The Capitol in Salt Lake City is pictured on Thursday, July 10, 2025. (Photo by Spenser Heaps for Utah News Dispatch)
A judge has ruled the Utah Legislature overstepped when it repealed and replaced a 2018 ballot initiative creating an independent redistricting commission and must now redraw its 2021 congressional map.
Third District Court Judge Dianna Gibson handed down the ruling Monday evening — a major development in a complex, yearslong court case that has major implications for the future of Utah’s federal political landscape.
“Plaintiffs have proven, as a matter of law, that the Legislature unconstitutionally repealed Proposition 4, and enacted SB 200, in violation of the people’s fundamental right to reform redistricting in Utah and to prohibit partisan gerrymandering,” Gibson wrote in the ruling.
The judge also enjoined the state’s 2021 congressional map and directed the Legislature to “design and enact a remedial congressional redistricting map in conformity” with the 2018 ballot initiative known as Better Boundaries and its mandatory independent requirements.
The ruling — if allowed to stand — could force the Republican-controlled Utah Legislature to redraw maps for its congressional boundaries that it last set in 2021. Before those maps were adopted, one of Utah’s four U.S. House seats was competitive for Democrats. Today, Republicans consistently dominate all four.
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However, that all depends on the final outcome of the case — which isn’t over. Attorneys for the Utah Legislature have indicated that if Gibson didn’t rule in their favor, they’d appeal to the Utah Supreme Court and possibly the U.S. Supreme Court.
Gibson’s ruling sides with the plaintiffs — which include the groups League of Women Voters of Utah, Mormon Women for Ethical Government and the Campaign Legal Center — in an anti-gerrymanding lawsuit that’s stretched on for more than two years over an issue that dates back even further.
Now, with Gibson’s ruling, the court has reinstated the language of Proposition 4, the 2018 ballot initiative that requires redistricting maps to comply with a set of specific standards meant to prevent partisan gerrymandering.
In her ruling, however, Gibson proposed a timeline to govern additional court proceedings between now and Nov. 1, giving the Legislature 30 days to draw a new congressional map “that complies with the mandatory redistricting standards and requirements originally established under Proposition 4.”
“The Legislative Defendants are ordered to make their chosen remedial map available to Plaintiffs and the Court no later than 5:00 p.m. on September 24, 2025 or within 24 hours of enacting the new congressional map, whichever occurs earlier,” the judge wrote.
She also said plaintiffs and other third parties “may also submit proposed remedial maps” to the court on Sept. 24 if the Legislature doesn’t enact a map that complies with Proposition 4 by its deadline or if the plaintiffs “contend that the remedial map fails to abide by and conform” to Proposition 4.
How did we get here?
In 2018, the anti-gerrymandering group Better Boundaries successfully pursued a ballot initiative known as Proposition 4 to create an independent redistricting commission that would have drawn proposed boundaries for Utah’s congressional, legislative, and state school board districts based on a set of standards that the Legislature would be required to consider. Voters narrowly approved that initiative, with 50.3% of the vote.
However, in 2020, the Utah Legislature repealed and replaced Proposition 4 with SB200, a law that turned the independent redistricting commission into an advisory body that lawmakers could ultimately ignore. The next year, lawmakers did just that — ignored the independently-drawn maps and adopted their own, despite protests that the maps cracked Democratic strongholds in an otherwise staunchly conservative state.
In 2022, the nonpartisan groups League of Women Voters of Utah and Mormon Women for Ethical Government sued, alleging the Utah Legislature violated Utahns’ constitutional right to alter and reform their government when lawmakers repealed and replaced Proposition 4. They also alleged the congressional map was an unconstitutional partisan gerrymander that favored Republicans.
The case wound its way to the Utah Supreme Court, which last year on July 11 issued a groundbreaking ruling that prompted celebration from the plaintiffs and dismay from Utah’s Republican legislative leaders.
That unanimous opinion reversed a previous decision issued by Gibson dismissing the claim that the Legislature overstepped when it repealed and replaced Prop 4. The Utah Supreme Court’s ruling made clear that lawmakers do not have unfettered power to repeal or change all types of ballot initiatives, and that if they make changes that “impair” a “government reform” initiative, they must show it’s “narrowly tailored to advance a compelling government interest.”
The Supreme Court’s ruling sent the case back to Gibson’s courtroom to determine whether the Legislature met that “compelling government interest” standard to repeal and replace Prop 4. If not, the court would also need to decide a process to fix it. In January, Gibson heard more than three hours of oral arguments on the issue.
During that hearing, Tyler Green, an attorney representing the Utah Legislature, argued the Legislature repealed Proposition 4 with SB200 — the law that turned the independent redistricting commission into an advisory body — to address concerns that enacting Proposition 4 would have violated the Utah Constitution, which states the Legislature “shall divide the state into congressional, legislative and other districts.”
Proposition 4’s independent commission created a constitutional conundrum, Green argued, because it would insert itself into the legislative process and “force” the Utah Legislature to act based on a new set of rules that strays from the Legislature’s regular legislative process.
“That’s the crux of the constitutional problem,” he argued.
Aseem Mulji, an attorney for the Campaign Legal Center, which is also representing the plaintiffs in the case, argued there is “no dispute” that SB200 “impaired” Proposition 4. He also argued legislative attorneys have failed to show that their replacement of the ballot initiative was narrowly tailored enough to survive a constitutional challenge.
Mulji also argued that just because lawmakers disagreed with the criteria required in Proposition 4, that doesn’t justify repealing and replacing the voter-approved law that harnessed the people’s constitutional right to alter and reform their government.
“If they don’t like it, that’s not a good enough reason to impair a reform enacted by the people,” he said.
The plaintiffs asked the judge to stop enforcement of SB200 and invalidate Utah’s current congressional maps ahead of the 2026 primary and general elections. They hoped that the court would in effect revive Proposition 4 and simultaneously invalidate the current congressional map while also allowing a process to proceed in 2026 to create a new map.
Plaintiffs had encouraged the judge to make a decision sooner rather than later because a new congressional map would need to be drawn by November 2025, ahead of the 2026 election.
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