Bingham Bulletin | 1920-01-07 | Page 1 | Utah Representatives are not Properly Apportioned

UTAH REPRESENTATIVES ARE NOT PROPERLY APPORTIONED Membership Ratio Out of Proportion to Assessed Valuation and Popula tion. Reapportionment Involves Difficult Problem of Dedistricting of the State. Representation in the legislature of the state of Utah, to convene January 10, varies for the citizen according to geographic location. If he lives in Daggett county, he has representation of the ratio of 1 to 400; in Sanpete county, 1 to 9,000, ana in Boxelder county, 1 to 18,000, approximately. Sanpete county; with a population, according to the latest federal census of 17,505, has two representatives and one senator in the state legislature. Boxelder county, with almost 1,300 more population than Sanpete, 18,788, has only one representative, while Tooele county's 7,965 of population is added to Boxelder county to make the First senatorial district. The single Boxelder representative in the house votes for 4.14 per cent of the state's population, and represents taxpayers who contribute 5.55 per cent of the state's revenue. Two men are elected to represent the 3.86 per cent of the state's population and the 2.41 per cent of the state's assessed assess-ed valuation found in Sanpete county. Cache Three Members. Cache county has 26,992 population, or 5.96 per cent of the population, and 5.31 per cent of the assessed valuation, valua-tion, of the state, being less wealthy than Boxelder. But Cache has three representatives and Is the only county In the Second senatorial district. If Boxelder had two members in the state's lower house, each might be said to represent 9,394 persons, whereas where-as each of the three Cache county representatives may be said to represent repre-sent 8,997 persons. Among the counties that have more than one representative in the lower house, Sanpete has one to every 8,753 of population, Cache has one to every 8,997, Utah county has one to every 10,198, Weber county has one to every 10,866 of population and Salt Lake one to every 15,928.