Proposition 4, which became law in November 2018, required that the Legislature adopt a redistricting map based on an independent commission. That should have been in place for the 2022 elections. Instead, in a ploy to dilute Prop 4, the Legislature passed SB200 in 2020, which the Utah Supreme Court unanimously struck down in July 2024.
So not only should the 2022 elections have been conducted according to the new law, so also should the 2024 elections have been. That brings us to the 2026 elections, for which the lieutenant governor specified a deadline of Nov. 10 for new maps to be in place in order to provide sufficient time to prepare for those upcoming elections.
Yet once again, the Legislature defied the law by selecting a noncompliant map, necessitating the citizens to again seek relief in court. The accumulation of the Legislature’s unlawful actions pushed the adoption of a compliant map to the eleventh hour, leaving Judge Dianna Gibson with no alternative but to choose for the Legislature. Utah state Sen. John Johnson recently complained in an op-ed that Gibson overstepped her authority, but anything less would have again robbed Utahns of the intent of Prop 4.
And now the Legislature is attempting to further delay the implementation of a compliant map beyond the lieutenant governor’s deadline and, if they succeed, a third round of elections will again be conducted in violation of the new law.
Enough. The Legislature has repeatedly broken the law and we the people call on it to subject itself to the law just as any other citizen or legal entity is required to do.
Brent Carey, Pleasant View
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