Utah's GOP supermajority hopes to get the state's newly redrawn congressional map overturned by the 2026 midterm elections. Their plans to achieve that and the feasibility of their goal are both unclear — but it will involve an appeal to the Utah Supreme Court.
The long-anticipated announcement from legislative leadership is the next step in a multi-year, complicated legal fight. A special session and an eventual constitutional amendment are part of lawmakers' plans to respond.
Standing in front of other Republican lawmakers at the state Capitol Tuesday morning, Speaker of the House Mike Schultz and Senate President Stuart Adams said the Legislature and the executive branch are "fully united" in appealing the judge's map ruling.
Schultz said Gov. Spencer Cox plans to call a Dec. 9 special session "to ensure our election system has the clarity that it needs." Leadership and the governor said that details of any special session are still being worked out.
Democrats in the Senate and House condemned the planned special session in a statement. They said they respected Third District Court Judge Dianna Gibson's ruling because the GOP's map failed to comply with the law, so Gibson had to pick one that did.
Gibson chose the new map in a Nov. 10 ruling. The court threw out Utah's congressional boundaries in an earlier ruling that lawmakers had acted unconstitutionally. The Legislature proposed its own map, but Gibson rejected it because she ruled it "was drawn with the purpose to favor Republicans," in violation of Proposition 4, the state law banning gerrymandering. Instead, Gibson opted for a map submitted by the plaintiffs in the case.
The old map had four safe Republican seats and split Salt Lake County into four pieces. The Legislature's preferred maps also leaned Republican, although less so. The court-chosen map has one district now centered on Salt Lake County that favors Democrats.
GOP lawmakers are not happy.
"By design or by default, Judge Gibson has authorized the most partisan and thus the most gerrymandered map in the history of the state of Utah," Senate President Stuart Adams alleged to reporters during the Tuesday morning news conference announcing their appeal. "Anyone who looks at the doughnut hole map sees very clearly it's gerrymandered."
It appeared that the Legislature's news conference, called late Monday night, was intended not only to announce the appeal plan — which was expected — but also to put public pressure on Gibson to move quickly.
Before lawmakers can appeal, they need Gibson to rule on their Nov. 19 request to stay her ruling and let Utah's 2021 map stand for the next election. In her Nov. 21 order cleaning up the new map's boundaries, Gibson wrote that she will address lawmakers' request "as soon as possible."
House Speaker Mike Schultz said, "We hope that she will have the decency to do so as quickly as possible, so an appeal can go through a fair and timely process."
Schultz and Adams repeated their accusations that Gibson overstepped her constitutional authority. When asked if impeachment was still on the table, which one lawmaker had previously proposed on social media, they said they're not focused on that right now.
The governor also expressed doubts about impeachment as a remedy. Speaking at his monthly news conference later that day, Cox reiterated his belief that Gibson ruled wrong. He said there's an inappropriate and an appropriate way to respond, "and I hope we're doing this the right way."
"I know a lot of people are upset at the judge's decision. I think it was the wrong decision," Cox told reporters. "And what you do when you get a decision that you disagree with is you appeal that decision. And that's exactly what we're going to do."
He said threats to judges, which Gibson has received, or not following a court's order, are inappropriate.
The other big announcement lawmakers made was about a proposed constitutional amendment on the 2026 ballot, although details were also sparse. Adams said it would address what he called a growing concern that "Ballot initiatives can override the Utah Constitution in ways that cannot be adjusted when the language is unconstitutional or conflicts with other state laws or creates non-practical challenges."
That sounds like the Legislature's proposed 2024 amendment, which would have given them more power to adjust ballot initiatives. Amendment D, however, was voided by the court before Utahns voted on it. The court's opinion was that the ballot language was misleading and that state officials had also failed to meet the state constitution's publication requirements.
"Chaos is what we are experiencing right now, and we need a constitutional amendment to fix it," Adams said. "We cannot let unchecked initiatives turn Utah into California."
The governor said he wanted to see what an amendment looked like before he committed to supporting it. However, did want to separate the need for clarity on the power of ballot initiatives from the fight over redistricting. The Utah Supreme Court's ruling on Proposition 4 and the power of citizens to reform their government. He said lawmakers have operated under the understanding that ballot initiatives are just like any law and that the Legislature can amend those. The high court's ruling "turned that all on its head."
"I have deep, deep concerns about a state that is run via direct democracy. The founders had those same concerns," Cox said. "We've seen what's happened in places like California and Oregon where where you just see a constant round of initiatives and and it's, truly, it's just not a great way to govern."
Both Schultz and Adams rejected claims that this was a "power struggle" between the Legislature and judiciary, and also said this is not a "turf war."
"This is about representation, how seriously we as elected officials take our responsibility to represent the people of Utah," Schultz said.
He added that upholding their constitutional oath means that the Legislature does the redistricting and defends its ability to do that.
Timing is a concern as the original deadline for a map decision, set by the Lt. Governor's Office, was Nov. 10. Gibson's map ruling came in under the wire, and the state needs time to ensure a map is properly in place for the 2026 election to be administered. Already, several Democrats have raised their hands to run for the redrawn 1st Congressional District.
The candidate filing deadline is early January. When asked if that deadline would be pushed back because of the appeals, Adams said "that is a possibility" they will be discussing. Republicans in Louisiana recently pushed back election dates because of the national redistricting fight playing out at the behest of President Donald Trump.
It is anticipated that the special session the governor will call will deal with these election issues. Gov. Cox acknowledged the tight timing when asked about it.
"What's the latest possible date that you could get a ruling from the Supreme Court and still be able to implement maps?" he asked rhetorically.
"If there's a change in maps, if the Supreme Court was to go back to Map C, then you would need 50 days to get that implemented, right? So there's a whole bunch of variables there, and that's what the attorneys are looking at now."
Instead of bringing clarity, Emma Petty Addams — co-executive director of Mormon Women for Ethical Government, one of the groups that sued the Legislature and started this legal fight — felt that lawmakers' news conference only created more confusion for Utah voters.
"Frankly, there was lots of conversation about potential actions in the future. But, you know, not a lot of concrete actions, other than the special session on the ninth," Addams said.
She also noticed what she saw as a shifting message from lawmakers. In the past, Addams said lawmakers' words were focused on the Legislature's sole constitutional right to draw the maps. On Tuesday morning, they were talking about representing and protecting Utahns.
"They've had lots and lots of opportunities to hear the people's feedback, and every map they have submitted has disregarded that, has disregarded the people's feedback," Addams said.
To her, that shift says "that partisan interests and partisan power will almost always seek to find ways to keep itself in power."
KUER editor Jim Hill and political reporter Sean Higgins contributed to this report.
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