Utah lawmakers had a fiery redistricting committee hearing before they opened up a 10-day public comment period on proposed congressional maps.
This was the second of two public meetings this week to discuss the process and accept some initial public comment. While some expected the 10-member committee to narrow down the map options before public comment, the committee decided to leave everything on the table. That includes several maps created by people lawmakers hired, as well as boundaries submitted by citizens.
During the Sept. 24 meeting, fireworks erupted between the committee's two Democrats and some of the Republicans. Each had hired competing experts to draw proposed map boundaries.
The Republican majority’s expert, Sean Trende, a senior elections analyst for RealClearPolitics, presented his five maps to the committee Monday. On Wednesday, Senate Minority Leader Luz Escamilla and Rep. Doug Owens presented their map drawn by Binghamton University (SUNY) political science professor Daniel Magleby, who was present.
Owens and Escamilla said they were not given timely access to Trende’s data before Wednesday’s meeting. Owens said he had concerns that Trende had inappropriately used partisan data to come up with the five maps.
“You just demeaned us,” co-chair Republican Sen. Scott Sandall responded, to which Owens apologized.
Things continued to get tense when Republican Rep. Calvin Roberts read a social media post from Magleby. Roberts said it was from 2021 when Gov. Spencer Cox did not veto the Legislature-created congressional maps, and Magleby wrote, “this is straight out of the authoritarian playbook.” When asked, Magleby said he does not think the Utah state lawmakers are authoritarians.
Committee Republicans largely had positive comments about Trende’s five proposed maps as they reviewed them, although some had favorites. They focused a lot on not wanting to split communities up, and scored each map based on how they thought it complied with the 2018 citizen-approved ballot initiative, Proposition 4.
Republicans had critiques of the Democrats’ proposed map.
Magleby said his map was based on one created by the state’s independent redistricting committee in 2021. He changed it to comply with Proposition 4. Republicans on the committee did not like that it split up 13 cities.
While the purpose of the meeting was not to discuss the proposed “partisan symmetry” test presented Monday, Owens repeated his concerns about it, as did several members of the public. The proposed bill would establish a single standardized test to determine whether congressional maps are fair. But Owens said the test, as it is designed, does not work well in states where one party routinely dominates in statewide races. Owens and other members of the public also had problems with only using one test instead of multiple.
Better Boundaries Executive Director Elizabeth Rasmussen is fine with having all of the maps on the table. She even sees it as potentially a good thing because it allows people to comment on more options. But she sees the GOP proposed partisan symmetry bill as a “weaponization of the process to get a map they want.”
She said her group is still analyzing the proposed maps and was waiting for some of the data, which was published Wednesday.
While any submitted map is on the table, it appears that one of the six maps commissioned by lawmakers will most likely end up as the Legislature’s final selection.
After the meeting, Sandall did not entirely rule out the possibility of choosing a citizen-created map. However, he called it “problematic” because he said they would have to scrutinize how it was created.
The Legislature is in the midst of this unusual mid-decade redistricting process after a Utah judge ruled state lawmakers had acted unconstitutionally when they created the last one. As a result, Utah's 2021 congressional map was void.
On Oct. 6, the full Legislature will vote to select one map after a recommendation from the committee, which will make its own decision earlier in the day. If the plaintiffs who sued the state object to the map, they can submit their own to the court. If that happens, both sides will go back to court in late October, and the judge will decide.
A map needs to be finalized by Nov. 10 to be used in the 2026 midterm elections.
