Legislators want 4th seat plan - Committee would make preparations for Census win

Ralph Wakley
Standard-Examiner
January 1, 2002

SALT LAKE CITY -- House Republicans told their leaders Thursday to work with the Senate in coming up with a plan to cope with the outcome of Utah"s lawsuit against the U.S. Census Bureau seeking a fourth U.S. House seat.

State House Speaker Marty Stephens, R-Farr West, said they will consider appointing a committee of three or four legislators from each chamber, "not too many people," to look at a number of alternatives and produce recommendations probably by the time lawmakers come back into session after the recess for the 2002 Olympic Winter Games.

"We just received the proposal today. We"ll have to think about it some," Stephens said.

House Majority Leader Kevin Garn, R-Layton, said Democrats may also be named to the study group. "Whatever we do, whether they"re on or not, we"ll get input from the Democrats."

Garn said leadership also will consider a recommendation from Lt. Gov. Olene Walker, who oversees the state Elections Office, that someone from her office be a member of the committee and a representative of county clerks.

"We"ll have a lot of people who will want to have input into this, including political parties," Garn said.

Utah is suing the Census Bureau, seeking to acquire a congressional seat given to North Carolina after the 2000 Census. The U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to hear Utah"s lawsuit March 27, but that is nine days after the state"s candidate filing deadline and two days after the parties hold their neighborhood caucuses to select delegates to the state nominating conventions.

Utah Attorney General"s staff lawyers have said they believe the Supreme Court will rule quickly, but that might be as late as June 30 when the justices typically rule on all pending cases before their summer recess. Unless changes are made, a June 30 ruling would create a number of problems for Utah, because the candidate filing deadline would have passed. Even the state political nominating conventions would have been held May 4 and primary elections June 25.

One solution would be to move all those dates back to July or later. Then, if Utah wins a fourth U.S. House seat, people hoping to run for that seat would be able to file. And if Utah doesn"t get the seat, the political process would go ahead with just three congressional seats, but with all the dates compressed into a shorter period.

"One impact that isn"t brought out is consolidation of the election process becomes very difficult for our office," Walker said. Because they would still have to put out the same amount of work in half the time, Walker said would need roughly $40,000 to hire additional staff.

Rep. Sheryl Allen, R-Bountiful, agreed with pushing back the dates, saying, "September primary elections worked for a long, long time in this state." But Rep. Loraine Pace, R-Logan, asked, "Why don"t we just do the regular election on the regular schedule and then, if we get the other congressional seat, we have a special election statewide to select the fourth Utah member of Congress?"

Republican leaders also are pushing a number of election law amendments and reforms drafted by their members this session, including a bill by Pace that would make a number of changes such as letting other counties follow the lead of Weber County in joining a pilot Internet voting system involving members of the military. They are, however, ignoring Democrats" efforts at election reform.

Under a state law that expires this year, Weber County was allowed to participate in a Defense Department e-mail voting system involving members of the Armed Services and Defense Department employees based overseas at the time of elections.

"It was so successful, this bill would allow any county to participate" in the Defense Department electronic voting system, Pace said.

Pace"s bill also would designate county clerks" offices as polling places because people sometimes cast absentee ballots there, thus barring people from discussing election campaigning in the offices during those times. In addition, her measure proposes to set a four-year limit on collecting voter signatures on initiative petitions within counties, and it would require the board of canvassers to reconvene to certify any election recounts.

Other GOP election measures moving through this year"s Legislature include a bill by Rep. Don Bush of Clearfield to let people traveling or living overseas cast absentee ballots that do not bear a postmark as long as the ballot includes an affidavit that the ballot was mailed on or before election day.

Rep. Craig Buttars, R-Logan, is sponsoring a bill that would turn over all political contributions collected on the state income tax checkoff to the state political parties. Under his bill, Buttars said the state parties would decide how to share those funds with their local organizations.