Reps. Owens, Maloy take Utah’s redistricting battle to federal court

U.S. Reps. Burgess Owens and Celeste Maloy of Utah joined 11 local leaders in filing a federal lawsuit on Monday alleging that the state’s court-ordered congressional map violates the U.S. Constitution.

The lawsuit names Utah Lt. Gov. Deidre Henderson as the defendant. It seeks to prevent her, as the state’s chief election officer, from implementing the new district map for the 2026 elections.

Plaintiffs in the case asked the U.S. district court for Utah to declare Utah’s current map for U.S. House seats unconstitutional and to reinstate the one approved by state lawmakers in 2021 or to let lawmakers draft a new one.

The lawsuit names Henderson as the defendant out of legal necessity because she is responsible for the implementation of congressional maps, Owens, Maloy and co-plaintiffs wrote in an op-ed published in the Deseret News on Monday.

“We do not allege malice, bad faith or improper motive on her part,” they wrote. “To the contrary, this federal lawsuit seeks to relieve her of being compelled to carry out a state court order that exceeds federal constitutional limits.”

Plaintiffs accuse 3rd District Judge Dianna Gibson of breaching the U.S. Constitution’s Elections Clause when she imposed new congressional boundaries that had not been approved by the Utah Legislature.

The Elections Clause states that, “The Times, Places and Manner of holding Elections for Senators and Representatives, shall be prescribed in each State by the Legislature thereof.”

On Nov. 10 — just minutes before a midnight deadline requested by the Lieutenant Governor’s Office — Gibson ruled that the Legislature had failed to comply with her interpretation of Utah’s Proposition 4 redistricting law.

Instead of asking lawmakers to redraw a map in compliance with Prop 4’s anti-gerrymandering criteria, Gibson ordered election officials to implement another map drawn by nonprofit advocacy groups that sued the state in 2022.

In their 29-page legal complaint, plaintiffs allege that Gibson usurped legislative map-drawing authority and that implementation of the new map disrupts the state’s congressional representation ahead of the 2026 elections.

What does the lawsuit say

The 13 plaintiffs — which include seven county commissioners, three sheriffs and one mayor — argued in their Deseret News op-ed that the lawsuit is “not an attempt to influence electoral outcomes.”

“It is a necessary response to a breakdown in constitutional order that, if left unaddressed, will weaken representative government in Utah in ways that will not easily be undone,” the plaintiffs wrote.

But the political implications are unavoidable.

Gibson’s map reduces Utah’s Republican-leaning congressional districts from four to three, and shuffles the electoral boundaries so as to make it unclear which districts Owens, Maloy or Reps. Blake Moore or Mike Kennedy should choose to run in.

The new map would extend Kennedy’s 3rd District across all of southern Utah, including Maloy’s residence in Cedar City. Meanwhile, Maloy’s 2nd District would be reassigned to northern Utah, currently represented by Moore, and Moore’s 1st District would be concentrated in the Democratic stronghold of Salt Lake City.

The new map, known as Map 1, did not follow the process outlined in Prop 4, according to Maloy. In a statement to the Deseret News, Maloy pointed out that the new electoral boundaries never passed through the redistricting commission or the legislature, as required by Prop 4.

“This map was wholly created by a group that holds no accountability to Utah voters,” Maloy said. “As a Utah voter and an elected official, it is my responsibility to allow Utah voters a choice on how they would like their representatives chosen.”

In a December special session, legislators changed the congressional candidate filing deadline from January to March. But after sifting through three potential maps over the past five months, plaintiffs argue that candidates have lost critical time to campaign before April convention elections.

In addition to creating an electoral game of musical chairs, the new map appears to ignore geographic concerns that voters brought to the Legislature, and interferes with voters’ right to have an accountable process over how representation is decided, the lawsuit alleges.

Plaintiffs point out that the new 3rd District would dilute representation among 17 counties — three times as many as other districts. The new map would also sever current representatives from district projects that are dependent on federal funding, according to the complaint.

The complaint highlights Henderson’s commitment to comply with Gibson’s order “unless otherwise ordered by an appeals court.” In a post on Nov. 11, Henderson acknowledged the new map may be appealed but said finalizing electoral boundaries needed to begin immediately to ensure county clerks were prepared.

“While our office hasn’t yet seen the lawsuit or officially been served, we typically don’t comment on pending litigation,” a spokesperson for the Lieutenant Governors Office told the Deseret News.

One of the plaintiffs in the multi-year lawsuit that secured Map 1, Katharine Biele, president of the League of Women Voters of Utah, told the Deseret News that Monday’s federal lawsuit “raises the same arguments that Judge Gibson carefully considered and rejected.”

“The map currently in place is fair and legal. We will continue to defend Proposition 4 and the rights of Utah voters,” Biele said.

In a statement to the Deseret News, Utah Democratic Party chair Brian King framed the lawsuit as the latest attempt by Republicans to maintain politically lopsided districts despite the message sent by voters when they passed Prop 4, and despite receiving chances from Judge Gibson to remedy the map.

“Utahns want maps that fairly represent citizens, not maps the Legislature draws to protect incumbents,” King said. “The Court was forced to adopt a map that was not gerrymandered because the Legislature refused to do its job. The federal district court should reject this desperate effort to avoid the will of Utahns who voted for Proposition 4.”

How we got here

The lawsuit represents a new chapter in Utah’s yearslong redistricting saga starting with the passage of Prop 4 in 2018 by a narrow majority of voters. The ballot initiative established a redistricting commission to recommend maps in accordance with partisan fairness requirements.

In 2021, legislators adopted new electoral boundaries that appeared to intentionally split Democratic voters in Salt Lake County after rejecting the redistricting commission’s recommendations, which they had made nonbinding during the prior legislative session.

This led to a lawsuit in 2022 filed by the League of Women Voters of Utah and Mormon Women for Ethical Government. This resulted in a 2024 Utah Supreme Court decision that ruled the Utah Legislature cannot, in most cases, amend ballot initiatives that reform government.

While the court severely limited the Legislature’s actions related to ballot initiatives, they clarified the Legislature “retained the ultimate responsibility” for redistricting. However, based on the Supreme Court ruling, Gibson threw out the Legislature’s 2021 map in late August.

In November, Gibson ruled that a replacement map adopted by lawmakers was “an extreme partisan gerrymander,” and did not comply with the original intent of Prop 4. Gibson then selected a map submitted by nonprofit plaintiffs creating a deeply Democratic seat in Salt Lake County.

Over the past four months, disagreement over Prop 4 has boiled over into Republican allegations that Gibson purposefully gerrymandered a map to benefit Democrats. The new legal precedent undergirding her decision could derail Utah’s representative form of government, GOP leaders said.

“(T)he difference between a balanced republic and a pure democracy is the difference between order and chaos,” Senate President Stuart Adams, R-Layton, told the Deseret News in a statement. “Recent court actions have introduced uncertainty and disrupted long-standing constitutional precedent. What we are witnessing today is chaos.”

The Utah Legislature appealed a portion of the case to the Utah Supreme Court, arguing that Gibson’s actions violated the Utah Constitution, which gives the Legislature the mandate to “divide the state into congressional ... districts.” But the appeal has been paused by a motion to dismiss.

“The U.S. and Utah Constitutions are abundantly clear: the authority to redistrict belongs to the people’s representatives, not unelected judges,” House Speaker Mike Schultz, R-Hooper, told the Deseret News.

“As elected officials across the state, our job is to ensure Utahns come first and that their voices are fairly represented through the process the Constitution establishes.”

In the meantime, the Utah Republican Party has launched an initiative to reverse Prop 4 the same way it was passed: by asking voters whether they would like to completely repeal the redistricting law. The group has until Feb. 15 to gather 141,000 verified signatures to place the question on the ballot.

Utah GOP chair Rob Axson confirmed with the Deseret News that the political issues committee behind the ballot initiative — Utahns for Representative Government — also coordinated the federal lawsuit filed on Monday as part of the GOP’s effort to use “all available tools to protect the Utah Constitution and defend representative government.”

“Whether by ballot initiative, litigation, or by supporting judicial reform, we will continue to fight for the rights of all Utahns by strengthening our constitutional republic,” Axson said. “We thank and commend each plaintiff, from those in Congress to county government leaders, for standing with us to fix these egregious judicial decisions.”

A Deseret News/Hinckley Institute of Politics poll conducted in January found that more than 4 in 10 Utah voters don’t know whether they support the GOP’s effort to repeal Prop 4. The rest of voters are split, with 26% supporting the proposition and 29% opposing it.

The state’s redistricting shakeup has already resulted in one local revolt.

On Dec. 15, Washington County commissioners voted to reject the new court-ordered congressional boundaries. The reason cited by commissioner Victor Iverson, who is a plaintiff in Monday’s lawsuit, was to protest what he called a “constitutional crisis” created by Gibson’s Nov. 10 ruling.