Utah GOP Lawmakers Won’t Give Up on Their Gerrymander Plan 

Republicans in the Utah legislature voted last week to reject a new court-ordered congressional map, and extend the filing deadline for congressional candidates looking to run for the 2026 midterm elections. 

The move signals that Utah’s GOP-led legislature is planning to appeal their recently rejected gerrymandered congressional map to the Utah Supreme Court — and possibly the U.S. Supreme Court. 

The recent efforts by GOP lawmakers to circumvent the new congressional map ordered by Utah Judge Dianna Gibson that creates a Democratic-leaning district come as the state Republican party launches their own, separate effort to repeal the new map and Proposition 4 — the voter-approved anti-gerrymandering reform — with the help of a controversial, Trump-aligned political consulting firm. 

The legislature’s vote to condemn Gibson’s decision to reject the proposed gerrymandered map, and instead implement a map that complies with the state’s anti-gerrymandering law, passed last week as a resolution — meaning the vote was largely ceremonial and has no binding effect on the current map in place for the 2026 midterm elections.

But the vote nonetheless signals that Republican lawmakers are exploring every possible avenue to overturn the new congressional map, which created a new blue-leaning congressional district near Salt Lake City ahead of the pivotal midterm elections. During the special session last week, lawmakers also passed a bill to give the Utah Supreme Court exclusive jurisdiction over redistricting cases going forward — a move in direct response to the recent rulings by Gibson, a circuit court judge. 

“The Special Session was unnecessary, and the legislation passed was unnecessary,” Better Boundaries Executive Director Elizabeth Rasmussen said in an emailed statement. “The Legislature should listen to the will of the people, and follow the law. The only uncertainty about the maps has been manufactured by the Legislature.”

Earlier this month, Gibson refused to halt her previous ruling that struck down the map that GOP lawmakers passed in October. Gibson previously said that the legislature’s map was a gerrymander that did not comply with Prop 4 and ordered the implementation of a different map submitted by pro-voting groups from an ongoing redistricting lawsuit.

In 2018, Utah voters approved Prop 4 — a ballot measure to create an independent redistricting commission to draw fair maps in 2018. But two years later, GOP lawmakers passed legislation aiming to repeal Prop 4 and drew a gerrymandered map. 

But several voters and pro-voting groups filed a lawsuit challenging the legislature’s proposed map and repeal of Prop 4. After a prolonged legal battle, the Utah Supreme Court upheld Prop 4, struck down the gerrymander, and ordered lawmakers to draw a new map that complied with the anti-gerrymandering law.

Gibson’s recent rulings stem from the ongoing legal fallout of the pro-voting groups’ original lawsuit; when Republican lawmakers attempted to pass their own gerrymandered map in October, the groups filed an amended complaint alleging the map did not comply with Prop 4. During a floor debate before passing the resolution to condemn the new map and the ongoing legal proceedings, some GOP lawmakers fumed at the judiciary’s recent rulings. 

“How can we trust the judiciary that accuses us of gerrymandering and being biased when they create the most gerrymandered and extreme district that the state has ever seen?” House Majority Leader Casey Snider (R) reportedly said. “How can we trust the judiciary when they manipulate timelines, they take away the people’s right to appeal to their very body through gamesmanship and running out the clock?”

As the effort to repeal Prop 4 and the new map is underway in the Utah legislature, the state’s Republican party has launched their own separate effort to do away with Utah’s anti-gerrymandering law. 

The state GOP employed the services of several controversial, Trump-connected groups hoping to collect the requisite 141,000 signatures needed to put a question on the 2026 ballot asking voters to repeal Prop 4. 

The state GOP party has reportedly employed the conservative political group Patriot Grassroots to help collect signatures. Patriot Grassroots is involved in a similar effort in Missouri, helping the state’s GOP thwart a citizen-led effort to collect signatures for a ballot measure to fight the state’s recent Republican gerrymander. The effort even caught the attention of President Donald Trump’s son, Donald Trump Jr., who attacked the ballot initiative and directed his followers to sign up to volunteer with Patriot Grassroots.

“This is yet another attempt to overturn the will of the people,” Rasmussen said in a separate statement on the Utah GOP’s effort to repeal Prop 4. “These are desperate, transparent attempts to run out the clock, obstruct court-ordered reforms, and confuse the public ahead of 2026. They do nothing to serve Utahns — only to protect gerrymandered power.”