In a recent “The Porcupine Quill,” Park Record columnist Ari Ioannides, who is also the chair of the Summit County Republican Party, called for building community trust as Summit County completes the process of council redistricting mandated by the Utah Legislature.
He called for “a dramatic reset … prioritizing relationships over personal agendas … and leaving the baggage at the gate.”
I’m sorry, but I’m a lifelong Republican going back to my youth and early adulthood in New York State, and I still don’t trust either the Utah Republican Party or the Summit County Republican Party on this one.
I have long viewed gerrymandering as a serious threat to our democratic system of government, regardless of whether it is done by Democrats or Republicans. And I have also said that at-large districts are just another form of gerrymandering. As a result, I believe that the residents of eastern Summit County have a legitimate complaint that the current at-large districts are unfair to them.
So why don’t I trust the Utah Republican Party when they acted to address this unfair situation? Because the Utah Republican Party has utilized gerrymandering to create a supermajority in the Legislature well beyond their actual support among voters.
The Republican-dominated Legislature didn’t mandate that an independent, bipartisan commission draw the Summit County districts, which would have been the fair thing to do. They mandated that the districts be drawn by a commission dominated in numbers by the mayors of the small incorporated areas of eastern Summit County.
My wife and I live in the Summit Park “Census Designated Place,“ an unincorporated area including Summit Park, Jeremy Ranch and Pinebrook with a population almost equal to all of those eastern Summit county incorporated towns combined. Yet the Republican-dominated Legislature gave them six representatives on the commission. The Legislature gave the unincorporated areas only one.
And why would I trust the Summit County Republican Party? Are they “prioritizing relationships over personal agendas” or trying to maximize the number of Republicans elected to the County Council?
And speaking of relationships, why would I trust the Summit County Republican Party when its vice chair, Tory Welch, recently insulted people (including my wife and me) who peacefully exercised their First Amendment rights by participating in the “No Kings” rally?
Edwin Rutan
Park City