Utah Redistricting 2010

All you people who are angry at the map. I hope you submitted your own during the many weeks the public was invited to do so? No? hmm. Utah's population patterns are unique. Some thing to keep in mind before you dismiss the whole effort:

1. The districts have to have equal population, Geography is secondary.
2. Salt Lake county has to be split at least in two. There are too many people to have it in one district.
3. The districts have to have both urban and rural, That's just how the population is. All the districts need part of the Wasatch front in order to have enough people. All counties in the state except the 5 on the Wasatch Front (SL, Utah, Davis, Weber, and Cache) put together do not have enough people for one district.
4. More than just SL county must be split. Utah county is too small. Davis and Weber together are too small, Cache and Washington are too small. The only other way to do this is to have 3 mostly urban districts along the Wasatch front and one containing the rest of the state plus chunks of the Wasatch front counties adding up to about 50,000 people. Having 4 urban/rural districts is at least as logical as having 3 urban and one rural with selected chunks of urban gerrymandered in.
5. There aren't enough Democrats living close to each other to have a safe democratic seat. So, even if that was a valid concern, it just isn't possible.
6. There aren't enough Democrats in the legislature, and they aren't united enough to make a difference. That's why the map from the Rep. caucus was passed, all they need are most of the Republican votes.