Rep. Blake Moore, one of the original co-chairs of the Better Boundaries redistricting commission, is now urging the group to drop its latest efforts to undermine a Republican campaign seeking to repeal the Proposition 4 anti-gerrymandering law.
In a 2½-minute video posted to social media on Thursday, Moore called on members of the Better Boundaries group to stop its attempt to remove signatures from the state Republicans’ petition to put Proposition 4 back on the ballot in November. Moore said the effort contradicts the group’s original mission to ensure Utah voters get to choose their representation.
“This is a simple issue for me: blue states and red states should follow redistricting standards. I supported that then and I support it now,” Moore said. “The effort in our state was about strengthening the process — not about guaranteeing a particular mapping outcome.”
Moore expressed his opposition to 3rd District Judge Dianna Gibson’s decision last year establishing a new congressional map proposed by an outside group after ruling the map drawn by the Legislature failed to adhere to the state’s anti-gerrymandering law. State Republicans have since launched a petition to repeal Proposition 4 by putting it on the November ballot, prompting Better Boundaries to kick-start a counter-campaign pushing voters to remove their signatures.
Republicans have since sued to block signatures from being removed from the petition.
“Utahns have once again engaged in the initiative process and it looks like they’ve gathered enough signatures to reconsider Proposition 4. Whether one supports repeal or opposes it, the right response is the same: trust the people,” Moore said.
“In 2018, Better Boundaries believed Utahns deserved a vote on this issue. Today, they and other groups are attempting to reverse participation by encouraging signature removals from the petition,” Moore added. “They’ve gone from trusting the process to fighting for a partisan outcome. I especially condemn any misleading efforts from any group on this issue.”
Moore’s comments come as the Utah Republican has faced online backlash claiming he is responsible for the new map because of his efforts to pass Proposition 4, with some voters saying he should run in the new heavily Democratic district because of that. Although Moore has not yet filed for reelection, he has already started to gather signatures for Utah’s new 2nd District, which encompasses northern Utah and leans heavily Republican.
Moore was one of the original signatories on the application to put Proposition 4 on the ballot in 2018, which was later passed that year and established as the state’s anti-gerrymandering law. That law became the legal basis for a judge’s recent decision to throw out Utah’s congressional map and redraw the lines before next year’s midterm elections.
But in previous interviews with the Deseret News, Moore suggested the group no longer reflects its original goal.
“It was very much about a process, about a redistricting process in Utah. It was always an advisory commission, an advisory aspect of that work, that respected the Legislature’s constitutional role to redistrict,” Moore told the Deseret News in an interview last year.
The petition appears to be on track to reach the required number of signatures needed to appear on the November ballot, once again placing the fate of the anti-gerrymandering law in the hands of Utah voters.