The Utah Supreme Court unanimously decided Thursday that Utah citizens have a constitutional right to reform their government in response to past redistricting efforts to divide Salt Lake City into four congressional districts, resulting in Republicans winning by a large margin.

The Utah League of Women Voters alleged that the Republicans in the state legislature have a history of “cracking” the districts of Salt Lake City. This means that Democrat voters are divided among multiple districts, so they cannot achieve a majority vote in any of the area districts.

The Utah League of Women Voters claimed that in 2001 and 2011 the Utah redistricting commission tried to unseat Democratic Representative Jim Matheson when the map of the Salt Lake City district was redrawn into three areas that were combined with rural Utah voters, instead of allowing Salt Lake City it’s own single district.

A redistricting reform was achieved by invoking Article 1, section 2 of the Utah Constitution to return voting power to the people of Utah, which states the people have the right to reform their government as the public welfare may require. The Citizen Initiative to Reform Redistricting and Prohibit Partisan Gerrymandering, passed by referendum in 2018, sought to minimize the division of counties in legislative districts, create districts that reflect geography and neighborhoods, and maximize agreement of boundaries between districts. It also made the Utah Independent Redistricting Commission draw the districts and recommend them to the Legislature, which would enact them without amendment or reject them with an explanation of rationale.

In 2021, the Legislature created the Legislature Redistricting Committee that ignored the findings of the Utah Independent Redistricting Commission, primarily because under S.B. 200, the Citizen Initiative to Reform Redistricting and Prohibit Partisan Gerrymandering was repealed. The Commission’s role was weakened due to the loss of the Legislature’s voting mechanism, the ban on gerrymandering was weakened, the right to appeal the district maps was weakened, and there was little transparency for rejections of the maps.

The Utah Supreme Court held that Utah residents’ ability to alter and reform their government needs to be free from undue government burden, regardless of the Legislature’s ability to repeal any statute.

The Utah League of Women Voters lawsuit against gerrymandering will proceed in district court.