Emily R. AndersonUtah’s four Republican congressmen all saw the boundaries of their districts change after the Legislature redrew political maps a year-and-a-half ago. A group of Utahns and voters’ rights groups sued soon after, saying the new maps were illegally gerrymandered to benefit the GOP.
In a brief quietly submitted to the Utah Supreme Court this spring urging it to throw out the case, Reps. Blake Moore, Chris Stewart, John Curtis and Burgess Owens don’t argue whether the maps were gerrymandered to benefit partisan interests.
Instead, they wrote that there are no protections against partisan gerrymandering in the U.S. Constitution, and without protections in the Utah Constitution, state courts shouldn’t make decisions on gerrymandering questions. Those decisions should be left to state legislatures, and only Congress can interfere.
The next hearing in the case is scheduled for July 11.
[Read: Utahns have no right against partisan gerrymandering, congressmen tell Supreme Court]
All four of the congressmen were subpoenaed in December for communications with state legislators about how their districts should be drawn, the plaintiffs’ attorney told The Salt Lake Tribune. He said they didn’t respond before the case was put on hold in January to allow the Utah Supreme Court to review the defendants’ motion to dismiss the case.
None of the representatives mentioned the brief on their websites, or on social media. And because it was submitted after the case moved from the district court to the Supreme Court, the document isn’t visible on the state court system’s public Xchange website.
We’re posting the full brief here for the public to read.
Emily is a statewatch reporter at The Salt Lake Tribune, where she has worked since 2022. She received her master's degree in journalism from Northwestern University. There, she worked on investigative projects for The Washington Post and ProPublica. While writing, she's probably spinning something from her ever-expanding shelf of punk records.