Utah’s Republican-controlled legislature is escalating its battle against the state’s anti-gerrymandering law after a series of court rulings threatened the congressional map that has long favoured the GOP. In the latest move, lawmakers passed a new rule over the weekend that prevents many voters from withdrawing their signatures from a petition seeking to repeal Proposition 4, undermining efforts by grassroots groups to preserve the reform.
On 25 August 2025, third district judge Dianna Gibson ruled that Utah lawmakers had unconstitutionally overridden Proposition 4, the 2018 voter-approved initiative that created an independent redistricting commission and set neutral mapping criteria. The ruling struck down the state’s 2021 congressional maps and reinstated Proposition 4 as binding law, allowing independent bodies to redraw districts.
The impact of gerrymandering has been most severe in Salt Lake County, Utah’s most populous and heavily Democratic county. The previous Republican-drawn maps split the county across all four districts, diluting urban votes. The revised map consolidates the county into a single district, potentially giving Democrats a fair chance to win one of the state’s four congressional seats.
Since the district court ruling, Utah Republicans have passed layers of legislation aimed at weakening Proposition 4. Some lawmakers threatened to impeach Judge Gibson, and in late January the legislature passed a bill adding two seats to the state’s supreme court, which critics argue is aimed at blunting the impact of rulings related to Proposition 4.
“Disagreement with judicial decisions is normal,” said Elizabeth Rasmussen, executive director of advocacy group Better Boundaries. “But impeaching a judge because you lost is not. Trying to rewrite the rules after the fact is not. Court-packing is not how this system works.” The governor, Spencer Cox, signed the court expansion bill into law.
