Every citizen should be able to vote and their vote should count.
Tell that to San Juan County Commissioner Bruce Adams and state Rep. Phil Lyman. They have floated ideas that the Legislature should pay half of the $1.9 million legal bill they ran up failing to keep the Navajo voters disenfranchised (a lot more if we count Bears Ears) and that the county should be split into two counties with the whites in one and the Navajo in the other.
Maybe they should ask President Donald Trump and the Legislature to build a wall there while they are at it.
The irony and distastefulness of these proposals is priceless. For decades, the old guard white politicians have gerrymandered the voting districts to dilute and marginalize the Navajo vote. Only after a federal judge ordered the districts be redrawn was it possible for Willie Grayeyes to be elected. Now, the Navajo have two seats on the commission and Lyman has the nerve to suggest he will not be fairly represented.
Perhaps there is no justification for Utah taxpayers to pay for San Juan County's antidemocratic subjugation of the Navajo.
Lyman's side of the county should just secede from Utah!
Walter F. Bugden Jr., Salt Lake City
