SALT LAKE CITY — Utah’s highest court is asking for further arguments from both sides in a case over the validity of Utah’s congressional voting maps after lawmakers changed a 2018 ballot initiative meant to give redistricting power to an independent commission.
The lawsuit, filed last year by the League of Women Voters of Utah, Mormon Women for Ethical Government and several individual plaintiffs, alleges the Legislature undermined Utahns’ constitutional rights to a free election when it adopted a new voting map that gives Republicans broad majorities in all four districts. Lawmakers have said they split Salt Lake County four ways to ensure each district has a mix of rural and urban voters.
But another part of the complaint isn’t related to gerrymandering or the maps themselves. Instead, it argues the process the Legislature took to alter Proposition 4 — which voters narrowly approved to create an independent commission to draw Utah’s redistricting maps — runs afoul of the Utah Constitution by undermining individual rights to change the government.
Article I, Section 2 of the state Constitution states: “All political power is inherent in the people; and all free governments are founded on their authority for their equal protection and benefit, and they have the right to alter or reform their government as the public welfare may require.”
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Written by BRIDGER BEAL-CVETKO, KSL.com.
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