Legislative attorneys want the Utah Supreme Court to decide by Monday whether to grant their request to halt the redrawing of the state’s four congressional districts — an outcome that could mean the current maps remain in place for another election and through 2028.
At the core of the lawmakers’ argument is a disagreement over what the Better Boundaries initiative — passed by voters in 2018, repealed by legislators in 2020 and reinstated by a lower court last month — requires when maps are struck down.
Tyler Green, representing the Republican legislative leaders, argued Thursday in a brief to the Supreme Court that, to be faithful to the initiative, a new independent redistricting commission would have to be formed, follow its normal procedures and come up with new map proposals.
“Remedying a faulty process with a fully compliant process takes as long as the process takes,” Green argued. “Complying with Proposition 4’s mandatory procedures takes more time than the district court has given the Legislature.”
Taking shortcuts, as the Legislature contends 3rd District Judge Dianna Gibson is doing in not requiring the independent commission to be reformed, raises a significant legal question, Green wrote, specifically, “whether the district court may remedy a congressional map that it thinks violates Proposition 4’s mandatory procedures with another map that violates Proposition 4’s mandatory procedures.”
Attorneys for the plaintiffs who sued to have the maps adopted by the Republican-dominated Legislature tossed out argued earlier this week that the law requires the commission to meet only after the state receives the census count of the state’s population or if the number of U.S. House members allocated to the state changes.
The commission isn’t required, the plaintiffs contend, when the courts strike down a map for not complying with the law.
Green countered Thursday that the plaintiffs didn’t win because the maps were not compliant with the statute; they prevailed based on the finding that the Legislature violated the voters’ constitutional right to pass laws through the initiative process when the lawmakers repealed Proposition 4.
That should trigger restarting the redistricting process in its entirety, including the commission’s role.
After the Supreme Court ruled last year that the Legislature should not have been able to repeal the grassroots initiative, Gibson last month reinstated Proposition 4 and ruled that the maps the Legislature adopted failed to meet the initiative’s requirements and had to be redrawn.
(Trent Nelson | The Salt Lake Tribune) Judge Dianna Gibson ordered the Legislature to redraw Utah's congressional maps.
Gibson has given the Legislature until Sept. 25 to produce a draft of new maps, 10 days for public comment, and then adopt the new district boundaries in a special session by Oct. 6. The court would then review the maps and either approve them or choose boundaries submitted by other parties in the lawsuit to be used in the 2026 election.
According to Lt. Gov Deidre Henderson, who oversees Utah elections, new maps need to be in place by Nov. 10 to prepare for the 2026 races.
The Legislature is currently challenging only the remedy Gibson spelled out, but Green said in his filing that the Legislature disagrees with the entirety of the ruling and would challenge it later.