Utah Republicans are clearly unhappy they’re being forced back to the drawing board—literally—as they grudgingly redraw congressional maps that a judge threw out in August.
Sen. Scott Sandall, who is leading the redistricting effort for the second time, expressed his displeasure about the situation at the start of Monday’s initial hearing of the Legislative Redistricting Committee.
“We are doing this in compliance with the court’s orders and under protest, but we want to make sure that we maintain our constitutional duty to produce a map,” Sandall said.
Several Utahns who showed up to give public comment either in person or virtually on Monday afternoon scolded Sandall and the other Republicans on the committee following his statement.
“You said you were here under protest,” Julie Quinlan from Box Elder County said. “I’m sad to hear this because you’re basically saying you didn’t want to be here. That you don’t care about the voice of the people and that you’re saying you like our gerrymandered districts.”
Committee members, mostly the Republicans, have their hackles raised because they’re required to follow the rules for drawing maps established by Prop. 4. They seem particularly salty about its prohibition against the use of partisan data to draw districts.
“I just want to remind the public and our committee members in particular that this process is different from our committee before in that we cannot consider any partisan data in the consideration of these maps,” Sandall said. “I will remind the public that as you consider what you may say to us today in public comment, we cannot consider any partisanship. If that’s part of your testimony, know that it has to be disallowed in our minds.”
Sandall seemed determined to overcomply with the court’s direction on following the rules, immediately slamming the door on any discussion that seemed to be veering into the forbidden partisan zone.
Monday’s hearing mostly revolved around five proposed congressional maps and a surprise bill that rewrites Prop. 4, mandating the use of a controversial metric to evaluate whether those maps give an unfair advantage to a political party or candidate.
While Prop. 4 prohibits the use of partisan data to evaluate any map proposal, there’s also no concrete standard for determining whether the map would pass muster. Currently, the statute calls for the use of “the best available data” to evaluate maps, including “measures of partisan symmetry.”
That specific reference to “partisan symmetry” may have given Republicans an opening.
"Partisan symmetry" is like a political fairness test: if Party A gets 60% of the votes and wins 60% of the seats, then Party B should also win 60% of the seats when they get 60% of the votes. This principle helps identify whether district maps unfairly favor one party over another.
Proposed legislation from Sen. Brady Brammer creates a complicated mathematical formula to assess whether Utah’s maps meet the “partisan symmetry” standard required by Prop. 4.
“Utah is the first state to put in code the term ‘partisan symmetry’ as a redistricting criterion,” Brammer said.
Brammer’s bill calculates the average Republican and Democratic vote share from the three most recent statewide elections for U.S. President, Governor, Attorney General, State Treasurer, and State Auditor. That average is then either added to or subtracted from a hypothetical 50-50 split in the vote to determine the “partisan index.” So long as the districts on a proposed map fit within the gap between those two numbers, it would not violate the standards. In simplistic terms, Brammer’s proposal aims to make each district mirror statewide election results.
Brammer argued that his legislation establishes well defined parameters to prevent partisan gerrymandering.
“Here’s a scenario where you have four seats. If you were to create a scenario where a minority party has a 95% chance of winning, what that does to the rest of the map is create no chance of winning in the other three seats,” Brammer explained.
“You’ve created a system where, in those three seats, you have representatives who are more likely to run to the extreme of their party. They do not have to listen to their constituencies because you’ve created something where the map only favors one party.”
Mark Gaber, Senior Director of Redistricting for the Campaign Legal Center, called Brammer’s proposal a cynical attempt to rewrite Prop. 4 to favor Utah’s Republican majority.
“Prop. 4 says that courts are supposed to look at the best available data, including partisan symmetry, to assess maps. This disregards that broad evidentiary requirement and uses one particular version of one particular metric,” Gaber said.
Campaign Legal Center represented the plaintiffs in the lawsuit that led to the invalidation of Utah’s current congressional map last month. According to Gaber, the maps thrown out by a judge last month would likely pass muster under Brammer’s proposal.
He adds that even those who developed the “partisan symmetry” standard have said that it was not meant to be applied to states like Utah, where most elections are noncompetitive.
“It’s reverse engineered to see which test benefits the majority party, then redefines Prop. 4 to meet that test,” Gaber said.
Perhaps most telling, Brammer’s bill contains a provision that reallocates the 13.57% of the vote captured by Phil Lyman in the 2024 gubernatorial election back to the Republican party, but excludes the 42.74% of the vote independent Evan McMullin got in the 2022 U.S. Senate race from the Democratic average.
Although the committee did not take any action on Brammer’s bill Monday, he’s targeting it for inclusion on the agenda for the special legislative session when lawmakers will vote on a final map proposal next month. If it passes with a ⅔ vote, it goes into effect immediately if the governor signs it or his veto is overridden.
Several members of the public used Monday’s hearing to vent long-simmering frustrations over the state’s gerrymandered political maps, especially when it comes to Salt Lake County, which lawmakers split four ways under the maps they approved in 2021.
“It does seem to me that the legislature is intent on slicing up my county every which way possible and every way they can be legally allowed to do so,” James Carter, a Salt Lake County resident, said. “I’m simply asking for the most fundamental of requests in this country, and that is I want to be represented in my government.”
“Please respect the will of the voters and not ignore us. We are the people. You are accountable to us,” Tiffany Smith said.
The next meeting for the committee is Wednesday at 11 am. According to the court-mandated timeline, all the map proposals must be finalized by Thursday, followed by 10 days of public comment. Lawmakers will then convene in a special session on Oct. 6 to vote on a final map that will be submitted to the court.
