Utah judge orders legislature to relist congressional map in time

A judge on Monday ordered the Utah Legislature to repaint its congressional map in time for next year’s midterm elections, finding that the state legislature illegally gathered its area in support of Republicans.

Judge Diana Gibson is Page 76 Order The Legislature must pass the “Remedy Congress Map” by the end of September. State lawmakers have said they plan to appeal, meaning the case is likely to file a lawsuit against Utah Supreme Court and the U.S. Supreme Court.

Gibson’s order was to push it into national focus after the fight between the country’s two largest states, Texas and California. Gerrymandering is the practice of changing the boundaries of a state congressional district to benefit a party, which critics say dilute the vote.

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The lawsuit in Utah stems from a re-division change that began in 2018. Utah voters passed the 4th (also known as the Better Boundary Initiative), which reformed the process and created an independent committee to oversee the process.

But two years later, the state legislature passed a bill that dismissed the measure and deprived it of its power, thus reducing it to the advisory body. Legislators then bypassed the committee altogether, and by drawing a congressional map was considered strongly supportive of Republicans.

The new map separates Salt Lake City in four ways, including the Utah Women’s Voters League and the Mormon Women’s Voting Rights Group, accusing illegally of violating the state’s only blue urban area and violating the standards set by Proposal 4.

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The State Capitol building overlooks the Salt Lake City skyline and the Wasage Mountains, Utah snow. (Joe Sohm/America/Universal Images group via Getty Images)

Senator Mike Lee speaks at a Senate diplomatic relations confirmation hearing held at the Dickson Senate Office Building in Washington, DC on January 15, 2025 (Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)

Senator Mike Lee“Almost everything that is promoted as an ‘independent commission’ is usually a strategy to enable Democrats to gain unwind advantages through fair elections,” R-Utah warned Monday before Gibson’s ruling.

“We need to stop this trend. To do so, we must first grasp what these independent committees really represent,” Lee wrote in a lengthy X post. “In states like Utah, they are essentially mechanisms for the left to seize power that they cannot obtain through democratic elections.”

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Utah’s re-dispute comes after the Texas Legislature passed a new map this month, which gave Republicans an advantage in the upcoming midterm. President Donald Trump encouraged the move and celebrated it as a “major victory” while state Democrats temporarily fled the country to protest the new map.

California Gov. Gavin NewsomDemocrats responded to what he said was the Trump-led power grab, facilitating a rapid plan to suspend maps of their own country, drawn by the Independent Commission, and adopted a new map in a special election this year to offset Republican gains in Texas. Newsom said at a press conference that Democrats need to “play hard balls” against the Trump-led Republican Party. Trump vowed to sue Newsom on the map on Monday.