The 3rd District judge overseeing Utah’s redistricting lawsuit confirmed a new deadline for the submission of the new, required congressional maps. Both parties agreed on this revised deadline, as stated in court filings reviewed by the Deseret News on Thursday.
In her initial ruling, Judge Diana Gibson said state lawmakers must pass a new congressional map that meets the voter-approved standards of the citizen initiative, Proposition 4, by Sept. 24, after she sided with citizen-led initiative groups that filed a lawsuit against the state Legislature, accusing them of submitting gerrymandered maps in 2021.
Last week, House Speaker Mike Schultz, R-Hooper, told the Deseret News that Gibson’s original timeline was “not fair to the citizens of the state.”
“You don’t get the best maps by trying to rush them,” he said. “What they’re trying to do is to gerrymander to get one Democrat” in Salt Lake County.
The judge also ruled that the maps made in 2021 diluted the political power of Salt Lake County residents by splitting them into four districts.
Both the plaintiffs and the defendants agreed to the following schedule moving forward:
- Sept. 25: Legislature to publish proposed map
- Sept. 26–Oct. 5: Public comment period
- Oct. 6: Legislature’s final vote on map and submission of map to the court; plaintiffs’ deadline to submit any proposed map to the court
- Oct. 17: Parties file briefs, expert reports, and other materials in support of respective map submissions and in opposition to any map submissions, if necessary
- Oct. 23-24: Evidentiary hearing, if necessary
- Oct. 28: Parties file proposed findings of fact and conclusions of law with the court, if necessary
“The ‘if necessary’ clause in the final three deadlines accommodates the potential that Plaintiffs will not have any objection to a legislatively enacted map. Should that be the case, Plaintiffs will timely communicate as much to the parties and Court,” per the order.