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BRAMMER'S BILL: SAME GAME, NEW RULES

Senator Brammer’s bill is the legislators’ response to the court order and includes a nice new set of ways to justify the same gerrymandering the legislature had done before. The Bill Text
 

What Brammer's Bill Does: 

Senator Brammer’s (R-Utah County) legislation creates a "partisan bias test" that would:

1. Bake in Republican-favored partisan advantage: Using a formula based on Utah's average vote share, the bill would allow maps with built-in Republican advantages in EVERY district.

2. Create an impossible standard: The test only fails if Democrats would win seats in a hypothetical 50-50 election - something that has not happened in recent Utah history

3. Override Proposition 4: While claiming to define "partisan symmetry," it actually guts the voter-approved standard by making gerrymandered maps mathematically "fair"
    

How The Math Trick Works

• Twists the requirements from the law in Proposition 4

• Favors parties not voters: By using the numbers of the overall percentage of Republican voters in the state, not what the makeup of counties and communities are, they create fake justification for their claim and ignore the law and the court order

• Manipulates The Boundaries: Draws the maps in such a way so there is always a Republican advantage of 11% and a disadvantage for the Democrats by 19%

• Results: Both SLC and rural voters still have true representation in government stolen from them

 

Bottom Line: This isn't fixing gerrymandering - it's just creating new distractions and justifications to continue undermining Proposition 4 and keeping specific politicians in power.

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CORE MESSAGE: KEEP COMMUNITIES CONNECTED

 

"Politicians shouldn't choose their voters. Utah communities deserve to stay together - you should be able to vote alongside the same people who go to your grocery store, your kids school, and your church. When politicians split up neighborhoods to protect their power, they silence our voices and hurt our communities."

 

Expanded Talking Points: 

 

• The Legislature has a chance to get this right: give us fair maps that follow the law. We're asking for what we voted for - nothing more, nothing less.

• Keep Utah communities connected. Honor the vote. Follow the law.

Talking Points For The Public: 

GROUNDED

• "I live in Millcreek but my congressional district stretches to St. George. How can one person represent both urban neighborhoods and rural farms over 300 miles apart?"

• "My kids go to school in one district, I work in another, and shop in a third. That's not representation - that's manipulation."

PLAINSPOKEN

• "They're splitting up our neighborhoods to keep their jobs"

• "This is politicians ignoring what the people of Utah want"

• "They spent our tax money fighting to overturn our vote"

• “They’re breaking the law to keep their jobs”

DIRECT

• "Brammer's bill is just SB200 in a lab coat - same corruption, fancier math"

• "They're not drawing maps, they're drawing straws to see who gets to ignore us"

• "First they gutted our vote, now they're rigging the rules"

RESPECTFUL

• Focus on actions, not character attacks

• "The Legislature has a chance to get this right"

• "We're asking for what we voted for - nothing more, nothing less"

FAITH-FLUENT

• "Good neighbors look out for each other - that's hard when politicians put us in different districts"

• "Stewardship means protecting our communities, not carving them up for political gain"

• "Utah was built on keeping our word - the Legislature should keep theirs to voters”