One Community, One Vote

One community, one vote. Every community deserves their own voice, so give each its own state senator. Let it not matter if the community has but 20 residents, or 2,000.

Instead of divvying up the senate districts by population, how about creating them solely on the basis of which are separate communities? The Skull Valley Goshute Indian Reservation would have it's own senator, and Hildale would have its own, or be packaged with another polygamist community. However many distinct communities there are is how many districts there would be. If some senators represented only 20 people each (that would be Skull Valley), so be it.

Now, don't so quickly walk away from this idea, saying the Goshutes and the residents of Hildale hardly deserve equal representation with the all of Salt Lake City. You could divide the cities into districts, as well, with the Avenues, Olympus Cove, and Rose Park being just three of the areas in the Salt Lake Valley that could be considered separate communities.

Here's why this idea is worthy of consideration: Communities often have needs of their own, and therefore deserve a voice of their own. The prairie dogs so affect a portion of Southern Utah as to put livelihoods there at stake, yet those living along the Wasatch Front hardly follow the issue. Rural communities need voices of their own because they have issues of their own. As the system is now, their voices are often lost. At the ballot box, their votes are cast in with those of the larger communities and they never get someone from their community elected. Oh, if their community's thinking is enough in line with the thinking of the larger community, they will have someone elected from time to time, but the further their community's way of thinking is from that of the larger community, the less likely they will ever have someone elected.

Having a senator for each community is a way to ensure the voice of the small is not washed away by the voice of the large.

Go ahead and tell me when the last time someone from Hildale was elected as a state senator. I haven't studied, to know, but guess it hasn't happened. You may not agree with their beliefs -- including the practice of marrying off teenage girls in arranged marriages -- but that does not mean they shouldn't be allowed representation.

People who live next to our national parks and our rural mining areas ought to have a say, an elected voice, in what happens in that area. For better or worse, they are caretakers, so to speak. The cities will still have more of a voice in what is done with the land than the folks who actually live there, having more representation, but at least give the rural folks a voice in what happens to the land they live on and next to.

Representation by community would give rise to better representation of ethnic groups, as ethnic groups often are communities, and to minority religious groups, such as the polygamous groups in Utah.

How far you divvy up the municipalities would be a matter to consider. If you divide them up too much, you are going to have a very large legislative body. Perhaps, it would be best with this chamber of the legislature to allow for large districts in metropolitan areas.

Socio-economic lines should be considered. Perhaps even have overlapping districts, all renters living in one area being in one district and all the landowners of the same area being in a separate district.

This idea of representation by community, with population being set aside, takes its inspiration from the U.S. Constitution and each state having two U.S. senators. No one complains that it is unfair that Rhode Island and Montana have as many senators as California and New York. The Founding Fathers saw fit to give their existing governmental territories each equal representation in the Senate, while allowing larger populations to have more representation in the House.
So, we say every vote should count, yet votes from small communities often don't? Let's change that. Let's help ensure that, indeed, every vote does count, that every community does have a vote in one of our legislative chambers. One community, one vote.