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Show Reapportionment Issue Questions - Answers On Seating Plan! ' EDITOR'S NOTE It is the desire of this newspaper I to present the facts pertaining to the non-political issues ' confronting the voters of Utah at the forthcoming election on Nov. 2. Last week we discussed the pros and cons of the Junior College issue. This week we would like to re- print a very fine discussion on the constitutional amendment amend-ment dealing with legislative reapportionment that appeared in a recent issue of the Desert News - Telegram Here is What the issue is all about and why it is im-portant im-portant to the citizens of Utah. Your editor encourages each ; reader and voter to study the issues very carefully and then vote on the propositions the way you and your community com-munity will best be served. What Is Reapportionment? f In its simplest terms, 'apportionment of a state legislature legis-lature merely means the method by which seats in the ' House and Senate are allocated. Reapportionment then is a realignment of seating, or selection of some other method of allocation. , Utah law requires that the House and Senate be surveyed sur-veyed after each 10-year census. Since seats are allotted on a population basis, the law requires that there either be addition of more legislators from the populous counties, or some action taken to change the existing ratio between population and allocation of legislative seats. This has not been done in Utah since 1931. Why Issue Important Now? I On the Nov. 2 general election ballot will be a pro- posed constitutional amendment dealing with legislative reapportionment. Every Utah voter must either vote for ; or against this amendment. For this reason, it is important ; that Utah voters know what it is they are asked to vote for or against, i J What Is The Amendment? The proposed amendment has two' major proposals to ; make. First, it proposes that each of Utah's 29 counties be made a senatorial district, to be represented by a single 'stsie senator from each county. Second, it suggests that the House of Representatives be increased in membership to 75 representatives and spells out the increased membership as it affects each county. What Is Present Set-Up? , At present, Utah has 23 members in the State Senate. The state is divided . into 15 senatorial districts. Bach of aese districts has one senator. Additional senators are liven the more populous districts on a ratio of one added senator for each 27,000 population. Of these senatorial districts, eight districts are composed com-posed of one county each. One district has three counties, rjo districts cover a five-county area and four districts - have two counties each. In the House of Representatives, under the present law, there are 60 members. One representative is guaranteed guaran-teed each county, regardless of population. The population popula-tion ratio is one representative for each 10,000 persons in the county. How Would This Be Changed? If the proposed amendment is passed by the voters sad goes into effect, here are the changes which would occur in the Senate. Salt Lake County, which now has seven senators, would have one. Weber and Utah counties, with two senators sen-ators each at present, would be trimmed to one. Carbon, Box Wer, Sanpete and Davis Counties would be unchanged, ; f as each of these counties already has one senator. The other unties, which up to now have shared a senator with from I ! oae to four other counties, would each get a senator. ; In the House, Salt Lake County would get 27 seats ! er the proposed amendment. It now has 19 seats. Weber ! ard Utah counties, which each have five seats at present, would get eight seats. Davis County would increase its Presentation from one to three. Sanpete County, which 5w has two representatives, would get only one. All the Kner counties would be unchanged. Only other counties 'i present with more than one representative are Box El-a,er El-a,er (2), Cache (3) and Carbon (2). They would be unhanged. un-hanged. How Did It Get On Ballot? t i The amendment was put on the ballot by a two-thirds of both the House and Senate in the 1953 Legislature. a We House, the vote was 45 for presenting the proposed ;-fflendment to a public vote to 11 against. The Senate vote 'as 16 forj severi against. In both the House and Senate, 'otes to put the amendment before the people came from wmbers of both political parties and from both urban and "al areas. i Why Was This Necessary? Jj 1931, no reapportionment has been made by a "tai islature. Since 1940, nearly every regular or spe-aj spe-aj session of the Legislature saw some sort of proposal ;e as a basis for reapportionment. Because of the fact ; any realignment of seats made on the basis of the wrerrt day would give Salt Lake, Weber and Utah counts coun-ts a voting majority in both houses, no legislature has ;r ae to get reapportionment on this basis. Neither have ' ' 'the various compromise plans generated enough ..Port to pass the Legislature. This proposed amendment, V)pge?ted several times in the past, is the first proposition ' r,iv t past any legislature. And then, the legislators voted 1 ' y k put the proposal before the people for their vote. If Approved, What Then? ' Not immediately. The Utah attorney general has ruled I ProPosed amendment is not specific enough in itself ?me law- If approved by the voters, implementing ,wtion would still have to be passed to put the amend-uito amend-uito effect. Among other things, definite procedure (Continued on page 2) i . dU Reapportionment Issue (Continued from page one), would have to be worked out to stagger elections of senators sen-ators so that no more than half the Senate would be elected at one time. A method would also have to be devised to take care of senators elected this November for four-year terms from . counties which have more than one senator under the present law. And provisions would have to be made for redisricting of counties which would gain House seats under the proposal. What Supporters Say! Backers 1 of the amendment maintain the proposal would do' the following: 1. Give Utah a basically similar representation as in the U.S. Congress, with the Senate representing area and the House population. 2. It would give the state government the same system sys-tem of checks and balances existing in the federal Congress, Con-gress, with the population minority in the Senate checked by the population majority in the House and vice versa. 3. It would give adequate representation to all sections of the state and all segments of the eoohomy, same as the federal system. 4. It would be a more equitable , system, than the present pres-ent law, which, if followed, would give Salt Lake, Weber and Utah counties control of both the Seriate and House. 5. The amendment would guarantee Utah a system of government based on two houses With conflicts of interest, with each acting as a brake upon the other. What Opponents Say! Opponents of the amendment advance these arguments: . 1. The amendment would give control of the Senate to a minority and would not give adequate representation to population since urban control of the House, percentage-Wise percentage-Wise is not as great as rural control of the Senate. 2. It would weaken, rather than strengthen the system of checks and balances, since the weight would be on the rural side, reasoning along the same lines as expressed in argument one. 3. It would not parallel the federal system since this system has two senators, who could be of different politics, and only one-ithird of the Senate is elected at once, guaranteeing guar-anteeing no near-complete shift of ideologies in any one election. 4. The principle of the amendment gives counties a sovereignty, in comparison to states in the federal system, which the counties do' not have. 5. It would destroy the balance of the present Legislature, Legis-lature, in Which neither urban nor rural interests have control. |