Judge Forcing Utah to Draw New Congressional District Map for 2026
Republicans could appeal Gibson’s decision, which would likely keep the current map until 2028.
Utah 3rd District Judge Dianna Gibson told Utah to redraw its congressional district map before the 2026 midterms.
The new map must “align with what voters approved in 2018.”
Utah has 30 days to submit four new maps that match Proposition 4.
Gibson will hold a conference with parties on Friday to discuss the next steps. A hearing on the proposed maps is scheduled for October.
Republicans could appeal Gibson’s decision, which would likely keep the current map until 2028.
Proposition 4 formed the Utah Independent Redistricting Commission. The members prepare and present congressional district plans to the state legislature.
However, as Gibson pointed out, the measure does not give the commission the final word.
The state legislature can “reject or adopt any recommended redistricting plan or create its own, subject to Proposition 4’s redistricting standards and procedures.”
Those standards and procedures:
(a) adhering to federal law and achieving equal population between districts;
(b) minimizing divisions of municipalities and counties across multiple districts;
(c) making districts geographically compact;
(d) making districts that are contiguous and allow for ease of transport throughout the district;
(e) preserving traditional neighborhoods and local communities of interest;
(f) following natural and geographic boundaries, barriers, and features; and
(g) maximizing the agreement of boundaries between different types of districts.
The maps cannot divide “districts to favor an incumbent elected official, a candidate, or a political party.”
Those in charge have to use “judicial standards and the best available data and scientific methods.”
If the legislature rejects the commission’s maps, the lawmakers must issue a report with an explanation.
[Featured image via YouTube]
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Comments
In compiling this report, Salt Lake Tribune reporters conducted a poll of the seven black people in Utah to gauge their opinions, which are reproduced verbatim below.
What has race got to do with it?
I believe Henry is opining on the fact that heavy handed judges in other states (AL) have decreed that at least one district must be majority Black.
Yes. That is what the current interpretation of the Voting Rights Act requires, in certain circumstances, which it seems impossible to determine objectively. That’s a ridiculous situation, but it is currently the law and we have to live with it.
Now tell me what the **** that has got to do with this story, which does not in any way involve the VRA, or any racial consideration.
I believe it was you who said it yourself in another thread: it’s illegal to redistrict for racial reasons unless a court tells you to, in which case it’s illegal not to — and until a court actually says something, you have no idea what way that coin will fall. So you have to make a new map and then ask “mother may I?” And given that Utah’s black population is probably less than even Vermont’s, “fun will now commence.”
A few points worth mentioning
A – The case is in Utah State Court,
B – there seems to be little information in whether the judge is a leftists or rightist
C – No indication that the district lines were drawn based on minority race factors
D – There has been a major trend for urban to become liberal democrats while rural tends to be conservative.
E – Salt lake county and summit county voted for harris.
F – The gerrymandering appears to be designed to split those counties
Henry, this case has absolutely nothing to do with race. No one has alleged that the existing map was racially motivated, and no one imagines that the next map will be. So I’m puzzled about why you are bringing race into the discussion.
No one has said, YET.
The map that hasn’t been drawn hasn’t been passed under a judge’s nose for approval yet, either
Just wait for it .
Henry, that doesn’t explain why you dragged race into a story that has nothing whatsoever to do with race. Why did you facetiously comment that “In compiling this report, Salt Lake Tribune reporters conducted a poll of the seven black people in Utah to gauge their opinions”?
You ever injure yourself falling off your high horse?
Well, golly, that doesn’t look like blatant judicial partisanship, at all, now, does it?
What makes you think the judge is a Democrat? This is Utah, after all. When’s the last time Utah had a Dem governor?
This doesn’t seem like a partisan decision, it seems like a straightforward decision that since the people voted to change the law, the state must come into compliance with the new law.
I believe it was Scott Matheson was the last democrat governor back in the 80s. SLC is the most “D” area in the state but they aren’t like the Ds in DC. There are plenty of black families in Utah but they aren’t all in one area so racial gerrymandering is virtually impossible.
I suppose many people on this thread get most of their exercise by jumping to conclusions.
lefty creates chaos to manipulate the world
What’s lefty about simple compliance with the law? And what makes you think this judge is a lefty?
Utah has to be the least gerrymandered state in the country
That may be so. How is it relevant? The judge didn’t say the current map is gerrymandered. But it’s an obvious fact that it wasn’t drawn up by the commission that is now required by law, because that commission didn’t then exist.
That would have to be Wyoming. They only have one Representative district.
What does Judge Fender say? 🙂
Sounds to me like they ought to use this as an opportunity to gerrymander the Communists out of existence in their state
They can’t. The whole point is that the law now requires an independent commission, which is not allowed to gerrymander.
Gerrymandering can be done by an “independent commission”. Look at CA’s map. All that the “independent commission” does is exactly what direct election of Senators did in the Constituution. It takes away the political responsibility from the party that appoints the “independent commission”.
Don’t be obtuse. While I don’t disagree with most of your needless commentary, I assure you these “independent commissions” are anything but.
They are certainly not Republican. Therefore the Reps can’t use them to gerrymander the Dems out of existence, which is the proposal we are discussing here.
There is no way for me to tell if ever there was a problem.
Not sure what is going on that inspired this legislation, possibly they are just plugging a few cracks.
This article was difficult to understand b/c it wasn’t stated directly but I am inferring that:
1. The State created a Commission to draw the CD
2. The Commission didn’t draw the current CD
3. The Judge is ordering the State to have its Commission draw the CD
I don’t see what the hoopla is about. If the Legislature or the Voters don’t want to use the Commission then they gotta revoke the power of the Commission or eliminate it entirely…but until they do so they gotta let the commission work. Don’t create a commission, grant them powers and requirements to act if you aren’t positive you want to do that b/c once created then you gotta allow them to meet the duties they were charged to carry out.
In 2018 the voters passed a law requiring boundaries to be set by a commission, in accord with specific standards. In 2021 the legislature passed a law effectively nullifying the 2018 initiative, and proceeded to draw a map that did not conform with those standards. Now the judge says they had no right to do that, and the map they drew is invalid and can’t be used again.
Her opinion on the map matters not to anything. The LEGISLATURE will, like it always has, set the map, not some black-robed Karen.
So the judge ruled that the previous law can’t be overturned by a subsequent law? Somehow that seems problematic.
Naw, I get it. The original law was a Proposition, meaning a direct vote of the people. It may not even have been put on the ballot by the legislature, but by direct petition in opposition to the legislature. At least in my state, the legislature is not allowed to pass a subsequent law that countermands or undermines a direct initiative or referendum, but it looks like that’s what Utah did,
Was the 2018 initiative a law or Constitutional amendment or perhaps Utah has some other intervening issue, as Henry referee to, which requires a statute passed by referendum to be overturned/modified only by referendum? Presumably one of those applies here and would definitely make sense to explain the ruling.
I don’t see what the hoopla is about. If the Legislature or the Voters don’t want to use the Commission then they gotta revoke the power of the Commission or eliminate it entirely…
They did,
And now, four years AFTER they did, this judge has decided that they weren’t allowed to do that.just in time for an impromptu mid decade redistricting.
Riiight.
There are no ‘independent redistricting commissions’.. These things are created and agitated for to provide cover for leftist vote rigging. in the same fashion that so much of the underlying bureaucracy of election boards –not the up top political faces of election boards, the gruntworkers in the bureaucracy are Democrats or leftists.
The notion that “independent commissions” are in any way independent or non-partisan is incredibly naive and contrary to all evidence.
PA’s current map is a perfect example. Both the R’’s and D’s in the legislature drew uo their preferred map. The R’s had the majority in the legislature at the time but the D’s controlled the State Supreme Court which usurped the Legislatures clear Constitutional authority to redraw the districts. The court hired an “independent commission” that drew a map that had far more extremely gerrymandered districts in favor of the D’s than what the minority D legislators themselves had proposed.
D’s ard incredibly good at getting complete control over such “independent” commissions. They are all stacked with unelected partisan political activists.
Any tine any R’s support their creation, what they are actually doing is (probably unconstitutionally) delegating their duty as legislators to D political activists.
I read reports of the judges opinion. It sounds reasonable. She isn’t saying that the legislature doesn’t have the authority to draw maps just that they didn’t follow the intent of the people of Utah when they voted to make up an independent commission. The legislature didn’t adequately explain why they rejected the commission’s recommendations and she wants to know why.