Session set to adopt redistricting plan

Utah's 104 legislators will meet in a special legislative session Monday to adopt a four-seat U.S. House redistricting plan. But congressional sources reportedly say there's little chance a bill giving Utah a fourth seat will pass in Congress' four-day, lame-duck session next week.

The Washington Post reported Friday several unnamed top aides to GOP congressional bosses as saying the Utah/Washington, D.C., bill that would give new voting seats to both areas isn't going to make it on the lame-duck agenda.

Congressional Republicans and Democrats alike said the bill will be re-filed in the new, Democratic-controlled Congress in January, the newspaper said.

U.S. Rep. Jim Matheson, the only Democrat in Utah's delegation, said Friday that while he isn't ready to pronounce the Utah/D.C. bill dead yet, "with only four days, time does matter" in the lame-duck session.

U.S. House Government Reform Committee Chairman Tom Davis, R.-Va., responded to the Post article by saying: "My goal remains clear: utilize the momentum we've created behind this partisan-neutral approach and pass this bill next week. The stars are aligned. The time is now. Justice should not have to wait."

But it may. And if so, Utah GOP leaders maintain it was well worth the money and time to set up a new four-district plan now. It will cost an estimated $40,000 to hold the redistricting committee meetings and a one-day special legislative session, legislative aides said.

When GOP Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. and Utah legislative leaders decided several weeks ago to rush through a special redistricting hearing process, capped by a day-long special session to formally adopt a new four-seat plan, it was believed that Congress would come back after the Nov. 7 elections for two or three weeks.

But GOP congressional leaders announced this week that neither the House nor Senate would try to battle over a dozen budget bills now. Instead, the lame-duck Congress will meet for just four days, during which it will pass continuing budget resolutions so the federal government can keep operating. Congressional Republicans will then let the new Democratic majorities tussle with federal spending come January.

State Sen. Curt Bramble, R-Provo, the co-chair of the hastily organized redistricting committee, said Friday that even if Congress doesn't pass the Utah/D.C. bill next week, the Utah Legislature did what Congress wanted.

And the state will now be ready next year with "a clearly favorable four-seat plan" than the plan adopted in the 2001 wholesale redistricting process, said Bramble.