The Utah Supreme Court has upheld one count in a lawsuit challenging the Utah Legislature’s redistricting process.
In a unanimous opinion posted on the court’s website Thursday morning ahead of its anticipated 10 a.m. publication, the Utah Supreme Court reversed a district court’s decision to dismiss part of the League of Women Voters of Utah’s lawsuit, specifically the claim that the Utah Legislature violated Utahns’ constitutional right to alter and reform their government when lawmakers repealed and replaced Proposition 4, the citizen-driven ballot initiative to enact an independent commission to draw Utah’s new boundaries in the 2021 redistricting process.
“We hold that the people’s right to alter or reform the government through an initiative is constitutionally protected from government infringement, including legislative amendment, repeal, or replacement of the initiative in a manner that impairs the reform enacted by the people,” Justice Paige Petersen wrote in the opinion. “Thus, an alleged violation of the people’s exercise of these rights presents a legally cognizable claim on which relief may be granted.”
While Utah voters passed a ballot initiative in 2018 to create the independent commission, the Utah Legislature later passed a law, SB 200, to turn that independent commission into a merely advisory body. Ultimately in 2021, the supermajority Republican-controlled Utah Legislature opted to ignore all of the maps that the independent commission created, and instead adopted maps it drew on its own.
The congressional map, the Utah League of Women Voters argued, was an “extreme partisan gerrymander” because it “cracked” Democratic voters, breaking them up and dispersing them among other congressional districts, “diluting their electoral strength and stifling their contrary viewpoints.”
When the Legislature repealed Proposition 4 and replaced it with SB200, that “nullified Proposition 4’s key provisions,” according to the ruling. The Utah Supreme Court ruled the Legislature’s power to “amend, repeal and enact statutes does not defeat this claim as a matter of law.”
“Accordingly, we reverse the district court’s dismissal of (that claim),” Utah Supreme Court justices wrote in the unanimous opinion. “And we remand this case, with (that claim) intact, to the district court for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.”
While the Utah Supreme Court reversed the dismissal of that claim — written as Count V — it did not address the district court’s rulings on other counts alleged in the complaint because “those claims may become moot depending on the ultimate resolution of Count V.”
The other counts in the lawsuit include the League of Women Voters’ claims that the Utah Legislature’s “gerrymandered” congressional map violated multiple provisions of the Utah Constitution, including the free elections clause and the right to vote.
A 3rd District Court Judge in 2022 dismissed the lawsuit’s claims that the repeal and replacement of Proposition 4 was unlawful, but denied the Utah Legislature’s motion to dismiss the other claims.
“Accordingly, those claims are stayed for the time being,” the opinion states. “If the adjudication of Count V does not moot or otherwise resolve Counts I through IV, we will resolve Defendants’ appeal of those claims.”
Mormon Women for Ethical Government and individual plaintiffs also joined the Utah League of Women Voters in the lawsuit.
Written by KATIE MCKELLAR, Utah News Dispatch.
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