Legislative Redistricting Committee approves Map C ahead of Special Session

SALT LAKE CITY (ABC4) — In a hearing that lasted less than 15 minutes, the Legislative Redistricting Committee voted to approve Map C as Utah’s new congressional map and send it to the full legislature for a vote.

The vote fell along party lines, with Democrats saying that the new map could be headed for another legal challenge.

Senator Scott Sandall (R-Tremonton) thanked the thousands of commenters and legislative staff for helping make sure the process was handled in an efficient and non-partisan way and clarified that the maps could not be edited after they were posted because they were required by Proposition 4 to be posted publicly for 10 days.

Voters approved the anti-gerrymandering process known as Prop 4 in 2018, and a judge recently upheld that Utahns have a right to reform their government via initiative.

Sen. Sandall noted a few common themes after reviewing what he said were thousands of comments. Namely, that Salt Lake County needed to split because its population is too large to be its own district. He also noted that Prop 4 did not define “community of interest,” and so the legislature chose its interests, which included Utah’s installations, colleges and universities, the Uinta basin, and tribal lands and reservations.

The Redistricting Committee previously released five proposed maps as a part of their court-ordered redistricting process, and the Democrats released one of their own. Those maps have been public for 10 days.

Senators Luz Escamilla (D-Salt Lake City) and Representative Doug Owens (D-Millcreek) voted against map C, but did not publicly comment on why.

After the hearing, Sens. Escamilla and Owens stood side by side as they argued that a test that Republicans were moving to pass, called the partisan bias test, was again violating Proposition 4. Republicans have since added two additional tests but Democrats argued that Map C was not tested under those requirements.

Senator Don Ipson (R-St George) was the one to propose a motion for the approval of Map C, the same map supported by the Utah GOP last week. Democrats have taken issue with the map, arguing that they injected politics into the process. But Ipson noted that the map best suits rural Utah and respects fair representation.

The full legislature will get a chance to vote in the special session.