Legislature finishes tweaks to redistricting

Redistricting • But new congressional maps remain the same.

This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2012, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.

The first three bills to gain final approval in 2012 flew through the Legislature on Friday to fix some minor problems with redistricting of political boundaries that was completed late last year.

Lawmakers unanimously passed the measures to make about 60 total changes to state House, Senate and school board boundaries and sent them to Gov. Gary Herbert for his signature.

Lawmakers did not alter controversial congressional boundaries that also had been passed last year.

Rep. Ken Sumsion, R-American Fork, House co-chairman of the Redistricting Committee, said most of the problems came because the Legislature used census blocks to draw new boundaries. County clerks found those blocks did not always match city boundaries.

In some cases where lawmakers intended to include all of a city in a particular district, the boundaries had failed to do so. Changes were made to correct that; most affected only a handful of people.

The Legislature expedited passage — and made bills take effect immediately upon the governor signing them — because county clerks by law must finalize their voting precinct boundaries by Tuesday.

ldavidson@sltrib.com