'Jarring irony': Utahns fighting Legislature's congressional maps file rebuttal with Supreme Court

Source: Salt Lake Tribune

Lawyers for Utahns challenging the state’s congressional boundaries say there is “jarring irony” in the Legislature’s insistence on the recreation of an independent redistricting commission to aid in drawing four new districts to maps to comply with the law.

“More than five years after defying the will of the voters and gutting every meaningful part of Proposition 4,” attorneys for the plaintiffs wrote in a Utah Supreme Court brief Tuesday evening, “it is the Legislature that wants to be its newfound 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.”

It marks the third time that the justices have been asked to rule in the yearslong fight over Utah’s congressional districts.

Proposition 4, also known as the Better Boundaries initiative, was passed by voters in 2018 and sought to create an independent redistricting commission and certain standards for drawing the state’s political boundaries — including banning partisan gerrymandering, the practice of drawing maps that benefit one party to the detriment of the other.

Read more: https://www.sltrib.com/news/politics/2025/09/09/gerrymandering-case-utahns/