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Show ( Under The Capitol Dome I i By Harry Marlowe I i The issue of legislative reapportionment reap-portionment was not settled by the November election. Far from it. It will still be one of the hottest hot-test issues in the 1955 Legislature. However, one thing seems to be emerging from the general series of plans and counter-plans which have been bruited about since the election which defeated the proposal pro-posal to give each county one state senator. That one thing is that most of the lawmakers seem to be in a frame of mind that could result in some sort of settlement of the question. Another thing seems equally clear. That is . that the legislature will not approve a reapportionment reapportion-ment plan which will place the premium on population, thus throwing the balance of power into in-to the hands of Salt Lake, Utah, Weber and Davies counties in both houses, to boot. Naturally, the stiffest opposition opposi-tion to reapportionment by population popu-lation will come from the counties which are not as heavily populated popu-lated as the so-called Big Four. Also, neither of the Davis County Coun-ty representatives favor that type of reapportionment, so that the so-called rural bloc holds a voting margin in each House at present. Another factor is the opposition to population reapportionment which is cropping up, strangely enough, from the same people who . fought the one-senator-per county plan. Their . reasons are the same as their reason for opposing the proposed pro-posed amendment population reapportionment re-apportionment is too extreme. For instance, Milton L.- Weilen-mann, Weilen-mann, Democratic state chairman, played a prominent part in swinging swing-ing a good-sized segment of the party into line against the senator-per-county plan. He has already announced that he will fight the reapportionment by population plan just as strongly. strong-ly. Labor leaders, and many of the city dwellers in Salt Lake City and Ogden will hold out for this type of representation. In fact, Rep. Wendell Grover of Salt Lake County has already announced he has a plan to set up a 25-man Senate and a 57-man House based on population ratios. But unless the situation changes considerably, there will be enough opposition to this plan from some Salt Lake and Utah County legislators legis-lators to beat down the idea. All of which clears the air for some type of compromise proposal pro-posal such as have been turned down by one side or the other in past years. And, with the general public more alterted to the issue of reapportionment re-apportionment than ever before, and with groups of citizens already al-ready calling for legislative action this year, the climate seems good for some sort of plan to garner support enough to put this problem prob-lem in the "issues solved" file at least for a few years. |