Washington, D.C. — Today, John Bisognano, President of the National Democratic Redistricting Committee (NDRC), released the following statement in response to several draft congressional map proposals released by the Republican-led Utah State Legislature:

“Once again, the Republican-led legislature is attempting to defy Utah voters. Instead of proposing flawed maps based on flawed metrics, the legislature should finally adhere to the redistricting reforms passed by the voters and enact one of the fair maps put forward by the Utah Independent Redistricting Commission. Utah’s courts have already rejected the legislature’s efforts to undermine the state’s independent redistricting reforms multiple times and should do so again if the legislature does not change course.” 

ADDITIONAL BACKGROUND:

In August, the Third Judicial District Court issued a decision in League of Women Voters of Utah v. Utah State Legislature, which fully reinstated Proposition 4, a state law that was enacted in 2018 through a ballot initiative, and struck down the state’s gerrymandered congressional map. The court ordered the legislature to redraw the state’s congressional map in a manner that adheres to strict guardrails against gerrymandering included in Proposition 4, which bans partisan gerrymandering and created an independent redistricting commission. In a victory for voters, the Utah Supreme Court denied the state’s attempt to delay the redraw process last week, allowing it to proceed as the lower court ordered ahead of the 2026 midterms. 

Instead of pursuing any of the fair, commission-proposed maps, each of which included a congressional district anchored in Salt Lake City, the legislature is creating maps using an improper and inapplicable mapping metric called “partisan bias,” which is well known among experts to produce unreliable results for maps with fewer than seven districts. Utah only has a total of four congressional seats. 

In 2018, Utahns passed Proposition 4, a ballot measure that aimed to reform the state’s redistricting process and parameters for maps to adhere to in order to ensure fairness. Those parameters include a ban against partisan gerrymandering, a requirement to keep communities of interest together and minimize splitting apart cities, counties and towns, among other redistricting criteria. However, leading up to the 2021 redistricting cycle, the Republican-led Utah legislature defied the newly enacted ballot measure and replaced it with significantly watered-down reforms.

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