Realigning would be fair, Huntsman says

By Suzanne StruglinskiDeseret Morning News
WASHINGTON — Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. told a U.S. House subcommittee Thursday that Utah would take a "fair and objective" approach in drawing new congressional districts for the state, if required to do so to gain an extra seat in the House of Representatives.

Jon Huntsman Jr. A pending bill would create an at-large seat for Utah until the 2010 Census is completed and would give the District of Columbia a House vote. But a key lawmaker wants to change the at-large element for the Utah seat and instead create four districts for the state. Huntsman told the House Constitution Subcommittee that he prefers the at-large seat as it stands in the bill now. The measure would create a fourth seat for Utah that would represent the whole state until the 2012 election. "I consider that a significant benefit, because redistricting — which is always a difficult, time-consuming and politically costly process — would be especially undesirable at this point in time, less than four years before the next decennial census," Huntsman said. House Judiciary Chairman James Sensenbrenner, R-Wis., is likely to offer an amendment taking away the at-large status and calling for four districts in Utah. His spokesman, Jeff Lungren, said the chairman wants Utahns to each have only one representative, like residents of other states, and creating the at-large seat would give each Utahn two representatives. Huntsman told the subcommittee that the bill would give Utah the additional House seat it "should have received" after the 2000 Census. The measure "rights the wrongs that were committed in the 2000 Census, benefits those who suffered most as a result of those wrongs, and does so in a way that makes sense," he said. The governor briefly outlined the state's problem with the 2000 Census, when the federal government failed to count Utah residents living abroad, most on missions from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Utah fell 857 people short to get a new congressional seat.

The census also used a counting method that the state believes violated the Constitution. The U.S. Supreme Court rejected the state's arguments in a 2002 decision. Huntsman said the court's decision diminished representation among Utah's three congressional districts, cheated the state of additional committee assignments and resulted in a loss of seniority that would have been gained had the seat been created after the 2000 Census. Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton, D-D.C., asked Huntsman whether Utah would be able to handle redistricting into four districts. Huntsman said he could not speak for the state Legislature, but some maps left over from redistricting after the 2000 Census included a possible fourth district, and could be used. Rep. Chris Cannon, R-Utah, pointed out that the state has changed since the last census, so he would hope those in charge of redistricting could use updated numbers. And if the state had to reassign districts, he added, "there is not much that can be done" to squeeze out Rep. Jim Matheson, D-Utah. "How do you draw a district in Utah that is more Republican than the one that he has?" Cannon said. House Government Reform Committee Chairman Tom Davis, R-Va., said the bill could not pass Congress without the Utah component in it. Davis and Norton gained Republican support for the bill by adding the seat for Utah, which would more than likely bring a Republican seat to balance out the District's almost certain Democratic vote. Davis said Huntsman made clear that he "doesn't want to play any games" with redistricting, if it were required. But three other witnesses at Thursday's hearing had problems with the bill. No one objected to the District getting a vote in the House, but they questioned whether creating a House seat for D.C. would violate the Constitution. "The central premise that Congress can by simple legislation create a representative for the District is wrong," said John C. Fortier of the American Enterprise Institute. "The Constitution, not Congress, has determined that the House and Senate will be made up of representatives of states and states alone. Congress can no more change the Constitution on this matter by simple legislation than it could repeal the First Amendment or allow 16-year-olds to serve as president." Fortier said the only way to truly grant voting rights to the District would be to admit it as a state, make the District part of Maryland, or amend the Constitution to allow the District to retain its current status but also grant it representation in Congress. The bill "has its heart in the right place, but it will not pass constitutional muster," Fortier said. Jonathan Turley, the Shapiro Professor of Public Interest Law at the George Washington University Law School, said the at-large element of the additional seat for Utah is also problematic, because it would bring disproportionate representation in Congress for Utahns, compared to residents of other states. "House members are expected to be advocates for this insular constituency," Turley said. "Here, residents of one state could look to two representatives to do their bidding, while other citizens would limited to one. Given racial and cultural demographic differences between Utah and other states, this could be challenged as diluting the power of minority groups in Congress." Despite criticism from the witnesses, Huntsman said he thinks it might be just a matter of weeks until the bill goes through the House and the Senate, before Congress adjourns for the year. "I sense that there seems to be an emerging coalition of the willing," Huntsman said. "By and large people are converging around this getting done."
E-mail: suzanne@desnews.com