Utah files emergency stay to Utah Supreme Court in redistricting case

SALT LAKE CITY — Utah leaders filed an emergency petition to the Utah Supreme Court on Friday, urging the state’s top court to issue a stay in the 3rd District Court’s order to redraw the state’s congressional maps.

“Time is of the essence in obtaining an answer,” lawyers for the state wrote in the document. “The remedial order harms the Legislature, and disregards what the district court has determined is the proper will of the people, by requiring the Legislature to draw an alternative map using a process that does not comply with Proposition 4. To be meaningful, extraordinary relief must avoid that harm.”

It asks that a decision be handed down by Sept. 15.

The appeal was filed after 3rd District Judge Dianna Gibson denied a stay in the case earlier this week. She ordered that Utah leaders publish proposed maps by Sept. 25, which would be the first of a series of deadlines required to have a new congressional district map ready for the 2026 midterm elections.

Lt. Gov. Deidre Henderson asked that new maps be in place no later than Nov. 10 in order to give election officials and candidates time to prepare for next year’s elections. Those deadlines were put together after Gibson ruled last week that Utah must redraw its map because Proposition 4 — an anti-gerrymandering measure Utahns narrowly approved in 2018 — is the law of the land, and not HB2004, a bill that lawmakers passed in 2021 to alter it.

In its appeal to the Utah Supreme Court, the state argued that it is stuck between having new congressional maps in place or “new congressional maps resulting from a process that follows all of Proposition 4” but not both, with the short time frame. That’s because it requires “‘adequate time’ for an independent redistricting commission (or the chief justice) to recommend a map,” lawyers for the state wrote.

They add that not receiving an injunction from the district court “inflicts a grave separation-of-powers injury on the Legislature,” as well. They also ask for HB2004 to “remain in place until remedial proceedings and any appeals are finally resolved.”

Attorneys for the plaintiffs in the case — several voters along with the League of Women Voters of Utah and Mormon Women for Ethical Government — wrote that they believe the state’s 2011 congressional map should be the “legally operative congressional map” until a new map is drawn, in a different court filing on Thursday.

It’s unclear if or when the Utah Supreme Court will pick up the appeal. Friday’s update comes a week after state leaders announced they would try to meet the court’s deadline while still pursuing “every legal option available.”

The Utah Supreme Court ruled last year that Utah lawmakers overstepped authority when they changed Proposition 4. overturning a district court decision dismissing one of the counts of the original lawsuit.

 

Related: Utah leaders contemplate new congressional maps after judge’s ruling on redistricting