A ten-day public comment period on the proposed new maps begins Friday, as the committee has until the end of the day Thursday to add any additional maps. After the Legislature approves a map in October’s special session, its pick will have to be approved by a judge before it is official. In 2021, the last time the Legislature adopted maps, it heard public comment before publishing a map, which ultimately was released on a Friday and passed by the following Tuesday.
Members of Utah’s Legislative Redistricting Committee discussed six proposed maps — five of them from the Republican majority — during Wednesday’s hearing, and heard from an expert on the map submitted by Democrats before taking comments from about 25 members of the public.
“We are going above and beyond by having public comment today in committee, and having it on Monday,” House Majority Whip Rep. Candice Pierucci, R-Herriman, who serves as the committee’s co-chair, said Wednesday. “That was not part of the court order, but we wanted to make sure we followed our legislative process.”
In their review of the six maps, lawmakers focused on how the maps kept communities of interest together and how they split cities and counties across the state. Among the communities of interest they considered in the development of the maps, they said were tribal lands and reservations, military installations, institutions of higher education and Duchesne and Uintah counties in the Uinta Basin.
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This article is published through the Utah News Collaborative, a partnership of news organizations in Utah that aims to inform readers across the state.