John D. Johnson’s recent op-ed defending the Utah Legislature’s redistricting process ignores one critical fact: Utah voters already set the rules for drawing congressional boundaries through Proposition 4. Those rules prohibit using partisan election data and require neutral, transparent map-drawing. If the Utah GOP is truly committed to “constitutional roles,” then why did legislative map-drawer Sean Trende keep partisan data visible — and admit as much — while drawing the 2021 map? That alone violates the exact standards the voters imposed.
Johnson frames Judge Gibson’s ruling as a “separation of powers crisis,” but the real crisis is the Legislature’s refusal to follow the law. Courts are not overstepping when they enforce voter-approved standards; they are doing their constitutional job. Judge Gibson found the Legislature’s map to be an “extreme partisan outlier”— more skewed toward Republicans than 99% of expected neutral maps. Plaintiffs’ Map 1, by contrast, was produced using thousands of simulations designed to comply with Prop 4’s neutrality criteria. That is not “judicial mapmaking.” It is judicial enforcement.
Johnson also fails to mention that the Legislature has spent years weakening Prop 4. SB200 gutted the independent redistricting commission. SB1011 imposed statistical “fairness tests” tailored to favor GOP outcomes. And in 2021, lawmakers ignored the commission’s maps entirely and pushed through their own plan that surgically split Salt Lake County into four districts.
These are not principled defenses of constitutional authority — they are strategic efforts to preserve partisan power.
The Legislature could have avoided all of this by simply following Prop 4: turning off partisan data, respecting community boundaries, and honoring the people’s will. Instead, voters were forced to rely on the courts to defend their rights.
Utahns deserve fair maps drawn according to the standards they themselves approved — not according to whatever rules the majority party finds convenient.
Arlin Cooper, Salt Lake City
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