Laura Clark, of Millcreek, votes on the Salt Lake County Authorities Heart in Salt Lake Metropolis on Election Day, Tuesday, Nov. 2, 2021. Kristin Murphy, Deseret Information
When in style opinion and doing what’s proper intersect, choices are straightforward. We each are working for state legislature, having received our main elections and run campaigns centered on preserving Utah’s unbiased redistricting fee to finish partisan gerrymandering. As candidates for Utah Senate, we have been endorsed and supported by the Higher Boundaries Accountability PAC, centered on equity in redistricting.
We each ran to characterize districts that embrace Millcreek amongst different cities. On the congressional degree, Millcreek is the epicenter of the legislature’s excessive partisan gerrymander. A metropolis of simply round 60,000 was parsed into all 4 of Utah’s congressional districts. Relatively than having the ability to use their collective voice, Millcreek residents have been paired with residents of counties and cities lots of of miles away.
Our constituents are greatest represented once they can arrange as a group and petition elected officers on points that matter to them. Any map in search of to guard an incumbent or partisan political curiosity on the expense of a group’s collective political voice ought to by no means be on the desk.
In 2018, Utahns voted to approve an unbiased redistricting fee. Management in our state Legislature ignored the maps set ahead by the unbiased redistricting fee and as an alternative handed their very own. This situation is now within the palms of the Utah courts after a lawsuit was filed claiming an excessive partisan gerrymander and asking the courts to permit the fee to attract the maps going ahead.
Utahns can and may proceed to let their state legislators know they need to choose their representatives and never the opposite approach round.
We're grateful for the assist of Higher Boundaries Accountability PAC in our main races and sit up for representing our buddies and neighbors in our state senate districts. We pledge to proceed to advocate for community-based redistricting, to protect the unbiased redistricting fee and to hearken to our constituents’ wants over partisan political pursuits.
Nate Blouin is the Democratic nominee for Senate District 13.
Stephanie Pitcher is the Democratic nominee for Senate District 14.