Stefanie Condie, a plaintiff in the lawsuit that Campaign Legal Center and its partners recently filed against the Utah Legislature, wrote an op-ed in The Salt Lake City Tribune objecting to the legislature’s efforts to implement a congressional redistricting map that would constitute an extreme partisan gerrymander and warning against silencing voters’ voices.
In 2018, Utah voters passed a bipartisan citizen initiative that banned partisan gerrymandering and established the Utah Independent Redistricting Commission, but in 2020, the legislature approved a bill repealing this initiative and proceeded to draw a congressional map that would enable the ruling political party to crack voters from the minority party into multiple districts to dilute their voting power.
Elections should be determined by voters, not politicians who draw maps to serve their own political interests.