Utah Republican Party is not gathering signatures for referendum on Map C

SALT LAKE CITY (ABC4) — With just over a week until the deadline for the Utah Republican Party to turn in 140,748 signatures to repeal the Utah legislature’s redistricted map, known as map C, the party is not gathering signatures for that effort.

“We are not intending to finalize (the referendum),” Republican Party Chair, Robert Axson told ABC 4. “We’re not intending to turn in signatures on that. Our success will be defined based on the Proposition 4 question being posed to Utahns through the initiative process.”

Axson said that their goal was always to repeal Proposition 4, but they filed the referendum to “preserve all their rights,” on which path to take. And, he said, when they found out from the Lieutenant Governor’s office that they could not run their indirect initiative, the benefit of running the referendum to repeal Map C “disappeared” because the timing of their signature gathering efforts didn’t align anymore.

“The referendum, it was a strategic decision, and a preserving our rights decision, and a bringing attention to an issue decision, but certainly not one worth deploying what will ultimately be millions of dollars to that effort,” Axson said.

That question they ultimately want the answer to, Axson said, is whether a Congressional map should be decided by a judge when the state constitution, in his belief, gives that authority to the legislature.

“The only way to repeal a law that was passed through initiative, with Utah’s current understanding following court decisions, is through another initiative. The initiative has always been the primary focus of what we’re doing. Nothing has changed there,” Axson said.

The non-gathering is a notable development in Utah’s ongoing battle over which congressional lines will govern the 2026 midterm elections. With no effort to repeal map C, it means that whichever map the Third District Judge Dianna Gibson rules is lawful, will move forward.

Axson’s update is consistent with the party’s filing online, which says that the party was given packets to start gathering signatures on October 17, with a deadline to submit those by November 17. Utah’s Lieutenant Governor’s office confirmed to ABC4 that the party has not turned in any signatures.

“I think it’s important for us to be as clear and as forthcoming and as available to Utahns as possible. And so if we had engaged in something that had no justification in its own success or likelihood of success, that’s just a waste of time and energy and money. But it’s also a waste of the attention of Utahns,” Axon added. “But the question that that referendum posed is still important, but it’s one that we will ultimately answer and remove any question around it by repealing Proposition 4.”

The party launched its dual effort to repeal Utah’s anti-gerrymandering law, known as Proposition 4, and its referendum on Map C shortly before the map headed to court in mid-October. They initially launched an indirect initiative, proposing the question to the legislature, later pivoting to a direct initiative after the Lt. Governor informed them that she would not certify the effort to move forward, Axson said.

“Their interpretation of the law was that you could only have one initiative up and running by any one PIC (Political Issues Committee) at a time,” Axson said. And so, in order to proceed with a direct initiative, according to their direction, we had to withdraw the indirect initiative.”

Axson, Utah’s Attorney General Derek Brown, Former Congressman Rob Bishop, and a few other party faithful are the sponsors of the effort.

The party held their first public hearings on Monday for their initiative, and plan to start gathering signatures once those are complete.

If the party gathers enough signatures by February 15, and the voters in the November 2026 election repeal Prop 4, then lawmakers would likely need to draw another map for the 2028 elections.