The groups that successfully challenged Utah’s congressional maps want the Utah Supreme Court to keep those boundaries out of play for the 2026 midterms.
The Legislature filed an “Emergency Petition for Extraordinary Relief” asking the state’s highest court to halt a recent district court judge’s ruling that tossed out the state’s 2021 congressional map. The justices have agreed to take it up in an expedited review.
In their response to the petition, attorneys for the League of Women Voters of Utah, Mormon Women for Ethical Government and others, called the emergency the Legislature claimed “self-created at best and wholly illusory at worst.”
“There is no ‘emergency’ simply because the Legislature does not want to do the work voters demanded and that it should have done five years ago,” the plaintiffs in the case wrote.
The Legislature focused on Proposition 4 in their petition. The 2018 citizen-approved ballot initiative aimed to prohibit gerrymandering and created an independent redistricting committee. After its passage, lawmakers significantly amended the initiative, weakening the commission’s role and making the redistricting standards optional.
That’s where lawmakers acted unconstitutionally, Third District Court Judge Dianna Gibson said in her Aug. 25 ruling. She reinstated Proposition 4. That means that new maps need to comply with its requirements.
Given the circumstances now that the map is being redrawn due to a permanent injunction on the earlier congressional maps, Gibson said certain aspects of Proposition 4 are not required in this situation, such as the independent redistricting commission.
The Legislature called this a “cafeteria approach” to the law.
State lawmakers’ attorneys wrote that Utahns could either have new congressional maps in place for the 2026 elections, or new maps that follow all of Proposition 4, “but cannot have both.” The petition argues that not enough time was given to comply with all parts of the law. According to the timeline that both sides in the case agreed on, the Legislature has to draft a new map by Sept. 25.
Attorneys for the League of Women Voters of Utah and Mormon Women for Ethical Government note the “jarring irony” in lawmakers’ request to the state supreme court.
“That now, more than five years after defying the will of the voters and gutting every meaningful part of Proposition 4, it is the Legislature that wants to be its new found champion, claiming Utah voters must abide yet another election cycle under an unlawful map because there just isn’t enough time to pay adequate fidelity to Proposition 4,” they wrote in their court response.
They argue that, according to the law, an independent commission is only required for redistricting after a decennial census or if the number of Utah’s congressional districts changes. To them, Gibson is just reading the text of the law when she said a commission is not needed.
State lawmakers have asked the Utah Supreme Court to respond to their petition by Sept. 15. This is the same court that ruled last year that the Legislature exceeded its authority when it altered Proposition 4.
Lt. Gov. Deidre Henderson’s office said a new map would need to be finalized by Nov. 10 to be used in the 2026 midterms.
