So, you know how the Republicans always hem and haw about how the elections are fair and how the Democrats always bitch and moan about how, despite getting roughly 35 – 40 percent of the vote, are only 29 percent of the total number of members in both chambers? Well I have a capitol idea, set up a bipartisan commission to make sure that house and senate districts are not gerrymandered.

Well, gosh darn it, Senator Ross Romero (D – Salt Lake City, District 7) has beaten me to the punch. His bill, S.B. 174 would create a bipartisan commission that would be funded and charged with the task of creating both federal and state legislative districts that are truly fair and give the voters of this state a sense that they are better represented on the hill.

The commission would have nine members – two chosen by both the President of the Senate and the Speaker of the House, two chosen both by the Senate Minority Leader and House minority leader, and one chosen by two vice chairs of the committee (one vice chair being a Republican and one being a Democrat). The people on the commission chosen would have had to have lived in Utah for the past three years, not a lobbyist or elected official, and is 25 or older.

And that’s it. These people would take the raw data and turn it into a proposal that attempts to make the districts truly represent the people within said districts. It should be noted that the members of the commission do not actually choose what the districts are (that is still left to the House and the Senate), all they do is come up with options that the commission feels are fair.

So come on – what do you have to lose Republicans? If things really are as fair as you say they are, you should be more than happy to pass this bill. I mean it’s not possible that you purposefully drew strange and potentially illegal boundaries just to win more elections, right?