Utah voters got a big win in the fight for fair voting maps today after the state Supreme Court ruled that the state Legislature most likely broke the law when they gutted Prop 4, a citizen-led initiative that set up the Utah Independent Redistricting Commission and banned partisan gerrymandering.
The Utah Supreme Court’s opinion sets a powerful example for state courts across the country, finding that state politicians cannot ignore the will of the people when they choose to make their government more fair, transparent, and accountable.
Campaign Legal Center (CLC) represents a bipartisan group of Utah voters, as well as the League of Women Voters of Utah and Mormon Women for Ethical Government, in the ongoing lawsuit. CLC has also partnered with Utah attorneys from law firms Parr Brown Gee & Loveless and Zimmerman Booher.
The lawsuit challenged the Utah Legislature’s congressional district map for being an extreme partisan gerrymander and asked the court to reinstate the citizen-led initiative which set up an Independent Redistricting Commission (IRC) to draw voting maps.
The fight for fair maps in Utah lives on. The lawsuit will now return to the district court, which will continue to deliberate on the issue.
In 2018, Utah voters passed a bipartisan citizen initiative called Prop 4, popularly known as “Better Boundaries.” Among other reforms, the initiative banned partisan gerrymandering and set up the Utah Independent Redistricting Commission (UIRC).
IRCs are a powerful tool to fight gerrymandering because they take politicians out of the redistricting process so citizens, not politicians, decide how electoral boundaries are drawn.
In 2020, the Utah Legislature repealed the citizen-led Prop 4 and replaced it with a new law, SB 200, which overruled voters' decision to ban partisan gerrymandering and other key pro-democracy reforms.
The Utah Legislature gave themselves free rein to draw a congressional map that would allow politicians to hold on to power and serve themselves instead of the voters they are supposed to represent.
Unlike the fair, community-driven and impartial maps proposed by the Utah IRC, the Utah Legislature devised its own extremely gerrymandered map designed to lock in one-party control of Utah’s congressional delegation for the next decade.
The Legislature’s unfair congressional voting map is a textbook example of how politicians “crack” communities into multiple electoral districts to silence them and undermine their freedom to vote.
The Utah Legislature carved up Salt Lake County among all four of Utah’s congressional districts so there would be no truly competitive races for the foreseeable future.
CLC and our partners are hopeful that Utah voters will soon be able to choose their politicians, instead of the other way around.