Recent congressional misadventures all have the same theme. Be it the continuing debate over health care or the near annual budget crisis, the legislature is defined by partisan gridlock. Congressmen are more interested in gaining political victories to hang their hats on rather than passing responsible laws and managing the country with compromise. Congress is not meant to function like this, and to fix it, the states have to be redistricted.
Utah’s four congressional districts split in the center of Salt Lake City, which is widely recognized as the most liberal area in the state. With this split, many residents of Northern Utah are finding themselves voting in the same district as those far south while their neighbors are voting in a completely different district. Congressional districts are meant to better represent smaller communities federally, but Cedar City and Salt Lake City are distant cities and should be in different districts.
This is far from an isolated problem. Redistricting has been happening across the United States, most notably in Texas in 2003, as it was done out of cycle. The new districts are not an accurate model of the actual voting power of the citizenry and instead represents groups of easily won single-party districts.
The alternative method to bringing the House of Representatives back to a moderate stance
is allowing full state elections to determine each representative. While not a likely solution because of the legal roadblocks in place, this method would prevent the state legislatures from affecting the federal elections and give each individual more say in representation of their state.
In reality, correcting the districts is the only way to approach this problem. Salt Lake City should not be divided into multiple districts, and congressional hopefuls cannot be rewarded for catering to the political extremes. If it takes an out-of-cycle redistricting to bring Congress back to compromise, then it’s a movement the public should be pushing for.
[email protected]