As the state wades through a mid-cycle, court-ordered redistricting process, it is not the last time it will need new congressional maps. Now, Utah lawmakers have approved a set of standards to govern future redistricting processes.
Along with a new map, lawmakers voted on the guidelines during an Oct. 6 special session..
The bill, SB1011, codifies three tests into law: partisan bias, ensemble analysis and the median-mean difference test.
Tests similar to partisan bias have been used in other states’ redistricting efforts and the ensemble analysis and median-mean difference tests are both aimed at detecting whether a map purposely gives one party an advantage over another.
In her August ruling, Third District Court Judge Dianna Gibson found that due to the “general, non-specific nature of the language” of the 2018 voter-approved Proposition 4, the Legislature “retains discretion in determining what judicial standards are applicable and they retain discretion to determine the ‘best available data and scientific and statistical methods’” to use when drawing legislative maps.
Essentially, it’s up to lawmakers to come up with tests to judge how fair maps are.
Gibson’s language is at the heart of Republican lawmakers’ efforts to narrow the scope of methods suggested in Prop 4 and determine which of them to use to create new maps.
“What this does is it provides objective measures for purposes of measuring whether or not a map is unduly partisan,” said sponsor Sen. Brady Brammer on the Senate floor. “The language of Proposition 4 provides that a map may not favor or disfavor any political party, and it asks that the best available data and scientific and statistical methods, including measures of partisan symmetry, be used to assess whether the redistricting map abides by that requirement.”
Democrats and their allies see it differently. In their eyes, Prop 4’s methods for evaluating maps were left open-ended for a reason. For them, the tests elevated by the Republican supermajority might work well in a state that is more evenly split between Democrats and Republicans, but fall apart in a state that clearly favors one party in statewide races — like Utah.
“These are not good tests,” said Katharine Biele, president of the League of Women Voters of Utah, one of the plaintiffs in the redistricting court case.
“They're probably good tests for states that are not like Utah. Utah is very lopsided, Democrat-Republican. One of those tests has been proven in a state that was 50/50. We are nowhere close to that. To become neutral here requires different types of tests.”
A 2021 analysis of partisan symmetry published by Cambridge University Press found that using the method in a place like Utah, where statewide races are routinely won by Republicans, could effectively bake in a GOP advantage in any new map. According to the analysis, the “most extreme partisan outcomes” are still a possibility under the partisan symmetry test and would not be considered a violation of Prop 4.
But for Republican Rep. Candice Pierucci, focusing on partisan symmetry is too narrow a criticism.
“People keep referencing the partisan bias test, but there's also the ensemble test and the mean, median, average, which I think is important to have an objective standard to look at and evaluate maps,” she said. “Because if not, we're always going to be ping-ponging in the
courts regarding those changes that were made to the bill.”
In the hours after the bill passed both chambers of the Legislature and was signed into law by Gov. Spencer Cox, attorneys representing The League of Women Voters of Utah and the other plaintiffs in the case against the Legislature filed a complaint in state court arguing that lawmakers’ efforts to codify certain methods for testing maps are a violation of the plaintiffs’ constitutional rights.
The complaint alleges that the law is “a wolf in sheep’s clothing” and an effort to “change the rules of the game and impair the core reforms of Proposition 4.”
It’s the same argument made by legislative Democrats.
“What is clear to me … is that altering Prop 4 will be in violation of Prop 4 and what those [court] decisions have said,” said Senate Minority Leader Luz Escamilla. “By codifying any type of test, it's actually in violation of Prop 4.”
But in Republicans' eyes, they are simply following the direction given by Judge Gibson in her ruling.
“What [the court] said was the Legislature is free to make amendments in order to clarify and support [Prop 4],” said Brammer. “What we did was clearly an amendment to clarify and support [Prop 4].”
The ultimate fate of the state’s congressional map and the methods used to draw it will be decided in court. According to the timeline agreed upon by both parties to the lawsuit, hearings will take place throughout the rest of October. Lt. Gov. Deidre Henderson has said the state needs a new map in place by Nov. 10 in order for it to be used in the 2026 midterms.
