Rob Bishop, who represented portions of Park City and Summit County in congress for nine terms before retiring earlier this year, quit mid-meeting with a statement of frustration
“This commission is designed not to work,” Bishop said while detailing his background in elected office and sharing thoughts on gerrymandering, political representation in maps and the need for rural and urban area to be combined in legislative districts. “I’m sorry, as a group we suck. This is a metro-centric group.”
Parkite Katie Wright is executive director of Better Boundaries, a non-profit group working to make districts more compact, keep municipalities together and follow geographic features in district drawing. She responded to Bishop’s departure Tuesday.
“The remaining six commissioners voted unanimously in their approval to 12 maps that will move forward, and it is really disappointing that Rob Bishop resigned because a map that he favored did not have majority votes,” she said. “That's what happened.”
Bishop’s departure leaves six members – three appointed by Republicans and three appointed by Democrats. With the group’s work almost complete, Utah House Speaker Brad Wilson, who appointed Bishop to the commission, said Bishop will not be replaced. The commission will proceed and finish its work. Wright praised the commission’s efforts.
“I think that the independent commission continues to go back to the statute to the criteria, that was frankly unanimously voted for approval in the State Senate and only had four dissenting votes in the House, to be their guiding principles,” Wright said, “and the maps that they have balanced those principles and adhere to the criteria.”
Congressional district maps are re-drawn every decade in response to census data that reflects shifts in population. In 2018, Utah voters passed Proposition 4, which Better Boundaries sponsored, to establish an independent advisory commission on redistricting in an effort to combat gerrymandering. In March of 2020 the state legislature passed its own bill giving lawmakers authority to ignore the maps created by the independent commission.
The current class of Leadership Park City, which is a hands-on year-long training program, chose as a class project the effort to increase voter participation in the redistricting process.
Class member Kris Campbell, who’s been following the commission’s work, reacted to Bishop’s departure.
“From a leadership perspective, we were all working towards encouraging everybody to participate in a fair and nonpartisan process, and if Commissioner Bishop was no longer able to stay nonpartisan then it's good for the commission that he resigned so that the commission can maintain its integrity as an independent body.”
Summit County, one of Utah’s most robust economic engines, is currently divided among five legislative districts. None of those representatives lives in Summit County.
Wright urged the public to get involved during the final days of the commission’s work.
“I think it's absolutely critical that in the next week and a half people are calling their legislators to tell them they value the criteria, they value transparency, and respect the independent commission's maps.”
The independent maps the commission selects will be presented to the legislature for consideration next week.