| Print |  E-mail

My Redistricting Story

 
My name is Toby Dillon, and I ran for Utah State Senate in District 24 in 2008 because I was fed up with the gerrymandering of my senate district. My Republican opponent, Ralph Okerlund, won by a landslide in what is truly one of the state’s most convoluted districts, and because of that, he’ll be deciding the district boundaries during his first term in office. Knowing, as I do, the pressures for politicians to stay in power, it is unreasonable to ask him to voluntarily cut his chances in any way of getting reelected—and that includes asking him to correct this favorable gerrymandering. We need an independent commission to redistrict the state.

District 24, if you are not aware, runs from Wendover on the west, south to include all of Juab county, then heads south east to include all of Sanpete, Sevier, Piute, and Wayne counties. In Tooele county, however, very precise cuts were made to exclude the conservative-rich town of Grantsville and Vernon and the relatively liberal towns of Stansbury Park and Ophir, as well as split the traditionally liberal city of Tooele in half—literally four doors down the street from my home. It is a mind-numbing six-hour drive from one end of the district to the other; I know, because I drove it many times. I love Utah’s landscape, but it should not take 3 hours or longer to drive to a representative’s constituents.

The reason for this gerrymandering was supposedly to ensure that Utah’s farmers had fair representation. If by “fair” we mean “no,” then, yes, I think that was achieved. “Fair” in my mind would have been to give each of those counties their own senator. But such “old-fashioned” thinking doesn’t carry the day here in Utah.

My neighbors who knew me best and who I could best represent couldn’t vote for me. I was asked to represent farmers in the Snake and Sevier valleys that were hours away from my home and a world away from my experience. Tooele has become more of a suburb of the Salt Lake Metropolis, with people like me working in Salt Lake and commuting back home, than the rural ranchland it has traditionally been. It is a travesty to have a city boy like me represent farmers in Utah’s heartland or, as is the case today, have a farmer from the heartland represent my city-born family.

I pledged to end the gerrymandering of District 24, and I’m grateful to throw my support behind the Fair Boundaries Initiative so that I can keep that pledge to the good people of Utah. Join me in backing this fair cause.
 
Toby Dillon
Tooele County Democratic Party Chairman
This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
(435) 578-1259
 
 
Your are currently viewing: Home Get the Facts