Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. will call a special legislative session where one of these plans — or some variation drawn up by Republican legislators behind closed doors — will officially be approved.

That plan will be given to Congress during its lame-duck session with the hope that House and Senate members will approve a bill that gives Utah one extra U.S. House seat and gives the District of Columbia a full-voting House seat.

The U.S. House will go from 435 to 437 members, and the long-sought-after goal of giving full representation to residents of Washington, D.C., will be achieved.

Or not.

And the "or not" side seems to be winning, if you believe Sen. Bob Bennett, R-Utah. Bennett, a member of the GOP-controlled U.S. Senate leadership, says that the Utah/D.C. bill has little chance of passage in the two-week lame-duck session of Congress.

Huntsman says if the Utah/D.C. bill is not passed before the first of the year — when Democrats take over control in both the U.S. House and Senate — then Utah is "out of business."

He sees little chance of Utah getting an extra seat, as Democrats try to just give D.C. a full-voting seat — something Republicans will no doubt oppose.

If all the lame-ducks do line up for Utah, however, then officials say there could be new U.S. House elections in Utah next spring — as all four newly drawn seats must find representatives.

Politics is always part of redistricting. But redrawing the seats in mid-decade throws another curve — who in the current Legislature may want to run for office in the newly drawn district?

First to the plate may be Utah House Speaker Greg Curtis, R-Sandy.

Ironically, Curtis barely survived re-election to his state House seat several weeks ago, a canvass this week showing he won by just 16 votes. There will be a recount, but in this age of electronic voting, recounts usually hold up.

Curtis has around $200,000 in his personal campaign account, clearly more than he needs to run his own (if overly close) Utah House race. Leaders often donate to their party candidates so newly elected lawmakers will support them in leadership races. But Curtis had no challenger to his second, two-year term as speaker.

So he's sitting on a lot of cash — and most likely will be in the new 4th Congressional District.